Gee, it's been a bit quiet around her lately, hasn't it? I
apologize for the lack of posts, but I've actually been quite
productive! In reparation for the insanity of tax season, my office
goes down to summer hours starting around mid-June, and I have pounced
on this opportunity to draft my new novel! I'm already on my first
round of edits, and it's been so much fun working on a new project. It has
occupied most of my time, though, and I have been a writing maniac for
weeks on end.
I've also been practicing digital art on a program called Paint Tool Sai. It's an interesting program, with a lot of pros and cons in comparison to Photoshop. I hope by using the programs together, I can get a bit speedier with my art and therefore more productive, too!
I've also been practicing digital art on a program called Paint Tool Sai. It's an interesting program, with a lot of pros and cons in comparison to Photoshop. I hope by using the programs together, I can get a bit speedier with my art and therefore more productive, too!
 | |
| Sai practice. I may be writing a new book, but I still love my old characters! |
And so, to sum up everything in my absence: I wrote, I wrote, I wrote some more, I did a little bit of art, and wrote a lot more. But hey, I am a writer, so I guess that's what I really ought to be doing!
I hope everyone is having a nice, productive summer! :)
Adorable illustration - If you don't mind answering, what about Paint Tool Sai do you like/what helps it speed up the illustration process? I'm always curious about different digital art programs. I mainly just use Manga Studio (which I loveeee) to illustrate but I'd like to explores some other programs in the future.
ReplyDeleteOf course I'm happy to answer! I've heard of Manga Studio, but I've never used it! I'll have to look into that one...
DeleteI can only compare Sai to Photoshop and GIMP, but of those, I think Sai is soooo easy to do linework in. When I do lines in Photoshop, it takes me FOREVER to get them remotely nice and smooth. In Sai, the pen and curve tool have an edit feature where every curve/bump/etc. in your stroke has a different point, and you can manipulate them individually, or as a whole. So, if you want to make something rounder that you've drawn, you just move your individual points until it's just how you like it! (And you can keep moving them, too!) You can also change the thickness of each point, allowing you to taper the edges of lines without erasing, vary the line thickness where you'd like, etc. The select tool is really nice, too, to assist in filling in base colors--when it works. It worked great in my first piece, then not at all in my last, so I'm not sure what went wrong.
I'm still on the fence about coloring/shading, but will hopefully have a better stance on that soon. When I get some time (and some more practice), I'd like to do a full Sai review here on the blog. I will say that Sai is only $67.00, though, which is WAY cheaper than Photoshop. And, you get a free, fully-functional 30 day trial to see if you like it first, so it's definitely worth trying out!
Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any more questions! :)
Hey thanks so much for the response, very helpful :) I think I'm definitely going to try the free trial after reading this because I'd like to try alternative means of smoothing my outlines since my current method is pretty tedious and horrible
DeleteI'd definitely love to read a full Sai review on your blog sometime.
I'll try to put one up once I experiment with Sai a bit more. :) I still feel like a complete newbie with it. Every time I find a tutorial online, I go, "I had no idea I could do THAT!"
DeleteI always love your horsey artwork!
ReplyDeleteThank you! I was trying out the "chibi" style that's popular on deviantArt. Ellis and Baen were a lot of fun to draw this way! :)
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