Meerkatsu Art

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Software review - Krita - First look

Krita is a full function digital painting program with a loyal fanbase and more importantly, a price tag that can't be beat...it's free.

Jesus v Satan

For Easter, I thought it would be timely to draw an idea I have had in my mind for some time - Jesus fighting with the devil using jiu jitsu. Naturally, the submission he uses would have to be based around the crucifix.

You can purchase this image as a poster and art print over on my Redbubble poster site.

Here is more about how I put this artwork together...

Dragon drawing video

A short clip showing me drawing a chinese dragon in my Moleskine sketchbook. The actual drawing took about an hour of time. I trimmed a lot of the footage and increased the speed 8 times. All edited on Windows Movie Maker, yay for simple free apps!

It was quite enjoyable to make, although a bit nervy as it was a bit like drawing live so I couldn't afford to make too many mistakes.

More videos soon.

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Sunday, 4 January 2015

Kleos Grappling Tournament poster

I designed a Medusa themed poster for a UK tournament called Kleos Grappling. Here is a breakdown of how I put it together:

Dragon Fly v2

I was commissioned by Tatami Fightwear to create a sequel to the first Dragon Fly rashguard I designed back in 2012. The new version is available now from the Tatami website.

My digital drawing and painting skills have improved since 2012 so I wanted to use this opportunity to improve on the 2012 version with finer details and better composition while still honouring the first version.

Here's how I did it:

Midnight Tigers

I chose to draw tigers for the theme of my most recent own-brand fightwear project. Specifically, the style I drew these tigers is based on the popular traditional Chinese watercolour form of tiger paintings.

I created three different tiger poses and began each one with a basic pencil sketch. After several drafts, I scanned in the sketches and drew over the top using Manga Studio Pro. I chose this program because the brush/pen tool gave a really lovely fluid line that I felt was perfect for drawing fur and tiger stripes. I then saved these as PNG files and opened them up in Adobe Illustrator for Live Tracing and colouring.

The reason I love the Chinese depiction of tigers is their very heroic posing. It makes for a very eye-catching composition, albeit slightly unnatural looking. I mean, I don't know if real tigers crane their necks in the same manner and clamber up massive mountain peaks only to stand there and, sort of just look cool. If I was a tiger, I know I would definitely do that!

Anyway, these drawings went from pencil sketch to digital painting onto the final clothing product without any drama, I'm very pleased with the way they turned out!