Too Clever By Half

As mentioned, I ordered a copy of Manga Studio 5 to install on the Surface Pro 2.
Unfortunately, they no longer sell it via download, so I had to order a physical copy.  Fortunately, I ordered it through Amazon at a substantial savings – almost half of the current 40% off sale price when buying it direct from Smith-Micro.
The unfortunate aspect of having to buy a physical copy is that the Surface Pro 2 doesn’t have any sort of DVD drive.
I do, however, have a spare external Blu ray burner, so I hooked that up, but the installation for that is unnecessarily complex, and I couldn’t find the installation guide, so I wasn’t able to get it to install from the DVD.
However, last night I installed an update to Manga Studio on Odin, and I realized that the downloadable “updates” are actually full installation files rather than just a patch.  You just have to provide a valid serial number in order to be able to download the updates, so I went to the update site on the Surface Pro 2 – just “the Surface” going forward – entered the serial number from my new DVD, downloaded it, and successfully installed it.
I’m so clever!
In the process of installing it, though, I learned that the license for MS5 allows you to install it on two computers, with the limitation that you can’t have both copies open at the same time.  (My Adobe Creative Cloud subscription has the same licensing terms, which is how I have Photoshop installed on the Surface and on Odin).
So, even though I got the software for about 75% less than what I paid for it the first time I bought it (not counting my later upgrade to the EX version, which I didn’t bother with for the Surface), I still ended up paying more money than I really needed to.
I’m too clever!
Oh well.  In any case, I now have MS5 on the Surface, and will begin experimenting with doing some actual drawing on it.

Curse Me For A Brythunian

Last night I decided to devote some time to drawing something without a reference.
After spending a lot of time trying to think of something to draw, I finally decided on everyone’s favorite Cimmerian, Conan.
I also intended to use this drawing session as an opportunity to work on my inking, and the image that I had in mind was something that was kind of a hybrid of some of the classic Conan artists like Ruby Nebres and Alfredo Alcala, with a lot of hatching, with some elements of Art Adams and Mike Mignola thrown in for good measure.
It was my intention to do a black and white image, a la Savage Sword of Conan, although I considered adding in some gray tones as well.
The basic image, as far as the overall shape and some of the details, turned out okay, but once I started on the hatching it all fell apart because I suck at hatching.  Of course, the point of the practice was to get better at it, but that wasn’t happening, and it continues to not happen.
Still, after having put so much work into it, I didn’t want to just scrap it, so I decided to make it into a painting.  “After all,” I told myself, “hatching was originally done out of necessity, to make up for the shortcomings of the early printing process in comics.  Who needs it?  Not me!”
(It’s true that hatching is no longer really necessary, but despite that, I do still wish I was better at it.  Or, you know, any good at all.  At least with ink – or the digital version of it, at any rate.  I’m okayish at it with pencil, whether analog or digital.)
Unfortunately, my attempt at painting it looked like crap, so I scrapped.
Today I decided to revisit it, with the help of some fancy new custom brushes I bought for Manga Studio.
So I drew it all over again, and it looked okay…then I decided to try my hand at hatching again.
The result was…well, here’s the result:

Hatching is for chumps anyway.

For what it’s worth, I do like the job I did with the hatching on the left arm.
Because I wasn’t happy with it, I decided to try painting this one.
Here’s the result:

Understanding anatomy is for chumps anyway.

I like this more than the black and white image, but unfortunately the layer effects I did in Photoshop that looked really cool on the Cintiq don’t look as good anywhere else.  Oh well; it’s as good as it’s going to get, by Crom.

It's That Time Again

As is the tradition here at Threshold, we extend birthday wishes to its fellow Virgo, the lovely and talented Carla Gugino, with whom Threshold itself shares a birthday.
Please join us in hoping that Ms. Gugino has a happy and prosperous year!

A simple, retro Carla, drawn in Manga Studio 5*.
I assume the original reference image was a publicity still for Watchmen.

Threshold, meanwhile, will continue its march toward a full decade of near-total irrelevance!  Happy birthday to the little blog that couldn't!

*I bought Manga Studio 5 recently.  I like it a lot so far - it feels much more natural for more straightforward sketching/inking - with better results - than Photoshop.  Unfortunately, taking a more natural, straightforward approach to drawing is really bringing my weaknesses and lack of skills to the forefront.  Ah well.