Things have been a little hectic around these parts recently starting a new day job and visitors off and on. The good news is that since my last update I’ve recieved a healthy amount of glass from Delphi so now I have the resources available to work on some projects that I’ve had in mind recently. I plan to produce some more gamer (Final Fantasy anyone?) and sci-fi themed pieces revolving around some of my favorite series after I finish a commission that I’m currently working on.

I wasn’t terribly into sketching this week but the whole point of the exercise is to draw even when I’m feeling pretty lazy about it.
Sketch A Day: May 11-17, 2009

I wanted to share a list of some helpful art related links that I have discovered recently. If you happen to know of any useful resources (this includes tutorials that you have made yourself) that you would like to share please feel free to drop me a line and I will check them out. hemiblog[@]gmail.com

I have added these to a master list to be featured under the ‘Tutorial’ page if you would like to bookmark it for future reference.

Photoshop Textures and Brushes:
Bittbox
Brusheezy
Texture King

Fonts:
Font Squirrel
Blambot: Comic Fonts and Lettering

Photoshop Tutorials:
PSD Tuts: Comprehensive Guide to the Pen Tool
PSD Tuts: Comprehensive Guide to the Type Tool

Drawing and Color Tutorials:
Illustration Concept Art Tutorials
33 Digital Painting Tutorials
100 Photoshop Tutorials for Creating Beautiful Art:

Misc:
Golden Ratio Calculator

Here are the results of the current version of my ‘Sketch A Day’ project… Right now I’m trying to stick with good old fashioned pencil to avoid the temptation to turn them into full on colored pieces like happened on my last attempt. I can’t seem to find the power cable for my scanner so right now I’m just snapping photos with my Sony Cybershot. It’s not the best possible solution but it gets the job done. I’ll be posting these as blog entries in weekly batches but I will be doing by utmost to upload them to the ‘illustration’ section daily.

Sketch A Day: May 7-10, 2009

Glass:

Lily Candle Holder
Materials Used: Glass, Copper Foil, 60/40 Solder, 50/50 Solder, Black Patina
About this Project: This is my second attempt at 3D structures using the copper foiling technique. I think I’m going to build some sort of rig to help assist in holding up the sides as I only have two hands which is making for some really awkward moments. I also tried my hand at using the copper foiling for decorative purposes as the lily itself was looking really flat without detail. It was good practice at any rate.

Tutorials:
I added a photo slide show with narrative to the sight explaining my current methodology for building pieces using the copper foiling technique. I would imagine that as time passes and my technique improves I will be updating this with more tips and tricks along the way.

I will also be adding some illustration tutorials as well as I’ve had a few requests from people wanting to know how I do my coloring in Photoshop. Right now it’s really a hit or miss process for me so I think organization on this little project might take me some time. I will at least put up a ’start to finish’ series of photos soon. I just have to remember to take screen shots as I go.

Sketch:
I’m thinking of starting my ‘Sketch-A-Day’ back up as I had loads of fun doing it originally. In an effort to keep from spamming my blog with posts about it I will probably add images daily to the gallery but only write a weekly post with thumbnails on the blog.

Recent additions:
Glass:

Legend of Zelda Candle Holder
Materials Used: Glass, Copper Foil, 60/40 Solder, 50/50 Solder, Zinc Frame
About this Project: This was my first attempt as building 3D structures using the copper foil method. It was quite a challenge to put things together on a structural level as I ran into quite a few set backs and my temper started to flair up more than a few times in frustration. The result is passable (I suppose)… the big thing is that I learned a lot that I can apply to future projects.

Fan Art:

Sasameki Koto Wallpaper
Materials Used: Wacom Intuos 4, Adobe Photoshop CS
About this Project: I thought I would make a quick wallpaper of one of my favorite manga (and soon to be anime) series Sasameki Koto (”Whispered Word”.) For any of you who have a particular fondness for the shoujo-ai genre I highly recommend it as it’s absolutely charming. I would speculate that this will be the first of many fan art pieces from me for this series. You should be able to click on the thumbnail below to get a copy of the full size image if you would like to save it.

Other News:
I managed to get a replacement for my broken tablet in the form of an Intuos 4. Once I have had a little more time being able to work with it I plan to write a product review with my thoughts in comparison to the previous versions of this product.

I finally have the look of my blog revised. There are still some issue with the RSS part but other than that it’s to my liking right now. I’ve added some gallery pages for my glass work and illustration in order to keep everything as organized as possible.I plan on branching out the blog portion to be a little more generalized… this will probably include nerd rants, food talk, art stuff, etc.

On the illustration front there might not be a lot of activity for a while because my Intuos 3 died due to a bad cable. That’s the second Intuos that I’ve purchased _and_ the second one that I’ve had die over the cable being faulty. I’ve also managed to lose the power adapter for my scanner somewhere along the way while moving last summer and just now noticed that it was  missing… so until I have a new way to publish things online it’s probably going to be mostly about glass or just my inane ramblings.

At any rate that’s about it for now. More to follow later I’m sure.