So, this is a totally new experience for me, this sketch. My father has loaned me a wacom tablet computer to experiment with, and i decided to try using it to sketch.
This costume design rendering is my very first shot at drawing anything more complex than an arrow or a moustache using a tablet computer in Paint.
First, let me talk a bit about the design itself.
Alma's wearing a suit here, inspired by the jacket in this fashion plate here. I made up a skirt to go with it, based on a similar asymmetrical skirt design from a fashion magazine print source i have. This is the scene where she runs out on her parents to go strolling with Dr. Buchanan, and winds up in the arbor rebuffing his advances.
I enjoy the idea that she'd wear a suit rather than a dress for what she considers her "first date" with him, that she would perhaps think it would draw a sharper contrast between her seriousness and "respectability," and the dissipated sensuality of his lover, Rosa Gonzales. (I can't wait to design Rosa's costumes, BTW.) And, in keeping with this conception of Alma, even though she's wearing a suit, she's carrying a bright rust silk parasol and has that swooping prow of a plumed hat on. Alma's accessories show where she's headed as a character, the side of her she keeps repressed, mostly. Her clothes say no, but her hats say yes, so to speak.
As for drawing with a tablet, i'm intrigued. I will continue to experiment and sketch with it (at least until i need to give it back to my dad), to see how i feel about it as a potential design tool. I enjoy that it still allows me to be "sketchy" to a certain degree using the pencil option and the smallest brushes, and that it's so easy to lay in color as you go. I also like that, in a practical sense, i could crank out these quick-sketch renderings and email them to a director in full immediate color without all the scanning and Photoshop-tweaking wankery that i do with paper sketches.
I'm not thrilled with how...i dunno, how "cold" this sketch looks to me, in that it's not got the same life and variety of line quality that a pencil has. Shading blows with this, too; i couldn't get it to look right at all.
As a production artisan, i know that i could look at this rendering (particularly supported with research) and make this hat, this parasol, this suit; but something's lost. I know what my sketching style looks like in pencil and in ink and paint, and i can kind of see my own hand at work here, but the quality of line is just flat out different and i don't know how i feel about it yet.
One thing i do love is, i figured out how to do a pretty good hand way easier with the Paint tools--hands are something i've always struggled with, and no matter how many i draw, i always find them difficult and challenging. With this drawing, i sketched Alma's right hand last, first using the largest round paintbrush and then going back into it with the smallest brush to do some lines to indicate the glove. It's probably the best hand i've drawn in a long time. Which i guess isn't saying much, since i only just got back into sketching after a long hiatus, but still. I'm sure that the more i work with it, the more i'll discover similar techniques that will make a more refined looking sketch overall.
I'm looking forward to experimenting more with this tool--i think the next rendering i do with it, i'm going to stick to greyscale and try to work more with the sketchiness, see whether i can produce something that looks to me more like my sketching style.
I'd love to hear from any designers who use a wacom tablet in their renderings, and tips and tricks or feedback or voice-of-experience impressions, etc.!
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