ArtCtrl

It’s been sometime since I have updated this blog. For several months the site was down. I wrote code, I didn’t really do much artwork. I think that has to change, so here is my attempt to my art blog running again. I’ve decided to not use the wp-content path for artwork and instead use galleries. Don’t worry - all the artwork that was in wp-content is still there. This only applies for future works.

I even wrote a script to help me create blog posts. It takes the images in a folder and creates a Markdown file out of them. It also creates a year/month/day folder structure folder for the gallery. This is the same as I use for my GetsDrawn site.

Anyway, here is a collection of digital paintings. Majority are from reference images on GetsDrawn. Enjoy -

###ItWillBeMine###

I have never draw the ‘head mod’ of RedditGetsDrawn but here it is. I was banned again for this.

###Jem ###

It’s rare that I do a remix of someone elses work. When I was at The Learning Connexion I remixed Cathrins work. This hasn’t continued. I found this Wellington Artist Jem and traced over her sketch. Similar process that I would do with my envrioment drawings, line layer to trace the pencil, followed by grayscale and colour layers.

###Kirsty###

This is a painting of my Friend Kirsty. They are wonderful and always let me stay at their place in Auckland. I enjoy going to tech conferences and they are often held in Auckland, so this is quite often.

The reference was a beautiful photo of her taken on her 30th birthday. So you could say this was a birthday present for her! Happy 30th Kirsty :D

So it’s been months since this blog has been updated. For several months it was shutdown. I was worried at one point that I had lost the art from the posts but I had backed it up on a Digital Ocean server. Since then the art has been restored but it’s not linking correctly on artcontrol.me

I have decided to switch from the wp-contents folder structure to the galleries system that is default in Nikola.

Here are digital paintings that I have completed this month:

TheMilkCollective

LeahTHP

SWEDEDOESMAKEUP

_SEMPERRVIVUM

bawkbawkmudder_udder

iwbm

The Raspberry Pi digital painting setup is stable. I have been able to walk and draw with it - though not as steady as sitting down or standing sill. Majority of the art is from imagination but some are landmarks and GetsDrawn.com

Enjoy -

Mixture of monster robotic characters and portraits from GetsDrawn. I’ve added their username near the portrait.

It’s been a long time since artcontrol.me: artwork of William Mckee has had a new logo. Using the Raspberry Pi and my Wacom tablet I traced over an old logo - to give it new life. This is the line layer. It’s a little rough and quick, but the logo will cleanup on the grayscale tonal and color layers. I would never use a line layer as a logo.

Grayscale tonal. The R in artcontrol and the smaller text is a mess.

Colour. Using Green on figure.

I will end with this. Red line layer. Characters for the gamejam Adventure Jam. It goes for two weeks. I’m not sure how much I’ll get done - so far I’ve only produced paintings. The name of my game is Hunt For Naples Yellow. The name is inspired from the film The Hunt For Red October and named after my digital painting/python dev pi machine - naplesyellow.

Naming all servers after colours.

Crayons.

I have the Raspberry Pi 2 B setup with a touch screen monitor attached to the GPIO and my wacom drawing tablet (small) attached with USB. I have my GIMP settings setup so it hides everything. I just need to go into fullscreen and the painting covers the whole screen.

I hide the taskbar and just use right click on the tablet to get it back. This is much better use of the screen.

Grayscale and Colour tonal layers are posible but it’s easier to just do the red line layer.

So after over a month I have finally got my Raspberry Pi 2 B setup and running. I had problems with the power supply - 5v 2a is needed but all my powersupply had low a.

The Pi is connected to a 17 inch monitor with a vga to html converter. GIMP is really all I am using it for. I have Raspberry Pi B+ with touch screen monitor attached that I use for reference photos.

Anyway here they are, a mixture of from imagaination and getsdrawn paintings.

Bombrosephoto line layer. Glasses holding camera. Minimal background landscape.

Grayscale. Ignored the background and just focused on the portraits. Keeping it simple and minimal.

Colour. New purple (modifed the red) for glasses.

Raspberry Head creature with walking desk and monitor. Line layer. Pillars in background.

Grayscale. Spikes

Logos. Debian. Raspberry Pi. GetsDrawn. Just playing and getting use to tablet with pi

Grayscale. The three logos again.

Color. Exploring purples and oranges. Green and Red for Pi.

Taylor Swift. Landscape, imagaination. Robot on the left

I spent several days in Christchurch recently but am now back in Levin.

Sadly I left my drawing book in Christchurch and have not drawn since.

When I was in Christchurch I did buy a new Raspberry Pi 2 B computer. I had it running Debian and was very impressed with the speed.

It is so fast that it allows me to do digital painting in GIMP just the same as on my desktop computer or laptop.

I don’t have a monitor in Levin for the Pi so have not been able to do more - but here is what I created in Christchurch

Pi Art. The term used by shop keeper when I picked up my new Pi. Testing marks and getting use to the Pi.

On the Thursday in Christchurch I went to the Community Centre where I drew with someone. Taking some of these ideas from the drawings into GIMP.

Greyscale tonal layer.

Enjoy. It may be good for me to do some digital painting on the laptop. No monitor for the Pi currently.

These are the ban messages I got from the r/redditgetsdrawn mod ItWillBeMine last year. I had never published these before but the thread over on r/AskReddit regarding Toxic Community sparked me to do so

and I agree, RedditGetsDrawn is toxic. I stay away from the subreddit and artistlounge. I do however write Python code to download the most recent images submitted to redditgetsdrawn. Here is the code if you are interested.

Back in Hamilton after a week in Auckland. I took my Dell laptop and drawing tablet but didn’t even end up turning it on.

I didn’t transfer all the artwork I completed before leaving to Auckland, so here it is.

Currently at Linux Conf Aus 2015 in Auckland. Here are several paintings that I completed before I left Hamilton. I’ve brought my dell laptop to Auckland but have yet to power it up.

Enjoy the painting of skylarwolfe97

Line layer. Portrait in the foreground. Horizon line seprates the landmass and water. The most interesting shape is on the left. Boulders build up with spiky circles above. Tubes connect the spiky circles. The face looks screwed up but it looks better with

Why does her face look muddy.

Looks like a mozaic

Grayscale tonal layer. Light for the water and the sky. Dark hair. Landmass is medium. Dark clouds in sky.

Colour layer. For the eyes - blue. Yellow for the skin tones. Red for the hair. Blue for sky. Green water.

Digital Paintings completed this week. Here is three works.

Line layer. The portrait takes up the majority. Her face is puffy compared to the reference photos.

Grayscale tonal layer. Light skin tones with dark hair. Medium background and contrast light/dark water.

Colour tonal layer. Yellow for the skin tones, pink for the hair. The sky is light blue with a darker shade for the landmass. The water is a different green than usual.

Line layer from imagination. Robot humans hovering on landmass. In the distance a line seprates the water and landmass/sky. The landmass is very spiky. Spikes come out of the sun in the sky.

Grayscale layer. Light for the sky with a medium over everything else. Maybe a darker tone could be used on the human robots.

Colour helping separate objects from the medium tones. Yellow for the robots. Red for the landmass. Blue sky, with light green for the water.

Line layer. Girl on left, guy on the right. The reference was from getsdrawn.  The guy is wearing glasses. Lots of clouds above their heads. Water below.

No grayscale layer for this work - straight into the colour.

Color layer. Mixed things up with giving her a blue skin tone. The guy gets the usual and has a yellow skin tone. Both have red for their hair. One mistake - her eyebrows are blue. They should be red. I used blue for the rims of his glasses. For the sky a bright blue. Green for the landmasses. Aqua for the water.