Illustration: Loretta

 

My nephew has an every growing number of dogs these days. I was at his farm for his wedding and sure enough, a new one! She was so cute! She was also really active and getting clear shots to work from was a little challenging. I think this has some life to it and movement. 

Animation: New ideas for my Nauti 2D character

 

I know a little more about designing a cartoon character and decided to redesign Nauti the character I experiments with 2D and hand drawn animation with a while back. This new character sheet could be helpful if I decide to use the more mainstream style of 2D using bones, puppet tools and computer assistant like MOHO which looks pretty enticing but I will need to somehow find about 500$ CAD or more. If I could get up to speed in Blender I could mix 2 and 3D as I have been doing here and there more efficiently and at no extra cost. Right now I am playing around with the idea of making the keyframes in Affinity Designer and hand drawing the inbetweens and see how that works. 

I was hoping Procreate Dreams would be further along in features to do this but I might need to stay with Toon Squid on the iPad. Krita has improved but not enough for what I need so far. Open Toons is s till a little frustrating to work with but might have the features I need. 

Below is the original design, it's very different in style. 

Illustration: Roy

 

My nephew's 4th dog! He bought a house with a lot of land so they have plenty of space to run around. Roy is a puppy and loves being outdoors with my nephew. Procreate and it took less time than I anticipated. 

Illustration: Harley

 My nephew seems to be collecting dogs these days... this is his second of three! I did a portrait of the first so I will do them all. One more to go! 

portrait: Frankie pour Donna

My pal Donna just moved across country with her dog Frankie after spending a hellish last few years in Los Angelos. I have made portraits of her all her dogs since we met so the the tradition continues. 

Drawn with sketchbook pro on the iPad and refined a little with Sketchbook pro on desktop. 

Illustration: Nomi (in 2007)

 

A friend's dog died recently and we exchanged some old photos,  one of which had him, his dog and my dog - Nomi in Provincetown. I had a better copy of the photo and sent it to my friend but immediately missed my dog who died in 2008 and I think of every day still. He was off to the side in the photo and partially obscured by my friend's arm and leg but his expressions as so wonderful I wanted to draw it. I didn't do enough drawings and photos of him ( never enough) partly because he was around before the digital photo era and taking photos was much more complicated and expensive. 

Drawn in Procreate over 10 days when I had time to focus on his little happy face. 

Nautilus @ 8 months

Been working on this on my iPad for a couple weeks. I started and restarted it a couple times and it's OK now, I think. I didn't want to use and shading tricks other than pencil and pen lines. Drawn in Sketchbook Pro. 

Nautilus first haircut at 5 months - illustration

This was not the funnest drawing. the subject kept finding ways to reach my Apple Pencil, no matter where it was and chew on it. this happened 4 times. the third time he seriously damaged the pen and I could use it but barely. the 4th time he just mangled it and I had to switch from the iPad and Procreate to the iMac and Sketchbook pro to finish it. 

The eyes and ears had to be redrawn a couple times to get something I liked and get an expression I thought looked natural. It is detailed but I sued a thicker pen size than normal and didn't use my typical technical pen setting but a more fluid pen nib. 

I thought this would be a nice compagnon piece to the the 4 month, pre-haircut portrait as he looks like a different dog now. 

dessin/drawing: Nautilus at 2 months

My new puppy, Nautilus - named after the Submarine in Jules Verne's classic novel 20 000 Leagues Under the Sea. This was drawn on the 12.9" 2015 iPad Pro my brother gave after the upgraded to the newer model. I used Sketchbook Pro but Procreate would have done just fine. 

The new iPad is pretty amazing in terms of speed, power and screen size/quality. Much better to draw on than the smaller base model I had and just sold. I will saw it's so large as to be ungainly. It's not easy to set on your lap and draw, it is pretty much the same size as my laptop. Next photo trip somewhere it will be amazing to have. Normally I have to bring the iPad to get around with and my laptop to process and store the photos taken. I can do all the photo stuff on this and just take my iPod touch with me walking around which will be a lot easier. I can also just sit and draw something when I'm away easily and in great detail as I think this image shows if you click on it to see it larger... I didn't skimp on details. 

It will take a while to get used to the new device... and the rotten pest who is eating something he shouldn't at the moment. 

Spot: drawing/dessin (Krita test)

Since we are all inside for the rest of our lives, I decided to test Krita, the free open source drawing program. I have had it for a while but never tried a real project on it and if  there ever was a time - this is it.

The subject is a toy from my childhood I managed to hold on to all these years. Spot. The dog toy I received because I couldn't have a real dog at the time. Even though he has been loved to death... there is almost no fur left on him, he still seems real enough to me. Oddly having him still has helped me get through the death of my first dog and more recently it's nice to see him on my desk now that my dog Watson has passed away as well.

Krita performed fairly well, a few bugs and a few weird conventions to get used to. It does animation as well and I might try that out too some day. The brushes are really good! I don't paint so much but the drawing and inking tools were better than Affinity Photo but not quite as good as Sketchbook Pro. I did take it into Affinity photo to add some noise  text because I was frankly too lazy to see if I could do it in Krita alone.

The software is one of the open source softwares that seems to be in high gear to get better these days. Here is a sample of the new brushes they are going to implement soon... pretty amazing.

Because this was a test and of a beloved toy, I put a ton of detail into the drawing. It was a challenge to try and show the areas the furs had been rubbed off from years of being held and petted. I am not sure I succeeded in that but the it wasn't because the app was lacking.

Watson

Had to post something NOT in graveyard for once!

New creative consultant

We have a new creative consultant here at Behemoth media. Watson Berry de Beaudry. At 3 months old, we are not sure what his exact role will be here, but it will be important... that is certain!