Drawing with a Wacom Tablet

I forgot to post this! It's been hanging out as a draft since 2011. Enjoy!

Drawing digital art in Photoshop using a Wacom tablet takes practice. First you have to calibrate your pen settings, then you have to learn how to draw all over again. And then you have to learn how to use Photoshop. It is so hard to get smooth lines! But practice makes perfect, right? So I'm practicing...

I made this drawing of my husband's Night Elf Druid character in the World of Warcraft. It started out as a pencil sketch, then I scanned it into my laptop, hooked up my Wacom tablet and started inking, digitally.

Then I started coloring... yeah. I'm no Mike Krahulik, that's for sure. But I think it still looks kinda cool.

If you recall my previous post about sketching, this was the pencil sketch I started with.

Character Sketches

Artists can only get better by practicing. One method to practice is to do at least one new sketch every day. Try out different styles, look at the work from your favorite artists and explore their techniques and incorporate them into your art as you try to discover your own style.

Here are some sketches I drew with the intention of inking and coloring them in Photoshop later.

This is a sketch I did of my husband's Night Elf Druid character in World of Warcraft. She is a healer and has full PVP (player-versus player) gear on with a book in one hand and a wicked-looking dagger in the other.

His account was inactive when I made this sketch so I used a picture from the Armory as reference for the details in the armor.

Originally this character was a Tauren male named Buttersprime...

This is an Elf Rogue of my own design, not a character from a game or book. Apparently she is a left-handed backstabber. This is another sketch I did with the intention of digitally inking and coloring it.

Here is a sketch I definitely intended to ink in Photoshop so I didn't try to make it detailed or fix lines; I am still not sure how I want to detail the clothing, and I would like to experiment with a more fierce expression.

She is based on Vin from the Mistborn Trilogy books by Brandon Sanderson.

Into the Purple Woods

There is no place more magical than the forest home of the Night Elves, bathed in an aubergine haze beneath a giant tree.

Disclaimer: This was one of my first acrylic paintings, certainly my first landscape. I am totally cheap because I am using the paints you get for $0.89/tube at Michael's. Someday when my skill has improved I will invest in the nicer, more expensive acrylics.

I achieved a cool panoramic effect by using two square canvases side-by-side. Normally these are supposed to be positioned vertically on a skinny piece of wall between two doors.

I don't always do things the normal way.

I started with a screenshot of Teldrassil on my computer monitor and then painting the scene on the canvas beginning with the background and layering my way to the trees and rock in the foreground, trying different techniques in order to make it look like the representation on my monitor.

In case you happen to NOT be one of the millions who plays World of Warcraft and you are wondering "What the heck is Teldrassil?", I am happy to inform you that tTeldrassil is a setting in the game. You get to frolic in this purple forest for your first 8-to-10 levels, if you start the game as a Night Elf like I did the first time I played it. Actually, my first Night Elf character was a Rogue named Avalyn.

BTW Into the Woods is a really fun musical. If you ever get a chance to see it, go! I love the duet the princes sing, "Agony".