Marker Work (and some questions!)

[House Hatke]

Here's something I finished this evening. I used my prismacolors quite a bit on this piece and I was really happy with the results. Unfortunately, when I scanned the thing I was...less happy. I tried fiddling with the levels, but I couldn't get it to the point where i was happy. Here it is:

http://benhatke.com/images/314.jpg

What bothers me most is the sky. The yellow in the original comes across quite smooth and much lighter.

Oh, and if anyone's interested, I'm going to be adding comics to my site (nearly) every week. You can click to them below:

http://benhatke.com/thumbnail/308tn.jpg
the Giant (http://benhatke.com/full-image.cfm?ID=308)

http://benhatke.com/thumbnail/311tn.jpg
Magic Cricket (http://benhatke.com/full-image.cfm?ID=311)

Thanks for all help and advise!

-Ben
www.househatke.com

[kakikukeko]

Hi,

Nice posing and expression of the characters in
Magic cricket! :D

about your marker work,

I think you could desaturate a lot the yellow sky, maybe the leaves a little,
and saturate the cloak and the skin too...

this could give something like this:
http://kakikukeko.free.fr/still/314_modif.jpg

Hope this helps

[bat]

Ben:
Not a bad piece, maybe needs a darker color (even subtley darker) for effect.

I really like your site, the artwork and cartoons are superb, the wine logo mockups are slick too! And I found Fox and Crow to be a nice surprise (I am part Swede and part Gypsy, with a smattering of Irish and English, German and such thrown in) and find all things Gypsy quite interesting (my grandfather on my mother's side was half Swede and half Gypsy, his family had no problem mixing with non-Gypsies at all, in fact, my grandfather was quite the tomcat).

Keep up the excellent work!

b a t

[House Hatke]

Well thanks for looking, kakikukekakek. Your suggestions were good and I really appreciate you desaturating the piece too. I've given up on the levels and gone in with the ol' digital paintbrush and started cleaning it up that way. It takes longer, but I like the piece enough that it's worthwhile for me. I'll post the results...probably tomorrow.

B A T: I'm so glad you liked Fox and Crow. My wife and I do chidren's performing events from time to time. We both juggle and unicycle and do various other street performing things and I also stiltwalk and do acrobatics (sometimes through the flaming hoop). It's a lot of fun. We call our little, ever changing troup the New World Gypsies. We've moved around so much in our two years of marraige that we feel like roaming gypsies. I find all things Gypsy interesting too, though I don't know nearly enough.

Oh, and thanks for appreciating the comics. If you want to see some of the more... insane (humorous) stuff check out the Daily Grievance (http://pub127.ezboard.com/fcartoonandillustrationparadise66133frm14.showMess age?topicID=937.topic). A collection of several hundred little comics that a friend of mine and I made while we were trapped in a small room grading papers.

Enough out of me.
-Ben
http://benhatke.com/thumbnail/225tn.jpg
www.househatke.com

[House Hatke]

Well, the image has been updated. I replaced it on my site, so the original image is now the corrected version. The original is posted here below:

http://benanna.com/images/315.jpg

So have I improved upon this or just faked it and made the whole thing look busy? I've looked at it enough now that I'm losing confidence in my own opinion.

-Ben
www.househatke.com

[bat]

I feel it looks better. The smoothed sky is an improvement, as are the gently darker areas. Whenever I look at my work I stand back a ways and squint to see if the colours look natural and blend well, and to make sure there are no odd looking shapes from areas too dark or too light. Looks like you did a great job of retouching the Piper.

take care!
bat