As some of you know, I’m an atheist, and of those, I tend to call myself an aggressive atheist(one who will not shut up and be politically correct sometimes). I made a few religion-bashing cartoons for a start-up user-contributed atheism website called http://www.atheistconnect.org. I’ve decided to put them up here, even though it is very likely they will insult someone.

I’m not really concentrated because a bunch of drunken fellows sing loudly on a corner nearby, so I’ll just upload the images

**IMPORTANT NOTICE >> POLITICALLY INCORRECT ANTI-RELIGION CARTOONS AHEAD.**

In the first article I covered just the most mundane of things, and hopefully not lost interest of the readers. Well, in this one I will give you several more practical advices you could put to work right away. That’s my way of saying sorry for a boring first part The article is made of several subheadings that are not related much, so you can just skip to which ever you want, but I recommend reading the whole thing, don’t be lazy. Laziness is your enemy, I know best.

Use Undo/CTRL+Z.

Use the Undo feature and use it often, because that’s one thing you can’t do with many real art tools. It’s better to make several attempts at a line, than do one that’s a lousy one. Many tablets have those nifty little control surfaces you can assign various shortcuts to, you probably have a tablet app(MacroKey Manager in my case) running in the background, so find it, open it, and set one of the buttons or whatever you have to send CTRL+Z to the app, so you don’t have to switch to the keyboard every time. In fact I have the entire feature turned off, because sometimes it really gets in the way. But I’d really like to have a dedicated undo button.

I saw several video tutorials of some very prominent artists, and they were using undo, like, even up to 5-6 times until they get the line they want. I think it is a good thing, and I advice you all to use the Undo, in the menu or as a tablet button, whatever, just use it if you are not satisfied. Patience is a virtue.

Tablet surface pains

Well, I haven’t tried the expensive Intuos or Cintiq(:drool:), or almost any better tablet, but on every other tablet I tried there’s this thing with the tablet surface - it has very, very low friction, and that is something that will bother you a lot, after a year, it still bothers me, as I can’t make a nice lasso selection, the lasso gets all wobbly, because the surface of my Genius tablet is drastically smoother than, say, paper. For example, you want to make a flat line with a 90 degree turn, it’s natural that you stop a little at the corner to get that turn right, well, with some tablets, the cursor moves like an oversensitive mouse, and that problem needs to be solved. And I think it’s a dumbest solution that works, ever.

A sheath of paper saves the day

Yeah, you read it well, just put a sheath of paper over  your tablet surface, press it a little with your non-drawing hand to prevent it from moving, and voila! You will immediately start to feel more at home when drawing, more in control. It was a fudgin’ revelation and a lifesaver for me when I tried it simply out of curiosity, and it will be the same for all people with similar tablets, with similar smooth surface. Though my tablet pen causes an irritating screech when drawing on paper, I’d rather hear screeching that having trouble lasso-ing something simple. Let me know if it works out for you. I used an ordinary 70gram paper, the cheap one I have in stock, and I guess you can use any you want, I tried putting several different thickness papers and my tablet still picks up the pen input. I guess now it’s just a personal preference to choose.

Also, because you will probably have the screeching noise when drawing over paper, don’t use it if you don’t need to be precise, or just plain hate the damn noise. I use it on and off, when I need it, but mostly I don’t remove it because I listen to loud metal music and I don’t mind, haha.

Choose your software, try everything

It’s also a nice helper when the software you draw and paint in is something that likes your tablet and gives it all the love Photoshop, Sketcbook or Painter won’t give to some tablets.

I’m talking about, for example – MyPaint, one hell of a free painting application, which one friend who bought a tablet just a few days ago labeled as “This is like sex”. I use MyPaint almost as my main painting tool and almost exclusively to make sketches.

ArtRage also loves all tablets, and it is maybe the best natural drawing and painting application ever. It’s not free, but give the demo a try, you’ll be surprised how cool the watercolor and oils are in the latest version. Older, version 2.6, costs only $20, and I can tell you that is a great offer, I used 2.6 for some time. Now there’s a very powerful 3.0 ArtRage Studio and it’s a professional artist must-have. Worth every cent.

ArtWeaver, Krita, Gimp, LiveBrush, all of those programs are free, and may suite you well, these two on the top are my personal favorites. Having tried out almost every drawing software there is, I think I have a little knowledge in the field. Having a program that you feel comfortable in is very important, and it’s a nice positive factor for your progress.

Until the next part

Thanks for being with me on this one, several more parts of this are to come, hopefully on a weekly basis. It would mean a lot if I helped someone. Feel free to ask, comment, like, share tweet, whatever you feel like, especially if this worked for you, I would be glad to know. I hope you will have a lot of fun with your drawing and painting. Subscribe to the RSS or by email so you won’t miss the next article. Bye!

Figher pilots always were the cocky, proud ones, and it would be logical they always will be that kind of people that looks danger in the eye and laughs at it. I was impressed by stories of some WWII fighter pilots I saw on History, and made a dedication

The vintage feel(or am I just trippin’) is totally intentional color-wise and design-wise.

Even though the image has a little odd format, hope you like it

Technical info:
Adobe Photoshop CS5, and MyPaint for painting the skies, and additional details.
No reference or custom stuff used, only a single chalk dual brush in PS and a few in MyPaint for details and skies.
Time: about 3hrs, because I started it as something completely different.

Click to see or download in full size

After several million years, Poodl is back, and he’s already mugged. Poor thing, can’t even take a dive without getting in trouble.

I won’t bore you with technicalities, I’ll just say it’s painted in MyPaint and it was really fun It’s nice to relax a little and paint something different and less serious.

Description

Silly humans obsess about the smallest and most fragile of things…A simple flower…just now I get it. Hi, flower…I am not lonely now.

Technical data

Software: MyPaint(painting) and PS CS5(Adjustments)
Time: About 2-3 hrs. Still a terribly slow painter.

I must note that this series of articles will be for beginners, the people who just got their tablets.

For starters, I guess I can say I don’t guarantee any success, because everything about drawing is very subjective, but I will do my best to share my experience, because I am in the process of learning and improving my tablet skills myself, still, after about a year of owning one. Also, tablet drawing experience can vary with different sizes, different models and makes, pencil shapes. My tablet of the moment is Genius® G Pen M609, which has a small-to-medium size drawing area – 9” by 5.5”. It’s a good beginner’s tablet, with an affordable price.

Feeling comfortable

This is a very mundane, but very important thing when preparing for a drawing session, especially if you draw/sketch full-time. This can apply for all drawing situations, tools, and I can’t stress enough the importance of feeling comfortable while drawing. If you sit on a chair, make sure you are in a position that is well balanced, so your tablet does not move while you draw, only your hand. If you’re, like me, sometimes sitting on the bed with your notebook pc on front of you on a chair, a low table(don’t know how it’s called in English), make sure you put something, a few pillows or so, behind your back, so you can rest your back comfortably in an upward position. Believe me, it makes a difference when you have to draw for 6 hours or more. Pillows are your friends in this area! The best thing of course is having a good, as I call it – CEO Chair – that is comfortable and has enough space not to constrict your drawing hand.

Positioning the tablet

Another very important thing to consider when drawing, is where you put your tablet.  Some people have in in their laps, some slant the tablet on one leg, some put it near, some far, it depends on the style of drawing and tablet size, the bigger the tablet, the more space it requires. This aspect is very subjective, but one thing I can recommend is to put your tablet in a position so it moves as little as possible. As you get accustomed to it, you’ll manage to tilt it a little bit here and there, but for starters, it’s best to keep it in a position so it does not move. Another thins is the angle of your tablet. It’s best to adjust the horizontal position by the position of your screen, and keep your tablet in line with your screen, so your kinetic/visual coordination is on the spot. The need for that diminishes as you progress and get accustomed, I find myself really twisted sometimes. I remember a year back, I actually had to put something under the tablet, an old t-shirt, some random rag, just to get it to be still.

Settings, people, settings

First, let’s talk hardware. Of course, the main rule seems to be – the more expensive the tablet is, the better it is, but anyways, I’ll drop a few lines. Be sure you install the proper drivers, check your tablet driver settings, sensitivity, assigned keys. If you have Windows Vista or 7, search the web for ways to turn off the annoying flicks, effects, tablet PC stuff you don’t really need. There is good advice, I managed to get everything working great very fast with the help of several articles online. Good hardware setting often really helps.

Secondly – there is no way to put it more bluntly – play with your brush and pressure setting in your “weapon of choice” application. I tried a lot of software, and I can say that it really matters. For example, Painter’s brush sensitivity setting can be really annoying and it took ages until I got it right like I wanted. The objective of this is to get your tablet to react more naturally so you can relax while you paint. Not to mention the benefit of not having to press the stylus like a jock to get a nice stroke. I actually broke one stylus. Yeah, and I am definitely not a jock.

Eye on the screen!

Another very important thing. I can’t stress enough that you try to forget looking at the tablet, unless you use it’s buttons. Look at the screen, look at your starting point, make a few ghost strokes from the starting point to the endpoint to prepare for a specific stroke, and make the stroke, all the way without looking at the tablet. In the beginning that is very important. I even made a little game for myself to practice this. I will write about it in one of the next articles.

I hope you’ll follow me on this one, since this part is really, really mundane, and most of you already passed that stage where you need to figure out things mentioned here. I promise, it will be more interesting as the iteration continues! I will review several painting software’s brush settings probably in one of the next articles, so subscribe to get notified.

Thanks for reading, and if you’re interested in more stuff by me, check out the blogroll on the left, you can follow me on twitter, etc. Hopefully work will let me get back to you soon with another article about this.

EDIT – Here’s the link to Part Two – http://zhille.wordpress.com/2011/04/15/improving-your-tablet-drawing-skills-2/ – have fun!

I’ve been battling the challenging art of digital painting and conceptual art, and it is about time to present all of you two people who will read this with one of my newest babies I did this for a contest on Deviant Art by a group called #ConceptWorld. If you have a dA account you should check them out. The theme to the contest is Apocalypse Vehicle, and this is my take.

The Warmachine

Check it out, and I hope you like it. If you want, you can check more of my stuff here – http://zilekondic.deviantart.com/, and follow me here – http://twitter.com/zhille

In all my love for Japan, I made it more Japanese with intense red and pure black outline. I hope someone likes it! Feel free to take the file and print it out on a t-shirt, I’d be delighted. If you do so – ple-he-he-ease send me a photo

Download hi-res PNG

For black and dark
For white and light colors

Cryer Over Spilled Milk

This is my little digital watercolor experiment, a fun simple minimalistic illustration, I really had fun painting this ^^ I’m thinking about making and entire series of illustrations like these, because all three languages that I speak have funny phrases when translated literally. And honestly, I like these simplified, almost children’s illustrations, and ArtRage’s digital watercolor. I’m a mess, and I always make a mess when I paint with real watercolors ^^

Drop a comment if you like it, and download the full version here:
Ziddu.com