LOGAN WALCHERSKETCH BOok
Limerickseries M
y first foray into the world of digital illustration was the limerick assignment. Being paired up with a random animal with a random condition, we had to write out limericks and illustrate for them later. These short poems were approached in a goofy manner, giving me a frozen camel in a sweater and a congested jackal. These left my illustrations with the obvious choice to follow alongside.
To reach this light hearted style I aimed for, I decided that it had to first start with line weight. I made the more important areas heavier line than that of the rest. Extremely heavier. This gives the line extreme weight and makes it almost awkward. This is definitely something that should be avoided on realistic illustrations. To follow along with the child-like quality, I placed heavy flat color through the entire image. Each color stayed within the boundaries of the selected color pallate, however. This unified the composition as a whole while leaving it childish nonetheless. As for the shading, I kept it to a minimum. This gives the animals depth and a sense of shape, but retains the awkward style. It almost tricks the eye as it is such a flat technique, yet used to explore depth at the same time. As for the backgrounds, I chose to put the animals in their respective envioronments, based on their poems. The Jackal was left sick in bed and the camel was literaly frozen in a block of ice. These images were successful in giving me a style that is unique and recognizable. These could easily be found in a children’s book or bedtime story.
CAMEL lIMERICK/Wacom Tablet/fEBRUARY 2010
All in all I was pleased with the outcome with my first foray into the digital world. This assignment allowed me to fall in love with the possibilities that digital offers and has continied to show me new doors at every turn.
LimerickProcess S
tarting with the thumbs, I began playing with environments, poses and cropping. I was not worried about the style at this point, I was merely looking for the composition. With the camel, I toyed with the idea of placing an igloo in the background, but I felt like it clashed with the camel in terms of hierarchy. So I decided I was going to simplify the image even further, by dropping the background out and placing the camel in a block of ice. As for the jackal, I looked into putting him into more of a setting that stregnthened the idea of him being sick. After trying out the setting of him reaching for a bottle of pills, but it looked more suicidal than anything. Therefore I decided on putting him in the bed with a thermometer in it’s mouth. After deciding the composition, I focused on the style of the characters. I was pleased with the Jackal off the bat, but the camel was a different story. After working, reworking, redoing and working somemore, I finally found the perfect position and style of the camel. At this point, I decided to start toying with the line art. I knew I wanted the line to emphasize the cartooney aspect of these pieces. So I used heavier line to emphasize the more important aspects. For instance, the camels face is heavier to make it look more in your face, and the jackal’s face and thermometer are heavier than the rest of the image. This adds depth with the line. At this point, I’ve created a dynamic composition with interestinterest ing environments, intriguing line art and a fun over all look.
CAMEL Concept art fEBRUARY 2010
LimerickProcess w
hen it comes to coloring the images after establishing the line art, I simply blocked in the images with flat block color. I used the colors to represent what colors the animals typically are. Dark brown for the skin of each.
As for the colors of the surounding areas, I chose colors that would suit the skin of the animals. Green goes well with the colors, since it is often associated with yellow colors. The tongue and thermometer add to the mix to create a nice color palate. For the backgrounds, I chose colors to represent the feeling for each. Since the jackal is sick, I used warm colors. This makes the overall feel of the composition hot like a fever. As for the camel, I used blue to portray the coldness of the ice. I then overlayed the ice across the image to give the impression that it was behind the ice. To shade the images, I used a technique of overlaying a hue/saturation layer over the image. Sliding the colors to warmer for the highlights, and cooler for the shadows. This changes the overall color until you apply an alpha mask to the layers. At this point, with a wacom, I went in with an opacity and size sdjustment on and started shading on the alpha mask. This allows the darker and lighter hues to be exposed and gives the image a nice soft even shading, darker close to the edges and lighter as it fades. This completes the images with a strong sense of color, line and composition.
CAMEL and Jackal Line art/fEBRUARY 2010
Limerickfinals
jackal final/wacom tablet/fEBRUARY 2010
CAMEL Final/wacom tablet/fEBRUARY 2010
Robotseries F
or this assignment, we had to come up with two different points of view. This had no stipulations beyond this, therefore we were able to do alot on our own. For my pieces, I went for more of a cartooney look. Not so much as to make it farfetched, but enough to where it was obviously aimng for something much less than realistic. Chosing this style, I knew I was going to approach both compositions with acrylics. With this medium, it’s easy to achieve flat colors and more precise detail with only the paint itself. As for the points of view, I tossed around many ideas, but I gravitated towads size. From different points of view, size is extremely relative. Therefore I brainstormed of large objects and came across the idea of dinosaurs. Having large scale in mind, I decided to take the idea of dinodino saurs and apply it to robots. Being a fan of technology in the first place, robots facinate me due to the fact that they are going to be a huge part of our future, and only time will prove this. With all this in mind, I created a strong composition encompasing each of these influences.
Small robot Acrylics November 2009
ROBOTprocess f
or the first part of this asignment, I had to start somewhere. I thumbed out many diferent ideas and takes on the image, and started to settle on a monsterous robot head. The inspiration came from the idea of man stumbling across dinosaurs. The monsterous creatures surpass anything we can image at this point in time. Discovering these ancient beasts must be breath taking to see the sheer size. With this in mind, I began sketching out the differnt robot heads I could use, positions and layout of the robot in the sand were all studied. I finaly landed on a more organic looking robot to further the sepparation of the two robots. The small robot looks more streamlined and advanced. Making it smaller, this machine is more related to the future, since technology is constantly becoming smaller and smaller. Think of how the first comoputers filed an entire rom and did a single function. Now we have cell phones that can do everything from finding directions via satellite and record high definition video. With these ideas in place for the two robots, I created an intriguing composition, based on seeing the two images in sepparate planes ofview. The giant robot head dwarfs the smaller robot, but looking at each by themselves, they come across as whatever size you want to make them. To explore the specific look of these robots, I utilized a style of sketching borrowed from Doug Chiang. Taking a broad tipped marker, I roughly, quickly and loosely sketched out my ideas for the robots. After jotting down the general idea of the robots, I searched within the mistakes and random shapes found within the line of the marker and started looking for robotic pieces in them. This gives you a more natural look to a robot that trancends a preconcieved thought that your brain bulies you into making. At this point, I was ready to start moving to the next stages.
Thumbnails and sketches Pencil & marker November 2009
ROBOTprocess W
ith the ideas for the robots in place, I finalized the line work and started the process of coloring. This technique I’ve developed comes from a minimalist approach. I believe you can achieve depth by not having to actually shadinge very inch of the image. Implied depth with shading works just as well. The mind pieces the information together to understand the overall depth of the composition. Applying this technique, I simply just take darker hues of the original color and start painting the edges where the darkest parts of shadows would occur. I don’t use a variety of shadows, I use just one color in each of it’s respective tones. It leaves a blend of flat and 3d rendering and stradles the line between both. As for putting the paint down on the canvas, I use a lot of patience and small detail. Thought it’s not typically visable unless you’re looking for these small details, I typicaly go in with the smallest brush I have and fill in every corner and make every line as crisp and sharp as possible. This attention to detail legtimizes the paintings further, because many people get the paintings and start looking at whether or not there were shortcuts taken. Also, when blocking in the flat color of the overall image, I would lay downa base color and work on it over and over until the image was fully one color. This takes much time and effort, but the results are worth it. Typically putting on anywhere between 5 to 10 layers on in some points, I water down the acrylic towards the end to lay ontop of the paint below, that way it blends better. Having someone ask, "so this is digital right?" is the goal and was achieved here in these images. Now you might ask, "So if you want to make it look digital, why not just go digital?" The reason for this is because achieving a digital ook, without actually building it digitally, is more impressive and stands out. A regular house looks mundane by itself... but if an entire house were made of Legos, heads would turn.
Thumbnails and sketches Pencil & marker November 2009
ROBOTfinals
Small robot final Acrylic November 2009
Large Robot Final Acrylic November 2009
skateboardseries E
xperimenting with a new technique in digital illustration, I faced the task of creating a series of characters for a product. This led me develope a fictional skateboarding company geared towards a broad spectrum of skaters. This company allowed me to create a series of figures that rep represented each target dermographic for each skateboard. These Consist of the average, girl, punk, gangster and hippy skaters. Each figure’s clothing, hair and stance reflected their individual personalities. The process on these images is done to streamline the creation. Using found reference materials and my own personal photo shoot, I gathered the images of people that fit the personalities I was looking for. Taking the photos into Photoshop CS4, I started outlining the pieces, looking for where to ulilize line and where to avoid it. To give the image more depth and dynamics, I blocked in large areas of shading in black, almost using it as an extra color, more than the line. I use frantic strokes in these blocks of shading to add to the direction of the shadow and to keep the image from looking too static. As for shading, I blocked in each areawith the respective color. Then, going back ontop of these blocks, I added simple lighter and darker shadows and highlights. This gives the skater a light source and follows along with my style of simple color shading. To keep the color from looking too flat, I overlayed the images with a watercolor texture. This makes the image look less vector and adds a more ilistrative look to it. Losing the hand rendered style that digital typically deviates from. These pieces overall strengthen the company and make it a more approachable business to all different types of people in the skateboarding industry, making it a force to be reckoned with.
Hippy Skater Wacom Tablet March 2010
skateboardprocess T
o get the project started, I had to first get the reference material down. Scouring the internet for hours on end, I searched for the perfect images I wanted to portray. Finding proper reference materials close enough to your desired end product is important because otherwise you will end up losing your intended look and feel. Especially with this meathod, you must be patient and never setle. There is always new material to be found, you just have to dig deep enough into the subject to find what the internet has to offer. After finding the perfect images for 3 of my skaters, I knew I wanted to experiment with my own reference material. After gaining access to a model for the female, and knowing that I could fit the role of another reference, I secured studio time with a photographer. He was shooting on a Cannon 12 megapixel SLR. This promised the images to be high resolution and high quality. After finding the appropriate images for each character, I began to trace over the image. I could have freedrawn the images and scanned them in, but the time and work to output ratio would have been horrendous. When tracing over the image, the process is streamlined and you can spend more time making sure the image is perfect, then spending hours on trying to replicate a perfect copy. When tracing, I use pen pressure to modify the line weight. This allows the lines to be tapered off, which creates a more hand drawn look that cannot be replicated with a mouse. Staying only black at this point, I start shading in the heavy shaded areas. This gives the character weight. I approach this part of the process as a separate final. If the line are is not acceptable as a final piece on it’s own, or looks incomplete, I consider it unfinished. This allows the line art to be strong and comprehensive, making the end result a better composition. The line art is extremely important, and many people over look this and jump into color with neglected linework.
Photo Shoot and Line Art Cannon SLR March 2010
skateboardprocess A
fter finishing the linework, the image needs to be blocked in with base color. For this image specifically, I achieved to achieve a black color without undoing my line art, so I used shades of dark gray to get the point across. I added in tattoos to strengthen the idea of who this man is representing.
After blocking in the major colors I start to shade in the small details. This is where the illustration comes alive. Before this step, the image is flat and looks bland. But a simple 2 color shading and highlighting process pops the image into a more 3 dimensional perspective. To shade, I simply add a darker shade of the base color to where the shadow should fall. I do not worry about blending, for this is a technique I’ve explored on my own. This keeps the image more illustrated, which is a main goal of mine in digital illustration. With the shadows down, I throw in highlights opposite the shadows. This gives the image stronger evidence of a light source. This also adds to the three dimensional aspect of the image. The shadows and highlights are very important for the face. Without them, the face will look extremely flat. Lone can only go so far with the face, but simple high lights through the lips and shadows through the eyyes and edges of the face give the face detail that linework cannot represent. After adding these colors, I go through and make sure to clean up stray lines, markes or anything else that would be considered unneeded. Text is also added. Finally, for the last touch to the piece, I throw a watercolor overlay ontop of the image. This keeps the image from looking so flat and again pays homage to the handdrawn illustrative look I aim to achieve. At this point, the image is complete with dynamic color.
Block color and final image Wacom Tablet March 2010
skateboardFinals
Girl Skater model: Jennifer Morgan March 2010
Average Skater
Gangster Skater
Punk Skater
Hippy Skater
Hero & Villainseries M
y most recent adventure with digital ilustration at this point, the super hero and villain was a great project to excercise my skill with. Not taking any shortcuts, I spent many hours on each piece, looking to hone my skills even further.
My favorite part of this assignment was my ability to practice and play with creating my own character. This alowed me to dive into the character and really work out the fine details and make a hero from scratch, exactly how I wanted him to turn out. I was playing God, if you will. My inspiration for the villain is my fascination with science fiction and space. I took the idea of space pirates and twisted it into more of a NASCAR feel. The hero being a famous space racer that loses his father in a race, he sets our for vengence. As for the vilain, I had to come up with a protagonist for someone else’s hero. The other hero was a woman who had an ex boyfriend. She was vulnerable to fire. Therefore, theperfect villain would be her ex’s new gf who could manipulate fire to counteract her control of the wind. The seductress role fit perfectly in this sense. As for the process, I followed my skater style for the most part, but took a branch off the realism to follow more of a traditional comic style, without losing focus on the styles I’ve created for myself over the semester. I Love how the story and character came out to be. The physical attributes that give Johnny octane an edge over the competition is his cybernetic arm, a mastery of guns and blades and an iron will that allows him to stare danger in the face and laugh.
Johnny Octane/Wacom Tablet/April 2010
The colors I chose for him actually came to me as I was watching an mma match. A fighter had white shorts on with red and white accents, which I took a particular liking to, which I felt played into this chacter well. With this project, I found that when you’re involved and interested in what you are creating, the finals seem to always turn out better than expected.
Hero & VillainProcess F
or the research component on these images, I knew I wanted to have real life references for each. But oposite of the skater series, I knew I was going to branch away from the originals. This allowed me to be a bit more lenient with the references, but I stil searched diligently for the perfect images. The references are still the skeletall frame of the image. Starting the image with a bad reference from the get-go is a recipe for a por final composition. As for the technique goes, I outlined the image as I felt necessary. I looked at the reference and decided which lines were needed or not and at what weight ther were to be used at. Unlike my limericks, I kept away from using ridiculously thick line weight. I kept it pretty consistant with only certain areas being heavier. This made the image less static from a digital illustration, but still kept it in the digital realm. After going in and making the lines, I started working on shading, picking a light source from above and in front of him. When blocking in the shading, I only hit up the darkest parts of the shadows in the line art. I would make up the shadows in the coloring section of the proces. As for determining his stance, I wanted a dynamic look that showed the viewer the intensity and adrenaline the swashbuckler runs on. His pose, in mid air with his gun blade cocked back and ready to hack, slash and shoot his way through his enemies, puts the character’s attack style on display. As for the villainess, she is the seductress type and I portrayed her blowing a kiss with fire shooting from her lips. This gives the insight that she’s someone who is beautiful and adoring on the outside, but holds a blazing rage within her.
Hero & villain line art/ Wacom Tablet/April 2010
These two pieces begin to come alive after just the line art is completed. This goes back to my idea that the line art should be acceptable as is. Never a step of the image saying, "Oh well. The next step will spruce it up a bit."
Hero & VillainProcess w
hen it comes to coloring the two characters, I block in the pieces like normal, Utilizing a different technique, however. Rather unorthodox, when coloring an image, I do not color it on a white empty background. The problem this makes is the colors do not appear as they would in specific environments. For instance, for my hero, I placed him in a background that contained darker blues and soft whites. This allowed my coloring to stray from being specifically a bright red alongside a dark gray. After coloring in the blocks, I begin to figure out where the higlights and shadows belong. The shadows in the lineart help pinpoint where the darker colors should be. Still, there must be more shading than just where the line art shows. Bringing the shading beyond where the line art dictates allows the lineart to take on the form of a 3rd color in shading. As for higlights, I selected a lighter hue for each color block. At this point, I just go in and touch up areas, making sure to put highlights through the face, giving it depth and potrusion. This also strengthens the idea of a light source. After coloring, I simply add a watercolor overlay as usual to give it a more illustrated look and pull everything together.
Villain Block Color/ Wacom Tablet/April 2010
Hero & Villainfinals
Villain final/Wacom Tablet/April 2010
Hero Final/wacom tablet/April 2010