Tag: digital art

Moving from Science to Drawing

Drawing is tough.

It is even harder when you have a toddler to keep an eye out for. I got out of that particular fix once I moved to Calgary and I was able to allocate office space for myself at my new home. All of this took well over three months (between December to February), so drawing had to be on the backburner for a while (another reason for the lack of follow up posts in The Art Corner).

Now, having eased into a working routine this month, I was ready to go crazy with my art and keep up with the good vibes I had with my previous drawing of an eye back in November.

Unfortunately, the restart began with me careening into a major roadblock. Suffice to say, it took a lot of effort to overcome this obstacle. To relate this story, I need to revisit my childhood memories. Back then, I used to draw A LOT (art competitions, drawing classes, and a large stash of comics and kids magazines kept my creative juices flowing). What defined my work was the clarity with which I was able to approach whatever I wished to draw. I enjoyed the process.

Unfortunately, growing up has its toll.

In my case, drawing became less of an active interest by the time I finished my secondary education and it was science galore once I started university. It wasn’t until I began my doctoral studies that my continued passion for writing stirred my long-forgotten love for drawing. With every story I worked on, I really wanted to bring the worlds of my imagination to life on a piece of paper.

Long story short, I had to hit the drawing board again.

As I sat down to restart my drawing adventures this March, it became very obvious very quickly that my mindset needed a major shift. It wasn’t a case of, “I can’t draw!” Rather, after 12 years at university, my mind had grown accustomed to a strictly logical thought process. This had its fair share of benefits when I had to solve physics problems and what not but it didn’t translate well into my art process.

Incorporating a systematic approach to my art helped me easily build on specific skills such as the ability to deconstruct images into basic geometric shapes and objects. This was great for getting the basic structure of my subject, but when it came down to molding these geometric shapes to match reality, I found myself spending more time critiquing the details as opposed to getting my drawing done. This made even simple drawings and assignments very taxing. I realized I was thinking too hard, and needed to “let the art flow” and “loosen up.”

That was easier said than done, especially when it had to accompany a huge shift in mindset. Logic doesn’t follow very smoothly in art and part of drawing is to learn to be ok with restating and imperfections. That was a tough nut to crack for me.

Ironically, having a toddler running around in the house helped in this aspect. By the time I sat down to draw every evening, I was too tired mentally to engage as a critic. Rather, the process gradually shifted to just putting pencil to paper, being relaxed with my approach, and most importantly, being OK with it.

This made the difference. Moral of the story, “Keep it simple. Look, hold, and draw.”

So here we are with the pieces that I got to work on recently:

This involved an assignment on learning to draw by looking at your subject as opposed to the paper. The (Left) is a classic example of me failing to be loose, and the (Right) when I succeeded. Next up is to add more definition to the feet by capturing its contours.
A product of my frustration. I needed a mental break one night, and just tried something ambitious: a rough sketch of a portrait that came up on my Facebook feed (Permissions obtained from Irina Akulenko). I didn’t care about how perfect my linework was, just kept restating and restating in what was an enjoyable 45 min drawing session. Gonna keep working on it to perfect it.

Getting back into Art – Drawing an Eye!

Life is a balancing act. For me, that boils down to juggling my day job as a freelance science writer and my nighttime adventures as an aspiring comic book artist.

It took me more than a decade to realize my passion for writing and art. In retrospect, its funny I didn’t catch it earlier especially when the answer was staring me in the face.

I love writing. It started off with personal projects and now I’m wrapping up the final script for a graphic novel that I hope to publish sometime in the distant future. Art was more an on and off companion since my childhood.

Now, I’m ready to really get into it, and polish my knowledge and skills. I still have a long way to go and there is much to learn. Having made a specific section called “Art Corner” in this blog, I hope to utilize it as an art journal of sorts where I can post my weekly progress.

You have got to start with the fundamentals, and so I started off with this course on Udemy:

The first lesson was to draw a realistic eye, as best to our ability as possible. I would then draw the same eye, at the end of the course, as a means to gauge my progress.

I’m a pencil and paper guy but with my recent foray into comics, I have also been interested in picking up digital art. So I did two eyes!

The one on the left is obviously done using pencil and paper, and the one on the right is an ongoing struggle in my digital foray.

I hope to keep up with my weekly projects and post consistently! Feel free to critique the hell out of it in the comments as it helps me even more. And, don’t forget, follow my art journey at LockeInArt on Instagram as well!

Follow me on Instagram!

After attending the Lightbox Expo I was hard-pressed to start an Instagram account dedicated to my artwork. Aside from The Pensive Reverie and The Procrastinating Scientist, my presence on other social media platforms is sparse.

My lack of interest in social media notwithstanding I would be a bigger fool to deny that social media can be a productive resource on its own for individuals pursuing creative endeavors. Nevertheless, I was initially reluctant as I felt my art skills were too amateurish to warrant sharing my work in a public platform.

But, the journey is always a part of reaching our goals and destinations. Thus, I have decided to start an Instagram which will record my rare successes, frequent stumbles, and hilarious fails in my journey to be an artist.

Much of what I intend to share on Instagram will revolve around my growing art skills, my brief stints of inspiration, and whatever is the ensuing result when my ideas meet paper and pencil.

For those among my readers who are also active on Instagram, I would really appreciate your support by following my adventures on this platform as well. So, with that being said, here’s to a prosperous Instagram art journey at Ajay Peter Manuel@lockeinart.

They say the pen is mightier than the sword, let’s hope my pencil is equally mighty in reproducing the worlds that flourish in my brain.

Reviewing the Wacom Intuos Comic and my art journey so far…

I love writing, and even more so being lost in imagination of the worlds I desire to construct for my stories. The last I remember, my love for drawing was at its peak during my early teens. With my father being a pretty good amateur artist himself, I tried to emulate him by drawing whatever subject that piqued my interest in the weekly kids’ magazine. But as the years passed, my interest in drawing evolved to resemble an empty, short-sided affair amid random spurts of creativity.

Much of that changed in 2017 when I completed my second book, A Little Bit of Everything. It was around then that I seriously began engaging in the possibility of a creative career. Much thanks to my awesome wife and our love for manga, comics, and animated media I began yearning for more than just writing a story. I wished to draw out the worlds of my imagination and make them come to life.

I enrolled in an introductory art class at the local arts center in Edmonton in 2017 and not too long after completing A Little Bit of Everything, I purchased the Wacom Intuos Comic to begin my foray into digital art. Having used this drawing tablet for about four years now, I felt it was time for a review.

Digital art comes with the caveat that one must NOT mistakenly assume that it is easier. In general, one must first learn how to draw to be able to be good at all. Switching between traditional and digital media offers select advantages and disadvantages but it does not correspond to your drawing skills getting better. Rather, what makes the difference is practice; the more you practice (no matter what media) the better you get at drawing.

After installing the Wacom Intuos Comic, I began exploring the digital medium landscape by trying out the limited-time software offer of Clip Studio Paint, alongside various other different free software including FireAlpaca, Krita, etc.

The surface of the tablet is smooth and quite sensitive (which can be managed via tablet settings). What did take a while to get used to was the hand-eye coordination between the tablet and the screen. This is because the Wacom Comic is a drawing tablet as opposed to a graphics tablet. Though this was highly frustrating at first, I eventually got the hang of it. Having to balance your hand-eye coordination also motivated the good practice of focusing on my monitor, and observing the subject of my drawing, as opposed to switching back and forth from my tablet to the screen (as one is often prone to do when drawing with pencil and paper).

The Wacom Intuos Comic comes with a pen as well as extra nibs provided in the package. Getting used to the tablet also involved getting the hang of how the pen worked on the tablet’s surface. Much of this was made flexible via the tablet software allowing one to make relevant modifications on pen pressure to helping it feel akin to an actual pencil.

My art journey over the last four years has been an on and off affair between my doctoral studies and whenever I get a chance to draw. The Wacom Intuos Comic in my opinion is an awesome drawing tablet. The greatest pro to it is the fact that it introduces you to drawing on a tablet with ease. It is light-weight, looks awesome and can be carried wherever you want. The caveat is that it is a drawing tablet and therefore requires you to have a computer around to be able to do any kind of drawing.

The Wacom Comic that I bought in 2017 still looks brand new though the smudges and the pen marks on the tablet have grown visible over the years. Recently, I upgraded to a new graphics tablet in the XP-Pen Artist 15.6 Pro. My reasons in doing so stemmed from THE one personal con I had with the Wacom Intuos Comic: a small working area.

Being a giraffe (I’m 6’2’’, long ass fingers, and lanky as heck) in my own rights, despite getting used to the hand-eye coordination involved in using the drawing tablet, I often struggled with the small working area (7 inches) which left me often feeling uncomfortable and cramped up during long drawing sessions.

Obviously, this is a personal opinion. I have found many artists who are physically similar and just fine using the same. In my case, translating the free space in traditional media of pen and pencil (on a drawing desk) to the Wacom was difficult no matter how much I tried. I would ultimately find a working process in doing my rough sketches by hand mostly and using the Wacom as the final resort for finishing touches.

This doesn’t take away the fact that the Wacom Intuos Comic is the perfect tablet for anyone to start their journey in the digital medium. On those days when I can’t lug around my XP Pen, the Wacom Comic remains my go-to portable drawing tablet. Learning software aside, I’ve loved working on the Wacom Intuos Comic. The added bonus of the free software, and relatively cheap prize (around $80) makes it a perfect comic for the budget artist. At this point in time, I believe the Wacom Intuos Comic is no longer offered at the Wacom site, but its successor in the Wacom Intuos S is equally competitive and smartly priced for the budget artist.

With that said, as I wrap up the remaining chapters of my doctoral studies and shift my focus to more creative endeavors (with a new graphics tablet to boot), I intend to keep you all posted on my progress starting with a follow-up post on my new Instagram where I intend to share all my success and the occasional (hopefully) hilarious fails in my journey to become a competent artist.