Where Passion and art Collides
It’s time to update the FAQ, as I’ve been receiving a fair amount of notes and mails with these and other similar questions, I would like to answer each of the personally, but I don’t have the time. PLEASE READ CAREFULLY.
Q. Do you Work for free?
A: Sorry, no. I’ve done that too much in the past and I’m not interested in coloring comics, draw characters and illustration in exchange to get published specially if these are amateur projects.
Can I buy custom prints from you?
Yes, Now you can purchase prints directly from my online shop at http://www.redbubble.com/people/Reiq where you’ll find prints, original art and more!
Q.What software do you use?
A. COREL PAINTER 12 , PHOTOSHOP CS5
Q.What Hardware do you use?
A. Wacom Cintiq 21UX, Apple Macbook Pro 15″ Intel core duo 2.6 GHz, 4GB SDRAM, ,external Iomega harddrive of 1T.”
Q.Do you have any tutorials?
A. Yes, currently I have a Youtube Chanel http://www.youtube.com/user/reiqws where I upload all video tutorials I’ve made tutorials teaching how to paint and draw in photoshop and Painter how you like them and please subscribe to the channel for future video tutorials.
Q.Do you have any tips for Digital art?
A. My advise is to read and research books, magazines (ImagineFX, Corel Painter Magazine, Photoshop magazine, etc), DVD tutorials etc those are the best source to learn from. Also I recommend to draw human and animal anatomy regularly I’m of the believe that If you can draw and shade with pencils properly you will learn quicker the digital way.
Also I recommend using photo references for any part of the body or object you can’t draw, eventually you will improve as soon as you know how to represent them in a paper a strong Drawing foundation leads to better understanding of how to work the digital tools.
Art and Techniques related.
Q.Do you have trouble deciding what color to use on your characters? If so how do you decide?
A. Sometimes I have already in mind which colors could suit the character, but in other cases I struggle for a while until I decided, that’s why I keep all the main colors in separated layers so I can edit the colors as I paint, also when I’m drawing the pencils or inks I can think about general colors and when I’m decided I just follow a color scheme that fits them.
Q. Can you see the character in your head before you draw it?
A. Yes, I have a rough idea of what it may look and that’s why I do quick sketches to let those rough and blurred ideas take shape, what is troublesome is when you want to draw something but you don’t know how, that’s when the use of references come handy, and I don’t mean draw them or copy them, I mean study them, look at them so you have save that visual knowledge and use it later in other illustrations.
Q.How long does it take you to draw a character? How long to color it?
A. This is an all time favorite, to draw the characters I could say one hour or two depending on the details and if it has a background or not, as for coloring around 6 to 10, I usually work the sketch, drawing and line art on day one and colors on day 2, but I think it doesn’t matter much how long it takes you, cause the quick and better you get the more details and complex artworks you want to create, also I think it’s stressing to measure how long it takes you, so I rather enjoy and draw relaxed.
Q.Who inspires you?
A. Amazing artists, specially those who combine things I would like to do and the have a superb use of anatomy and colors, I always follow them and but most of the artworks I can find, nowadays I’m quite inspired by Range Murata, Jun Tsukasa, Redjuice and Shirow Miwa I look at their work and I’m ready to draw!
Q.What warm ups and exercises of line work do you do?
A. A 1 minute Quick sketch I do like 20 or 30 of them using different poses and different pencils and markers, I specially use this website and the http://www.posemaniacs.com/?pagename=thirtysecond application they have, just have a look!
Q.When you see an artwork and it looks difficult to draw… besides practice and redo, mentally what do you tell yourself in order to pull it off?
A. I think about what kind of techniques they might have used both traditionally and digitally and guess how I could do that myself with the knowledge I have now, and then I try to integrate and apply them into new illustrations, it’s not only drawing and practice, you have to train the sight and be analytic in order to recreate those effects in your work.