Another Girl

Here's a lineart commission I've done recently. 

I think I, for now on, will post all sketches, lineart, and random stuff only on my blog, and keep all the finished work on my dA page.

This was sketched on regular thumbnail paper and scanned and lined in Sketchbook Pro 2010.

Exploration

Yes, it's been a while. Had a pretty busy week and a half - I got the job by the way. :D I'll explain more in my dA journal.

First is a Lara Croft sketch I did on my last night at my previous job. I was just playing around with the rendering more, since I seldom attempt to do tight rendering like so. I used a 0.5 HB and 4H pencils altogether.

The second is a quick sketch study that I always wanted to try. I want to get into different rendering styles and such, focusing more on painting - because I don't have to focus so much on the quality of the line work and tedious flatting. 

I know it isn't anything great, as I rushed a lot of things (hair highlights, etc.), but I was just playing around with coloring over the line art (or using the line art as a guide lightly). This is highly influenced by Krenz's style. I always wanted to try a rendering style like his, and I know it's no where near like his finished stuff, but I kinda deciphered how he goes about doing it. Gonna keep playing around and see what I can dig up. :)

Wondrous Prisoner

Hey, a quick post today. A new Wonder Woman I sketched at work last night. I really didn't have any time to scan this one. Or the Cody sketches as well. But, figure I post 'em all the same to keep with my daily goal. These were done with no ref, from the top of the head. I might use that Wonder Woman later on... See ya tomorrow!

Oh, by the way -- been reading the reviews for Mario Galaxy 2.... I NEED THAT GAME!

Sketchbook Stuff

My wife's family dog, Tails, was put to sleep after 17 years of loyalty today. 'Tis a bittersweet day for us.

These are some sketches I managed to work up last night. Started to play around with different dynamic figures. All of these are from the head, as usual. I think I need to start studying from various references now. Warning: There are few character cameos in this post, by the way.

Until Next Time. :)

Sketchbook Stuff

I'm getting closer to my goal, each and every day. :)

Cyclops!

Did a 10 minute Jam with Kat earlier, and I picked Cyclops. The actual finished-at-time drawing can be seen here. Here's the touched up version, as I forgot pouches and wanted to add some more shading to it.

Getting Out Of Line

Well, I really wanna start making my own personal lil flair and niche. I've been doing some ink/line tests again with Sketchbook Pro.

I really want to get rid of the perfectionist attitude, trying to treat my linework all perfect and whatnot. I'm just gonna draw them in a whatever fashion. I like the outcome of it, so I think I'm gonna stick with it. It's good to have multiple avenues of lining work anyway, methinks.

I like the sketchy look that I managed to keep intact. Lining in SBPro pushes me to "sketch" my lines, something I fail to do with a pencil or pen (I actually have to be more cautious, careful, and have a steady arm when I line that way.

The other plus side to this is that it'll take significantly lesser time to flat when I color. I'm a fan of color holding my lines, so emphasis won't have to be put on lasso'ing right outside the lines and whatnot when flatting, which can be painstakingly tedious and boring.

All in all, expect some personal changes to my work. Sometimes. :)

Rats and Crap

Hey folks!

It's been a few days since I posted something on the blog, this past week has been horrendously busy. I'm on another job hunt because I have to find something else because my hours have been cut again. Sorry to say that, but that's actually what's going on. Gotta bring that bread to the table. As long as I stay optimistic enough, I think I shall be fine.

Man do I got some upcoming stuff in the works! Collabs, prints, and all other type of good things to come. :) It shall be a good year, I reck'.

Yes, indeedy, Rat Rage is full speed ahead! ^That's my lil' Japanese mock-up logo, I just couldn't help myself. XD

I'm glad to say that production for Rat Rage is finally starting. I'm going to try and give myself a page-a-day quota so I can have something to show. It will be a 200+ pg. Original Graphic Novel, may I remind you. To build up some hype again, I recently did a print featuring Rai and Nini escaping danger. I will do a few more prints for this year, just to have solely as a hype builder and original content.

Here's a few process shots for the print.

1. Thumbnail Sketch

2. Lineart

3. Lineart Cleaned

4. Rai and Nini flatted and toned; BG buildup

5. Everything flatted, toned, and BG almost complete

6. Finishing touches, atmosphere effects, and textures applied.

I would also like to re-remind people that the way this is colored will be in the same manner as how the book will look! 

Other than that, Rob out!

One Week Ago...

... I took steps to give myself a new... self.

Week one of the 'New Robaato' has passed and I'm feelin' good! Despite the regular crap that goes on in my life, I'm surprised that I've managed to keep up with my goals! Which is all that matters to me. Life will hit you hard, but if you roll with those punches, you'll feel even more stronger. : )

Let's get on to the art:

My wife is creating a story, simply going by the name of "Fuschia" (working title). The lead character, obviously, is Fuschia Vidal (pronounced Foo'Shee'Ah Vee'Dahl, not like the color Fuchsia), who's on the run because of a family conspiracy that interlinks with a war between 4 neighboring planets. I must say, it's been such an experience working with my wife on this, as I'm learning more about her ideas and fantasies that she loves to think about. It's really fun when your closest acquaintance and the one you love can work together on something. :)

I'm going to start posting some tidbits of her, her planet, and various character designs that we have planned to show. It's going to be much fun- in that I haven't created a character from scratch in YEARS (all my characters existing and the ones you don't know about have been created years ago).

I'm pretty sure everyone has seen these on dA. I drew these because I AM doing a Final Fantasy 13 print (it's pretty obvious now, heh). I had to draw their faces to map out how I'm going to draw them in that print. I like how they came out. Going to be a fun print, mmhmm, mmhmm.

Well, that's all I'm going to say for this post. I'll divide the art posting throughout the week. Hope all is well!

BUSY!! Gotta Stay busy. :)

Hey guys! I missed a day on the blog here, but that's due to me just taking this work out! Which is good! So I'm not neglecting. :)

Now, after using this schedule thing for the first time this week, I pretty much gauged how much work I can actually do each day. So people who didn't get their stuff in accordance to the schedule will get switched around properly; now that I know what I can do in a given day. :) I really like this schedule system. :)

I also will take the time to put a little summary of my process of Toshinho's Blade Collector I drew and colored. This is mainly the parts I did before coloring the pic on my Livestream.

1. So here's the base sketch. I usually sketch real rough and loose, and a lot of things can be hard to decipher upon looking at my initial sketch (other than the gal). But on this one, instead of a thumbnail, I started on regular printer paper, and found out I wanted to draw more towards the bottom, so I attached another paper to the bottom to follow through.

        

2. I then scanned the sketch in, turned it into a Cyan color via Photoshop, lightened it enough so I can see it, and printed it out on 11x17 paper. (You can still see the faint blue lines from the scan...) I then carefully started lining the picture with a 0.3 H Pencil. (I like using H because it has a nice black level and it doesn't smudge.)

3. The Blade Collector is practically finished here, I then started on adding the various weapons and swords, being even more careful with the lines.

4. I got half of the swords in there, and I'm still adding details. This process took about 2 hours (after drawing Sunny).

5. And I'm done with the lineart! I scanned it in after, leveled it out, and prepared it for coloring by adding values. (I showed how did this all on my Livestream lastnight, so if you wanna see it, click here! The whole picture took 9 hours to do, but that information is explained directly in the beginning so you really don't have to wait long!

6. And after 9 hours of coloring in Photoshop on the Cintiq, this is the result! Remember you can check my Livestream to watch the process. I recorded it. :) I have entertaining video game music and commentary as well to keep you occupied. :)

Other than that, until next time people!

More Process Stuff

Hey, just droppin' some more artistic insight on you foos out there!

I was chatting with a buddy on Skype today, and he wanted to know about layout/thumbnailing. For some reason, he couldn't grasp it or always felt obligated to go beyond and always complete everything in a large format.

There's nothing wrong with doing that, it's perfectly fine to do. And since art's an expressive subject, there really aren't any hardcore rules! However...

If you're starting off and still haven't grasped many fundamentals of what you're aiming to do, or if you're still a big learner, laying out your idea in thumbnails can be very crucial into helping you achieve the desired result.

For example, say you have this quick idea in your head, but it goes away if something else jumps in your mind. Draw a small stick figure (and I mean "small" like the size of your thumb") and voila! The general idea is there. And in case you lose it, you can always view that stick and expound on it. But I don't draw stick figures.

Here's a template I created for myself, called the Super Thumbnail Frame Comic Guide Turbo EX Alpha X8! Yes, I created a name for it. What it is, is basically a grid with 8 frames proportioned with the general comic format/11x17 paper. These are all the sketches I had scheduled to do today. I draw my quick thoughts on the paper, just to get the idea out my head. As you can see, these are no where near finished. And you can see how easily my mind can wander, King K. Rool doesn't even belong in there. I then print this grid out on printer paper (or even larger). I printed out on 11x17 paper, but it's best to go smaller with regular A4 printer paper to keep yourself from adding too much detail.

I use these layouts for when I'm doing comic layouts for my clients (when I'm working on comic pages) or even for commissions. I try to keep everything in proportion where the client can print if he/she needs to. But this works great for comics because you even have your page layout as well. So you hit two birds with one stone! 50000 bonus to your score!

I then scan these in Photoshop, select a picture with the box selection tool, copy, open a new document, paste, put a Cyan color on a separate Overlay layer above it, merge em, adjust the opacity so the blue is light enough for me to see when drawing it after it's printed out, I print it out, and then do the fine sketch/lineart over it. Then I scan it in again and remove the blue with an adjustment layer.

Seems like a lot, but fortunately, my ink cartridges for the printer are big. So no worries. I rather do this than lightbox any day.

Well, that's all I have to say for today. And I will start doing daily music posts I enjoy off youtube!

Turning over a new leaf...

Well, it seems I've garnered an ample amount of disdain (due to the immaturity I displayed in the past, regarding commissions and clients).

I don't want to start making excuses like, "I didn't feel I was good enough at the time, so that's why I didn't do your work" or "I am too busy". The truth is that I had been commissioned because people have liked my work at that time, so there was no excuse that I had to get better to do the work; they would've liked it all the same. And I had small pockets of time to do the work, even though I was going through a lot of crap, I still could've done them.

And I don't know, maybe what was going on through my life really had an effect on my artwork. I felt like I wasn't good enough, because life was treating me like I wasn't good enough. All the artists seemed like they had nothing to deal with 'cuz they were pushing work back to back, just like my RL friends had consistent jobs and a nice life going for them at the time. I was, most likely, just broken.

Still, it's no reason to deal that type of thinking towards my clients. And I suffered because of that.

I couldn't focus on my own work, and couldn't even do things I wanted to do. And that's not meant in the whiny tone, but just a point blank fact. Over the course of time, I fell into relapses everytime I had a spurt of artistic power. And those relapses have gotten bigger each time I fell into them, and it ended up turning me into an artistic vegetable. Only recently have I been able to break those relapses, and even more recent that I'm taking this art thing a bit more serious than I previously claimed.

I know I may have broken some long-term relationships doing what I done, and some have still given me the benefit of the doubt. Which is okay on both terms. I appreciate those who forgave me and continue to hire me, but I also deserve those relationships to be broken.

But anyway, this is just a public apology to all those who have at once before felt offended by my immaturity in the past. And I ask if you people can forgive me. You don't have to, but I hope you can.

Oh Yesh!

OH YESH! It's time to update that blog again!

Had a great weekend. I don't care much for Easter, so I just worked as usual at the hotel. I did a few sketches while I was there.

Here's a thumbnail drawing of a Witchblade commission I just did. Usually, I do very small drawings like these (which is about a 2 to 3 inches high usually). I then scan it in, turn it cyan, blow it up in Photoshop in adjustment to the paper size, and print it out again and draw over it in more detail. This is actually my current process with everything. Rinse and repeat, yo.

This just an assortment of Ruby sketches did over the past few weeks. I haven't drawn her that much like I used to, and I was kinda rusty on her face and stuff. I also did some quick sketches of her frame, pictured on the right. So sorry for the slight inconsistencies, just getting a feel drawing her again - gonna need to since Erratic is in production.

Look! A ME meme. That sounds dope! ME Meme... MEMEMEMEMEMEMEME... Just one of the pages I have been doing where I draw myself in all sorts of ways, doing various things. Pictured here, I'm mixing my favorite drink (you know what it is!!!!), getting spawnkilled by Snipers in Bad Company 2, posin' with my wifey, and me in my assassin garb. (It's true, I'm a member of the Assassin's Guild and I hop into the Animus every now and then to help people getting bullied by the Templars.)

Until next time! RO!

NEGLECT can be such a pain...

WOW!

I haven't posted on this blog in almost a year! BAD BIZNESS...

Well, I'm not going to go into great detail of everything that went on between now and what was the last post....? August? ...Yeah.... *clears throat*

Anyhoo, everything has been shaping up to be great! I finally got all my ducks in a row as far as work goes (secular and artistic work, I'm talking about here) and I now included my schedule, which is embedded right under my profile! (Look and see! ---->)

Anyway, I'll start today off with a sketch I did yesterday of Marvel's She Hulk. Yesh, she's utterly hit with my anime-influenced style, but what can ya' do...? I'm not Adam Hughes.

I went to the store and picked up some colored pencils, and even though this is designated as a $10 Sketch, I kinda went overboard visually, it appears. However, this is the quality I would push if I was drawing with a regular No. 2 pencil... So no one is getting anything special, just the fact that She-Hulk wouldn't be... green enough, with regular pencils.

Anyway, back to setting up. I got my Twitter account added on here as well, and I really would love to tweet often, but I need more followers to put fuel to the flame! So go and follow me! You can even reach me instantly with a question or whatever (since I have it on my hip via my Palm Pre).

With that, I'll save it for next time!

And NO MORE NEGLECTING!

It's Been a While!

What's up folks - sorry for not keeping this place alive - It's hard to run a daily blog, especially with this wonderful and busy summer I've had as far as conventions go. :)

I need to get back on the bandwag', so here's some stuff I did yesterday between commission work.

It's just some low resolution Photoshop sketches. I've found these to be rather fun and relaxing, rather than the constant articulate work I do. So you shall see these more often- they're kinda like Oekakis, but less work.

Other than that, I will try to have more news coming. So far, you guys will be expecting an epic from me known as Rat Rage, where these two lovely mice gals are from- I'm talkin' an 80+ page OGN on the way. More news to come from that.... Meanwhile, check out the lineart stages of these first four pages. Until next time, folks!

Artbook!! (Part 3)

So guys, I have some of the information on my artbook entitled MUSTART? The Art of Robert Porter Vol. 1!

It will be an awesomely full-color bound book full of new work and sketches, and a few of my most likable images. Right now, the page count is up in the air, but expect over 24 pages of art. I will most definitely have more information soon as convention season is already kicking up around, and I will be selling online as well, so more info on that too.

Other than that, Rob Out!

Artbook!! (Part 2)

Hey Hey! 

Here's a sneak WIP preview of the cover of my FIRST upcoming artbook!

Enjoy!

Artbook!!

So yes, I am getting down to the nitty gritty on this artbook! More info later!

Moving Things Along Noicely.....

It's been a very productive day today. On the brink of completing commissions, working on my up and coming artbook, and getting personal things out the way, I am freeing up what was previously not even a month ago a heavy life.

I hit up Adam Law's comic book "Felicity" and man that is some FUN! So much fun, I'm prompted to whip up a fanart of his main character Chastity '99' Fox. 

Until Next Time!