Tag Archives: sketchbook

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 Drawings – Sandman, Ma-Ma from Dredd, The Collection

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This being the first post of 2013, here’s wishing everyone a very Happy New Year!  (I started writing this post last month, so it’s not designed as a New Year post.)

In the beginning of November, I bought myself a Samsung Galaxy Tab 2.  Now, this was an impulse purchase, I didn’t really need a tablet but I got one anyway, and am very happy with it.  This is the first Android device that I bought, and I really like the OS (it came with Ice Cream Sandwich, and I recently got an upgrade that pushed it to 4.1 Jellybean).  I’m using it for reading comics (in CBR or CBZ files), watching videos and taking photos with Instagram.  Another application that I got for it, was Autodesk Sketchbook Express.  It’s a great drawing app, and I have done three drawings so far with it.  It takes a little getting used to (I’m not quite comfortable with it yet), and so far I’ve only been drawing using fingers (no stylus – I tried some pens turned backwards but they didn’t work).

This is the first drawing – a picture of Morpheus or Dream, from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman series (done without reference – I was actually waiting idle after a conference and drew this) –

The Sandman - Art by Karthik AbhiramThis is the second one, a drawing of Lena Headey as “Madeline Madrigal” a.k.a. “Ma-Ma” from the kickass movie Dredd –

Ma-Ma from Dredd - Drawing by Karthik AbhiramThat movie was one of the most entertaining yet underrated movies of the year in my opinion and Ma-Ma was a great movie villain.  While doing this one I filmed some video footage, so I’ve posted that as a short clip on YouTube –

The third drawing is based on the Marcus Dunstan-directed movie The Collection.  This also was a very entertaining (and quite violent!) horror/action movie, and I was pleasantly surprised that they released it theatrically in India!

The Collection - Art by Karthik AbhiramWhile the earlier two drawings are straight from the tablet (I’ve posted the PNG files that I copied off the device), this one was edited in Photoshop to darken it a little and add the text.

I posted this one on Facebook and sent a tweet to the director of the movie about it, and was pleasantly surprised that he replied to me!

I still prefer pen or pencil and paper for drawing (you don’t have undo or customisable brushes, but that is easier to control and doesn’t require charging!), but this is also interesting to use.  I will post more drawings as I do them.

Resident Evil: Retribution Drawing – Original Scan

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A couple of days back, I was showing my drawing of Resident Evil: Retribution to some people and they were asking me what elements of the final image was done traditionally, and what was added digitally.

So, I thought I’d post the original scan of this drawing to show this.  You can click the below image to see an even larger version –

My scanner is a Canon CanoScan LiDE 110, which produces very nice images.  It doesn’t require a power source – just connect through USB and you are good to go.  The software that comes with the scanner has an “Auto Adjust Colours” option, which automatically boosts the contrast in the image (unlike other scanners, where the scanned image would be very light).

The drawing was done on a sketchbook that has A5 size paper.  So it’s quite small.  And the orange/brown area at the bottom of the image is my hand – I normally press down the book onto the bed of the scanner so that it picks up as much detail as possible.

I scan images at the highest resolution that the software will allow.  Editing is also done at that big size.  This scan for example, was 4865 x 6984 pixels in dimension.  After doing edits in Photoshop Elements, I make an 800 or 1000 pixel-wide image which I post online (Facebook, etc), but I always keep the huge PSD file, so that I can take a large size print if I want.  I follow a similar procedure for photos as well.