the break and the birth

Well it's as good as official at this point. If you go to Reeder Rabbit theres an announcement basically telling the world that i am on break... but i link off to Unconscious Ink and The Noir Project in REALLY BIG words to hopefully pull some of that traffic over to whats gonna be my main focus in the next few months, [ui] inklings. I'm really excited about this transition and I've already drawn out a few of the up coming UI's so that i will be ahead. Unlike Reeder which i felt i could never keep up with, i will definitely be posting every Thursday at midnight and possibly more then that per week (but i don't know for sure about that yet). After working on Ali's website and making it look really clean, I decided to fiddle around with the Unconscious Ink's site a bit. Ideally this is also my art portfolio for future references, and potential clients so i can pick up some freelance work. I currently haven't posted any art yet (most everything is here in the blog), but i plan to over the summer at some point since i should have a bit more free time. For now i think the site looks good, and I'm excited about how things are turning out right now. Any feed back you can give me would be appreaciated; i fixed most of the noticeable glitches, but if u see others tell me. Thank for the support while i go through this non-Reeder comic transition! :D

retirement

i've really deeply been considering retiring Reeder Rabbit for good. I'm not sure tho, i mean worked really hard getting it to be something and its just not what im happy with. That doesn't mean im done with art or anything like that of course! I just posted a new UI tonight and ive been doodling a lot again. I stopped doing Unconscious Inks in the first place because doing them purely in Photoshop took hours. As i'm learning alot about different mediums i'm finding that i can do traditional pieces a lot faster, and I'm realitively please with the results. I posted about this in the forums but i didn't get alot of responses. What do other people think about this idea? Over all I feel like id be happier just doing a few creative illustrations a week which keep my creative juices going and run the noir project while i do this. I may bring reeder back at some point,but not till im satisfied with what im doing artistically. I may even just do another concept entirely once i get better at drawing. peace.

constant revision

as some people may know ive just not been happy with reeder at all. im bored of it an wanted to switch things up. I have alot of limitations with working only on a tablet that i dont like. I draw better when its by hand on paper. In class for the last project the teacher suggested i try a specific style of illustrating for it.. at first i wasn't to thrilled but i gave it a shot and i LOVE the look of it... im thinking about doing reeders like this now.. I scanned an example of what I'm thinking about. Any opinions?



its very manga styled, which i like since the character designs are already anime influenced. i like that its hand drawn, traditional work, and it alot faster for me to do, honestly...which means MORE REEDER'S! well see...

been vinyl lovin'

Well, I've been rather busy. I went to San Fransisco to take a little vacation with Ana for a few days and checked out the Gallery 1988 Exhibit, which was pretty awesome. Kathie Olivas is now one of my favorite artist for sure! She does paintings on canvas as well as vinyl; i love any artist that explores Vinyl. :D While i was up there i stopped by Kid Robot in Haight and bought a few little figures. Hated them both... I decided to paint over one of them, which proved to be a rather huge pain in the ass. I'd really like to explore the art of working with vinyl but i CAN'T find any information on it online. After looking around on the internet for a while i found a few ways to do it... but don't feel like i was as successful at it as i was hoping :( Heres what came out:


(Coney in Acrylics on Vinyl Dunny)

After seeing Andrew Bell's exhibit in LA last weekend, I've REALLY wanted to get better at painting in general. I'm currently working on a painting that I'll probably post in the next few weeks, that i've been slaving over the past few days.

Anyway, as far as vinyl goes... I'm still stumped on how to produce/paint my own figures... i guess i will learn over time.

understanding

So as i play more and more with illustrator i learned something. I wanted to "remaster" the older comics. What i did was print them, trace them, scan them, vectorize them, and bam. They look 1000x's better. I've done it to about the first six comics. I'm pretty thrilled about the idea that i can go back to my un-editable mess ups (due to the fact that i no longer have the files) and fix them!

During this process i realized this my be a more efficient way to get my comics in the future done. So far it seems to be that this will be the way that i will do it but my one problem lies in the nature of fill tools. I every line (since they were traced) was black.. so this means that i couldn't differentiate from the rabbits to the outlines of the comics, etc. I found a sloppy way around it (which I'm super pro at doing) but i quickly came to an understanding about something. You know how in Movie Production sometimes they put actors in front of a blue or green screen so that they can later ad CG? WELL, if i were to apply that same concept to fill tools i can now do the following. Hand draw the comics (which I'm rather fast at)and edit and play around with them on paper, then trace the rabbits in lets say gray marker, then the borders in black, objects in red (or varying color depending on whether these objects touch or not), and talk bubbles in blue. Problem at that point solved! I can then fill eveything thing else in with in moments with no pixels in the images. If this is true then i should have a very streamlined way to go about drawing. I was never quite able to figure out the way Jeph Jacques does his drawing completely in photoshop.. but i think this way will be just as efficient! lets hope so!

thinking on this a moment more i can probably also draw the shadows in a different pen as well. then i could shade them in too! This should be amazing if it works.

katie in vector

Well... I'm kind of annoyed. i spent the last hour or so designing Katie on Adobe Illustrator, i was pretty happy with it until the teacher started talking about live tracing images. Live tracing is a technique where you can draw your pictures on paper, scan them, then use illustrator to vectorize your drawing! WHICH WOULD HAVE SAVED ME HOURS OF TIME!! >.< design center tutorial Oh well, i learned alot about illustrator from doing this, so i guess there is a good side to it but i thought I'd post the first draft of Katie for now.

naming her

i was gonna keep this a secret for a while... but i changed my mind. I'm working on adding at least one character Reeder Rabbit. I will more then lately bring the turtle back in a few comics as well. Thing is I'm bad at names. I like the idea of having names mean something or at least represent something. In the case of the current two characters the rabbits names are both rabbit related. Reeder Rabbit and Coney Caron. So now i'm thinking about adding a girl rabbit, and like I said id like to bring the turtle back. Any name suggestions?


I figured the girls last name could be Conejo... all i've gotten so far is Katie Conejo... if anyone has ideas I might actually use em. thanks :D

reeder in vector

So as i'm learning more about vector imaging i decided that the best way to go about the reeder comics from here on out is to do them as pixel free images. I've been playing around with it and so far for the most part i think that the rabbits look 10x better already! This is the first Reeder i've been working on. This up coming comic wont be in the new style (since ive already done it) but from that point on, most likely, i will be doing the comics like this:

2 years and running

Well, as of today Feb. 10, I've been drawing Reeder and Coney for a full two years! I wonder if they will last another two!? =P

frustration of knowledge (edit w/ scans)

I love learning... but sometimes its frustrating and difficult. It even at times makes me want to quit.. but its not till i get to that point do i start to learn. Often i actually do give up for a small period of time and come back to it and have a handle on it.

This is whats frustrating me:

My projects are becoming more and more time consuming... and I'm never satisfied with the outcomes. Currently I've been working on this one point perspective graphite drawing, which is on a 18X24inch sheet of bristol board paper. It is a rough drawing of my room, which a super imposition of some of the little creatures I've been drawing lately. The room on paper barely fits the description of my room and and i realized lately that i know nothing about shading.. When i was younger i used to blow off any type of art teacher when they would talk (lesson learned there) and thought i had a good hold on it it... Well, turns out i don't. I found that cross hatching though is a really awesome way to shade. Up close it looks too textured and almost like you don't know how to shade.. but from a distance i'm actually falling in love with the way it looks! This is where the learning has started.. i've gone from hating everything about the shading and the way my room looks to slowly enjoying it.. but this project is still taking several pain staking hours!

Whats the most frustrating is that i lost my Stylus pen! I need it to draw the Reeders and UI... but i haven't been able to find it. I have a spare but i hate the tip; its very smooth and allows the pen to flow to easily across the screen.. BUT from this i've learned that i can use that tip to make very natural lines that aren't over thought. After being frustrated for about an hour of drawing the last reeder "Lessons with that guy Death" i found my extra tips.. i went back to the type i like.. but I'm still not too sure about the spare pen.. its bigger and bulkier. =/ Out of all things to lose did i really have to lose that pen? They cost like 80$'s to replace!

Here are some scans of my first 2D Design project:

When i first started this project i didn't think this was gonna turn out cool. In fact i don't really like the originals as much as these ones. Whats so special about these? We'll once i loaded them on the computer i was trying to enhance the blacks, but along the way i stumbled across the invert function. When i did this it pulled out the texture of the black in and made it look more interesting to me. The Drawing on the top was actually my favorite at first still i did this inversion thing. now i actually enjoy the bottom one a little bit more.


Though i have the originals in black ink, I'm considering making prints of these on higher quality paper and maybe framing them for my room. I'm not sure. The gray tones really seem to make this image more effective and would actually accent some of the crap i have in my room.

odd-ly-ness-less

Yeah... so i was really frustrated today. Partly because of my resent lack of my recently lack of sleep (I'm sure its finally getting to me), but also because ever since i got my new computer I've been having a lot of little issues with Vista and its compatibility with things. Oddly, the latest issue I've had is that i can't use the 'pressure sensitivity' tool whenever my hard drive is plugged in; i only accidentally realized this was the case i unplugged my computer from the hard-drive to move to the other room. I'm really baffled as to why this is happening but either way it made it that much harder for me to get the new Reeder do "first-aid" done on time. It's real hard to try to run a more legit website when everything around you seems to want to prevent it! Never fear, i don't easily submit to the easy path; I'm not an "Adolf-quitler!" haha.

Anyway, in other news i finally got my first project from my 2D Design class back (i dont much care for it), and the teacher delayed the due date for the one i've been staying up doing at night the past few days! This means there will be some scan-age most likely tomorrow! So come back and look if you'd like.

windows defender defends...

Windows defender defends against its worst enemy, itself! That right! Today when i tried using the old fonts for the reeder logo, i didn't have them anymore. After i re-downloaded them i tried installing them but Vista wouldn't let me. Apparently it hates itself for not having the fonts i needed. Because of this i had a real hard time with comic #55 Johnny in Depp, but i had a lot of fun doing it. I learned a few new things. For instance... I am flat out a bad speller.. So i did most of this one with a font i found online while looking for the old fonts. When i noticed the spelling errors on this issue (after i posted it) i just went back, spell checked it which corrected it with in seconds. If i draw the misspellings its a pain to correct cos i have to erase them and re-write them. Thats a major problem with some of the earlier comics.. first, i cant go back and fix them cos i no longer have the files and even if i did i would have to go back and edit over lined paper so spelling edits are hard. I swear one of these days i'll re-do all the original 30 something that are in the older style. (at least the first ten that i honestly just HATE!).

Luckily today i didn't have as many computer issues (other then the fonts). I have my new computer almost fully set up the way i wanted it, which is great. Also, i reformatted my old one and took it apart to clean out the fan, runs beautifully now! (minus the fact that it can't handle Adobe. >.<)

Well i'm gonna crash out now.. Hopefully tomorrow i can get to the new UI .. i feel like such a slacker for not drawing them lately.

another issue

i got everything ready to do this weeks reeder, i had plans to do this one months ago.. in fact i may have even thought of it years ago.. but i didn't really have to means to do my idea. Now that i have adobe and a more powerful computer i decided it was time to finally do it! Well... i turned on Photo shop the moment i got home anxious to start this idea and what do i find? Windows decides that it can't run anything Adobe. WTF!? It was working earlier.. but i think the issue may have come in when i installed some of the Wacom drivers shortly after i ran it because i realized i didn't have all my brush tools i needed. Something mysterious happened when i ran them...So now i don't have a Reeder for today! Usually i try to get them up by Midnight so that viewers around the world will be able to see them on their Thursday's as well.. but no, not this week. Thanks Microsoft. i love you. ^_~

So for now I'm uninstalling Adobe and reinstalling; i already tried repairing... nothing happened (of course). The un-installation is taking a very long time... i may have to just let it run over night and re-install when i wake up. Hopefully I'll have everything set up by late afternoon and the comic up by evening.

Sorry for the delay.