A Rot a Day: Day 2

Painted with ArtRage on my iPad. (This is my first ArtRage painting; give me a break.)

Day 5 of 31 Day Challenge #RottyHalloween

I've challenged myself to draw something for Halloween every day in October, and The Rots' Facebook followers are holding me to it (I hope).

My new version of Nosferatu. I drew it in ASKetch again, but this one turned out so much better than yesterday's. I took a little extra time before I started drawing to read through how to use the tools (duh).

Very, very easy app to learn, and I'm satisfied with the results. The only thing I would want to add is layers. I like to experiment as I go and duplicating the image to experiment on a new version doesn't really work the way adding layers does for me. I know the app is primarily for sketching an idea so, really, no complaints about the results. The charcoalish strokes are just so beautiful, you want it to be a final!

Day 4 of 31 Day Challenge #RottyHalloween

I've challenged myself to draw something for Halloween every day in October, and The Rots' Facebook followers are holding me to it (I hope).

For Day 4, I thought I would draw Nosferatu, mostly because I had never done that before. I also wanted to draw it on my iPad in ASKetch, partly to practice with the app, but also so I could work on it while I was on breaks at work.

I didn't get a whole lot of break time, and I struggled a little with the app today for some reason, so he looks very unfinished to me. I'm thinking on digging into the Help files of the app and maybe work on another version of him tomorrow. If not him, then something else in the app. I just feel like there's something I need to finish.

Day 2 of 31 Day Challenge #RottyHalloween

I've challenged myself to draw something for Halloween every day in October, and The Rots' Facebook followers are holding me to it (I hope).

Here's Day 2. I sketched this in my sketchbook, painted it in Procreate on my iPad and tweaked it in Photoshop.

Vampire Bats

Scanned directly from my sketchbook, here's a page of bats to celebrate Halloween. I started the page with the idea that I was going to fill the whole thing with bats. I wanted to push myself to come up with as many ideas as I could because I tend to start sketching and get lazy about it way too soon. As you can see, the first ones I drew at the top of the page are nowhere near as good as the ones that showed up on the bottom. (Click the image to see it biggie-sized.)

I'm working on painting a few of these little guys on my iPad. I found a fun new app called Auryn Ink that paints like watercolor. It even has a tilt function that, if you tilt your iPad, it makes the pigment collect in the direction you're tilting. I'm playing around with it to use as the background.

The next page in my sketchbook is all about pumpkins. I've noticed in recent years that pumpkin nummies are a whole lot more numerous than when I was growing up. Pumpkin gobs. Pumpkin cake. Pumpkin muffins. Pumpkin donuts. Pumpkin Spice Latte. Pumpkin soup. Pumpkin rolls. I think all we had when I was little was pumpkin pie. It's too bad this only lasts about two months out of the year. I haven't found a pumpkin nummy yet that I didn't like.

New site up and running

I just uploaded a completely new website for The Rots (http://www.the-rots.com). I spent a long time getting these pages together and working. The original site was built completely in Flash (http://www.the-rots.com/old), but that was years before Steve Jobs decided the iPads he wanted to sell in the future wouldn't include the ability to view Flash. And I, like so many others, really need to listen to Steve.

I also had to build separate style sheets for tablets and other mobile devices, because those also weren't much of a factor when I built the original site. But it's finished, and I'll tweak if necessary, and hopefully (hopefully) the site will work for whoever wants to take a look.

So, if you're so inclined, I would really appreciate some extra eyeballs looking over the site. I need to know if it's working on everything it was designed for. I've already hit a snag with my smart phone, which doesn't want to recognize the style sheet I built for smaller devices, and I'm not sure how to make that work.

What I need is a web guru that will sit under my desk like a troll and look over my coding when I run in to problems. I just don't know any gurus, so I guess I'll be trolling the help forums online.

I done me another iPad painting

Got to working on another painting on my iPad. I used the Procreate app and did a little color and texture tweaking in Photoshop.

His name is Ted. The bunny's still working out a name.

Friday the 13th

A black cat for your Friday the 13th.

I drew this with a marker in my sketchbook first, took a photo of the drawing with my iPad, and brought the drawing into the Procreate app to add color. I tweaked the colors and added a tiny bit of texture in the background in Photoshop.

I've been painting on my iPad

So I've been messing around with the brushes and settings and gestures in Procreate on my iPad, and I'm finding out it's a lot more powerful than I expected. I still have a lot to learn, but this is Marley. He's the first all-out painting I finished there. I added textures in Photoshop to finish him up.