Tuesday, November 01, 2005

...how to ruin a drawing 101.

(entry: Carlitos)

heheh, just kidding, 'retouching' the "Solid Snake" piece I posted last week (or was it two weeks ago?) was A LOT of fun, and I learned quite a bit from it, so it got me thinking about some other drawing I could mess around with, and this time, mess it up with COLOR!!! :) This is a character from the OUTSIDERS called SHIFT (he's 'Metamorfo's' clone or something like that) and this was originally drawn (in it's black and white form), for a "Secret Files" book. This is the first time I've EVER colored with "Doc Martin' dyes (those bastards are BRIGHT!!!), and also the first time I've colored 'non-digital' in a looooooooong, long time, so it was 'pretty interesting' to say the least :)

I was pretty happy the way that this drawing had come out in just black and white, and it was never meant to be colored on the actual board, so when I applied paint to it, and I had to go 'opaque' on the highlight areas, A LOT of the 'line' detail was lost, same happened with the shadowed areas. The whole time I was painting I felt I was just one step away from TOTALLY screwing it up... STILL, when it's all said and done, for the most part, I'm pretty happy the way it came out.

Invariably, there are always a number of things that you wish you could have done differently in a drawing after it's done (damn hindsight!!!) :), and appling color only adds to the complexity of a piece and choices you have to make, but if anything, this has just made me want to practice painting much, much more ....like a wise man once said: "If you're not learning and getting better, you're only getting worse"

so once again I ask, which one do YOU all like more?!?

6 comments:

Vince said...

Personnaly, I like the colred one ! He's got some volume !
I go for the number two !!

Requius said...

Definitely the painted one. I like where you're going with this; good work man.

Oscar said...

Ooooo!

Although I like the refined (and maybe more detailed?) look of the black and white, I definitely love the color!

The addition of color, especially the vibrant choices, gives this piece so much life ... it really helps it to push right off the page ...

The added white streams of smoke in the background are also a nice touch.

From what I can tell in this small version, it looks like plenty of the details (swirls, bone extrusions and the facial expression) have been translated well into the final painted piece, without too much loss of significance. And of course, his gloves look outstanding in painted form.

Equinox said...

Color for me! Very nice job with blending the tones.

mic? said...

The Outsiders kick culo! They're both dope in mein eyes, but I'll have to go w/ the colored one. The color really makes certain elements pop. Vurry nice, Carlos!!

Peace...

Yano said...

The color is the one I prefer, because it gives the piece a lot more depth and texture, and just a bit more oomph.

I've seen many a penciled piece ruined by inking and coloring, but not in this case!