Hey there.
I was inspired to plug in my little Wacom tablet and try my hand at colouring by my new friend, illustrator and all round nice guy Martin Abel. His artwork and words of support also encouraged me to start this art blog, so here we are.
As there is the word 'blog' in the header, I feel safe being a bit more chatty with the details of making each piece.
For my first entry, I've posted here a coloured up version of a panel from this comic strip. As this was from an existing strip, the line art was already done. Using the tablet is a steep learning curve, even for an advanced Photoshop mouse clicker like me. The tablet allows beautiful pressure control, giving you the chance to create very subtle shading and tone.
I'm really happy with the end result - there's some nice yellow reflected light from the flames on Jaffa and Alex, and the flames are lively thanks to the outline painted red. I did a lot of learning on this one.
There's lots of artwork behind the scenes that goes in to each comic strip, as well as all the practice sketches that keeps my drawing muscles in shape. Not all of that artwork is going to be directly linked to the comic strip, so it made sense to add an Art Blog section. This way I'm not interfering with the comic strip on the main page with my doodles of superheroes and dinosaurs.
Thanks for reading!
Mat
9/8/10
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All images (except where noted) are copyright Mathew Keany 2010.