Bill Watterson Inspired Sketch

[SLaMgRInDeR]

bloody hell! how long did that take?
(   (   ( <( -_-)> )   )   )

[Scummbuddy]

Yeah, I bet it was a program that made it.

[SLaMgRInDeR]

yeh, probably.
(   (   ( <( -_-)> )   )   )

[earlwood]

I would like to know what program it is them ....It help to quint... looks more like a picutre..less like text

[Pessi]

Thanks for the comments, everyone!

Here's a new one. I tried to achieve more credible style with custom brushes and looser strokes. The previous one was made using a regular 1-pixel (pressure sensitive opacity) brush and it shows.

Tell me what you think!

Earlwood: Check Google's directory for Ascii to image conversion programs.



A colored version (quite a long shot, but hey! ):



Hmm... That tree on the right. Probably should've left it out.  

[Ginny]

:o Ooh, very nice! Personally I liked the clean and stylish lines more than these thick and "messy" ones, but that's not Bill's style as I understood.

The colouring is great, I really like the snow!

[loominous]

Certainly getting there, looking really good imo.

Some things:

(i) although his strokes are loose the trees are still realistic in their form, just loosely rendered. The middle tree n the right one in particular looks distorted in their shapes in their upper parts.

(ii) the ground beneath the middle tree looks a bit dirty imo. I m not sure what you wanted those lines to resemble but at the moment they just look like small lines filling up space to me. In snowy pics he usually have small trees looking up through the snow. Those could fill up some space

(iii) the black shapes on the left foregroundtree looks too blurry or messy imo.

(iv) the illustrator feeling is still there in some parts imo. I understand that it isnt easy to get rid of, just wanted to tell.

(v) the outlines as mentioned earlier looks much better but some has a blurry character, as if they were done with charcoal. Bill uses ink for his outlines so blurriness is pretty impossible.

(vi) the sledtrails looks a bit too messy imo. I think they could be improved much if u just spent more time on them.

(vii) the snowcolor is too blue imo. He usually uses white or very lightblue for snow with lightblue for shading, that s what i recall anyway.

All I can think of at the moment. I really like the improvements from the last n would love to see this sort of graphics in a game.

[MrColossal]

i guess my question is, are you going for a direct Bill Watterson or, judging by the title of the thread just being inspired by him?

cause if it's direct then yea, use all the tools bill used, but if it's just inspiration then i think you're doing fine, the colours look nice and remind me of sunday morning comics [like calvin and hobbes and foxtrot, which always reminded me of eachother colour wise] and the trees are reminiscent of the way bill draws them

[Pessi]

Thanks again for the comments!

Loominous: You really know what you're talking about - thanks!

And when it comes to cartoons, Mr Eric Colossal can not be wrong either!

Eric, I was actually going as close as Bill's style as possible, so I guess you could say I wasn't just inspired. Anyway, I think I'll leave the style experimentations here. I've got one more great custom brush to use and I've learned a lot. I just used it for sketching yesterday, and it did awesome job on my creativity. It somehow nails the shapes down so well.

Till next time!

[loominous]

Say, these custom brushes you ve created, would you mind sharing them or explaining how you went about?

[Pessi]

Sure!

Here's the package of brushes I always use: http://pelu.jns.fi/~teropa/Misc/PessiCustomBrushes.abr. It only works with Photoshop 7, I hope you have it. After importing the brush set, you should see the Watterson brush as the last one in the catalog.

I'm keeping it brief for now as it could be you don't have PS 7, or that you want to know exactly how the brush was made etc. I would only answer questions that don't need answering.

[loominous]

Thanks :)

I ve played around with it a bit and found these alterations interesting (you ve most likely encountered them but anyway):

(i) To get rid of the gradient effect I disabled "Other dynamic" (not familiar with the english name for that feature) which s below "colordynamics". It can also be done within the "other dynamics" tab.

(ii) I found enableling "formdynamics" to be an improvement.

[Scummbuddy]

This is a cell drawing I did when I was in 8th or 9th grade.  I just got back from DisneyWorld and fell in love with doing cell animation...forgive the credeness of the background, I was young and I went with a perspective that worked... although I think it works just fine.



The "Calvin and Hobbes" logo and Calvin are on the same transparency, and then there's just the background.