My First Digital Painting

I've never been much of a painter, so I've always shied away from trying to paint in Photoshop. Last week, though, I watched Joe Bluhm's latest digital painting podcast, and he talked a bit about about being fearless in your painting, which inspired me to give it a shot.

I wasn't going for a good likeness here, I just wanted to try playing with Photoshop, and to ease me into it, I went monochromatic.

And because I save lots of versions as I work, I can even show some in process versions.




One problem I've noticed with my Cintiq is that the image is usually way too dark. What appears to be a deep black on a Cintiq is barely darker than a middle grey on my other monitor. My solution was to do the painting on the Cintiq, check the values on my other monitor, darken the image using the Curves editor, and then go back in and paint more. Anyone have a better solution?

Hey You! I'm a Chicken!!

I made a new video.



This is what happens when I can't find freelance.

A big thanks to Mike for voicing the chicken.

Demetri Martin

I saw Demetri Martin perform at the UCB Theater last night. He's working on new material and it's interesting to hear his jokes before he's perfected them. He also showed some work in progress sketches that he made for his Comedy Central show which is coming out in February (I think). I thought these were the most interesting because they really ran the gamut. He only showed sketches he wasn't confident about (in order to gauge crowd reaction). Some were good and some...weren't, but it's a good reminder that everyone has to struggle to make good work and that sometimes you have to make bad stuff too.

Here's a quick caricature I did of him tonight.



Not that great, but whatever. Also, I tried out a new pen and as you can see it started leaving ugly dots and smudged when I started in on the hair.

An Open Letter To Bob Schieffer

Dear Bob Schieffer,

If I had your face I'd do nothing but dramatically lit self-portraits all day long. How do you resist this urge?

Sincerely,
Adam Sacks

Mad Men: Joan Holloway

After Kinsey, you have to draw Joan Holloway. Their subtle (and not so subtle) vindictiveness is pretty great.