A Guy with Glasses

I’m a doodler.  At work, when I’m on the phone or thinking about programming solutions, I’ll grab a pad or a stack of post-its and a pen and doodle.  I used to do it during boring meetings, but I don’t have those anymore (one of the joys of working for a small company).  That said, I’ve had a Wacom Bamboo tablet for some time now and put it to very little use.  Having learned to make graphics using Paint Shop Pro (versions 4 thru 7, before they got bought by Corel and all the program controls changed), I’ve never been comfortable with the way that programs like Photoshop and GIMP do things, so whenever I needed a new image for my website, or even work, I’d often try to use some other program and then run back to PSP once I got frustrated.

So, in a concerted effort to learn GIMP, use my tablet, and doodle more than just randomly, I’ve decided to dedicate Saturdays at the blog to posting doodles I’ve made n GIMP with the tablet.  I’ll try to post at least one image per week, but we’ll see how that goes.  Without further ado…

As you can see, my hand with the Wacom stylus is a bit shaky.  I’m just not used to drawing with one hand while watching the screen, translating movements out of site to movements on the screen.  I suspect I’ll get better, because I do actually have quite a fair bit of hand-eye coordination.  But just like perfecting a no-look baseball catch as a kid, it’ll take some practice.

Another thing I’ll be working on as I do this is repetition.  I’ve always wanted to draw cartoons, and I’ve been told that, at least with pencil and paper, I’m not a bad artist.  The one thing I can’t do is repeat an image, or draw a similar image with slight changes.  You know, like a character from frame to frame with movement.  They always end up distorted, with different shaped heads or different proportioned bodies.  If anyone knows of exercises they’d recommend for improving drawing consistency, I’d appreciate hearing about them.