Trying to learn digital art is fun...
...but hard, lol!
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| First try for comic/cartoon of me and Smokey using Clip Studio Paint |
I bought a tiny Wacom Intuos Small graphics tablet last year and after trying it out a few times, promptly put it away. It was fun but frustrating. I often meant to pick it up again, but always put it off.
Then, for the last few months, I've been really feeling the urge to learn how to draw. I have been living with a talkative African Grey Parrot named Smokey for over 30 years now, and I have lots of funny stories. I thought it would be cute to make little illustrated drawings, or cartoons, or comics, sharing the stories.
But I can't draw. This week I decided it was time to learn. So I watched a bazillion YouTube videos. I have 2 free art programs that came with my tablet; Corel Paint Studio, and Clip Studio Paint. I also downloaded the free Krita program last year...and also tried every free demo I could find. Oh, and Sketchbook too. I think that's why I got overwhelmed. It's still overwhelming, to be honest, but I found some nice tutorials for Clip Studio Paint, so I've been playing with that.
My first pic, above, was my attempt to turn myself and my parrot into comic or cartoon characters. I'm not sure of the terminology, lol, or what the difference is...except maybe that cartoons are animated and comics are not? Anyway, I was really happy with my character, although I cheated and put her hands behind her back. I used simple dots and lines for the features. It worked for Comic Kat, but not so well for Comic Smokey. She looked weird...probably because I was trying to draw from memory.
BUT, even though the drawing wasn't great, it taught me a lot. There is soooo much to learn. Layers, for one. I did a sketch layer, then on a second layer I did the line drawing over top. I learned how to use the fill tool. I played around with pens/pencils/brushes in the program. I had fun, and I was happy with the result.
I watched more YouTube videos and tried again the next day (Photo below).
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| Comic Me and Smokey, try number 2 |
I was MUCH happier with how Smokey came out in this sketch/drawing (what is it called, lol?). I looked at reference photos first, which I didn't think I'd have to do after living with the same bird for over 30 years, but who knew that my brain simply didn't pay attention to details, lol? I changed the bird comic's eyes, and gave her arm like wings, making the feathers extend a bit like fingers. I'm happy with the results, but wish my line art wasn't so shaky and wobbly looking.
I wasn't as happy with my character, comic Kat. I think she was cuter on the first try, but I did add simple line details to show her elbow, and gave her 4 rather weird looking fingers. With painted nails.
For this picture, I had to remember how to use layers, and the color fill tool, and I had to learn how to use the ruler tool to draw straight lines for the cage bars. It was a bit confusing because I somehow made it look like her ring toy was on the outside of the cage. I had to add an extra layer to redraw the cage bars over the ring toy, lol.
I also learned how to use the selection tool to crop photos, copy any and paste parts of the photos (I only drew Smokey's eye once, and then copied and pasted it and moved it into place. I used the lasdo tool to make my character bigger, and to move her down so she was shorter.
I still need to learn how to draw backgrounds and add speech bubbles, and I need a LOT of practice drawing so that my characters look better, but I'm having fun, and I have a goal.
I honestly don't know why I waited so long to get back into this. I think I was just so stressed out by the pandemic that I didn't have room to add another stressful thing, even a good stress, like learning something new. Now that I've had my first vaccine shot (and my parents have had both of theirs and are fully vaccinated) I'm feeling a little less anxious.
Well, time to get to work, learning how to make speech bubbles, lol. Take care :-).
