Illustration Tutorials and Tips for the Traditional and Digital Artist - Monster Cutie » Basics 101

Inking With Variable Line Widths

Jamie — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 17:27:26 +0000

This week on Monster Cutie, we take a look a number of methods for inking lines with variable widths. The video is a little rough since I held the camera with my left hand and drew with my right, but it should serve to get the idea across.

While Microns and felt-tipped brush pens like Faber-Castell’s Pitt Pens are relatively easy to find, you might have a little trouble tracking down the brush pens and the G-nib used in this video. For those, I turn to JetPens:

I find that the Pentel Pocket Brush is one of the most versatile brush pens I use. And it’s great to take on the road. It’s a little steep at $12.00, but it’s refillable.
The standard Pentel brush pens are also quite good. They come in a variety of widths and are also refillable. Less expensive than the Pocket Brush at $7.50.
The G-Pen nibs are much more flexible than the standard ones you’ll find in a pack of the generic Speedball calligraphy sets. You can get a pack of ten for $12.00 and they’ll last for a fairly long time.

Coloring Lineart – Part 3, Cel Shading

Jamie — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 16:55:42 +0000

Also known as anime or manga-style shading, cel shading is a lot of fun and quite straight forward once you get the hang of it..

This style of shading is one of the most basic and easiest to learn technique-wise. It can also be one of the most expressive methods to add depth to your illustration.

For more about Peelander-Z please visit their website.

Coloring Lineart – Part 2, Auto Flatting

Jamie — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 13:28:02 +0000

We return to flatting, but this time we’ll use a nifty plug-in workflow to speed up the process. For this tutorial, you’ll need to pick up the multifill and flatting plug-ins found at http://bpelt.com.

This can save you loads of time flatting your lineart but will only work if your lineart is bitmap. This isn’t such a great workflow if you’re coloring just pencils. But for inked work, this will make your life so much easier.

For more about Peelander-Z please visit their website. Tell them Jamie sent you!

Coloring Lineart – Part 1, Hand Flatting

Jamie — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 17:05:57 +0000

In this series, we’ll learn how to color black and white lineart. The first step is to flat your piece. Flatting separates the objects in your composition by color making it easier to select specific areas to color.

The flatting process can be a bit meticulous and slightly boring, but proper flatting is essential for coloring line art. In this first part, we demonstrate how to flat an illustration by hand. Next time, we’ll look at a very helpful plugin that will automate much of this process.

For more about Peelander-Z please visit their website. Tell them Jamie sent you!

Sculpting With Monster Cutie

Jamie — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 12:36:19 +0000

This week we depart from traditional illustration to talk a little about customizing urban vinyl designer toys and making your own with some sculpting materials.

We take a brief look at Super Sculpey, Paperclay, Milliput, and Magic Sculpt and how you can use them in your customizing projects.

Back to the Drawing Board

Jamie — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 12:52:28 +0000

Every once in a while, you may find yourself looking back at your body of work and thinking, “What the hell is all this garbage?” Well, I have personally come to such a time and it is why there haven’t been any updates for a while. After years of screwing around with the computer to make life easier, I’ve decided to get back to basics with traditional media.

The catalyst for this desire to get back to paper and ink came with the end of Book 1 of Erfworld, the webcomic I’ve been working on for the past two years with my co-hort and writer Rob Balder. Book 1 is made up of 150 full color comic pages that I illustrated with Micron pens and colored in Photoshop. After 150 pages, I noticed that my drawing hand suffers from pain the longer I ink with the Microns. To alleviate this pain, I turned to inking with a brush. I’ve long read about professional inkers using brushes and dip pens to ink their work but whenever I tried either, the results were disastrous. Then I saw this video of Jeff Smith inking a panel with a brush and I got inspired!

I broke out an old brush that I had lying around and didn’t hate what I ended up with (sorry, bad camera phone pic).

I decided that I would totally convert and ink everything with a brush. I went to the local art store and picked up a proper sable hair brush for home and ordered a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen which uses synthetic bristles instead of a solid nylon tip so I could ink on the go. I figured, “why stop there?” I used to do a lot of ink wash work in college? Why not try some watercolor?

I feel like I’m relearning how to draw again which is actually quite exciting. Inking with Microns and coloring everything in Photoshop became too much of a grind. Starting over using a brush to ink make everything new and interesting. Now inking rocks and bricks is no longer something I dread. And I’m using washes to shade things before I throw on basic colors in Photoshop. Eventually, I want to do colors in watercolor. But that’s going to take some time and experimentation.

I’m looking forward to this learning process and I want to share what I’ve learned. I’m planning on doing some more video tutorials around more traditional techniques so keep an eye for that. Have no fear, Monster Cutie is going back to the drawing board! Literally!