The various stages of this week's Lopticus illustration for the Picture Bookies Showcase.

The middle stage of this illustration, prior to completion.

My finished Lopticus and his young for this week's Picture Bookies Showcase.

http://www.picture-bookiesshowcase.blogspot.com/

Sketched and painted from start to finish on my Intuos3 with Painter 9.5.

Still refining the small Lopticus.

Still working the form and concept.

This has been growing out of a "scribble". An exercise I do to limber up and get loose before I sketch. When I say scribble I mean just that, a random continuous line in loops and circular, diagonal, up and down and whatever have you motion.

I normally toss these aside, but for some reason I decided to play a bit with the forms in this one. I added a little here, erased a bit there and I'm still playing with this. I should have posted the whole process and showed just how much fun this can be, but I got carried away.

Next time, I'll stop myself and post from the very scribbled beginning to the end. For now, I'll take you on a little visual journey of this fellow as I continue to define/refine him and eventually, perhaps even add some color.

Character Sketches studies in movement on my Intuos 3

Quick concept sketch done on the go yesterday on my laptop. Unfortunately, my laptop did not come with a video card, but hey, it has the added bonus of a very slow processor.

I'd thought the low resolution, extreme pen and tablet jerkiness and lag was do to the Wacom Bamboo verses the Intuos3, but it seems to be more of an issue with your PC's possessor speed and whether or not it has a video card. So much for finished illustrations on the go, more like crude, simple concept sketches until I can get home and spend some time on my desktop PC.

A few more mermaids. Traditional pen, ink and watercolor.

My submission for this weeks' theme "Home", on the Picture Bookies Showcase.

http://picture-bookiesshowcase.blogspot.com/

Finished, and on to my next one.

This is what I've done thus far and I'll hopefully get to finish this illo tonight

Still working on the sketch here and there as I play a bit more with colors .

This is how far I got yesterday after working on this illustration for another hour. This morning I will begin refining the Elf before I get too carried away with the dragon. I really shouldn't have started the color process before finishing the drawing...foreground included. Had I been sketching this on paper instead of my Intuos I would have followed that rule. Alas, I just can't seem to help myself with the tablet, its so much fun.

This is the illo I've been working on for the last hour. I'm hand drawing it on my Intuos3 in Painter 9.5. I want to keep track of my progress at various stages with this piece. I'm not PC savvy enough to know how to do it, unless I load each phase to my blog. I think I will experiment with some color today as well.

A character sketch just done on the Intuos 3, for this week's theme "Artist's Choice" on the Picture Bookies Showcase. http://picture-bookiesshowcase.blogspot.com/

Fooling around with the Bamboo tablet.

I meant to state that all these new uploaded images are being hand drawn on my Wacom Tablet. The reason being that I am seldom home anymore nor near a physical studio where I can get to my paints and other art supplies. I'm always on the road and I find it more convenient to just pull out my laptop and tablet.
With Painter I have access to any pallet and painting surface without having to worry about spilling physical paint, inks, water and rinsing out brushes. In addition, I think it might work out better for me in relation to my graphic novels. Instead of having to start from scratch on a particular page with various panels, if I mess up or am dissatisfied with one of those panels, I can just redo the individual panel without having to scrap the entire page. Oh, and one more thing, I'm not good with hand lettering, so being able to type dialogue right onto my illos is a great plus.
There is a learning curve to be sure, but what else is new with all dreams worth pursuing well. Besides, we wouldn't like our lives to become too stagnant now would we. ; )

Some experimental two minute character sketches at various first stage setups, for possible future use. I'm working without any reference here, as I'm trying to learn to sketch the somewhat vague images I see in my minds eye. The more I try to work out the characters traits and personality borrowing them from my own stories, the more they visually start to come into focus.

I feel like I'm learning to visually see (sketching) all over again, for I have not really sketch in almost six months. I had chosen instead to spend as much time as possible writing two novels. One is new and the other a part rewrite part revision for the Virtutus Key, as I continue to study and learn the craft of script and novel writing. Oh, yeah, and I took a few months during that time to immerse myself in my guitar as well.

Working on a few three minute character sketch's and doodles with the Wacom Bamboo tablet. I bought this tablet to use on the go. Its good for very loose sketches and perhaps after a few days I'll be able to maneuver my way better and get used to the tablet's grainy surface and the pen's low resolution. But, I find it more difficult to work with personally than my Intuos 3.

Last night's and this morning's practice study with the Intuos3. I've got to say that I love this tablet for quick studies and sketches.

I finally got a chance to plug in my Intuos3 a few weeks ago. I immediately began exploring this digital drawing surface in Painter IX. 5. These are some of the simple doodles that I don't plan to develop. I went ahead and saved them as a jpg Apparently, Blogger doesn't seem to be able to load my rif files with ease.

I'd put the tablet aside for a while, after discovering that my computer couldn't sustain Adobe Elements. It was crashing my PC all the time, causing all or most of the illos I was working on to freeze. I found I couldn't even save them because my pc just wouldn't respond. But, this old Frankenstein of a computer seems to like Painter thus far and so do I.

Aside from playing with the Intuos3, I'm still writing and illustrating my stories and living a very full life as a Mom, student, teacher, taxi driver to my teens and a wife, in a house filled with what my husband says are too many books and too many animals. Oh, well, thank goodness he loves me enough to put up with both ; )