Christmas Bah Humbug! I've been doing Dreddcember, a Dredd or Dreddworld related sketch per day. I've been doing these, usually at bedtime, spending 30 minutes to an hour on painting (and trying to teach myself how to paint)
Here's the first few from the advent calendar thread (I'll not be posting any more there) and today's to follow...
DAY 1:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtUxxcwXcAAGJvL.jpg)
Greyscale simple Dredd. This is practically my signature Dredd Head at this point. Pencilled in Procreate.
DAY 2:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtX7Yt8XQAAgS0V?format=jpg)
Trying to something different than my usual art style. Painted in Procreate. Dredd from the City Of The Damned, after the mutant has blinded him.
DAY 3:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtdFW56WoAAvbFq?format=jpg)
Oh man, this was frustrating. Would you believe I was going for a Dave McKean-esque, Joker in Arkham vibe and fell so widely from the mark it's hard to imagine to that's even what I was going for. Frustrating. (Drawn in Clip Studio Paint)
DAY 4:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtiRWKCW0AECeCi.jpg:large)
THIS... This was much more successful, really wanted something to have a painterly feel, still has my usual chunky vibe going on but also distinct enough to feel different. A+ from my own personal satisfaction pov. (Procreate, using pencil and flat brush)
DAY 5:
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtnNuu-XcAUC8yd?format=jpg&name=large)
Another frustrating one. Just shit. Not happy with this at all.
DAY 5 BONUS!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtnTPZeXcAEA36T.jpg)
Ah this is so much better. This was my winding down and trying something as different as I could get - trying to escape all my bad habits (and frequently bad habits are, basically, your style) (Procreate)
DAY 6
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dtuh-5gWkAEc_MJ?format=jpg&name=large)
A Superfast painted sketch in procreate (15 mins?). Actually drawn at A3 with 300dpi and faster than CLIP Studio Paint on my desktop for painting.
Liked it so much I refined it...
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dtuh-5gWkAEc_MJ.jpg)
Just tweaking it in procreate, adding some brighter shades. But then I exported it to clip studio and decided to colour it (since I like some of the clip studio brushes)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtvF25DWoAIDvKc.jpg:large)
Awesome............
Love these posts PJ and the commentaries are a great insght of an artist and their thoughts on their own work when us mere mortals are just in awe wishing we could draw half as good.
Looking forward to the rest of Dreddcember 👍🏻👍🏻
GET UGLY
Otto Sump.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DtxkY7QXcAES_zv?format=jpg&name=large)
Procreate mostly with the flat brush, the pencil and the splatter air tool.
I'm not a colour artist, I generally don't do anything in colour, though I have dabbled in painting (actually, the last time I did it was 10 years ago, and I liked some of the results, but quickly hit my own limitations).
I play around with colour having read a little colour theory and picked up things, but I'm aware it's totally non-intuitive for me and the rules I'm applying are almost certainly misheard/picked up wrong.
But here's my (few) rules:
"White" Face can be broken down in to three major areas, forehead - a yellowish colour (thin skin, closest to bone), middle of face a red blush colour (nose, and cheeks) and then chin area a blue/green tone (from the facial hairs).
Then there's also the colour opposites (red/green, blue/orange, etc) that I don't really understand, but I try and apply if I can. And, finally, there's the idea that hue (ie the colour) doesn't matter so much as the one - so you can highlight a blue thing with yellow as long as the yellow is a lighter shade than the blue. I mean it might be bullshit, and maybe as I play with it I'll find that out, but I need some sort of rules to play by otherwise faces all end up a mushy orange colour.
I wish you could see the amazing textures Procreate is able to produce, up close to this image and it looks like paper/paint. It's incredible, really. Even pulled out to actual size Procreate makes it look damn sharp. It's just a shame the export tends to go to mush a bit (it lacks any sort of decent control on exporting, sadly, so best exports are done by exporting at actual size as a PSD, importing to clip studio and then reexporting from there. But frankly, that's a pain in the butt)
I've got to start thinking bigger with these pics, there's a point where you KNOW you can paint a face so it's time to try something else or you'll go nuts and start thinking ALL you can do is paint a face...
-PJ
Otto!
Up till Otto, I didn't think the blinded Dredd would be topped. But Otto is captured fantastically. The goofiness is there and the hair is rendered so simply but so well. More experiments, please :)
Colour Theory, I'd like to understand more about and kind of see where it's coming from. It's an enormous subject - if an art teacher I spoke to recently is to believed - but after some basics I wonder if it would become too scientific? Less impulsive? Joyless? One minor quibble I have about digital art is the endless potential tinkering of colour. Wouldn't it drive you a bit nuts? Ramble ends!
No time for anything g experimental today. Here's a pen and ink and watercolour sketch (actually a private commission)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dt6CaAmX4AEpZuC?format=jpg&name=large)
Dredd by the numbers headshot. I draw this style of dredd a lot (I think I do it ok, but I've gotten so used to it it feels like I'm always repeating myself)
Added some Payne's grey watercolour for the background just to pop him a bit.
First time I've drawn pencil on paper in about two months though, been all digital for a while... (my eyesight, while not appalling feels pretty rubbish compared to how it was 10 years ago even, glasses for computer work, glasses for reading, and the drawing is some where between the two. Real pain in the butt)
That Otto is fantastically grotesque!
That Dredd commission is awesome - The water colour adds a lot. I see Ian Kennedy adding splashes of water colour behind his commissioned figures as well and I think it really gives it a polished/complete look.
As much as I like digital artwork (especial the colouring), you just cant beat good ol' pencils and inks imo (I like the tangible aspect of paper art - although it is sometimes difficult to tell, that Painted City of the Damned and greyscale Dredd look real enough to me)
Thanks for posting these!
Lovely work, as always PJ. Really like the little texture lines on the eagle in the commission.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dt-xzAOX4AAt7WI?format=jpg&name=large)
How many different ways are there to draw old stony face? A LOT. there's a LOT of different ways to draw him. More realistic, more cartoony, more like a human more like an impassive slab of granite. I think it's why he's so much fun to draw, it's hard to get him right but within the word "right" there's so much variety...
Painted with a blue background, was explaining to my 10 year old son that the red here in dredd's helmet is closer to a brown, but with all the blues around darkening the image down it has the effect of making it look like a red. Even the yellows are much more muted than you imagine.
My favourite colouring trick with blonde hair is you often end up painting it green (well, closer to khaki) which just looks blonde, weirdly.
Anyway, hope you like. More to come.
-pj
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuCrMiAWwAA8Zc1.jpg:large)
Not a particularly great image. I should really have abandoned this at the rough stage (but oddly, I'm often quicker to abandon pencil sketches if they're real pencil sketches, I think because I think I can save digital later because of the edits you can do in digital... I was wrong here though), but I actually wanted to try inking something in procreate. Sometimes small. It's... not a success. Still, maybe I'll attack the idea again and see if I can't make it do what I'm expecting it to do. Still another Dreddcember.
Absolutely loving this thread! Amazing work!
Magnificent boots there!
BONUS!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuFfr6kW4AAnqr8.jpg:large)
And here's me colouring this up:
https://twitter.com/pauljholden/status/1072245567537995776
Great Santa Dredd even though the beard covers old stoney face you can still tell he's not in the Xmas spirit 😄
Quote from: pauljholden on 10 December, 2018, 10:40:21 PM
BONUS!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuFfr6kW4AAnqr8.jpg:large)
And here's me colouring this up:
https://twitter.com/pauljholden/status/1072245567537995776
I'm sure that's covered in Dredd's Comportment.
Loving this thread, but the boots need to be bigger and tighter... and on Dredd too.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuLIRTGWwAIQgRs?format=jpg&name=large)
Hershey. I'm gonna have to spend a week trying to get this right. Ugh.
I like the Hershey. She appears appropriately aged but still pleasant/atteactive, which is not an easy thing to do.I find that middle-aged woman in comics often look either 20 or 80 (too many lines around the eyes and face maybe?), but this Hershey looks experienced. Great work! Really enjoying these.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuQGceAWoAIE2gp?format=jpg&name=large)
McMahon is the master on so many things, but dredd sitting looking tough on a pile of buildings is entirely his. And idiots like me so]joule this even attempt it, but man you so want to do one...
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuSoHPIXQAAtqD9.jpg)
Not every drawing has to be time consuming (or good)
Playing with Clip Studio Paint's new colourise feature - basically you set the line art layer as a reference layer (by clicking the lighthouse button) then on, say, a layer below, you crudly apply colour (think blobs of colour in the areas you think they go) then press a magic button (well, a couple of buttons) and hey presto! a full colour image.
It's not that smart, and really I had to go in a over draw some of the colour to make it that little bit more form defining, everything tends to look like a water colour piece, but still, fun to try.
-PJ
I like those colours- if you drop the transparency of the lineart it could work as a flashback technique.
Loving these PJ. Thanks for sharing and not being 'precious' about only showing finished pieces.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuZu1fwWoAI6JiM?format=jpg&name=large)
Quickie sketch, rather running out of steam on these now. It's a constant danger you want to get better every time, but each sketch takes longer and longer, unless you deliberately pull back and then they become disappointing.
Anyway, Hershey here started with some bold colour backgrounds, an abandoned head, a deliberate attempt to draw her differently than I normally do (hence the turned head) and then painting under the sketch.
If you go to my twitter you can see many of these sketches as time lapse recordings, since that's a standard feature of Procreate and that's where these are mostly drawn.
Twitter.com/pauljholden (http://twitter.com/pauljholden)
This thread is the gift that keeps on giving. All fantastic stuff. Applause 👏
As you and every creator don't want to lower your high standards I don't think us mere mortals see it that way and are just enjoying everything you've added so far (including you creative comentry) I hope you can keep the inspirational juices going but at this time of year we all have other distractions 🎅🏻
Great stuff so far 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
Great thread, thanks for starting it!
Glad you're all enjoying it, keep the comments coming (I mean unless it's "oh that looks shit, What did you do .. spend 10 seconds on it?" YES. YES I DID. JUST LIKE THE GOOD ONES. SOMETIMES I DRAW SHIT AND SOMETIMES I DRAW GOOD. IT HAS BUGGER ALL TO DO WITH HOW LONG IT TAKES YOU AR *cough* ahem. Sorry. Anyway...)
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dufxp-vX4AE6TQi?format=jpg&name=large)
Deadman.
Been playing with Procreate brushes, Procreate brushes have a switch that sets them to 'glazed' - this was painted with the turpentine brush - I presume it's supposed to mimic turps on a rag dragged over oils. Well turning the glazed off let's the brush just act like a brush, so you get a nice ragged texture and it no longer impacts colour already on the [digital] page.
Bit of a rush, and I'm getting bored of the 3/4 head view - it's becoming my lazy go to - but wanted to get one done today (well... yesterday now). Finished it in ... 10 minutes?
Awesome Deadman PJ! Great detail - you even got the square pupils.
I actually just read The Deadman this afternoon. Thanks for posting!
Thank you for sharing it is really looking good
Dredd in n animated style.
Very much in my comfort zone. Not entirely successful as an animated style mind you - could be pushed much further. But, I suppose, an animated dredd would really rely on the world being larger than life and dredd being fairly grounded. It would have robots, aliens, sky surfers, fatties. Big noses, boing, all that crazy mega city one you can't put in a film...
Procreate has a reference layer feature, you mark a layer as a reference then colour selections/fills all work on the current layer but actually select things from the the reference layer - so you can keep elements of the drawing separate and just pick and choose what you're colouring using masks that you create based on flat colours.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DukN38WWoAIhlfX?format=jpg&name=large)
Bonus!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DukdJ41X4AAqCfy?format=jpg&name=large)
Tharg needs to get you back on Rogue ASAbloodyP.
Could see an animated Dredd working (if mega city fails) but loving the "bonus" - that's ma favourite so far as he pips Dredd as my favourite character. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
GET TO DE
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dupo1IlWkAQRYlW?format=jpg&name=large)
Man, this is overworked as all heck. I googled some reference for ol' Marlon and this great Cam Kennedy drawing came up and I entirely unsuccessfully tried to channel it. But since I was already committed to the expression it was a pigs ear. Then I googled some headshots of pale skinned ginger men to use as a painting reference. That was no help. So as usual I just pissed about until I spent too long on it.
Mission was to try and produce something that didn't have the startling Dayglo of computer colouring. This is a miss, maybe. I'm not sure what it is about my computer colouring that makes it so.. so computer coloured. Maybe it's the over saturation or the general brightness of them. I gotta figure it out.
Anyway. There it is. Twitter has a video too... (can't figure out how to link the video to the message board, soz!)
Great thread and great images! The last Hershey and Anime Dredd fav's so far. Keep up the good work!
Dredd head with red
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DuvEiJdW0AIbrCi?format=jpg&name=large)
Spent a big chunk of today wearing a VR headset and drawing head in VR for fun. Thought I'd exhausted myself on drawing dredd, then the idea of spot red in grey wash hit (because Jock) and so it was super fast.
Felt like I cheated though, someone else's idea, a lazy dredd sketch, not putting too much effort in. But it's been a long day.
I have an idea of a different way to approach painting tomorrow or so. I get frustrated at painting in lowered opacity if you paint over your paint it just makes it less opaque, which is sort of what you expect, but not want. So I'm gonna try a low opaque on top of textured stuff just to see if that produces what I want. Too knackered for that tonight. So you get this.
That Chopper is brill. How many styles do you have in you, PJ!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Du0Ch0sXcAA4LvF?format=jpg&name=large)
On art styles: the late WR Logan (Stewart Perkins) would tell you too many. Way back when I redrew a strip class of 79 four or five times, each time I'm a radically different art style. I'm more settled now - my forms are more-or-less consistent, I'm just playing with rendering at the moment, and there you can steal form everywhere - so as many art styles as there are artist (but they all look like crude approximations)
This is a super fast inked sketch with a faux screen tone in Procreate. I wanted it to feel like aged paper but that would've required more time/tricks. (And nit the five minutes this took!)
Loved that Chopper... don't count it as a fail, someone out here loves it!
The letratone Dredd should really be on that old toilet paper the Prog was printed on back in the day :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Another day of Dreddcember and another great sketch will be sad to see it end as the board has had 2 great advents this year. I bet your wishing it over already PJ.
I've enjoyed every one you've put out even what you call your "failures" . Hope you've got enough inspiration left to get to the end 👍🏻.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Du2vkYLXQAA8I5c.jpg:large)
Anderson. Decided I'm bored of seeing the same dredd face, so time to figure out who else is in there. This, if I'd spent more time on it, might've worked. But I wasn't nearly as invested in getting it finished as some of the others (and it WOULD require a lot of work to get to a finished stage.
hate that Anderson so much I drew a different one. This one was faster but looks better because it's a quick ink sketch and they tend to be ok if drawn sloppy. The anderson colours look too ... plastic.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Du25TVlW4AAOIEs.jpg:large)
Really enjoying this thread PJ - great work!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Du-owOBXgAEiaxH?format=jpg&name=large)
Caption contest!
(winner gets to have their gag stolen for my digital Xmas card... though I already have one, so I might not pick a winner)
Pencils and inks in Procreate. A bit daffy but mostly happy with the inks on this. A little sitiff, a
And I start to lose interest towards the end. I'd like to get back to brush inking but my eyesight just isn't what it was - I couldn't even see the tip of a sapphire series 51 10/0 any more let alone ink with it, sadly.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvCs2dVXgAIT4gQ?format=jpg&name=large)
Coloured this up. I'm Procreate. Slightly frustrating experience since it can give you true hard edges for flatting colour, and the select a bit messy and ... anyway. Largely happy with the results, but as an experiment in colouring it was informative.
BONUS!
There's a #spidersona tag on twitter, what you would look like as spider-man from the movie Spider-verse. Well, the nailed me already with pudgy-given-up-on-life Spidy, so thought a Dredd spider-verse would be cool. I WAS WRONG AND I ONLY ASK FORGIVENESS. IT IS AN ABOMINATION.
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvDP4qaWkAEObjS.jpg)
Heh! I like it!
Quote from: pauljholden on 21 December, 2018, 11:59:29 PM
[img widthhttp://=1280 height=1810]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Du-owOBXgAEiaxH?format=jpg&name=large[/img]
Caption contest!
"So you're from the North Pole and suspected of toy smuggling? Well this little finger will be searching your South Pole creep!"
Quote from: pauljholden on 22 December, 2018, 06:57:11 PM
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvCs2dVXgAIT4gQ?format=jpg&name=large)
I'll try that again...
1) "So you're from the North Pole and suspected of smuggling sugar cookies? Well this little finger will be searching your South Pole creep!"
2) "I hear you're up to
snow good but I don't give a
buck...
yule never get away with it"
3) Santa immediately felt Dredd's
presentsI'll see myself out now...
Judge Logan
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvL7nhOWsAAZPAh?format=jpg&name=large)
Online He could be a grump, Sarcy and tend to lord it over you due to his extensive knowledge of all things dredd, but if you met him in person, he was sweet, kind, generous to a fault, charming, unerringly accurate in direction finding (ex army) and always smiling.
Raise a glass to Wr Logan aka Judge Logan aka Stewart Perkins.
-PJ
(and I apologise for the shitty sketch, I'm sure you'd let me know...)
Xmas got In the way... but here's a water colour dredd!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dvi7QxjWoAAK4OR?format=jpg&name=large)
My wife would like me to paint again - last did any real paintings 10 years ago, in acrylics. This is me playing in watercolours. Water colours are nice, I've never been brave enough to do much beyond a sketch or two with them, they feel too damn dangerous to paint an entire page -let alone strip - in them. This was painted over an older pencil sketch I had lying around.
This picture of Dredd is fantastic artwork Paul. That chin could deflect bullets!
And one last Dreddcember and that's me!
(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DvvfmvCX0AAlauv.jpg)
Trying to draw influence from some of Bill Sienkiewicz's work. Not entirely successfully, but it was a quickie drawing, so you know...
drawn in procreate. (which means you can watch a video of me drawing it on my twitter feed, it also has an abandoned dredd sketch in there, abandoned cus it wasn't doing anything I hadn't done a million times before)
I'm finding the best approach - for me - is to block out some colours with a big blocky brush that's mostly transparent, letting colours bleed in to each other, then go in with light colours with a brush that is fully opaque chisselling the art from that, then go over again with the same/similar colours with the transparent brush. (this is similair, I think, to how I painted in acrylic decades ago)
I've used photoshop before and it seems to handle colours the best of all the digital art tools, but it's the most expensive one out there, so it's a procreate and clip studio from me.
On the colouring front, did a little more in water including a painting of Pendeen lighthouse - from the small village in cornwall my wife is from, so she was pleased with that.
ANyway, here endith dreddcember. Maybe same time next year.
Let me know if there's any favs in this lot, might be worth exploring those art styles a bit more.
Lovely stuff, PJ!
That watercolour Dredd is all kinds of good. Love it.
As for colouring in Procreate, it looks great. Must have a wee play with it myself, and see where it takes me.
I'll no doubt watch about twenty Youtube tutorials, and then chicken out!
It's been a delight seeing all the different versions and colouring techniques. I particularly liked Mean at the start of Dreddcember and the Rogue bonus. There were a good few Dredds I liked too but I couldn't comment critically as I'm just a minion who likes comics 😁. I think draw what's good and comfortable for you and minions like me will enjoy the images.
Looking forward to next year if you go a ahead with it again 🤞🏻. Dreddcember & the message board advent were great this year and helped the long dark days of winter tumble.
Thanks for this month, it's been great seeing and reading the creative process, it's a big gamble opening up on the whole process, I, for one appreciate what you've done here!
I've enjoyed the hell out of this PJ, and I have nothing but admiration not only for your experimentation but your willingness to do all this in public. It's all looked fantastic and I can't wait to see what you come up with for #Xmanuary. :-)
Yeah just to echo what folks have said. Thanks for these its been a delight seeing them pop up and really looking forward to see how this experimenting comes into practice, hopefully in the Prog.
Thanks for posting throughout Dreddcember - I really enjoyed following along! Cheers