Yesterday’s version of the Aztec (or is it Mayan?) temple looked like all of the stones had just been carved and laid in using a perspective grid. And, they were. Today I tried to roughen them up a bit. I need some moss and weeds growing in the cracks. Tomorrow.
The view from atop a Mayan temple
I spent the day working on this background image, which shows view from the top of a Mayan temple. The kids will be standing on the roof overlooking the jungle as they plot their path to the mountain summer home of the Monarch butterflies, where Buddy will search for his family. So far there are 10 layers in this image, and I’ll be adding more for the characters’ line work, and another bunch of color layers. It’s fun to watch the picture go from an ugly mess to a less ugly mess, and finally, hopefully, become a good-looking mess.
I used Clip Studio Paint’s perspective ruler for parts of this drawing. I could have managed with a straight line tool, but I thought that it would be a good idea to use a ruler for the fun of it. Clip Studio Paint is a very deep program. All of its features designed to help a comic artist move forward a daily inch or so. It’s worth knowing how to use this program, so I’m learn a little about it every day.
A note on my Huion Pen display. The parallax problem is definitely a consideration when the time comes to buy a pen display. I didn’t think it would be a problem, but it is annoying. The iPad has no parallax problem, and its perfection has spoiled me. I had a hell of a time minimizing the parallax with my Huion display. I’m okay with it now, but I came close to a hair-pulling, head-banging against the wall a few times. One other problem is that the tablet driver needs to be restarted now and then — the stylus loses its ability to draw until I restart the Huion process. This bug seems to occur whenever the program wakes up from sleep. Oh, well. As Tony Soparano says, “Whatcha gonna do?” You restart the program and move on.
