fanart, Junkie!Roy

[ratcreature]

Fandom: DCU (Green Arrow)
Characters/Pairings: Roy Harper (back when he was Speedy)
Media used: Wacom tablet in GIMP
Rating/warnings: PG, I guess, for drug use
Notes/comments: This took me a really long time, and I don't just mean that I first had the idea for this in 2006. I have no idea what I am doing wrong that digital coloring takes me so long, isn't it supposed to be efficient? I suppose it's one of the pitfalls of being self-taught. Anyway, it's Roy during the famous heroin addict story line. As always, feedback is very welcome.
Preview:



And two details showing parts of the image in the original size/resolution. (I drew it at 3100x2540px.)

Comments

[ilyena_sylph]

This is absolutely fabulous.

It makes my internal Roy want to curl up in a ball, and my internal Dick very very upset, and I am captivated by the detail of the FEATHERS. And the Bow. (and glad I piped up on canonistas).

And I am so damn impressed by your art.

You have a Wacom? I keep being told I should get one. Which one do you have? the bamboo? does it--*shuts up and goes back to being so damn impressed by the detail of the art*

[ratcreature]

Yay, I'm glad you like it (and for your info too, it helped find example pictures of the right kind of bow).

I have a Wacom Volito, which was the precursor to the Bamboo, i.e. the cheapest Wacom a while back. It is not an ideal tablet for drawing, as it is not really meant for "serious" graphic work, not just because of the small size, which isn't that problematic, but also that it doesn't have tilt support for example, and not as good a resolution or pressure sensitivity as the more expensive models. But when I got it, I had never drawn with a tablet before, and didn't even know whether I'd like it, and I wasn't about to spend hundreds of euro on something that I might not even use, and I couldn't easily spare the money anyway. Even a small Intuous would have been much more expensive, and non-Wacom tablets are much less supported under Linux, so trying another manufacturer wasn't a good option (also pretty much everybody seems to agree that non-Wacom tablets are just crappier, but I think that is more relevant the more "high end" you get). I'd like to get a better one, but can't afford it right now.

It is still much better than drawing or even just coloring with a mouse, and it's not like I need it professionally. If you haven't tried drawing on a tablet before I think going with a cheap Wacom is an okay choice for just trying out the basic technique, because tablet drawing is really quite different from working on paper (much easier than wrangling any kind of graphic work with a mouse though). But even if you don't like it that much in the end, a basic tablet is more comfortable for your hands for all kinds of graphics stuff, things like cropping and resizing photos for example, so you won't have wasted money either way, because a simple tablet is worth it for just those things even if an expensive one would be complete overkill if you just want more precise control to crop the ex out of all holiday pictures or whatever.

[ilyena_sylph]

Oh, you're so welcome.

When I saw it was you posting, I immediately started praying for art. And wow, did we ever get it. That's still just awesome.

Thank you so much for the advice! *grins* I am giving it serious serious thought. Because I have such a hard time with my mouse doing any kind of graphic work, and my scanner hates the work I do on actual paper.

[ratcreature]

Even a tablet that is not fancy and lacking the advanced features will give you much better control than a mouse. I find it still hard to draw directly freehand with my tablet without doing anything on paper before, I think that would need much more practice to become proficient, but the learning curve for using it to ink/color/rework a rough pencil sketch is not that steep. I think the difference (at least for me) is that when reworking something, even if it has lot of flaws, you have some guideline already on screen to orient your movements on, to deal with the disconnect of moving your hand on the tablet, but have the result on screen. I find doing things digitally is especially useful if my pencil sketch has problems, like for example with this picture Roy's arm was somewhat in the wrong place and the head wasn't right, and stuff just didn't work in my pencil sketch attempts at all, so I scanned one and rearranged parts until it looked somewhat right in broad terms and then drew the details over it in another layer, fixing things, and then rearranging again.