Sai's Asylum » videos

Inks Timelapse 3

Sai — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:43:33 +0000

Here’s another quick timelapse video. No voice over or anything fancy for this one, just the inks for my recent artwork. You will notice I’m using the rotation option in Manga Studio this time. It does help, after all if I were traditionally inking I’d be flipping the paper this way and that constantly.

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More On Coloring

Sai — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 06:46:50 +0000

My second coloring timelapse that doubles as a tutorial! My Rhode Island accent comes out BAD in this one, see if you can spot where I slip into it. I did slice and dice the footage on this one a bit because I didn’t want to make another 10 minute long video. I’ll try to keep them around 6 – 8 minutes now.

Sorry that it’s a bit jumpy at the beginning, getting used to some new capture software. Stick with it, it smooths out!

And of course here’s the finished piece:

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Coloring Tutorial & Timelapse

Sai — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:42:19 +0000

This is my most complicated video yet! I even have voice over now! Footage and audio taken over several days, this would have been done sooner but… heh… um… Mass Effect 2 came out.

This video comes close to 10 minutes long, but I pop in now and then to explain some techniques I use or why I’m doing certain things and narrate while constantly losing my train of thought, so hopefully it’s informative to someone out there.

And here’s the finished image:

If you like, feel free to comment! I crave feedback!

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Digital Ink Timelapse 2: The Artist’s Bane

Sai — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 19:21:21 +0000

I was really struggling with this drawing. You don’t see the very beginning of it because I thought I shouldn’t record it. But then it occurred to me: timelapses make people look far more competent than they really are so it might be fun to watch me messing up and erasing and getting frustrated as artists do (also didn’t help I was working on that arm like an hour and a half before I had to go to work.) So that’s basically the beginning of the video. This one comes in at a whopping 6 1/2 minutes as the rest of it is nearly the entire drawing so it’s twice as long as the last two, but it’s also funnier so I hope you enjoy it!

I’m really hammering these videos out aren’t I? Like I’ve said before they’re pretty easy to make and quite fun, I spend the most time selecting the damn music. Shout out again to Kevin MacLeod at incompetech.com who freely offers his awesome music to internet goblins such as myself who would otherwise pilfer commercial music for her own selfish needs (though even trying to choose from my own music collection for the first video was difficult.)

I like doing this because it gives me a reason to update the site more often and actually keeps me motivated when drawing. When struggling like this I may have gone away from the inking process and goofed off instead, but realizing I could entertain people with my frustration made me dive back into it. I’ve also been watching/listening to (not pictured) a lot of the behind-the-scenes and commentary stuff on the extended Lord of the Rings DVDs while I work, which has been quite inspiring. I’m a whore for commentary tracks, what can I say.

Anyway a few notes: I made the part where I’m inking the hair slower because a lot of people comment on the way I draw hair. Lately I’ve been realizing that less is more when it comes to rendering hair as most cartoonists either East or West tend to draw hair in big, chunky, clean shapes. That’s not to say I haven’t seen people also successfully contrast fluffy, detailed hair with clean, open character lines but it’s not for me. At least not on these elves.

I also finally made a good Sai’s Asylum logo bug! I kinda liked my fancy cut-out text in the last two but it just wasn’t reading well, so this will be the logo from now on.

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How to Cheat at Backgrounds

Sai — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 04:51:15 +0000

It’s a sad truth that most people can’t draw everything. Artists who are good at drawing organic things like trees and people are usually bad at drawing man-made things like cars and buildings, and vice versa. This is why in comics and animation you generally have a specialized background artist working on the project. Or in the more manga-centric world the use of screentones, which you’ll see me use screentone flowers in this video. Despite the fact they are indeed organic flowers are surprisingly one of the hardest things to draw.

There’s been a rise in artists using 3D to pick up the slack in their backgrounds. I’m doing the same, though using Google Sketchup which makes it very, very easy to make simple models. And when you only need them for outlines it’s perfect. While producing comics it’s a great alternative when you’re unable to hire a background artist!

I’m having alot of fun doing these, it gives me something to show while I’m working on new art so I don’t feel rushed. These videos are quite easy to make, the hardest part is music selection. Doesn’t help that I decided to look for free-to-use music if I’m going to keep doing this. Shout out to Incompetech.com, by the way.

You’ll notice this is the same drawing as in the last video, I’ll be coloring this one soon, but I’m actually working on 3 pieces at the moment. I may show myself inking the third, the first one I inked I was having trouble getting the video right still.

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Digital Inking Timelapse

Sai — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 04:55:11 +0000

I know this isn’t really a tutorial but I’d rather not have too many categories. Besides it might teach someone something. Maybe. I’ve seen timelapses of people drawing before and thought it would be fun to make one. Sadly this isn’t the whole drawing, I had more footage but I messed up the compression on the rest of the video I recorded. I’d like to do more so definitely tell me if you enjoy it!

As you can see in the video I’m not all digital still, I sketch in pencil and scan it into the computer, though it is faster and cleaner to do digital inking (not to mention you can easily change your mind.) I’m still not totally comfortable with a tablet so you often see me shaping lines with the eraser.

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