Working on my Art

My Art project is coming along, I'll try to put up some pics when it's done.

Sincerely, Jacob Martin, TeenAuthor.

Working on my Art Project: Part Three

The fact of the matter is that my Art progress has ground down to a halt due to various assignments I have to do for school subjects that are not Art related. I have an English speaking task on Gwen Harwood's poetry (it shouldn't take so many pretty words to point out the issues in the human condition) and a Society and Culture assignment where I have to compile the data I got from surveys I gave people.

However, I am, in my head, trying to come up with some new ideas for what illustrations I'm going to do. I think the character Carrie the Little Girl Changeling in my first book deserves a graphic novel illustration page that shows that she's the smartest little tyke in the land of my creation, as well as a coloured sequence of Malkalith at the student party (Malkalith is a lead character in my books, even though he only got a supporting role in my second book, he will get a chance to shine in the third one.

Meanwhile, I found the time to continue working on my "graphic prose novel" I was working on before, but not much time was found.

Sincerely,

Jacob Martin, TeenAuthor.

Working on my Art Project: Part Two

I've started taking a different approach. Instead of drawing the entire page of an illustration as one layer with traditional mediums such as watercolour and pencil, I've drawn different layers of traditional medium illustrations seperately to combine them in Photoshop with a scanner.

This can be done with a scanner and traditional mediums, and is a great way to use digital mediums if you want to keep your constructed images traditional via mixed medium. You simply start by drawing the background for your illustration on one piece of paper, starting with the sky is good for outdoor backgrounds, whereas indoor backgrounds can be drawn and coloured with the appropriate walls and bricks. Then you get your foreground images scanned and Photoshopped so you can insert them onto the background. This way instead of drawing a building or a tree in a completely different and inconsistent manner, you can manipulate its size for use in multiple images.

Have fun,

Jacob Martin, TeenAuthor.

Working on my Art Project: Part One

A HSC body of work is seldom easy, but I tend to make it look that way until you see me two hours into starting work. That's when my sanity starts to slip and I start yelling at people.

I call this, the "Sanity Meter". For those of you not into obscure game references, the video game for Gamecube "Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem" had something called a Sanity Meter which let you know when your sanity was starting to go AWOL, and if you didn't pay attention to it, you got some delightfully scary game animations, and even the False Blue Screen of Death.

My "Sanity Meter" starts dropping after drawing a person's head wrong in a graphic novel illustration for the book I'm drawing the pictures for (the first book that I wrote in my fantasy trilogy, as it is set in the modern era, those Elves in Denim are really hard to draw. The simple mindmelt you get when you think about drawing Elves in jeans and t-shirts makes progress difficult enough).

Then I start yelling at Photoshop or Illustrator when it won't let me do what I want with it... (Computer says No...) usually Illustrator retools a line I draw on the Wacom tablet thingie without me wanting it to, or demands I use the Live-Bucket tool, which is sheer lunacy.

At this point my "Sanity Meter" is dropping at a steady rate, until it fills up again when I figure out how to solve a minor problem which leads to solving more minor problems. A drink of Milo also fills it up if consumed during a twenty minute break.

Remember, never yell at software, the reason why it is not responding to your torrential insults and raging is because poor Photoshop is cowering in the corner and crying, too terrified to give an answer, or if Illustrator has lost interest in your constant attacks at its self esteem. Grand Theft Auto games are designed to get rid of anger, not Photoshop or Illustrator, so please, give your software peace of mind by not destroying its will to live.

Sincerely, Jacob Martin, TeenAuthor.