Illustration: Paul torsion assise

 A bit of skin in my last 2 drawings I guess. This was from 20+ year old references as well and the quality was better than my recent diver references but still somewhat degraded. I had quite a few of them this time so I think I got more out of this one. You don't find many guys with muscles as defined as this. 

I did have to change the pose and some details slightly. This was mostly for clarity of the image. A few toes from the crossed over leg were really distracting and there was a hint of penis which is not something that I would normally hide but it took me some time to even know that was what it was. I also removed his tan line. To be honest it was pretty sexy looking but, again, distracting from the pose. I thought emphasis was on the shoulders and back, not his butt. 

Apple iPods

 When I bought the new iMac, they came with Apple iPods, a 200$ item. I would never pay that sort of money for earphones but for free, I was all in!

I ride with wireless headphones so I can listen to podcasts for the 3-4 hours I am on the road and high fidelity sounds isn't a big deal to me. I just need to be able to understand what people are saying. That said, the sound on the pods is very, very good and they come in little charging box that helps them be useful longer. They are more comfortable in the ears and can attach and switch from one Apple device to another which I have done now and then since getting them. They pair quickly (usually) and I like the double tap I programmed to turn them on and off. 

What I don't like about them is that I really can't use them while riding. They fall out of my ears too easily and that is disastrous and a bit anxiety producing. While I like the programmable double tap feature, you can't change the volume that way - something that seems super basic and big omission. The screen on my iPod and iPad will show them connecting but sometimes I still have to go to the bluetooth setting to connect them for real. They are more susceptible to interference while walking around I have found. These annoyances don't take away fro the great sound and comfort so while I don't use them all the time, I am hardly sad to have them. I can imagine that are really good on long trips to listen to movies etc, should I have be on a trip somewhere again. 

Plongeur / Out games MTL / diver 01

 

Much quicker turnaround this time from start to finish! Only about 7 hours of work. The reference photo was old grainy and not great but I liked the pose and the sort of calm before the storm look many athletes have directly before an event starts. I had more detail planned for this one, like painting the pool in and there should be railings on the diving board visible - but I felt they were distracting elements, adding nothing. Once I finished the diving board it looked done to me. I found another image that might make a nice pen and ink style drawing. I really need to find a way to get reference images of more athletes doing their sport. And yoga as well. And dancers. I used to have easy access to all that years ago and never really had the time to take advantage of it, now I'm not sure how to find willing models at this point. 

illustration: Nathen & Pascal 02

 

I don't know why but this was a long one do paint, about 35 hours. I tried not to obsess over the fingers, toes and ears - things I often work on for hours and hours because they are complicated to get looking right - obviously I did not try all that hard and obsessed anyway. 

Lots of hidden details in this that are only visible close up or in a print. The upper tank top has ridges and I drew them all so the material wouldn't look shiny, as shiny as it would have looked without that texture added. I went for more contrast in the skin tones between the two guys and I think it was successful. Pale skin is harder for me to render than darker skin. I don't know why I picked that colour for the background but I'm glad I did, I think it's nice compliment to the 2 skin tones. 

It might not seem it but this is more "painting like" than many of my previous colour illustrations and the transition between tones is rougher so I might be getting away from my pen and ink level of detail and letting myself work a little looser with paint. I notice it anyway! 

27" iMac, 10 core i9 with AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16 GB and 5K screen

 I recently made a huge decision and upgraded to the higher(est) end iMac and sold the machine I only bought in 2019. There were several reasons that seemed important, at least to me. The former imac I bought when it's predecessor exploded while I was working on several projects and I needed something THAT DAY. With limited funds and time I got a pretty much base model and while it was slightly faster than the one on fire at the moment, it wasn't a step up which is what I need after having a computer for 6 years. Then the pandemic hit and it seemed pointless to upgrade with no work coming in. I am convinced eventually the M chips for the new Mac lineup will take over but not as quickly as they might hope with the chip shortage etc going on. I also use an older version of Cinema 4D with a ton of plugins that will not weather that transition so well. I could have spent 8 grand on a Cinema upgrade and 4 grand on a new computer... but then I would have to live in the box the computer came in. 

The new machine ticked off a lot of boxes for me like increased rendering speed by, well, A LOT and even better performance with the few games I play. Apple now also only sells with SSD drives and while the fusion drive was fine for the years I had one, application just popping open after a couple seconds is really easy to get used to. The rumours of a 30" screen coming up was a temptation to wait but I already use 2 17" screens to work on and a new design isn't a big motivator for me. I use these for work, not decoration, and I wasn't exactly horrified by the look the iMacs already had. I don't care how thin my desktop is... it's on my desk. I am not moving it around and most of it faces a wall. 

My spouse is a teacher and I do much of his graphics for his classes especially - when everything went online for a year. This lets us buy one at the educational discount which isn't huge, but it certainly helps. I also know selling my other would cut a big chunk off the price and I moved the extra RAM I installed in the old computer into this new one so I did not have to buy that. 

Still it was a big investment to make with no guarantee more work would be coming in to justify it. I did know if more did come along, especially CGI work, the old computer wouldn't cut it and I would have to get something faster. So better to have it now. I should be able to edit up to 8K video now with no stuttering and my current animation project is much easier to work on with the new graphics card and processors. It's probably the biggest speed and performance bump I have ever experienced going from one computer to another. 

Fellow artist, Mike Luce bought one of these a while ago and he gave me me advice on my decision which I found very valuable. There was a big speed increase in the Affinity lineup which I am totally profiting from now and Blender will have a big update fairly soon and that already runs super fast so I am looking forward to doing a project with the exclusively. One can only draw and paint so fast but the opening on Krita (also updating very soon) and saving large files is done in seconds now and not a minutes. 

I am still in sticker shock but I can't imagine that I will regret doing this and it should be with me for quite a few years to come. 

dessin/illustration: flamant des Caraïbes

 
From my recent visit to Zoo Granby. I haven't really painted birds much and doing the feathers was interesting. The reflection was a challenge as it's so loose and the water as well. I am not known for my "loose style" of anything. I worked on this at 400% magnification so many details won't be visible unless it's a large file or in a good print, but that is my typical magnification when working. 

I used Krtita, I wanted to wait until the new version is released but that is going to be September and I have plenty to draw before then. 

Nathan & pascal 07 : illustration/colour

 This took a while and was a good challenge. Not sure it is what I was going for but to be honest I didn't have a strong plan to start with. I am happy with the hair which I seem to be getting better at and the rock they were on top was interesting to do. This was painted in Krita and I used the recently released crayon brushes to give the rock a rougher feel. I played with a solid background but in the end decided on textures because I think they make the acrobats stand out more. 

Krita is on the verge of a big update with rewritten brush engine and a ton of other things so I almost wanted to wait to do this, but I have several other projects of them in the pipeline so no real reason to wait.  I am also having a new iMac that should be substantially faster and more powerful delivered next week so I'll be wanting to see how Krita performs on that after it's update. 

Nathan &Pascal Drawing 01 +

 I uncharacteristically approached two guys practicing acrobatics in the park a couple weeks ago and asked if they would like to pose for reference photos for a series of drawings. I am pretty anti-social, to say the very least, but they were so nice and enthusiastic after I showed them some of previous stuff that I was glad I did it. 

This is the fist in the series. Drawn in Procreate on the iPad and I liked the sort of upside-down feel it has. I went back and forth on wether to have a shadow, or to show the yoga mat they were on. the shadow was sort of wild and I thought it went well with the rest of it. 

I also did a simplified sketch in Affinity Designer, something I have been experimenting with as it's a million miles away from my usual drawing style but has it's own challenges. I think I captured the weight of the pose with very few lines so I think it is a success. 

drawing/dessin: suricate Afrique

 

A trip to the zoo with my 2 year old nephew let me take some reference photos of animals I might not see while riding my bike around Montréal, including these guys. 

I used Sketchbook Pro on the iPad pro as I was reminded about it recently by reports online that has left Autodesk and is now an independent application run by artists. It has been free, but will now be paid. It will be pretty cheap and it's great they will continue to develop and improve it. 

The drawing itself is nothing to brag about. I haven't drawn in a while and I did a photoshoot with some acrobats for future art and felt I needed a "warm-up".  This came together in just a few hours. 

August updates? Affinity, Procreate and Krita

 While no official dates are announced, it seems a few software companies have some updates happening  most likely in August. 

Affinity Suite:

Designer was just demonstrated with some pretty powerful speed updates, all software based so every computer should benefit. In the demo, 600 000 (!) layer objects were panned and zoomed with no redrawing to be seen. I don't anyone who uses that many objects but the point is to get the suite ready for some new features. Affinity is reasoning, rightly, that it's better to get the bugs out and really have sold base before introducing some calculation heavy features. Photo and Publisher will benefit form this speed enhancement and I have my fingers crossed that there will be an update in August that includes Publisher for iPad. 

Krita:

Krita is about to go to version 5 and there are a ton of updates planned. For me the new animations features will be really helpful. I liked drawing in Krita but the animation functions were buggy, slow and lacking. They seem to be addressing all that and updating the interface. I would love to be able to use it for drawing and animating since the drawing the tools are so amazing.

Procreate:

Procreate teased us with some video of the upcoming new features which included 3D objects you can paint and add to real world images and maybe video?. I can see a use for say making a some stuff in Blender and then sending the object file to procreate to make detailed backgrounds or as the base for a drawing but I'm not sure about anything else. Photoshop added 3D many years ago and I never used it for anything. They already tweaked it for the M1 chips in the iPad pro so I have a ton more layers to work with and Apple seems to have heard the frustration about the 5 gig max for apps that Procreate brought attention to and iPad OS 15 will address that. 

Blender:

Blender is close to a 3.O release and the new Cycles render engine loose amazing and makes me feel the need to switch much more acutely as I don't think I'll be updating my computer anytime soon and really could use a boost in render speed!