Cat Farris: Art For Hire

Hey! So, I am getting set up to start a webcomic late this summer, and I’m doing some concept sketches along with my writing.

I decided to actually remember to document some process stuff along the way, so people can get an idea of how my brain works while I’m putting together an illustration.

Step one: Come up with a basic idea of what you want. Not too hard. This piece was done all digitally, so I started with a rough sketch in Photoshop. This is where I decide the basic layout of everything, and try to make sure the illustration reads the way I want it to.

Step two: Finished pencils. You can see I decided to make a few changes between this stage and the last. I got rid of the weird branch things, and decided I wanted to add some mysterious rocks. I really like the Japanese thing of having paper prayers attached to stone shrines and things, so I decided to add an element like that into this. Makes it more fun for me to draw!

Step three: Inks! Usually, this is where I would print out my finished pencils in redline, and then ink with real ink and a brush. But since I was lazy, and also wanting to work more on my digital inking skills, I did this in Photoshop, on a layer over the top of my pencils, which I lighted quite a bit.

Step four: Flat color. I decided all my base colors, and made my selections. This will make it easier for me to go in and change some color choices later if I need to, or allow me to select certain objects to embellish individually.

Step five: I added my shadows. I just picked a nice dark neutral purple, set it to multiply, and filled a layer over my colors. Then I added a layer mask, and used it to remove the areas that I wanted to not be in shadow. It’s starting to look reasonably finished now, but we’re not done yet!

Step six: Highlights. Same thing as the shadows, except I used a yellow color, and instead of having the whole thing filled, and erasing what I didn’t want, I just painted in the stuff I did. Now, in the past, I would have just called it good here and gone home, but since it’s a concept sketch, I wanted to really set the mood, so onward!

Step seven: Effects! I added a few gradient layers, some color overlays, and some blur effects, and voila! We have the finished piece, and now I have a frame of reference for how to draw and color the forest stuff in my webcomic. Hooray!

Here is my finished submission for Monsters And Dames. The Monsters And Dames book compiled by the folks at Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle, and sold every year at the show for charity.

I’m hoping against hope my entry makes it in this year!

Here’s a line art preview for my Monsters and Dames entry this year!

Ok, I am still behind, but these make me LESS behind on my 365 blog!
I am still day dreaming about that story idea, and hence I am doing character sketches. The more I sketch and think about this idea, the more excited I get about making it real, and the more I get flustered that the story is still so vague. Anyone have any writing tips they’d like to share with me?X3

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I think my studiomates Erika Moen and Dylan Meconis were drawing some sweet-looking Octomaids the other day for an auction, and it made me want to do something tentacley as well. They’re so fun to draw! So here is a Squidmaid. I tried twice to ink this today, but it seems I am having an off day(or I need to pitch my brush and get a new one). I was happy with the pencils, though, and I left it pretty much as-is to show some of the underdrawing. I get hounded a lot about the lack of visible underdrawing in my sketches by people who see my portfolio. I swear, it exists! It just goes down so light that by the time I’m done, it’s either been covered over, or erased away. But at least in this drawing you can still see the remains of the line of action I used to set up the pose. It’s down there at the bottom with the tentacles. Maybe some day I’ll scan in a set of process pictures so folks can see what goes into my drawings. Maybe that’ll be next week’s….
You may also notice I have once again opted for a full-on topless sea lady. It’s my though that if I were a sea lady, I too would go topless. It’s not like anyone who cares will ever see you anyhow. >.>;
ANYHOW.
Enjoy!

Remember that illustration from last week? I colored it! So here it is in all its colored glory! I really had fun working on this. What can I possibly do after this that will be as fun?

Hmmm… maybe another one!

Holy sugarshack, ladies and gents! It’s been a while since I managed a sketchblog update. Steve Lieber challenged me to do a narrative illustration, so here it is. I’m planning on taking it to colors, but I wanted you all to see it now! I’m so excited!

Gneiji’s creator has been on a Tomb Raider kick lately, so he suggested a shot of Ahnka and Gneiji running from a mummy. This was way fun to do, and I’m hoping to do more like this.
Enjoy!

Hey folks!  Even though I’ve been busy as hell, the sketchblog is back!  I dreamed last night that I drew something quick and silly for the sketchblog, so I figured I ought to do something.  For the record, this is not what I dreamed of drawing.  But I sat down to think of what to do, and a thought occured to me: Remember when drawing was fun, Cat?  Oh yes, I do.  And this is the sort of thing I used to draw, you know, back when drawing was purely for fun.:’}

So Elma survived her first battle in her campaign, though it was a little touch and go for a while.  In celebration of survival, here is this quick sketch!

Enjoy!

Hey all!  Work and such is keeping me quite busy, so I figured I’d use ths opportunity to show a little bit of what goes in to my thought process when I create a character.

Here’s a page of sketching I’ve done in preparation for what I hope will be next week’s sketchblog!  Can you guess what it might be?

Enjoy!

Hey all!  In looking at my work recently, I’ve noticed that one thing I could use improvement on is my drapery.  So I thought, what better way to practice than to draw a wedding dress!  So, here is Ahnka in a wedding dress.:)

This week, my husband, Rich, made a sketchblog post where he talks about sometimes going overboard on sketches for his blog.  This week he posted the pencils only, what he usually inks over.  So now I’m feeling inspired, and thought that this week, just for fun, I would post both the finished product and the original pencils.  I think the sketch had something nice that the final draft loses.  Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think the finished work is poor in any way.  But anyone who does a lot of sketching tends to notice drawings lose some of the spontaneity and “life” that they had as rough pencils.  One of these days, I’ll figure out how to keep that from happening.

Anyhow, enough talking!  Here are the drawings!  I also drew the back of the dress, but didn’t take it to inks.  Enjoy!