Progress Doodle #7 – Random Sketches

Before getting the Cintiq, I used to sit at my drawing board with a large stack of copy paper next to me and doodle away, tossing those drawings into the trash as I created them. I didn’t throw them away because they were bad. I threw them away because I created so much of it that it wasn’t feasible to keep and store a lot of nonsense sketches which served no purpose beyond my having some fun doodling.

After getting the Cintiq, however, I would do the same thing digitally. So basically, I’d create a Photoshop document, create a new layer, start doodling, delete the drawing, sketch something else, delete that, and so on. It just didn’t make sense to keep so many sketches, even digitally.

Then I decided I could keep the files if I just created one file, create a layer, sketch on it, lock the layer and turn it off, then start a new sketch on another layer, lock that and turn it off, and sketch again on yet another layer and so forth. This way I could have one layered document with 20 or 30 doodles on it. The problem, of course, is that the file thumbnail only shows the visible layers, so if I want to find a sketch among so many files, there’s no way to tell which file has the layer with the sketch I want. This really isn’t such a problem, because if I ever liked a sketch enough to go back to it, I’ll usually save a separate jpeg of it anyway.

These days, if I want to doodle digitally, I’ll create a Procreate file and just do different sketches on different layers. The nice thing about Procreate is the video feature, so instead of having to open a file and look through so many layers, I can just create a video of my sketch sessions and going through that video will show me what’s on a particular file.

So how do you doodle for fun?

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Advertisement

Progress Doodle #6

This’ll be the last progress doodle post for the year. Even though these sketches are rough, I hope you enjoy seeing the process. Let me know if you have any requests and I’ll try to do a progress sketch on my down time. … and have a happy new year!

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Progress Doodle #5 – Christmas Elf

Here’s a little Christmas doodle I did on Procreate a couple nights ago. I know I need to cultivate a habit of posting regularly and I think Procreate’s progress video feature is a great way to share the creative process, even if it’s just personal little doodles and stuff.

I notice when deciding what to sketch, I tend to default into character design of some sort. Characters (being persons, more or less) are, well, more personal than a still life, landscape, architecture, etc., and I think they’re more likely to grab people’s interest more so than things. Well, at least they grab my interest more.

The one thing about working at Plain Joe Studios is that I’m more aware of the importance of storytelling. And it’s not that I didn’t care about telling stories with my art, it’s more that I’ve always sort of told stories or at least implied them without really being aware that I was doing so. And I’m not suggesting that an image needs to tell a full-blown narrative, but that it’s something that the viewer can look at and imagine in their own mind a story to go with what they’re seeing, even if that simply means they want to know more about a character.

One of my favorite children’s book is “The Mysteries of Harris Burdick” by Chris Van Allsburg. The thing I enjoy about it is not really the illustrations, as good as they are. What Van Allsburg did is present single, stand-alone illustrations on each page accompanied by a small caption hinting of some further mystery, intended to pique the curiosity of the reader to want to know the whole story, or perhaps to create a story in their own mind. That book still captivates me when I go through it. but I digress…

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Video: Another Quick-Sketch

Another quick doodle…

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Doodling During Movie Time

Sometimes, while sitting and “watching” a movie (either which I’ve watched a million times or am simply not in the mood to give my attention) I’ll grab the 12″ iPad and doodle stuff using Procreate. I could always sketch on a drawing pad, which I do at times, but I like sketching digitally also because I don’t waste paper on scribbles that are unimportant to me. The way I doodle digitally, I’ll usually do some quick sketches and then delete them immediately and then sketch some more, rinse, lather, repeat, you get the picture. Once in a while I’ll keep some odd scribble to share, which is what I usually post here.

This time, I colored one for fun and the rest are really quick sketches that I usually delete because I sketch so many of them that there’s no point in keeping them. I thought I’d share some to give others an idea of what I usually throw away.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Creepy Librarian

Yet another tonal doodle using Procreate on the iPad…

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Biff, Bam, Pow!

Who doesn’t like seeing a good scrap?

Anyway, I can’t really share my professional work done under an NDA, so these rough doodles will have to suffice.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Video: Doodling On Procreate

The cool thing about Procreate is that it can create time-elapsed videos of your sketches after the fact. I didn’t intend to create a video of the boxing sketch in the previous post, but I thought I’d generate one and post it.

While I was noodling around, my son started sketching, so you’ll probably notice that when it comes up. Also, the reason you see me start and stop so much is because I tend to noodle around on a layer, turn off the layer and begin noodling around on another layer, and so forth. So I tend to have multiple sketches on one file. I do this because I’m too lazy to create different files for nothing more than sloppy little doodles.

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Knockout

A little doodle on the iPad…

Be sure to follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

Procreate Quick-Sketch

I had a chance to try the Procreate on the iPad Pro 12″ all week during a business work-trip (the iPad isn’t mine, but my client provided it for my use on the road). I didn’t know Procreate exported videos, but when I was told about that feature, I just had to share this quick doodle I did on the airplane flight. Had I known that I was going to share it, I would have done a better job. In any case, here’s my first test with the iPad Pro and Procreate… I want one of my own!!!

Be sure to follow us on , Twitter, and Instagram