Drawing for Angelo - Scary Coconut Tree

Angelo is currently OBSESSED with the 'scary coconut tree'. What's that ? It's from this interactive touchscreen game at the museum 'Survival'. You play this alien coming to earth who has to choose four different alien species to take with you to your new home - some choices are good for you ( but mess up the environment ) and some are bad for you ( for some reason you can't eat them when they're here ) . The 'Croakernut' tree is a bad one - it's too cold in NZ for it to survive, and it turns blue and dies.

Angelo has been talking about the 'scary coconut tree' for two days solid now. He's genuinely concerned for it - and thinks it's both scary and cute. The 'croakernuts' have faces which are a little creepy. I've told him that the scary coconut tree got taken home and that it's warm again now - and he seemed very happy that that was the case.

Anyway - I thought I'd try and draw a scary coconut tree for him.

From what I could remember I did an initial sketch :

The real Croakernut tree has more and bigger fronds - but I thought that was good enough. I showed Angelo and he was SO excited by it. He kept wanting to see it in the sketch book. When I told him I was making it better on the computer - he instantly wanted to see that too. 

Not quite finished yet - but it's well on the way. I'll print him out a copy or two when it's done - he might like colouring them in. 

The really cool thing was that Angelo was quite keen to draw a scary coconut tree himself. He was a little concerned that he couldn't do one, but he gave it a try in the end which was neat. I'll try and get a scan of that later ( not enough time this morning ! ). 

Monster - 2 - base colour and some shading.

I have a new computer rig. After some teething troubles - I now have my Wacom tablet fully functional, and I have Photoshop CS6 extended running. It's a step up from the CS2 software I was using !

I've had a bit of a play - but most of the new features are lost on me right now.

I've been doing a bit more of that monster drawing. There's the latest stage :

I'm calling it 'Hillary' at the moment. Some of you might get that little joke - but not too many.

More as it happens ! I'm loving the new tech !

Swimming Sports 2012 - Drawing

Swimming sports was more bearable this year. Having a real job ( time-keeping ) for awhile helped. Still - I was able to sketch away for awhile and produced this :

Not bad. I've been getting down about my drawing recently - too much time spent seeing amazingly great things on DeviantArt and thinking 'I can NEVER be as good as these guys...'. But I'm happy with this. There's hope yet. :-)

DCA-#4 - Final

Right - it's done. A couple of small edits here - I erased the dots on the i's ( they weren't looking good on the background ), and I created a bit more space between some of the letters on the Woman's face.

Time to send it in to the editor.

DCA-#4 - Small alterations : logo / gun / background

Some small changes made :

DCA-#4 - Titles / logo / background - initial

Lorenzo slept through the entire night. I can't begin to say how great that is !

Had some time to work on the art. Here's the current state of play :

It's getting there. The logo needs to be colour adjusted into more of a grey tone. I still want to mess around with the people more - the colours could still be better, but we're nearly done. Yay !

DCA-#4 - 'Man' hair / face vectors

A busy day today. Up to the homestead with the boys. Saw Mum and Dad. Angelo staying for a couple of days - everyone happy ! Lorenzo's chair has been changed to face front now - he was VERY excited about that. Didn't sleep at all on the way back - I think he was watching the lights. Every now and then he made happy sounding exclamations. No tears at all. Very cool.

Not much time to work on the cover art today. I have spent about 40 minutes vectoring out the face and hair lettres for the Man. Well - most of them anyway :

There's a little bit of hair to finish - and then that's it for the base shapes. Next - I need to adjust the colours present ( the flesh tone of the Woman in particular needs attention ). Then the story title and by-line needs to be added. Possible make the background different / more interesting. Add the Dunesteef logo - and we're done !

More tomorrow.

Probably.

DCA-#4 - 'Man' face sketch

Not much of an update at the moment - I was able to sketch out a plan for the Man's face while the kids were having lunch : 

I'm pleased with how I've got some of the numbers to conform to face-like bits; the ear being a '2', the eye being a '0', the nose being a '1'. I'll vector those in a bit later. Right now I'm off on a trip up the coast to take the boys to visit their grandparents. Should be fun !

DCA-#4 - 'Man' text mostly done.

The kids are in bed ( though Lorenzo is still awake. He just loudly exclaimed 'BUH-BUH-BUH-BUH-BAAAAH!!' from his crib a moment ago, and I can hear him bashing the side of his crib with something right now - hopefully it's not his head ! ), and I've just wrapped up my work on the cover art for today I think :

Not too bad. I have to do the man's 'face' now - which, like the woman's, will be a series of year dates. I think getting his hair is going to be trickier that the woman was, but we'll see.

The tablet is blinking at me - I think it's almost out of juice. Better get that back on the charger.

DCA-#4 - More man text

Viva has taken the boys to feed the ducks in the botanital gardens. I've done the dishes, and spent some time doing more of the cover art. I'm about to go and tidy the house some - but here's what I got done this morning :

I'm not thrilled with that 'S' in the Alaska of the lower torso / thigh - but that letter is a pain in the backside to draw with the pen tool ! Too damn squiggly. Stupid S. Thinks it's so cool ...

DCA-#4 - Man's foreground arm lettered / hand colour blocked

Busy busy busy day. The 3am start didn't help. Still - after making myself type up some assessment comments for work - I was able to spend some time on the art :

Getting closer. :-)

DCA-#4 - Man lettering started / Hand + leg fixed

One good thing about insomnia is that you can get things done. While the rest of the family are slumbering, I've been messing around with the cover art. I just wish the office was a bit warmer - I don't  risk going upstairs and waking Angelo, who will then accidentally wake Lorenzo. Here's the progress :

The hand and leg both look better, which is good. I'm happier with the lettering here too.

I might try and sleep again now.

DCA-#4 - Face re-done / hands colored

Done some more. The face isn't perfect - but it's a lot more interesting than it used to be !

The woman figure is mostly done now. Time to start fixing up the man.

DCA-#4 - Torso vectors / new face plan

After today's museum adventure with Angelo, I didn't have a lot of time to advance the cover art. But I got some done : 

I added in more 'Ellentia' letters into the right leg, mostly to soak up more space. I'm also redoing the face numbers. Somewhat rough right now - but I'm confident they'll be better !

DCA-#4 - More numbers and letters, torso planned

Again, Lorenzo is having a nap. Angelo is outside playing with Viva. So a little more progress.

I'm liking the new plan for the torso letters. THAT'S the way I wanted the whole thing to look ! I might have to redo the 'face' - there's too much empty space there that needs filling up.

I also finally figured out what about the red man is bothering me. It's that foreground leg ! It looks like he's wearing leggings ( or nothing at all ), and that looks weird. The other hand is still bugging me ( the one without fingers ), but I was aware of that before.

Argh - the laptop is almost out of juice. Time for a recharge. I on the other hand have tea for children to start preparing. Woo hoo.  More ( hopefully ) later !

DCA-#4 - 'Ellentia' hair and '2094' face.

Some progress today : 

It's not quite turning out how I imagined - which is annoying me a little. Ah well. Stay the course.

DCA-#4 - Woman 'Ellentia' text

Again - Lorenzo having a nap, which has allowed me to do this :

There's some re-sketched other stuff - particularly the letters and numbers in the face and hair, which look better already I think. They're not here because they're FAR too rough right now !

DCA-#4 - Base man colour

Lorenzo has been asleep, so I've been able to do a little more on the cover art.

Got a provisional 'man' outline now, though he still needs some hair.

DCA-#4 - Base woman colour

Right - vectored in a base shape for the woman in the drawing. Oh - and the gun. 

Next step - the lettering. Or the base shape for the man. Actually - probably that one first.

Dunesteef Cover art #4 - Initial layout

So - here's the first steps in the new cover art project. I've forgotten the name of the story right now, but it is about time-travel.

I just merged the first two sketches to create :

Very rough at this stage. Nothing new there though !

More as it happens.