The Hero Hears the Cry of a Friend in Need

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I’m still wrestling with Sketchbook. Today I’m missing layer masks. Without them all edits in Sketchbook are destructive. The workaround is to have layers upon layers, some in multiply mode and others in normal mode. Working like this is confusing and time-consuming.

Oh well, Sketkchbook is the horse I’m riding for the rest of this project. Maybe Sketchbook isn’t the problem. Maybe I just I need to spend more time with it. I do appreciate the brushes and the simple interface. All the same I’m missing a few features that would smooth out the workflow, such as layer masks and folders. And, I notice that I’m getting weary of drawing and painting in Sketchbook and then having to open Photoshop to finish the editing job. I’m starting to think that I should do everything in Photoshop. I’ll admit that I’m intimidated by Photoshop. But the more I use Sketchbook, the more I think I should get over my Photoshop Phobia.

Jimmy hears his friend cry for help. Duty calls.

My Conscious Attempt to Lead the Viewer's Eye Through a Painting

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In this picture I intentionally combined four separate paintings into one painting, with one scene leading into another and ending at the bottom left corner. The four scenes show the boys riding bikes, playing football, playing cards, and listening to tunes in the pool.

Finished King of the World Painting

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I worked on this picture for two days. My big issues were: unwittingly painting colors on the line work layer, deleting a layer of colors and not being able to recover it, not naming the layers. And more. I’m learning a lot about the necessity of well-organized layers. Folders for layers would be a big help, but I don’t see that feature in Sketchbook.

The wings, the wings! And Buddy has four fingers in this picture. In other pictures he has five!

Buddy Butterfly feeling like the King of the World

88/365

I did something wacky today. After spending days setting up custom Sketchbook brush libraries, I got the crazy idea to reset everything to their default settings. I was warned with a big pop-up window that everything would go back the Sketchbook’s original settings. But I didn’t listen. I pushed the reset button. Everything went back to normal and all of my installed brushes and custom libraries disappeared. I wasted an hour reinstalling the brushes I had been using.

And so, here’s today’s half-finished painting. Why do I decide to go on these whimsical, time-wasting expeditions of foolishness when I’m on a tight deadline? The answer is uncountable thousands of times.

Jimmy Experiences the Pain of Following His Conscience

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In this image I’m trying to capture the uncomfortable feeling of heeding your conscience when you really want to please your best friend.

A Butterfly Takes the Blame

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Today’s image is a work in progress. I tried to put a little detail into Buddy Butterfly, with some veins in his wings and a little shading. Details eat up my time, especially when I don’t know what I’m doing when I’m learning how to operate a new program.

Enough chit chat. The dogs are waiting for me. They say I’ve got to take a shower and get ready for Second Family Hour.

I ran out of time… I’ll finish this tomorrow.

Keeping motivated when the demons are restless

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The further I get into this project, the more doubts arise, such as:

• It’s a stupid idea.

• The characters are totally wrong for a children’s book.

• You can’t draw for beans. Actually, the demons say, “What an embarrassing load of shit!”

• You wasted a lot of money on that iMac and that iPad. And all of that expensive watercolor paint you don’t use.

• You’re picking the wrong colors. Learn some color theory, asshole!

• The dialog doesn’t have a arc. The plot is flat. I’m falling asleep! ZZzzzzzzz.

And so on. But, I also had a thought this afternoon that if I were a kid, I’d like this story because it’s different. I like the ugly butterfly because he’s kind of a rebel. When I had this positive feeling, that’s when the chorus of negative thoughts arose. My tactic now is to just say, “Thank you, whiny voices. ” Then I get back to work and the next thing I know, I’m immersed in my drawings.

Here’s one of today’s piecesa

Sunday's are for taking naps

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It’s March 10 and I lost an hour of sleep. I hate daylight savings time. Just when my biological clock is feeling comfortable with 6:30 am sunrises, wham! We’re back in the dark. In protest I took a one-hour nap in the little patch of sun that comes through the living room window.

I’m getting a little faster with Sketchbook. I colored two images today and got started on a third. The built-in Copic color palettes save me a ton of time. There’s a nice drag-and-drop custom palette that makes it easy to collect the colors I’m using throughout the book. Nice work, Autodesk.

One other thing I’m noticing as I use my Wacom tablet is that it’s ergonomically more friendly than my Huion pen display. I can sit with good posture with the tablet. There’s no need to lean over the screen as I do with the Huion. That leaning with the raised arms kills my back. Another great feature a tablet has that a pen display does not have: your hand never blocks your view, which happens on the Cintiq and iPad Pro.

Done: I Painted Buddy Convincing Jimmy to Disobey an Order

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I digitally colored an image today using Sketchbook. Hooray! The only reason I was able to finish this is because It’s Saturday and I had a few extra hours. This image took about 4 hours of hair-pulling. That’s just an expression — I don’t have any hair.

My successful strategy was to send the image to iCloud, then download it to Sketchbook on the iPad. Sketchbook exports a PNG file, which is a pain, but it’s workable. There’s probably a simpler way to do all of this, but I’m not in the mood to find it.

This is taking way more time than I anticipated. My concern is that I’ll miss my March 31 deadline. My gift for underestimating how long anything will take is my super power. I’m a cockeyed optimists whose ego keeps telling me “You’re so clever, my boy. You can do anything you put your mind to. You could be an astronaut, if you wanted to. You could play jazz piano like Dave Brubeck, if you wanted to. You could write and illustrate a children’s book in a week, if you wanted to. And you’re a damned handsome fella, too.” Thanks, ego!

Yikes! I haven't finished the first image yet!

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One of the advantages of having zero visitors to this blog is that no one is watching while I screw up. That’s what I’m doing as I’m learning Sketchbook. And I’m screwing up continuously as I’m figuring out how to color my comics. The last thing I need right now is the feeling that spectators are having a laugh as I hack through this project. Anonymity is creative freedom! I’ll make that my motto.

I call the children’s book a “picture book”, but it’s really a form of comic book. Which is okay with me, because I love comic books. I’m about halfway finished with the first image. I’ll add the background colors tomorrow while I’m doing the laundry. Around our house that’s my weekend chore.