Sometimes a Sketch is All You Need...

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... to set a mood and bring characters to life.

New Photoshop Colour Sketches...

Lamp (click to enlarge)

Ring (click to enlarge)

Giant (click to enlarge)

Playin around on a Saturday night... Photoshop CS4 + Cintiq

Old Man Character Sketch

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Some Colour Character Sketches

Taste Tester (click to enlarge)

Wistful Woman (click to enlarge)

Looking Ahead (click to enlarge)

Did a few quick digital sketches recently in the tradition of the oil sketch. These are quick and loose - just laying down ideas for characters. No photo references... just imagination and having fun!

Photoshop + Cintiq

Moody Self Portrait

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Photoshop CS4 + Cintiq 21 UX

Self Portrait in Toque

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Adobe Photoshop + Wacom Cintiq 21UX

iPhones (Variations)

Kannagi in the Royal Court

(Detail 1)

(Detail 2)

My new piece "Kannagi at the Royal Court" has just been selected to be part of the "I Have the Right" exhibit on art & human rights sponsored by the PICTURE Art Foundation (http://www.pictureartfoundation.org/). Thank you PICTURE Art Foundation, and congratulations to all the artists who participated!

Where did the idea of "human rights" come from? We often assume it originated in 1948 with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations. Most people would be hard-pressed to come up with other sources for the idea of "human rights," perhaps (in a pinch) citing some texts from the 18th century European Enlightenment. In any case, most people pretty much equate the rise of "human rights" with the rise of modern Western democracies. However, it is a mistake to think that only modern (or Western) societies have exhibited a concern for "human rights." In fact, there is increasing evidence to show that pre-modern, non-Western cultures all over the world have supported ideas of "human rights" for centuries, mostly through story-telling. Also, most of the political and social ideas of these cultures were rooted in religions. Therefore, it's fair to say that many pre-modern, non-Western religions have also advanced (or at least supported) ideas of "human rights." One such example from India is the story of Kannagi from the Tamil epic Cilappatikaram ("The Tale of the Anklet," circa 2nd century CE).

R.I.P. Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

Very busy day today... but I had to pay tribute to a great innovator and creative genius. This took about 1/2 hr on my trusty Macbook Pro.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs.

Cintiq First Impressions...

I bought my Cintiq 21 UX exactly 2 weeks ago and have been trying to sit down with it each evening and see what I come up with. As I mentioned in the last post, it's taken me a while just to get up and running in terms of the software and hardware. But after the first week, I started actually using the thing to make some art... well, really pretty rough sketches and what you might call "oil" sketches. From now on, I'll be updating this blog regularly with my latest efforts - so be sure to come back often! :)

First off, initial impressions: drawing with the Cintiq just feels so natural! What can I say? Some artists use traditional tablets like Wacom's Intuos 4 to create some incredible art, but I myself have always found the disconnect between tablet down on your desk and your eyes up on the screen frustrating. My friends used to tell me: "Tom, with your sketchy style you should buy a tablet!" But I never did for that reason alone. But now with the Cintiq I finally can have the best of both worlds - the flexibility and beauty of digital and the hand-eye coordination of traditional media!

I bought Corel Painter 11 to complement my existing CS4 rig because I knew that I'd fall in love with the natural media brushes, paper textures etc of Painter. Photoshop rocks but Painter gives you that added texture (in both surface and brushstrokes) that in my opinion lets artists reflect their "hand" more... the "artist's hand," which shows the brushstrokes as if they were the real thing. And that's the kind of art I love the most. Let me tell you - Painter's a blast! I'll be posting new artworks that I've done in Painter, which hopefully will reflect my ever-growing handle on the program (it's a big program with a fair learning curve, but if you stick to it and don't try to learn everything at once you'll be fine). I think it'll be interesting to see what happens! For now, I'm just having a blast!