Almost done!

While I was waiting for the disaster that was my afternoon to happen, I had a few hours to work on my Snow White piece.

I lightened up the background and replaced the skirt color and texture. The flat color for the stone house is laid in and I made a little garden of flowers along the base of the house to break up the wide expanse of tan.

The texture in both the sweater and the skirt are default pattern brushes. So are the flowers.

Tomorrow, I plan on detailing the skirt, adding color and depth to the house and working on the slate walking stones. If I have time, I will finish the basket and apples as well. I have decided to lay in the text in Illustrator so I can get this puppy out the door.

All in all, I am pretty pleased with the capabilities of MangaStudio EX in the raster format. My next trail image will be done in the vector format as soon as I figure out how to find the tools.

Laying skin tones and central apple

I got laid low by a nasty cold. The cold has mostly dissipated except for a hacking cough. While annoying, it seems to be the tail end of the illness. I have to stop painting whenever I cough so I don’t mess up what I’m working on.

I have been laying color in Manga Studio EX. The Snow White inking received some more doctoring yesterday because the maid’s face appeared to be squashed. Getting the features and expression to be the wide-eyed, young innocent I wanted took most of my session yesterday. Today I started laying in the skin tones and the color for the apple.

I have almost completely forsaken the stylus in favor of the mouse at this point. My drawing hand still aches if I use it for work on the computer, even with the brace. This morning my thumb was so stiff I couldn’t even hold my toothbrush. I have better control on the computer with the mouse, so I will just continue on with that instead of trying to learn how to use the stylus at risk of injuring my dominant hand again.

The Snow White illustration is completely done in raster format. The neat thing about Manga Studio EX is I can choose to work in either raster or vector formats. I am really enjoying the ‘painting’ sessions in raster. It seems to me that my color style is consistent with that of my traditional watercolor technique. I am using the default color palette of the program right now, but I think I will create my own palette with the color combination of my physical paints and see if that translates as well. MS-EX does give me the option of ‘mixing’ my own colors. In addition, the tool controls allow me to choose a lot of different brush widths.

I will finish this illustration as a raster drawing and then switch over to the vector tools with my next illustration. I wonder how similar the tools will be to those in Adobe Illustrator, the program that has been my go to for digital illustration for years? I am hopeful the learning curve will not be as great as the initial switch was from Photoshop.

One thing I do have to add. I am taking just as long to ‘paint’ an illustration in MS-EX as I would be on paper. The only dramatic differences are there is no drying time (which I use a hair dryer to speed up on paper) and my ‘brush’ doesn’t run out of paint. I still get just as growly about having to take a call or answer the door, but at least using this tool for washes doesn’t mean a ruined painting if I have to stop in the middle of the wash. The undo command fixes splotchy washes in the blink of an eye. I like that.

I am having a love affair with Twitter. For me, it has been a wonderful experience. Better than any other of the myriad of social networking sites I have joined. Some I never developed. Some I developed but no longer visit on a regular basis. And some I signed up for a profile and after a while decided they weren’t for me and deleted the profile. All of them pretty much worked the same way, and as a person of visual output outweighing my verbal output, keeping them up to date and useful to my business wasn’t really giving me a measurable return. I like things I can quantify and measure. I get free stuff by being on Twitter. Artsy stuff I really want, but can’t justify spending $$ on because I have to buy more every day things like food, socks or school supplies.

I have been on Twitter for about a year now. I have connected with art and writer friends around the world. And I have conversations with them. Learn about things I am interested in and find out new information about things I never knew. I ‘attend’ several weekly chats, and in fact, I even co-host one called #kidlitart specifically focused on the business of art in children’s book illustration. All the chats are live streams inside of Twitter’s main stream and while anyone can ‘attend’ most people utilize a software organizer like TweetDeck or TweetChat to keep up with the flurry of tweets a chat can generate. (To see archives of previous chats go to the KidLitArt blog.) Another thing I’ve accomplished is connecting with businesses in a meaningful way. Hence the free ‘stuff.’ Did I mention this is stuff I really want?

A couple of weeks ago, a fellow artist tweeted she had intentions of buying Manga Studio EX and posted a link to the software’s web page on SmithMicro’s web site. I followed her link and became enamored with the program. A smattering of tweets between us over the next several days discussing the program followed. She went out and purchased it a few days later, while I decided I would have to put off a purchase of new software indefinitely. While the Manga Studio EX program is inexpensive as far as programs go, my priorities on where my funds are to be spent do not include new software for a while. Meanwhile, I spent delighted and drool-inducing hours watching youtube videos of other artists using Manga Studio.

Then I got an email! Someone at SmithMicro had seen my tweets and visited my web site. She viewed my portfolio and found my art unique, pleasing and appropriate for use inside of Manga Studio. Since my style of work is NOT manga but Art Nouveau, I guess it was unusual enough to warrant a ‘new’ usage for the company’s software. The email offered me a free copy of Manga Studio EX in exchange for a review. How fast do you want to bet I replied in the affirmative?

Several days later, I had the program install on my dinosaur of a MAC and was reading my way through the manual.

I had a work in progress at the pencil stage. I decided to use this pencil sketch for my trail run with MS EX. To make matters a bit more interesting, I am also finally using the stylus I have had for a while, but never utilized because the end result was never ‘organic’ enough for my tastes. So I am also learning how to use my Wacom tablet at the same time.

I am moving slowly forward with figuring out the program capabilities, but I thought I would share my progress with images from start to finish. (I am working in MS instead of doing my daily doodles. After all I only have the same 24 hours a day as everyone else. something has to be put aside.)

pencil rough for Snow White - Bad Apple

pencil sketch imported into MS EX and beginning inking (evil queen) - Bad Apple

The pen tools in MS EX are GREAT. I have total control over thickness and I am sure once I get used to the stylus I will have enough control over placement to forgo paper pencil sketches as well if I like.

My Twitter friend says she’ll still use Photoshop to lay in color. I’ll have to finish with the inking before I start coloring. Since I use watercolor for color because I like the bloom and mystery of it, this will also be an experiment to see if color is more ‘organic’ in MS EX.

More to come.

Red Lemon Club: Online Self Promotion for Creatives.

I am still working hard on the final illustrations for Smoky and the Feast of Mabon by Catherynne M. Valente. The book is now up on both the publisher’s web site and amazon for pre-order which really puts the pressure on me because people are ORDERING the book already. LOL

After I finish up with the book, the next big project on my to-do list is to make this site fully functional and work harder at bring me paying illustration jobs. I am learning all about marketing and SEO specifically geared toward creatives. The link above is my newest find.

Of course, having the info and taking it and implementing it are two entirely different animals. I have yet to figure out a good way to go about the implementing part where I actually follow through before another project distracts me. I have been on Twitter for a few months now (@lyonmartin) and the community I have found there tells me this is a common failing among my fellow artists. Seems we are all easily distracted.

I am itching to get back to my daily doodle. And my daily exercise routine. I don’t know why, but the stuff I do to keep myself sane the rest of the time slips away when I am finishing a book. The drug of choice this book has been cheese doodles. Go figure.

Have you ever wondered what a picture book looks like before it’s a book? Here is a link to the art from a book coming out soon at Puffin. These are the full size pencils being approved: http://thepuffinblog.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5501c1be888330115705ac655970c-pi