Derivative of an image originally commissioned by by
sultzz.wolf at FWA 2018.
I re-drew most of the original pose for inclusion in my artbook as a raw example of how I handle characters other than my own. This image just happened to be available when a change of perspective regarding the original material necessitated it's removal from public visibility on short notice. Deleting an image from FA requires entering one's password to confirm and I didn't have it handy (complex, and therefore written down at home), but substituting a different image within the same submission does not, so this became the workaround. Being I did this from an Amtrak train in the middle of the night heading to Furry Weekend Atlanta, I wasn't able to include a signature and attributes on the image, but hopefully they'll be added in a later update. For this reason, treat any comments occurring before May 5, 2019 as referring to the previous image.
(775)
Technical: (Original image)
This was initially an Artist Alley consketch like the previous upload, "Facepalm-Inducing Smug". Upon completion, I was informed that the commissioner would like this to be a full digital-color pic, making this a take-home pic. Being that I had a flatbed scanner with me in the 'Alley, he got the original, and I ferried the scan home (as I usually do). So, post-con (and post-trip recovery) I set out to color this piece.
A recurring source of delay, or at least a lot of sit-back-and think, and trial+error is color selection. Not for Vanelu, for whom I had a color ref sheet, but for the backdrop. At first I took some inspiration from my own bathroom, reflected in the color of the edging tiles. Some consultation with the commissioner revealed a color preference based around light-green wall tiles and a white toilet with a black seat. From these guides I crafted the rest of the interior. For the wallpaper above the tiles, I was going to use a texture from a photo pulled from a Google image search, but had no patience to look up Krita's warp transform tools on the version I was using (3.1.3). Sooo... I went and crafted some simple flourishes in Inkscape, following this tutorial video.
---Sub-technical: Inkscape pencil tool
I had never used the freehand pencil tool in Inkscape. The above linked video specified it, making use of automatic smoothing of the hand-drawn line to produce the flowing flourish lines. But there was a problem--the lines were invisible after I drew them. That's not going to work. A few minutes of research (I was already doing research just to make the wallpaper) revealed that Inkscape's pencil tool defaults to complete transparency of its alpha channel, controlled by a fourth slider beneath the usual RGB controls. Pulling this slider to the opposite end of the control made the lines visible as they are created. Now, I don't know if this is a bug or a feature--a bunch of people were complaining about this issue with the pencil tool so I'm going to call it a bug, or at least a UI issue. But I found a fix, and I'm talking about it here for the benefit of anyone else who tried to use this tool and gave up on it.
Once I had the wallpaper designs, I pasted them into the image and erased the segments behind Vanelu's head. Had she been on another layer above the backdrop I could have skipped that step, but the image began as a scan with a backdrop already in place, and as I write this at 4am, I'm not entirely certain how I separated the character into its own layer on earlier pics :D. Late in the production I concluded the tan-colored floor absolutely did not work, and then found a photo of some blue floor tile that I sampled for a new floor color that offered the additional benefit of being dark enough to support reflections of light objects near or touching the floor. Adding some highlighting to the wall tiles gave them some depth and completed the pic.
Pencil on bristol inked with brush+India ink. Digital portion done with Krita 3.1.3 and Inkscape 0.92.3. Eight layers, 17MB in Krita's image format
sultzz.wolf at FWA 2018.I re-drew most of the original pose for inclusion in my artbook as a raw example of how I handle characters other than my own. This image just happened to be available when a change of perspective regarding the original material necessitated it's removal from public visibility on short notice. Deleting an image from FA requires entering one's password to confirm and I didn't have it handy (complex, and therefore written down at home), but substituting a different image within the same submission does not, so this became the workaround. Being I did this from an Amtrak train in the middle of the night heading to Furry Weekend Atlanta, I wasn't able to include a signature and attributes on the image, but hopefully they'll be added in a later update. For this reason, treat any comments occurring before May 5, 2019 as referring to the previous image.
(775)
Technical: (Original image)
This was initially an Artist Alley consketch like the previous upload, "Facepalm-Inducing Smug". Upon completion, I was informed that the commissioner would like this to be a full digital-color pic, making this a take-home pic. Being that I had a flatbed scanner with me in the 'Alley, he got the original, and I ferried the scan home (as I usually do). So, post-con (and post-trip recovery) I set out to color this piece.
A recurring source of delay, or at least a lot of sit-back-and think, and trial+error is color selection. Not for Vanelu, for whom I had a color ref sheet, but for the backdrop. At first I took some inspiration from my own bathroom, reflected in the color of the edging tiles. Some consultation with the commissioner revealed a color preference based around light-green wall tiles and a white toilet with a black seat. From these guides I crafted the rest of the interior. For the wallpaper above the tiles, I was going to use a texture from a photo pulled from a Google image search, but had no patience to look up Krita's warp transform tools on the version I was using (3.1.3). Sooo... I went and crafted some simple flourishes in Inkscape, following this tutorial video.
---Sub-technical: Inkscape pencil tool
I had never used the freehand pencil tool in Inkscape. The above linked video specified it, making use of automatic smoothing of the hand-drawn line to produce the flowing flourish lines. But there was a problem--the lines were invisible after I drew them. That's not going to work. A few minutes of research (I was already doing research just to make the wallpaper) revealed that Inkscape's pencil tool defaults to complete transparency of its alpha channel, controlled by a fourth slider beneath the usual RGB controls. Pulling this slider to the opposite end of the control made the lines visible as they are created. Now, I don't know if this is a bug or a feature--a bunch of people were complaining about this issue with the pencil tool so I'm going to call it a bug, or at least a UI issue. But I found a fix, and I'm talking about it here for the benefit of anyone else who tried to use this tool and gave up on it.
Once I had the wallpaper designs, I pasted them into the image and erased the segments behind Vanelu's head. Had she been on another layer above the backdrop I could have skipped that step, but the image began as a scan with a backdrop already in place, and as I write this at 4am, I'm not entirely certain how I separated the character into its own layer on earlier pics :D. Late in the production I concluded the tan-colored floor absolutely did not work, and then found a photo of some blue floor tile that I sampled for a new floor color that offered the additional benefit of being dark enough to support reflections of light objects near or touching the floor. Adding some highlighting to the wall tiles gave them some depth and completed the pic.
Pencil on bristol inked with brush+India ink. Digital portion done with Krita 3.1.3 and Inkscape 0.92.3. Eight layers, 17MB in Krita's image format
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Rabbit / Hare
Size 584 x 1000px
File Size 227.3 kB
I probably would have had the transform warp tool had I installed the 4.0.x version released a few weeks ago. It has SVG vectors like Inkscape, and the text is now usable, plus a bunch of other stuff. Here's the release video. I think Krita is worth digging into (and I still use Clip Studio Paint EX)
FA+

Comments