Tag: Pin-Up

Thor Digitally Inked in Adobe Illustrator

Thor digital inking by Ralph Contreras

Thor Digitally Inked in Adobe Illustrator

Here are my digital inks of Thor, the God of Thunder. He’s one of  Marvel Comics’ main characters. A founding member of the Avengers and actually in the very first comic book I ever read. This is the new costume he’s wearing in his new monthly title.

This was a pencil drawing of Thor I did last week. It was a quick drawing using an HB woodless Ebony pencil.  I traditionally use an H6 pencil for light-tight penciling. For this, I actually was able to achieve good detail with the softer lead. It’s good to get out of your comfort zone and try different drawing tools.

I inked this drawing digitally using Adobe Illustrator. I didn’t do it in one sitting. I took my time and did it in small spurts during the week. (Usually watching a Netflix movie on the side). I’ve only just recently started inking my drawings on the computer, which is ironic because being a Graphic Designer for over 10 years you’d think I would have done it years ago.

I like using Adobe Illustrator for inking, I know a lot of people use photoshop which is a great software too. The reason I use illustrator is that I like saving my inks as a vector images. Vector images are great because there are no worries about pixelation. They are always super high resolution even if it’s reduced or enlarged.

For this inking, I only used the pen tool with my mouse or Wacom tablet. It helps to give me the look I want to achieve. I like the sharp edges and thick to-thin lines I get with it. There’s an amount of control I feel I have with the pen tool. I think in my next digital inking I will use only the bush tool. Like I said earlier it’s always good to try different tools. I plan on coloring these inks in the near future using Photoshop.

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.

Thor Pencil Drawing

Thor drawing by Ralph Contreras

Thor Pencil Drawing

Here’s a pencil drawing I did of Thor the God of Thunder from Marvel Comics. It’s his new costume he’s been wearing since his return to his own monthly title.  Which by the way is a very excellent read.

This drawing started off as me just sketching while watching a movie, but became more detailed as I got into the drawing. I totally lost interest in the movie. I have recently been drawing mainly with an H6 Staedtler wood pencil, but for this drawing, I decided to try a different lead. I actually used a much softer pencil, an HB woodless Ebony.

I tried not to sharpen the pencil or use an eraser much. I started off with a very light sketch and build on top of it adding details and shadows. The lines on this drawing are much thicker than I usually do. Using a softer lead was a challenge for me, but I really like the results. I’m excited to digitally ink this in Illustrator. I will make sure to post the inked version when I’m done.

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.

Comic Book Digital Inking with Adobe Illustrator

Fantastic Four digitally inked by Ralph Contreras

Comic Book Digital Inking with Adobe Illustrator

Here is a digitally inked Pinup of an awesome penciled piece of the Fantastic Four by artist Ariel Padilla. I found the pencils on his DeviantArt page and I knew I had to ink it. I used Adobe Illustrator so I could create a vector image. This way it can be reduced or enlarged with no pixelation of the image. This is actually my second piece digitally inked but the first I’ve done in Illustrator. My Batman 2.0 character redesign was my first digitally inked piece but for that I used Photoshop. I have used Illustrator in the past to create illustrations, logos, advertisements, and marketing but this was the first time I incorporated my graphic design skills into inking.

I have a Wacom tablet but for this digital inking, I used only my mouse and the pen tool. So basically the piece is all straight vector anchor points. This illustration took about 5 hours, which is longer than I thought it would, but it was fun and a nice practice piece. On my next Illustrator ink, I plan on using the Wacom tablet and the brush tool. Right now it is all about having fun and learning to use the tools I use in my graphic design work in my comic book artwork. My next step will be to create flats for these inks and maybe color them too.

Original Pencils of Fantastic Four by Ariel Padilla

Here are the original pencils by Ariel Padilla.

Want to see the steps I took to create the digital inking? Check out my blog post: Comic Book Digital Inking Techniques with Illustrator Vector Anchor Points

This blog post was originally published on my other website Comic Book Graphic Design and has now been migrated here to RSC Arts, Ralph’s Art Blog.