Mermaids and Astronauts the Digital Wave

I finally broke down or rather saved up and bought myself a Cintiq 13' this past week. I have been wanting to get one since my assistant Mimi got done last summer and I played around with it some. I have even started doing Judge Parker all digital to see if that will work and flow well. I will stay with doing The Phantom traditional as there is also a demand for the originals unlike the Judge.

The biggest issue so far is adjusting my work set-up and the feel of the whole thing. 40 years of muscle memory and tactile feedback are compromised a bit so far--especially the feedback and feel. It all feels the same no matter the tool, all sooth, so memory has to sort of fill in there.

For me its all about flow and I have trained like a Jedi master in my traditional ways but the interface interrupts that so far. So its a bit of retaining here. I know what a 102 vs a 108 feels like and a dry brush vs a wet one or a whole host of tools and media--but the Cintiq feels the same for all. I also make many lines more that once as a result to get the one I want--something that never happens in the "Meat World" as I call it. I don't feel the mark the same way as I make it, and this is very different.

So, I'm giving myself some time to adjust and if I don't like it I'll just go back to paper for the strips. But I am more interested in trying to digitally paint as another way of working, maybe branching out to backgrounds and concept design, some of which I have already done in the past when working in animation. And for commercial art you simply have to know how to do it now. There is no escaping it and so I figure I give myself a minimum of 6 months to get the hang of it.

An all digital Judge daily done in Clip Studio

2017 is at an end and 2018 is rushing up fast, part of getting the new rig was to also move into the next step or phase of producing more of my own work. I will be releasing a book of my ink drawings in 2018 as well a making more paintings of these subjects, like the study of Astronaut and Mermaids above. The final might be produced as an oil painting. I also have plans to do a comic or maybe a graphic novel of the Detective character I came up with in the Inktober drawings that people really seem intrigued by. How will I do it all you might ask---I plan on giving up sleep in 2018. Happy, Happy Joy, Joy!