Digital Horse – Horse profile

Digital Horse

Switching things up for a bit, decided to do some Digital art.  Basically it is a major challenge for myself, because I’m use to drawing directly on the paper.  Where as drawing with a stylus on an external pad and looking at a monitor is really a challenge.  The cool thing is that its much easier to fix mistakes made on a computer than on paper.  The bad thing is that its a lot of coordination is needed.  Unless you have a computer that allows you to draw on the screen, it’s no where the same as drawing on the paper.

First I laid out a basic sketch of the horses head.  I used a base layer for this and a basic brush.  Afterwards I started to build the textures of the fur and shadows up by layer by layer.

I will be doing more drawings, I promise.  🙂

Materials Used

  • Photoshop
  • Huion Tablet H420 Pen Tablet

 

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Gecko Portrait Drawing

A portrait of a Gecko

Hello everyone, its been a while, but I’m back.  I figure I would start off a new year with a portrait of one of our Gecko’s.  My wife has been photographing them as they roam around their terrarium.  I looked at some of her awesome photos and got the inspiration to attempt to draw a really big portrait of one of the Geckos.

Karen, my wife, wanted to spend some quality time together doing arts and craft so it was the perfect time to start another portrait.  Sitting around the dinning room table, we all partake in our crafts.  My mother was over as well and was coloring in the adult coloring books, which are pretty cool if anyone is interested in coloring.

All done
A portrait of a Gecko

It took about two hours to complete and it was very relaxing.  The hardest part was trying to get the bumps to look bumpy in the skin.  Further down the Gecko’s body is a section of lots of bumps.

Using the graphite pencils numbers 5H, 3B, 6B, HB, blending stump and a brush I was able to create and manipulate the graphite into the drawing I wanted.  The most important thing was to be graceful when filling in the eyes.  If I pressed too hard with the pencils I would damage the tooth in the paper and cause it to flatten, which makes a shinning effect, which can ruin the overall picture.  Graphite requires you to perform hatching method when attempting to fill in an object.

Bare with me and keep coming back to the site you will see more of my drawings.

Materials Used

  • Graphite Pencils 5H, 3B, 6B, HB
  • Paint brush small one
  • Blending stump
  • Watercolor paper
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Rapid Raptor Sketch – Velociraptor

A velociraptor sketch:

Final Closeup Velociraptor
Final Closeup Velociraptor

Hey folks, I know its been a little while.  Have been busy on a few projects on webdesign for other people.  I decided to draw a quick sketch of a Jurassic Park Velociraptor, using just a pencil and blending stump.

The drawing took about 20 minutes to complete.  It was just fun and relaxing to do something different for a bit.

Here is a tidbit of information about Velociraptors.  A raptor was only about 2 feet tall and maybe 6 feet long, mostly tail.  The average weight would be about 30 lbs.  My Eskimo Spitz weighs 35 lbs.  Scientist believe that the raptors were feathered creatures.  This information was derived from fossils that contained feather marks.

Let me know what you think about the sketch, feel free to comment below.

 

Material Used

  • .03mm Mechanical Pencil with HB Graphite
  • Blending Stump
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Karate Tiger Fighting Spirit – Digital Art

Karate Tiger Spirit
Karate Tiger Fighting Spirit

“Karate Tiger Fighting Spirit” – On Sunday, while I was waiting for my Linux system to update, I decided to play around with graphics drawing with Photoshop.

Drawing on Photoshop can be awkward, especially when you are use to looking at the drawing from the perspective of looking down on a piece of paper or canvas.  Drawing with a tablet system forces you to look at the monitor, while attempting to make nice strokes with the pin on a blank mouse pad like surface.  You cannot look at the pad and pen, you just have to rely on the mouse icon to show your orientation.  Not very easy, I take my hat off to people that do movie and cartoon animations with this method.

If I had the money I definitely would purchase the drawing tablet that has a monitor built into it.  I use to have a Wacom Bamboo tablet, but it fried under a serious power surge a while back.  My computer was fried as well, so I got a new system.  Since I was trying to recover from the loss, I had a budget that I was trying to stay under, this caused a dilemma of purchasing a replacement Wacom Bamboo, because retail price for one is still about $200.00.  I could not see myself to spend that kind of money again for something I use on rare occasions.

Fortunately, my wonderful wife, found a tablet device on Amazon.com for like $70.00.  The device is called a Huion Tablet.  Its a Chinese developed tablet, meant to compete with Wacom products.  Wacom has always been a leader in tablet technology, but Huion is really a nice product.  You really get a bang for your buck, the Huion tablet is almost 2.5 times the size of the Wacom Bamboo, has builtin smart buttons for different functions, fully configurable hot zone buttons.  Overall I am really impressed with the product.  Really recommend it to anyone that wants to draw graphics on a computer.

Now, back to the drawing, I decided to draw a theme for a possible upcoming website design that I am toying with.  I wanted to capture oriental martial arts fighting styles.  So the first one, is Tiger style.  So I drew an image of a tiger and the kanji for tiger as well.  Total time was bout 2.5 hours.

Materials Used:

  • Photoshop Creative Cloud 2014
  • Huion H610 Pro Tablet

 

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Faith Sleeping – Horse Portrait

 A sleeping horse portrait of Faith.

Here is a graphite drawing based upon a photo of Faith, our horse, laying down sleeping.  I tried to work on as much detail as possible to attempt a realistic drawing.  Total render time was about two hours.

I spent most of the time on hair, very tedious amount of work.  If you are in a rush, this is not a drawing for you lol.  I used a technique of layering and blending with a brush and then I would take a kneaded eraser and with a flight of the wrist, pull the highlights out for the reflected light on her hair.

I was so focused on doing the hair that I just couldn’t help myself, but to make it longer.  It’s my drawing and I will draw it the way I want lol.

Anyway, I really hope you enjoy the drawing, please comment below or like and share it on Facebook.

 

Materials Used

  • Graphite Pencils 2-8B
  • Paint Brush (For blending)
  • Kneaded Eraser for pulling the high lights.

 

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Faith’s Portrait – Horse Drawing

A color pencil horse drawing

A color pencil drawing of Faith
A color pencil drawing of Faith

Decided to draw a picture of our horse Faith, using color pencils and a burnishing technique.  It took about 3 hours to complete.  It was very difficult and time consuming, but it was relaxing.  I was inspired to use the burnishing technique by another artist named Heather Rooney.  If you have a moment you should google her and check out one of her drawing videos.  She is very talented and each one of her portraits looks extremely real and takes about 22 hours to draw.

I will be trying this technique more often, its going to take a lot of practice.

As a bonus, I have included a youtube video of me drawing Faith.  It is a time lapse to show you how I was drawing and burnishing her.

Materials Used:

  • Prismacolor Pencils
  • 300 series drawing paper

If you like this drawing or have some comments you would like to leave, then please comment below.  Like or share it!

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Gecko not Geico! – A drawing of a Leopard Gecko

Gecko on Log
Gecko on a Log

Drawing a Leopard Gecko

No its not the Gecko from the Geico TV ad’s  I have four Leopard Gecko’s.  They are small and interesting lizards.  Fierce hunters of crickets and worms, but gentle when handled.  They are one of a few species of Gecko’s that can actually close their eyes and lick them.  Most other species have no eyelids and are kinda freaky to look at.

I will be doing more drawings and paintings of them, but for now, here is one I did using graphite pencils, charcoal and a blending stump.  Took about an hour to complete.

Like it share it and leave a comment 🙂

 

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A Whitetail Buck Drawing

Finished "Buck" Whitetail
Final Drawing of a Buck Whitetail
Step 1
Step one, layout the drawing.

 

 

 

 

A Drawing of a Whitetail “Buck” Deer

I decided to use Gray Toned paper and colored charcoal and a HB Graphite pencil.  Took about an hour, broken  up throughout the day.  I started with a standard graphite layout, I decide to use a HB pencil.  Seems to work really well for preliminary sketching.  I used a angled paint brush for blending purposes.

I made some mistakes along the way, but I finally was able to make it to the end.

It is important to always use lite marks, never heavy pressure.  You should also have a kneaded eraser.  Looks kinda like putty, but it will prevent you from damaging your drawing surface.  I will try to make a tutorial later on the best materials to start with.

The materials used where:

  • Graphite (HB) Pencil
  • Kneaded Eraser
  • Black Hard Charcoal Pencil
  • Colored Charcoal Pencil(s)
  • White Charcoal Pencil

 

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The Journey Of Faith – A horse rescue story

A story about Faith

Karen And Faith
Karen And Faith

This is a very special project and an amazing story of a horse rescue in Virginia.  It’s not art, but a quick documentary of my wife’s accomplishment with restoring life and hope to a severely abandoned horse.

The horse was neglected and eventually sent to auction, where no one wanted her.  Her last change destination was a slaughter house auction lot.  Where if she was not bought, she would have been slaughter for meat.  An organization stepped in at the last moment and purchased the horse.  My wife was on a mission to find the perfect horse for her.  She searched many groups, looking for the right horse.  Then one day, we found Faith aka “Leap of Faith”.

She was located in Pennsylvania, not in Amish country, but the mountains.  Let’s just say it was a very long and tiring journey.  For just about two days of traveling, we pretty much lived in the truck.  Just me Karen and our dog Jack.

We finally made it to the second change farm to pick up our new family member.  She was very thin, had a lot of cold/infection coming out of her nose.  Not doing so well.  I have to admit, that I was very skeptical of her survival during transport back to Virginia.  It was during summer, and it was very hot.  However she made the trip without any problems.  Matter of fact, we ended up staying at a Motel 8, because we were so tired.  I told the front desk clerk that we have a horse and a dog.  He was accommodating and allowed us to park on the side where the big rigs park and our dog was able to stay in the room with us.  It wasn’t the best hotel but it was home for the night.

We finally got her back to Virginia.  I was so tired, that I literally passed out in the passenger seat and didn’t wake up until we were like in the Salisbury MD area.  I was asleep for like 400 miles.  Thank God for my wonderful wife, for driving.

Anyway, for Christmas, I decided to take all the photos from my wife’s Facebook Page and compile them into this presentation.  I was trying to keep a secret for a long time.  Our washer was having some problems during the same time period, so I was actually compiling the video at a laundry mat in secret.  The people there thought I was strange with Bose earphones on and constantly pecking away at the keyboard.  I finally composed the DVD and played it for her on Christmas morning.

(Note: For some reason the music to the video is only allowed to be played on non-smartphone devices.  So that means you will have to watch it on a computer for now.  Something to due with the licensing of the music I used.  Hopefully that changes.)

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Tiger Eye

Tiger Eye

Tiger Eye

This was a fun project, I used a mixture of Illustrations pens and color pencils to create this blowup of a tiger’s eye.  For blending I used a little bit of mineral spirits and a q-tip.  Just a little, not too much.  The paper is water color/mixed media.  You can purchase it at most art stores.  I performed the drawing in layers.  I would then smooth the layer out with mineral spirits, wait for it to dry and then repeat.  Then I used some illustrator pens to create the thin hair effects and also the iris effects, the eye.  This project was a lot of fun.  I decided at the end to put the Mandarin Symbols for “Tiger Eye”.

I like to play with languages, so Traditional Mandarin is what I have been learning among German and Spanish.

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