New art ideas

 

I just received some of the art supplies I ordered. I now have 24 Strathmore pastel papers in different colors. I have the support board to substitute the art easel and some art tape to fix the paper on the board. 

The pastel pencils, mechanical pencils, and some graphite on the image are old.

I'm still waiting for another kit of charcoal, graphite, a few more pastel pencils, and a larger separate kit with 48 pastel pencils I ordered from Amazon.

My art method and themes were resolved before any purchases. I had to comply with my own requisites: Not too expensive or complicated to produce. Not too large either. If possible make it responsible. So I decided to use me as a model, my arm and hand, and pick veggies and fruits we buy through the weeks and use them as models too. 

I'm creating a series of drawings/paintings about fruits and veggies. I produced many photographs and videos with food as the subject in the past; this isn't new.

So, every drawing I complete means the portrayed veggies were bought for our consumption and will be used for art too. That makes it responsible and conscious.

Follow my blog for the whole process.

I'm making a pause! Working some art

 I’m making a pause with my BRO! Vectors, but not ending it. During the past weeks, I have gone through an interesting internal transformation. It’s a long story that starts with an unexpected encounter with one strangely angry person. After my experience, inspiration came to me and led me to renew my audiobook account. Immediately afterwards I bumped into a book about learning how to pray properly. Listening to a few books on this theme made me want to start doing classic art again. Painting, drawing directly on canvas or paper. I have not painted or drawn anything truly worthy in years. Seriously, in years. I had to dust off boxes in my garage to scavenge for my classic art supplies. Only a few things are in good condition now, so I had to shop online for the rest and reset my mind. Now I can’t complete my BRO! vectors until I have quenched this new and unexpected thirst to produce fine art. I no longer have my professional easel, so I had to get a medium-sized board for support. I intend to paint on colored pastel paper. To start things off I’m using graphite, charcoal, and pastels. Maybe in the future, I’ll do acrylic on canvas. Of course, since this is a blog, I may upload videos of me working or just some process snapshots.

BRO! Phase Two - Testing More Adobe Firefly Backgrounds

I'm having this idea of a fantastic world in another dimension tainted with human trash. The characters are entirely my conception, from sketch to vectors, but this (test) background is a text-to-image prompt from Adobe Firefly. This is helping me visualize what I want. Of course, as mentioned in previous posts. The final art will be my own creation, although I will heavily take references and ideas from AI.   

BRO! Phase Two - Enlisting Inspiration help from Adobe Firefly

All characters are my concept and creation, but the background ideas/inspiration will be taken from Adobe Firefly AI images. 

Backgrounds are 50 percent of a comic book story. Of course, you have to have a great story and good characters, but backgrounds are what solidifies, and glues all together. 

I'm not afraid or embarrassed by Artificial Intelligence images. They can save me time and inspire me to complete my work. 

In this post, I'm disclosing that my final backgrounds will be entirely created by me; general ideas of the environment, and color styles will be inspired/copied from Adobe Firefly images. 

In this uploaded testing image, I'm playing with some Adobe Firefly images to set the mood, and style of the environment. I will test some more before I start creating MY OWN background art.

 

BRO! Phase Two - Backgrounds - Lettering - Props

What's going on in this world? It's another dimension, next to ours. It's somewhere in America, near a large city. These creatures have interdimensional access to human trash. How does human trash reach their dimension and why? How does this affect their life? The human trash has been shaping their beliefs, their ideas. 

It is time to start working on the background for these characters; scenarios, props, lettering, effects, and more.

BRO! Phase One - Third Character - Maybe a Jim or a Joe

As I vectorize these characters, I'm conceiving their world and adventures on the fly. Although less important now, their names need to be decided soon. One thing is for sure: this happens in an alternative world in America. I still can't decide where exactly. The main idea is they are creatures from another dimension next to ours. They have access to human trash and will try to figure out what it is for. It's mainly sci-fi and comedy. This character looks like a Jim or a Joe.

BRO! Phase One - Third Character

Now is the time to clear out the two finished characters and start working on the third one. Right here I can tell you what seems obvious: Only the largest and the medium-sized characters share similar features; they are brothers. The bear is their friend only. The large one is the strongest, compassionate, and noble one. The other brother is a fearless leader; crazy, adventurous, but sometimes reckless. If I had to pick a voice for animation, it would be the classic Texas accents. The bear would have to speak a little bit snobbish.

Bro! Phase One - Character Two - The Cali Bear

 I'm working on the second character, which stands in a second plane. The thickness of the outline is less accentuated as the figure appears smaller and requires a finer line. This fella is a little California Republic bear holding a tiny wax Hawaiian pineapple. In future posts, I will talk about the meaning of this trio of characters. I can tell you now, that this little bear will be a hoarder and collector obsessed with shiny objects and will reflect some Californian cultural ideas in his dialogues. I've always loved the Cali flag since I lived in Orange County, CA for a few years.

BRO! Phase One - Grouping and Removal

 

It took me a very long time to publish this post. There is a good reason. After much difficulty deciding the final look of my first character, I'm keeping things simple to avoid overworking and complications. 

If this was going to be a T-shirt image or a poster, it would have made sense to work with extreme detail. I aim to repeat this drawing in several poses and -perhaps- make a very short comic, so avoiding too much work is essential. 

Once the final style was decided, I grouped the vectors and moved them right to start working on the next character.

BRO! Phase One - details

 At this point, I'm adding some details to the character in the first plane. Light, midtones, and shadow, and a few vector modifications.