Hoffech chi gael rhywfaint o gerddoriaeth wrth wrando wrth ddarllen?

Would you like some music to listen to while you read? Here!

I’ve got a number of posts queued up for this week (four, I believe), having finished off a backlog of drawings and renders that had no context for full posts. So yeah, check throughout the week!

I received a drawing request this weekend.

I get so used to working in my own style, and on my own projects, that when someone asks me to do something, I feel somewhat wrong-footed, initially.

The request in question was actually fairly elaborate.

“I want you to draw a guy with a heart shaped head, who’s always been made fun of for it, but gets a Valentine from a WOMAN with a heart shaped head.”

…

What the fuck.

How…

How am I… alright. Alright… it’s cool, I got this.

Thirty minutes was the time allotment I set for myself, and using Photoshop, rather than Illustrator.

In recent years I’ve really grown to love Illustrator, and the only thing it’s poor at is representing complex shadows. At least, with my workflow, anyway. Point is, I mainly only use Photoshop for editing and very specific situations. So, anyway, this was a good chance to dive back in and do something raster-based, for once.

So, here’s what happened.

I got about… eight minutes in, before I stood up to stretch, and thought: “This is actually looking super cute! What a refreshing change of pace!”

Then, Photoshop froze.

I quickly sat back down.

“No… no, no, no, nooooo.”

So. Yeah. I gave it some time, but eventually I had to end task Photoshop and cut my losses.

So! The heart shaped fucker is on hold until tomorrow. In lieu of it, the art you saw for this post came about while testing a new shader I wrote. My grandparents used to save the Sunday comics (for some reason) and after a few years I can still recall how the ink and paper began to noticeably age. The discoloration from exposure actually made the ink more vibrant, in the right circumstances, which may have been due to the dryness of the paper itself. The point is, that gritty, pulpy look is often emulated, in cover art, advertising, etc. I wanted something less commercial though, and more true to life.

More jaded, more… damaged. Anyway, I tested the shader out on the heart-shaped charm hanging from the bottom of Hucksterism’s grip, and the result is pretty close to what I wanted.

I’m still a bit miffed at Photoshop though.

But! It was fun doing something different!

For anyone who’s interested, on Wednesday and Thursday I’ll be taking drawing requests. If you have something you’d like to see me draw, then comment below this post and I’ll see what I can do!

Give me something challenging!