Drawing in Lo Res

For lack of a scanner, I've taken to simply photographing my drawings with a digital camera and touching it up in photoshop to correct for the deficiencies of that process. Thus, the relatively low resolution image above (not quite my customary 1600 by Whatever).

A Little Banner

A quick banner I made for one of my campaign websites over on the awesome Obsidian Portal. Sketched the figure and shadowy skyline in a few minutes on my tablet and just messed with the colors for a few more minutes. Total of 15-20 minutes work, but I like it.

Feeling Like Sergeant Opet...

...or How 5 Minutes with a Marker can Improve Everyone's Morale

We had a bit of a long Battle Assembly (Reserve Drill) weekend this month. A pair of early mornings, coupled with some long drives left a lot of people with some frustration and frayed nerves. To top it off, the drive to the range on Saturday started with SSG Wright being scared half to death.

She's terrified of wasps and bees. The Humvee we were about to drive down just happened to have a nest of those particular insects directly above her seat. Luckily, some good observational skills and quick reaction from a few of the other passengers solved the problem without anyone getting hurt, but it still caused some momentary panic and confusion.



That evening, when we finally had a few free moments, I pulled out a pencil, a marker, and my sketch pad. 5 minutes later I had the little cartoon you see above - just in black and white (I used Photoshop to add the colors). After getting SSG Wright's approval (I wouldn't want to offend her), I showed it around the unit, to good reception. I may just do more of these for drill weekends where events occur that warrant it.

Processing!

This week, I took an old drawing I did several years ago (2005, to be precise), and used Photoshop on it. You judge the results.



Here is the final result, and below follows the original scan (reduced to jpeg and a reasonable size for web uploading, of course).



I like the original drawing, but the color gives it some of the life it was missing. I'm not entirely thrilled about the colors on the rocks (especially as you drift toward the signature), but I think that overall it is satisfactory.

Also, I shall now point out that Shadowrun is a fantastic game. Not the video game, though. We shall not speak of that.

The Final Product, late for want of a scanner

The title says it all. Someone has generously offered me their old flatbed scanner, but until then, I'm using a woefully inadequate feed scanner to bring this stuff into photoshop. Alas, I am not yet the master of such things.