Author: Cynical Woman

Cartoonist, Artist, Geek, Evil Crafter, Girl Scout Troop Leader and Writer. Also, a zombie. I haven't slept in I don't know how long.
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November Drawing – Day 04, Mushrooms and Mermaids

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I spent this morning working in two different vector drawing apps, seeing what results I could get. I went back to work on the mermaid image first, working in InkPad.

 

Mermaid tentacles!

My mermaids tend to be more Ursula than Ariel…

 
In addition to working on the ink lines (which are actually made by using the brush tool to trace shapes instead of lines over the pencil drawing), I did a bit more work on the colors.

 

Mermaid colors!

Colors with shading andhighlights.

 
I’ve added some highlights and started work on the hair. I like how I can control the shapes of both the colors and the lines. I also like that I have a dropper to pick up the colors I’ve used so I don’t have to keep hunting for them in a color palette as I work.

After working in InkPad for a while, I switched over to Concepts to play for a bit, to see if I can get some results that I like. Here are the results.

 

Mushroom!

The Fungus among us!

 
To get a line with variable width in Concepts, I have to set the pen tools to the smallest line width setting. Unfortunately, this doesn’t look very good on large images (at least to my eyes), so I drew a small box on the canvas and zoomed in to do this drawing. Now this is a style I like – shaky, creepy lines that aren’t too big and aren’t too small, that have a nice amount of line width variation. And best of all, I get to color this image the way I like, because Concepts doesn’t let me draw a shape for the fill or let me use a fill bucket. I get to color my drawing like it’s a digital coloring book page! 

(And yes, I love coloring, but I would prefer to color my own artwork as opposed to buying a coloring book. Nobody draws the kind of creepy stuff I love to work on. Perhpas I should make my own freaky coloring pages to share with everyone?)

So that’s the results from today. I’m very happily coloring and drawing away!

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November Drawing – The Mermaid in InkPad

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Mermaid!

“The Mermaid” work-in-progress

 
There’s more than one way to draw with vectors. I’m working on this image in InkPad. InkPad is a more traditional sort of vector drawing app. While it has a brush tool, it doesn’t draw brush strokes in variable weight the way Concepts or Adobe Draw does. But you can mimick that effect by drawing the SHAPE of a brush stroke. In other words, I import a sketch from one of my drawing apps, then trace the shape of an ink stroke in a new layer above the original sketch, keeping the brush tool set to fill with no outer stroke. To color the image, I set up another layer below the “ink strokes” and trace the shapes of the fills. The shading is done the same way in layer between the inking and the color fills. It’s a little more complicated, but once you get the hang of it, the process goes pretty fast. And best of all, I can export the entire image in vector format to resize and touch up in Corel Draw, my preferred desktop vector drawing program. Ta-DAH!

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November Drawing – Day 02, Skull in Concepts

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Sugar Skull

Suguar Skull, by Helen Madden

 
I spent some time this morning experimenting with Concepts for the iPad, looking at how the different tools worked with various settings. Concepts offers vector versions of markers and various types of pens. The problem I have is getting the line widths to vary the way I want it to. There are also options for smoothing the lines, but I don’t really have the hang of that yet.

I do have a pressure sensative stylus for the iPad, so I will try that next.

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October Crochet – Post-Mortem

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So this is what I did last month…

 

Look what I made!

October Crochet, in total.

 
That’s a lotta crochet. At the time, it didn’t seem like I was doing much, but there’s a lot of work in that one picture. This image doesn’t included everything – there’s still one ghost I need to finish. And a few of these projects aren’t quite done. The ghost and the one candy corn need mouths, and I need to finish off the spider web and the Nautilus shawls, weaving in the ends and doing a bit of sewing here and there to polish things off. But otherwise, I did a LOT last month.

You’ll notice, of course, that there are two tiny figures in there that weren’t done this month…

 

Tom and Enid!

Meet Tom and Enid!

 
The little pumpkin guy and the little skully girl were made a couple years ago when I first started crocheting. I call them Tom and Enid. They’re probably the first amigurumi I made without  a specific pattern to work from. I borrowed a bit here and there from a couple patterns, and then made up a few things on my own. That was the point when I fell head over heels in love with crochet.

One other thing I’m supposed to mention – the missing day from October Crochet. What happened that one day that I couldn’t do even a few stitches? Well, this happened…

Rita Wright

This is NOT crochet!

These are props from the Murder Mystery Party we held for our Girl Sout troop. I was very, very, veeeeeeeeeerrrrryyyyyy busy that day, finishing up props, cleaning the house, printing out scripts, and then pretending to be the director of the Rita Wright Museum for Girl Scouts.  We had a lot of fun. And then I passed out.

But that’s what kept me so busy I couldn’t get any crochet done that day. So now you know. And honestly, I did crochet 30 out of 31 days last month, so I think I did pretty good! 

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November Drawing – Robots and Vampires

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So I spent all day thinking about what I want to do for November’s creative challenge (because I did a creative challenge in October, so why not do another one in November?) and I decided this month’s challenge would be ART.

Or doodling, at least.

The idea for this month is for me to get back to a regular drawing schedule. I love to draw, but like a lot of other things I love to do, when life gets really, painfully hectic, I jettison just about all but the essentials from my schedule.

I am hoping that this month will not be nearly as painful as last month. October just about did me in with all the events and volunteer work and making costumes I had to do. I’ll get into all that later this week when I do a final review of the whole October Crochet thing.

But for now, the plan is to draw every day. Just like with October Crochet, I do not plan to finish a drawing a day, but I do plan to complete more than one drawing this month. AND I plan to get back to a regular schedule for the webcomic as well. Assuming this month’s schedule goes as planned.

For my first entry this month, I present to you two quick doodles I did this evening on my iPad. First we have robots…

 

Robots!

“We are robots! We are handsome!”


And then we have a Vampire!

 Vampire!
Both of these drawings were done in Concepts, a vector drawing app. Concepts is similar to the old Adobe Ideas app that I used to use a lot, but it handles a little differntly, so I’m still working on how I want to use it and what kind of drawings I can make with it.

Unfortunately for me, Adobe Ideas was “retired” and replaced with Adobe Draw. Adobe Draw works just like Adobe Ideas used to, except for one very important little details. It will NOT let me export my artwork in SVG format. It will let me export my work directly to Adobe Creative Suite, but I don’t own a copy of Adobe Creative Suite because it’s TOO FUCKING EXPENSIVE! The only other option Adobe Draw gives me is to export my artwork as a PNG of suck low quality that I cannot then trace and convert to vector format in any graphics program I have. So I have pretty much quit using Adobe Draw.

So I’m making the switch to Concepts. And I’m hoping that if I spend a lot of time working with it this month, I’ll get pretty good with Concepts.

So that’s what’s up for this month! More drawings tomorrow!

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October Crochet – Day 31, Double Death Spirals of DOOOOOOM!!!

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Nautilus Shawls

This month just really spun out of control…

 
I did it. I finished the second Nautilus shawl. And most of it was done this evening while watching “Manos: Hands of Fate!” Terrible, terrible movie. Perfect for crocheting. Now I just need to sew up the ends a bit and stitch the two shawls together at the shoulder to make them into a PONCHO! Beause I never wear shawls. Unless I can turn them into ponchos.

It’s just after midnight right now. There are 8 girls downstairs in my living room, screaming and giggling and challenging each other to “Truth or Dare.” Before I came upstairs, I told them the truth – I would get really scary if they keep me up all night. And then I dared them to do it. The girls have promised they will quiet down in an hour. If not, I did set up a graveyard in front of the house.

I’m going to come up with a new challenge for November. I’ll announce it tomorrow. And I’ll explain what happened to the missing day of October Crochet. But for now, I’m going to curl up with a collection of Lovecraft stories and read myself to sleep. Or maybe strangulate a bunch of girls. I haven’t decided which yet.

Good night.

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October Crochet – Day 30, Big Cat Wears Big Crochet

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Mr. Big!

We call him Mr. Big…

 
I got the oportunity to spend a couple hours crocheting while watching “The Walking Dead” and this is the result – a Nautilus shawl big enough to cover our BIGGEST cat, Mr. Big!

Actually, his name is Hiccup, but we do call him Mr. Big because he’s twice the size of our other cats.

I’m going to keep working on this one. I’ve still got some work to do on the kids’ Halloween costumes, but hopefully I can get this done if I get up early tomorrow.

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October Crochet – Day 29, All Spun Out

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Crochet Web!

Oh what a tangled web I wove!

 
Well, I reached the end of the skein today. Only a few inches before completing the last round.

Dang it!

I think I will unravel the last round just a bit and make the unfinished portion the neckline. I will start on the second web on Halloween. For now, I’m going to focus on the Nautilus shawl.

If you look closely at the picture, you can see the costumes I’m sewing for the kids. One wants to be a Jedi. The other wants to be Kylo Ren. My kids never get along.

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October Crochet – Day 27, Thank GLOB I’m Not a Spider

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Huge freakin' crochet web

How much bigger can this thing get?!

 
The original plan for this project was to make two webs, each using a full skein of silver yarn, and then stitching them together to make a spider-web poncho. But the first skein of silver yarn I bought NEVER SEEMS TO END!!!

I think/hope/pray that I will get this half done tomorrow. I can still use that for Halloween. But I think it will take all of November for me to make the other half of this.