FemJesse the Fourth: Out of the Loop

[Reply #360 on:]

Ah tahts cute I must have done that one pretty fast. My boyfriend just said
"I like how her eye is too low and clips through her hair."

We're having a fight right now on whether Fry had a son or a daughter.

[Reply #361 on:]

Horrible mutant with no visible genitals and no sex-determining chromosomes?

[Reply #362 on:]

Ah tahts cute I must have done that one pretty fast. My boyfriend just said
"I like how her eye is too low and clips through her hair."

Yeah, I think you cranked that out in about five minutes.  Pretty impressive for that speed.  Like I told you before, I'm hanging on to it until you're a famous artist.  It's my retirement account.    You drew Bender belching fire on my paper airplane, too.  Remember that?

We're having a fight right now on whether Fry had a son or a daughter.

Well, let's see.  His mother looks more like him.  But is that because she's his daughter or he's her son?  A conundrum, no doubt.

[Reply #363 on:]

You'll need a stylus. My brand of choice is Wacom.

I have to finish paying off our new bed before I consider one of those... and the rent just went up too...

[Reply #364 on:]

Got mine from ebay at a pretty good price. They also do an inexpensive one called bamboo, but for some reason it seems to eat the little nibs like they're made of delicious cheese.

[Reply #365 on:]

I guess it wouldn't help that I constantly pick at mine with my teeth.

[Reply #366 on:]

Really my nibs have lasted years fine... I've only had to replace one once when I had an original graphire and I'm still using my Intuos 2 on the original nib. Maybe its a sign that I just don't draw as much as I should =(

[Reply #367 on:]

Nah, the bamboo has this weird rough surface on it which is supposed to make it feel more like paper. I don't own one, I got an Intuos, but a friend of mine has a bamboo and he's constantly complaining about the way it wears down nibs. He's gone through three in as many months.

[Reply #368 on:]

Got a wacom Graphire 4 myself; had it, ooooh, 4-5 years. Haven't replaced anything - never actually heard of nibs wearing down

BTW, lovely to see you back at the art, Jesse

[Reply #369 on:]

Archonix that sounds like the simulated paper grain is the culprit, its like using pencil on sandpaper...

My original Graphire is still holding together but barely, the cords are being held together with duct tape. Its quite a sight. I keep it with my netbook so I can noodle things out on the go and leave my Intuos at home. Its old and its been through a lot of abuse, so its not an issue that would keep me from buying more Wacom products.

What I really want to afford some day is their Cintiq line pressure sensitive monitor stylus... my only problem with them is the generally low resolution and generally high price point.

[Reply #370 on:]

Yeah, a cintiq would be a dream come true for me as well. I've never quite adapted to the whole divorce between where my hand is drawing and where my eye is looking. Causes a lot of pain in my shoulder as well.

Actually I saw someone hack together a cintiq-style tablet from an old wacom and an old computer monitor. I was quite impressed with the results.

[Reply #371 on:]

I believe the episode implicitly suggests that Fry replaces his paternal grandfather.

[Reply #372 on:]

I decided to give your mini tutorial a go. It was nice drawing something Futurama-related again.

[Reply #373 on:]

The face and proportions are perfect. Nicely done. =)

[Reply #374 on:]

Really? Well, thanks for making such a nice simple tutorial that  teaches something! ^_^

[Reply #375 on:]

Here are some more tutorial steps for coloring, I'll post more as I go.


Step 1: your sketch
I needed to draw a little girl toddler. Remember when drawing children that their heads are much rounder and less long than adults. Also take this into consideration with their height. Adults tend to be 5 1/2 to 6 heads tall, toddlers and children are usually 4 heads tall, babies are even shorter. Kids really do grow into their enormous noggins. You can see the tick marks on the right of the sketch indicating how many heads I used to measure.


Step 2: Color blocking
Blocking in your color is done in this stage. Usually it helps to go dark to light so pick colors on the darker side of what you intend the finished colors to look like. If you wish to not use this method and paint more traditionally you would start your underpainting in this step using complimentary colors (colors that are opposite on the color wheel) then work in tones over it.

The method I'm using here is actually easier to understand if you don't have accessible knowledge about color and working traditionally.


Step 3: Form and light
This stage you use an airbrush head at a low opacity to set your light and dark tones. I'm using a blue backlight to tie all the colors together. It helps to mix your colors in a palettes like on the right to keep a sense of unity. This stage sets the feel for the lighting/mood of the piece. I like to alternate painting on a white and black background to ensure that the forms have strong silhouettes. For the next stage you're going to go in with a hard edged brush at around 25-35% opacity and start defining your shadows and form

[Reply #376 on:]

I dunno... I'm kinda getting a creepy "Twins from The Shining" vibe from her.

[Reply #377 on:]

Based on discussions with femjes in #fc, I think that may be deliberate.

[Reply #378 on:]

I dunno... I'm kinda getting a creepy "Twins from The Shining" vibe from her.

The picture... or FemJesse?

[Reply #379 on:]

Yea the book is actually about a guy who gets addicted to cloning things and clones this little girl and that cat a bunch of times. I think its pretty creepy anyway.

Step Four:
Details begin to emerge. Use a low opacity hard edged brush to define your shadows. I'm not completely happy with the skin tone, so later I might mix up a pink and color over my skin layer in an overlay layer, then merge them.

[Reply #380 on:]

Gosh I wish I could sketch like this so that I could follow the colouring tutorial. 

[Reply #381 on:]

@ PG:  FJ has spent years and years on perfecting her art.  Not that there is anything wrong in what she does, if you take a look at her earliest posted stuff and compare it to her artwork today, you can see a deeper attention to anatomy, to backgrounds, color and shading.

FJ didn't become good overnight.  the same can be said about you; your first attempts may look good but they will look aged if you go the way fo FJ and spend hours and hours perfecting your art.

[Reply #382 on:]

Yea my first attempts looked like crap too... I was only 2 years old though so they were mostly overlooked.

[Reply #383 on:]

her face kinda looks like Paris Hilton.

[Reply #384 on:]

Yea she's looking a little old I might ahve to cut it up and move it around. There isn't enough curve in between her brow and her nose and the eyes are too high or something.

Here's step 5. You can see I changed the eyes I'm happier with the face now

The cat has details added... I'm almost done



And here's the cover all put together until I get some feedback from the writer at least



Copying and pasting like that reminds me of dynamism without the elegance of the futurist movement. I wonder what it would have been like to live pre-dada...

Nah I'm so Dada I ooze of nonsense.

cheese time!

Wow she actually approved it first go... that never happens. I'm out of stuff to draw forever I guess. 

[Reply #385 on:]

Brilliantly creepy, especially the cat!

Oh, and as for cintiqs, don't worry too much, I've been using one for 3 years now, and, while they're good for colouring, sketching on them is nowhere near as pleasant as plain old 2B and paper. I sketched on it for a few months then made the switch back... it actually feels a bit weirder than using a normal tablet, since your brain keeps saying "treat this like paper" while your eyes see things like the cursor and palettes that conflict with that. I only felt comfortable sketching fullscreen in artrage, but even then there's issues with the viewing angle due to the screen being offset from the drawing surface by about 3mm.

Considering that sketching is supposed to be the thing that they do well, I can't say I'd recommend them, a regular tablet and a bigger screen resolution works just as well for colouring.

The one thing I've found that they are awesome at is animation, since removing the pencil and paper side of things gets rid of a load of scanning/photographing labour, along with the fact that onion skin features in software are a million times better than animation paper + pegbars.

[Reply #386 on:]

here's how I draw hands or anything for that matter. I like using balls for the joints and lines for the gesture.

[Reply #387 on:]

those hands look awesome i find it very hard to draw them, but you're amazing!

[Reply #388 on:]

As someone who can copy certain things but always has trouble with hands, that's a very, very good method that I've never seen before.

I might have to try that some time and see if I can get it to work!

Some fantastic art in this thread, especially the cat in that little girl picture, the little girl creeps me out, as you said was the more desired effect.

[Reply #389 on:]

Thumbs are always the bit I have trouble with.

[Reply #390 on:]

Thumbs are weird because they're the only finger that doesn't have three sections, the way to eye it I would think would be to look at your hand closed and flat and notice that it ends right about near the first joint in your pointer finger.

So if you were to open your fingers you could almost draw a circle arcing through the first joints in your finger and the top of your thumb.

Also remember that fingers aren't attached to each other, they twist and turn depending on how your hand is resting or holding something.

[Reply #391 on:]

Oh, and as for cintiqs, don't worry too much, I've been using one for 3 years now, and, while they're good for colouring, sketching on them is nowhere near as pleasant as plain old 2B and paper. I sketched on it for a few months then made the switch back... it actually feels a bit weirder than using a normal tablet, since your brain keeps saying "treat this like paper" while your eyes see things like the cursor and palettes that conflict with that. I only felt comfortable sketching fullscreen in artrage, but even then there's issues with the viewing angle due to the screen being offset from the drawing surface by about 3mm.

The biggest problem I've had with Cintiq's are the ultra smooth surface to draw on, it just doesn't feel right. Even my Intuos4 has a textured surface which does make it feel better when using the pen on it.

[Reply #392 on:]

Those are some awesome hand drawing tutorials. My drawings for hands usually stops at your sketch numero 2!
So you can imagine how crappy my drawings can be

[Reply #393 on:]

Wow she actually approved it first go... that never happens. I'm out of stuff to draw forever I guess. 

I think the best part is the direction of attention.  The cat faces the viewer whilst we get a side profile of the child staring innocently and happily away as children often do.  It looked like a neat cover too... the sort of thing that would compel me to impulse buy such a book... especially if the back cover contained an interesting synopsis of the story.

[Reply #394 on:]

My friend Sarah (The Beef) LaBoeuf is writing a children's book for me to illustrate and I'm pitching some concepts for the main characters. You'll see a lot of influence from Super Mario, Disney and I'm trying to sneak in some subtle Futurama references (hopefully more will come out in the color versions once we get the character designed). I'm taking Matt Greoning's advice in trying to make a strong sillouette and easily identiable features.


This is the first sketch I did, the immediate thing that came to my head for the character design was Bowser and Yoshi, basically how Nintendo deals with scary creatures. I want him to be postured similarly to the father in the show "Dinosaurs" - basically your big friendly guy


Working on different styles and treatments for the face. Sarah and I decided we wanted to go with rounder features and big, expressive eyes.


This is the character design for his wife. She needed to be more feminine without overtly showing anything. She is more slender than her husband with a tapered nose. Double eyelash forgoing anything that would look like mascara. The bracelet pays homage to Wendy O. Koopa.

[Reply #395 on:]

I think I like the design for the male character in the first drawing better.  I'd say the design for the wife is outstanding.  In the second picture, the one in the lower left hand corner reminds me of Sid from Ice Age.

[Reply #396 on:]

I still have a ways to go before I settle on the male lead. I'm really used to feminizing from a style so the female came out pretty much perfect on the first go. Its going to be fun picking features from the two different characters and imparting them on their children.

I thought that the first drawing too closely resembled Bowser.

Also we decided to forgo Richard Scarry human type bodies in lieu of more realistic joints so that we don't have to worry about other animals looking odd (birds and snakes.)

[Reply #397 on:]

The one that said "Too stoned" made me laugh.

I'm digging the wife's concept art as well--very bubbley and inviting looking.

[Reply #398 on:]

... Its going to be fun picking features from the two different characters and imparting them on their children.
...

You may want to put some thought into the grandparents in this regard as well.
I always see a variety of "spawn" fan art where the 'childrens' share features from their parents and Im always left wondering why no one takes from the previous generations for features.
I once drew a Kim Possible spawn pic, just so I could have Kim and Ron's spawn have features from their respective parents. lol
I think I still have the pic laying around somewhere... digitaly speaking...

[Reply #399 on:]

Well I'm going to keep it simple, its a kid's book and I don't want anyone thinking they're the mailman's babies...

The joke with the grandparents is that they're just going to be giant feet. So semblance is unnecessary at this point.