Face by Sienna Kai

Today's sketch is by my daughter who turned two recently. She likes drawing faces like this one. I'm not sure why all her faces have a 'mono-brow'.

(Magna Doodle.)

Big Eyes

A quickie while waiting for coffee to brew at work.

I haven't been doodling much lately. Grr. At least I got a new Brudders drawn this weekend.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

CoolIris

If you don't already know, CoolIris (formerly PicLens) is a fantastic Firefox plug-in that lets you browse images on the web using a fluid 3D interface. It's become my preferred way to browse images in Google, Flickr, and Deviant Art. Recently, I discovered that it works with Doodle Du Jour!


To use it (assuming you have the plug-in installed,) just move your cursor over a sketch and you should see an arrow appear in the lower left corner of the image. Click that and the entire Doodle Du Jour gallery will appear all at once!

You can get CoolIris at www.cooliris.com. Have fun human. Doodlebot demands it!

(Update: we just learned that versions for other browsers, like Safari and Internet Explorer, are also available.)

Space Bug

A very quick sketch. I think I drew this in the bathroom.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Same Sketch, Different Diner

To the casual observer, this looks like the same sketch I did a few months ago, but upon closer examination you will see that it was drawn at a different restaraunt.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Eye Test

I think this is supposed to be a barbarian character fighting a bunch of skeletons. Or maybe it's just a bunch of dots.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Super Girl

A quick doodle of that girl with the cape. Oops, I guess I forgot to draw the cape. When I have the time, I'd like to draw more super heroes.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Huh?

Just another unfinished goofy girl sketch.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Whoosh!

Another very quick doodle.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Big

My wife thinks this looks like our little toddler girl but drawn as an older kid. It's really just another random doodle character, but it does kinda look like her if she was a mutant freak.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Chunkasaurus

I drew this late last night, and when I looked at it this morning, it seemed a lot darker than I remember. I guess I need to dim down the DS's screen when sketching in the dark.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

War Girl

Don't mess with the girl with the sword.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Practice II

I have to admit, after all these months, this is still my favorite way to sketch. By the way, if you didn't already know, last month I drew a comic strip using the DS. You can read it here at the Little Green Dog website by clicking here: Streams Episode 4.

(Colors! and Nintendo DS Lite.)

Practice

I better post something before Droosan gets way ahead of me again!


This is a quick experiment I did during lunch today. A friend told me about a color technique where the human face can be broken down into three color zones: (from top to bottom) yellow, red, and blue. This has to do with the visibility of blood vessels under the skin. I applied these colors after painting the face as a very thin glaze, and you know what? It works!

(Painted using Colors! on a Nintendo DS Lite.)

big nose & moustache

Doodled on the Wacom in Photoshop .. I nabbed the parchment BG from FlickR.

big nose dude

Th' ol' standby. Doodled on the Wacom in Photoshop.

knapsack fieldmouse

Been awhile since I've posted .. =0_0=

This one was doodled on the Wacom in Photoshop .. about 30 minutes, overall.

Sgt Marshmallow

I've been working on a Sergeant and Toullie comic strip and this was one of the 'looks' tests I did a few weeks ago. I was going for a sharp pencil and marker look which Colors seems to simulate pretty well.


I settled on a very different look for the strip, which will start its run on the Little Green Dog website soon.

A Step Backwards

This is the original version of the elephant sketch I posted the other day. My wife likes this one better; she thinks he has more personality and I have to agree. Even so, I think I had more fun painting the second one.


The reason I redid the sketch was that my Nintendo DS Lite's screen was accidentally set to full brightness so the image came out way too dark to post. By the way, this image was brightened via Photoshop so it is no longer a 'pure' Colors sketch. (Actually, I still think too dark.)

To paint the second version, I used Colors' playback feature and advanced the painting right up the point where I began coloring the first version, and I started the second one from there. This is a useful feature in Colors for experimenting with different techniques on one sketch.

Long Time, No Doodle

Okay, I'm back.

Working Out

They would still be around if only...

Fairy Tree

Technically, this was yesterday's lunchtime sketch, but today I'm sleeping.

By the way, this is my first vertical Colors! sketch. You have to physically hold the DS Lite sideways to do this, which felt really weird and confusing at first but halfway through the drawing I got used to it. Sort of.

Waiting for Breakfast

This is a portrait of my wife drawn on the Nintendo DS Lite with Colors. I started this sketch at a local diner a couple of weekends ago, but had to stop when our breakfast arrived. Afterwards, I continued to play with this sketch but didn't feel I could finish it properly without her posing for me.

Tonight, when she sat down to pay some bills, I finally got my chance.


Just for fun: this what the sketch looked like when we got our breakfast at the diner.

Water Nymph

Still having fun with Colors and the DS Lite. Here's a bonus feature for today: follow the link below, scroll to the bottom of the page, and then click the Begin Playback button.

Colors! Gallery - Water Nymph by Greenlaw

Snail Race

I didn't stick around to see who won.

Bear Doodle

Just barely. Ha, ha.

Is this thing on?

Playtime 2

Another quick sketch from that same day.

Colors on the Nintendo DS Lite.

Playtime

A quickie sketch of my daughter, sketched at the playground this morning. This had to be quick as toddlers seem incapable of staying still for even a few seconds.


Doodled with Colors on the Nintendo DS Lite.

Brudders

Quick sketch of two familiar subjects for this blog.

Skull Girl

Another lunch break doodle.

Sword Dance

A quickie Colors doodle I did during my lunch break.

Sad Girl

This was doodled on a Nintendo DS Lite, a handheld video game system, using a free homebrew program called Colors. Colors is fairly basic as far as paint programs go, but it's a lot of fun to draw with. I'm not sure why but it seems like the simpler a tool is, the more fun it is to draw with. (The Palm z22 and Fisher-Price Magna Doodle mentioned in earlier posts are good examples. I also like drawing in the sand with a stick.) Having said that, Colors is also a way more sophisticated program than I would have expected to see on a kid's toy: it supports full 24 bit color, features pressure sensitivy for brush size and paint opacity, and it has a history playback mode which you can use to get unlimited 'undos'. There is even a Java applet you can run on your computer to re-render your Colors image brushstroke-by-brushstroke at higher resolutions (up to 2048 pixels wide!)

To run Colors, you need a Nintendo DS Lite and an adapter cartridge like the R4 which lets you install and run homebrew software from a Micro SD card (it's tiny!) The Colors software is free; just download it to your computer and then drag it to the Micro SD card.

Using the DS Lite for sketching has been very interesting. It's like having a miniature Cintiq that I can carry in my pocket anywhere. Needless to say, I'm enjoying it very much!

I'll be posting more Colors doodles in upcoming posts.

Cry Baby

For some reason, my daughter hates riding in the car these days. I don't know what to do about it except draw her.

Someday, after some professional counseling, we'll both laugh about this doodle.

Another quick z22 sketch.

Totem Pole

This is one was done almost a year-and-a-half ago when we were visiting Seattle. I sketched the Pioneer Square totem pole from top to bottom and found that I couldn't fit the entire thing on one Z22 page, so I continued the sketch on the next page.

A few minutes later, I did one of my favorite sketches of my wife at a cafe near this totem pole but I somehow deleted it on the flight home. D'oh!

Next time: A brand new doodle, I promise!

I Can't Sleep

Here's another Z22 sketch. This is my daughter at maybe four months old, sitting in her car seat with an Ugly Doll.

Guitar Practice

I'm still way behind in my sketching for Doodle Du Jour, but I want start posting something everyday, even if it's something old-ish. Here's a sketch I did about a year ago of my wife practicing her guitar.

It was done using a Palm Z22, a cheap handheld PDA. I have to say, there's something liberating about drawing with a primitive single-bit tool; just like with the Magna Doodle, I can just have fun with it and not worry at all about making mistakes. Also, the tiny size of the device makes it very convenient for sketching on-the-go.

I'll post a few more Z22 sketches this week.

Taiko

The Cintiq is pretty cool but lately I've been having more fun sketching with my daughter's Magna Doodle.

Cintiq Test

Sigh! I've been away too long, but between the baby and my 'day job' at Rhythm & Hues, Doodle Du Jour had to sit on the shelf for a while.

Anyway, this sketch is just some random doodles I did to test my new Cintiq 12WX, a graphics tablet with an LCD screen you can draw on.