Not that this has anything to do with anything, but I bought myself some huge sunglasses yesterday. Happiness! They're even bigger than my previous pair. Awesomeness... So off to the beach in a mo.


Anyway - the point of my entry: small things often make big differences. And I am learning many smallish yet important things as I'm getting to know my mini Bamboo tablet better. These little pearls have made my life much easier:

(i) Never start your drawing on a white background - I pick a base colour, like a skin tone or whatever - it's less harsh on the eye.
(ii) It's better not to draw in black (well, at least not when drawing something with human skin) - dark red or brown works better for me.
(iii) Layer, layer, layer. And then layer some more. Layering is your best friend.
(iv) Hair is (and will always be) scary as hell (for me at least) - deal with it.
(v) Forget how it 'should look in the end' and just go with what you know from years of doing traditional art when it comes to shading and lighting. It's easier once things start flowing. Also, this is digital, baby - you can always carry on tweaking and adding/removing layers (layers, yay!) until it looks like you think it should.
(vi) If the shading comes out to dark/harsh, create a new 'mask' layer and just run it over with a low opacity brush in, say, a light flesh colour (if doing human skin) to tone things down.
(vii) White and light blue adds life. Just don't get trigger-happy...start with low opacities and keep things subtle. Actually, come to think of it, things are very rarely really white. This you'll learn if you're working from a reference pic and using the colour picker.
(viii) Layering. Is. Your. Best. Friend.



So those just helped me through the initial stages. Needless to say, I probably would not have realised half of it had it not been for some awesome tutorials.

Some of my recent digital s...





(I love it when I read the artist's comment, and they're like "ah yes - speedpainting. Done in 3 seconds." And I'm like holy cow - that would've taken me a week. One day, one day...)