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Description
Pinstripe Potoroo is copyright of Crash Bandicoot by Activism.
Left to right we have Pinstripe Potoroo, Joshua, Nate, and Rupert driving the tractor.
***
STORY SNIPPET
...
Still, when he was finally waved over to them by Jeremiah, they greeted him with grinning faces and a chorus of “Sorry.” That was suspicious. Maybe they were going to wait until they were out of sight of their own man. Still this time, when Joshua offered a hand up on the platform, Pinstripe accepted. It was much easier uptop. They wouldn’t let him down after that, and sometimes one or the other would hop up and tell him to sit while they switched at being organizers. Guess they’d taken the lecture to heart to not work the new guy to death. Not yet anyway. All in all, it was a good challenge. A bit like packing a warehouse - slotting the pieces in like the worlds’ biggest jigsaw puzzle.

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From Ch. 3 of this story: www.deviantart.com/zealousshad…
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This picture hopefully illustrates some progress I've been making as an artist. The size dimensions are interesting -
16 x 9 are the dimensions of camera film. I have been doing a series of drawings all this size to 'think like a storyboard artist.'
I'm trying to get better at background art and how it tells a story.
I also challenged myself to draw a vehicle - a tractor and trailer. Vehicles are really hard for me - so many straight lines.
This is a completely digital drawing - normally I start out with a traditional pencil sketch.
Instead, I actually used several photographs which I layered together to figure out where the tractor and characters would be.
I copy and pasted them on a paint document, resizing them to form my base. The original photograph did not have as many workers.

The tools I used are FireAlpaca (a computer drawing program) and a Wacom tablet (a digital drawing tool).
Within the final drawing there are 10 layers - one more layer than my most complex drawing from two years ago.
There are four separate layers of lineart. The background,tractor, hay, and characters are all separate layers.
Each lineart layer has a matching colouring layer, then shading and lighting.
I use only two kinds of brushes - a regular pen and an airbrush (note the fluffly clouds).
But I also make use of the layers - shading and lighting are done in transparent layers so I can decide how dark or light they are.
If I wanted the shadows to be softer for instance, I could have done them with an airbrush.
To make them lighter, I could turn up the transparency.

I know there are areas I could still improve, but I'm proud of how this turned out.
Now if only I could add the other elements - the chugging of the tractor, the chirp of cicadas, the smell of fresh cut grass...

Description
Pinstripe Potoroo is copyright of Crash Bandicoot by Activism.
Left to right we have Pinstripe Potoroo, Joshua, Nate, and Rupert driving the tractor.
***
STORY SNIPPET
...
Still, when he was finally waved over to them by Jeremiah, they greeted him with grinning faces and a chorus of “Sorry.” That was suspicious. Maybe they were going to wait until they were out of sight of their own man. Still this time, when Joshua offered a hand up on the platform, Pinstripe accepted. It was much easier uptop. They wouldn’t let him down after that, and sometimes one or the other would hop up and tell him to sit while they switched at being organizers. Guess they’d taken the lecture to heart to not work the new guy to death. Not yet anyway. All in all, it was a good challenge. A bit like packing a warehouse - slotting the pieces in like the worlds’ biggest jigsaw puzzle.

**********
From Ch. 3 of this story: www.deviantart.com/zealousshad…
*************

This picture hopefully illustrates some progress I've been making as an artist. The size dimensions are interesting -
16 x 9 are the dimensions of camera film. I have been doing a series of drawings all this size to 'think like a storyboard artist.'
I'm trying to get better at background art and how it tells a story.
I also challenged myself to draw a vehicle - a tractor and trailer. Vehicles are really hard for me - so many straight lines.
This is a completely digital drawing - normally I start out with a traditional pencil sketch.
Instead, I actually used several photographs which I layered together to figure out where the tractor and characters would be.
I copy and pasted them on a paint document, resizing them to form my base. The original photograph did not have as many workers.

The tools I used are FireAlpaca (a computer drawing program) and a Wacom tablet (a digital drawing tool).
Within the final drawing there are 10 layers - one more layer than my most complex drawing from two years ago.
There are four separate layers of lineart. The background,tractor, hay, and characters are all separate layers.
Each lineart layer has a matching colouring layer, then shading and lighting.
I use only two kinds of brushes - a regular pen and an airbrush (note the fluffly clouds).
But I also make use of the layers - shading and lighting are done in transparent layers so I can decide how dark or light they are.
If I wanted the shadows to be softer for instance, I could have done them with an airbrush.
To make them lighter, I could turn up the transparency.

I know there are areas I could still improve, but I'm proud of how this turned out.
Now if only I could add the other elements - the chugging of the tractor, the chirp of cicadas, the smell of fresh cut grass...