Cintiq fun

I've been trying to spend more time with the greatly creative folks at the Periscope Studio in nearby downtown Portland, OR.  I go on most Thursdays now and have spent my time sketching at a small central table soaking in the creativity and camaraderie of  the crew there.  Today was a little different.  There were some Wacom employees there talking product, taking pictures, and just interacting with their customer base.  Most of the artist at Periscope Studio have a Wacom product of some sort, mainly Cintiq 12WX's and a few 21UX's.  They also have a computer room that houses a few Macs attached to more 21UX's. Yes, it is a truly awesome sight.  Which brings me to today's art post.  Since I'm not a member of the Studio I thought I'd bow out of the interviewing area and went to play on one of the open 21UX's.  A few minutes of getting used to the glass thickness of the monitor and quite a few more minutes getting used to a Mac (I use a PC at my studio) and I was up and drawing.  I've never felt anything like it.  The sensation of working on screen was so natural I'm not sure how I'll go back to my old model Intuos 2.  In about 2.5 hours this is what I came up with.  Not the greatest drawing, and evidence that I really should thumbnail first, but it was so much fun working on the Cintiq that I wanted to post it.

Done in Photoshop CS3 with Cintiq 21UX.

Aquaman

I don't think I've ever drawn Aquaman before.  This one is also for the Ten Ton Studios sketch challenge.  Done 11x17 with HB and 2B graphite.

As you can see, I'm still trying to work through lots of anatomy issues and continue to struggle with hands.  I used the wrapping lines a bit more decisively than in the Green Lantern picture, but still working to get them to help define the forms and not creating too much surface texture.

I've been working digitally more in the past few years with my Wacom Intuos2 in Adobe PhotoShop.  This has spoiled me in some ways.  Mainly, if I draw something too small or just plain wrong I can re-size or add  layer on top and draw over it.  Can't do that in traditional ways as easily.  Unfortunately, the Ten Ton challenges are for traditional media only, so the digital isn't an option.  I supposed I could work it all out digitally, print it, lightbox it, and finish it that way--but that's way too much work for a sketch.  Plus this is good practice for doing convention sketches.  That said, I'd still love to get my hands on a Wacom Cintiq 21ux and do the majority of my work on that. :)