Going Digital

I do a lot of digital coloring nowadays, but have never really drawn much digitally. I have a Wacom tablet, which is great for the coloring, but it's still a bit awkward to freely sketch while looking at the screen instead of your hand. But I've been looking a lot at Jenny Lerew's site, and her digital figure drawings are just amazing. With just quick bold strokes and a few finer details she draws the most beautiful sketches. Now a few clarifications- she's using a different kind of pad, one that I'm told is a screen in itself, so your hand is in the same place the image is. And, she probably draws in that bold quick style no matter the medium she's using. My drawings tend to be sketchy busy things, with lots of lighter lines and the finals being darker. Experimenting with my Wacom pad, I did this one:

It's allright. It's on par with a lot of my figure drawings in my paper sketchbook. But it's not as bold and confident as I had hoped. Part of that lies with it being from my head and really not having a pose in mind until halfway through- you get a lot of false starts and remnants of a changing mind in the drawing that way. I also used a brush tool that was set at a pretty low opacity, which lets me start light and then go over and over a line to build up it's darkness- just like with a pencil. However that's a real good way to allow yourself to hem and haw, and not be very commited to the lines your'e butting down. A friend of mine suggested using a bigger bolder brush and set it to full opacity.

I have to say, the bottom one shows the most skill I think. It's not pretty, but it's confident which is what I was going for in the first place. I would still like to get to a place where I could draw the female form with such confidence, but that certainly takes a skilled hand, and it seems I need some more practice. If you haven't allready, check out Jenny's site.

Oh, and Happy 107th Birthday, Walt Disney!