So I did, and I liked it.  I was certainly no pro, but after learning to use the pen/tablet and seeing what I could do with it, I wanted to do more…so I decided to upgrade to the Intuos4 and have a little more power and flexibility.

Man, am I ever glad that I did.  I bought the Wacom Intuos4 Medium Pen Tablet from Amazon (best price!) and have to say it’s one of the best hardware investments I’ve ever made.  The additional levels of pressure sensitivity, comfort of the pen, and customizable buttons and stuff are just…like butter.

Or honey.  Or anything you love that’s sweet and delightful.

At any rate, this thing totally ROCKS, and if you do any sort of photo manipulating, design, or especially illustration (which I am just dabbling in but hoping to learn more) I highly recommend that you add a Wacom Intuos4 to your tool arsenal.

Smart guy!

For now, let’s just say I was looking to create a sort of cute and cheeky guy with a bit of a super hero feel, especially in the jaw.  Having dropped out of college before the life drawing classes, and since I am not much into realism when it comes to the human form anyway, I am lacking in anatomy-for-artists department.  I resulted to the look and feel of some graphic novels, as well as drawing techniques featured in cool book that I picked up recently, and this is what I came up with.

I realize this is not the greatest illustration ever – not by far.  But it’s more than what I thought I could do, and for that, I am happy.

I use Adobe Illustrator on the job constantly, but I have never really used it for its intended purpose.  There is a considerable learning curve in going from Illustrator-for-print-job-mechanical to actually creating a hand-drawn illustration digitally.

I busted out the Wacom tablet, which also presents a learning curve for me, since I bought it not long ago, after years of salivating over one, but have never really used it enough to get the hang of it.  I’ll say this – the ability to use something like a writing utensil to get imagery into a computer is fantastic!  But the muscles are really quick to let you know just how much the mouse has replaced the pen in my life.  I guess I shouldn’t complain too much…it’s not like I don’t have constant shoulder pain from mousing all day long.  But after a few hours of Wacom-ing, there were other muscle groups that started to take notice!

I wanted something comic-ish with simple and clean lines.  The Google search for “simplified anatomy” returned the book, Simplified Anatomy for the Comic Book Artist, with which I was pleased.

So I did some sketching, following exercises in the book, which I scanned in.  I placed my sketches in Illustrator and traced over them, then colored them in, then copied and pasted into Photoshop where I had created backgrounds.  These images are a couple of the results of that process.

Am I an illustrator now?  Certainly not.   I’m just happy to slowly enter the process of learning a new skill.  I don’t know if I’m going about it the “right” way, but so far I am content with what I’ve been able to churn out and am greatly looking forward to doing more – and hopefully getting much better at it.