Image Trace

So I was working on something special that needs to be printed on fabric… but I like working on paper more than digital… but when I work on paper I tend to use a lot more lines than is good for printing on fabric… so here is my current solution that both allows me to work on paper AND to reduce a drawing to its essential elements for printing on fabric. First, here is the original as I drew it with pen and ink (my favorite way to work):

web shirt art v1 72 dpi

With my continuing education in digital stuff, I can run the above image (which I am quite happy with) through adobe illustrator Image Trace utility, and, with some experimentation/fiddling, come out with this:

aereth shirt art v1 image traced. ai

Which also looks pretty good to me in an Expressionist ‘woodcut’ sort of way. The second one is more suitable for printing in situations where the finer lines of the original won’t carry (like on fabric or one of those fancy gold foil print jobs).

Hint: if you are an Illustrator user and want to do something similar, not only experiment with the image trace utility, but play around with the resolution of the image you are converting. For the above illustration, I did several experiments and discovered that I liked it best  when I reduced the image to about 1/3rd of its original resolution.

 


Goddawful Music

barako opus abberant 72 dpi

Another one for Goodman Games.


Back Home (NSFW)

p14 p15 full scan 72dpi

Here is another 2 page spread for the Shaver book that I was working on a little over a week ago and just recently scanned… this is from chapter 2 or 3 and is intended to illustrate the horrors of the Dero as imagined by Shaver — I think after the editors at Amazing Stories got done with them, the sexual sadism was more implied rather than explicit. But I wanted to try to tell this story as Richard Shaver saw it, so the nasty stuff stays in.

I’ve been away for almost 10 days and it is good to be back. While visiting family and friends, I had the opportunity to try to describe this project and I found getting people to understand why I thought the Shaver story was interesting was easier now than it used to be — I think working on editing the comic and going over the source material I have been reading/looking at really helped solidify it in my mind and made explaining it easier.

Next I need to do some more Goodman work. Unfortunately, because of dayjob issues, I just figured out that I will not be attending Gencon this year. I was supposed to be a guest of Goodman, but maybe next year.


More Shaver work-in-progress

IMG_0114

Another view of a 2 page spread for the Shaver book. This is from Chapter 4 and describes how shaver made his paintings… with technical info on his process (at least, as I understand it) and my reproductions/interpretations (in B&W) of some of his works.

I think this is the most text-heavy set of pages I have ever done.


Recent Work

MCC RPG T Shirt 2 final image traced.tif

I haven’t been able to keep up with updates for the web page — so here is a recently finished t-shirt design for Goodman Games’ “Mutant Crawl Classics” based on a concept from MCC’s creator, Jim Wampler. I think it will be available on a t-shirt come Gen-Con, and it might also be used for a ‘leather edition’ book cover.


Enhanced Spellburn

enhanced spellburn.v2ai

I haven’t posted an update in a while, so here is something I did for “Gongfarmer’s Almanac” 2016. Wizard looks a little pudgy — too many trips to the all-thou-canst-eat buffet, I guess.