Art by Ben Hartnett

This is my new profile picture for Threadless.com, which I’m pretty happy with. It’s sharper, brighter, and more eye-catching than my previous attempt. I also had a much larger version to post here but there was I problem: I painted it in the free version of Twistedbrush (Twistedbrush Pro Studio). It has an odd saving system which seems to make it very easy to lose a lot of work, as I discovered; I scaled the picture down and couldn’t undo, plus it apparently wrote over the file I had saved in case of this event. In hindsight, my foresight was wasted.

Twistedbrush also appears to lack the ability to select part of a layer and move it, which I wanted for an eye adjustment. Plus, while it can save in .psd format, it doesn’t seem to save layers in .psd. There’s more but these are the main problems so far. This is all unfortunate since I really like the software. The brushes feel nice, the interface feels accessible, and there are some cool ideas in how different things are implemented. I think I’ll see if the negatives have been corrected in the demo of the full version. There’s still lots of potential here.

E-newsletter art for Intense Titanium, with an emphasis on the hypoallergenic properties of titanium earrings. This means that titanium doesn’t cause allergic reactions like other popular metals. How do you draw something that isn’t happening? I could have showed someone’s gold earrings causing a disturbing reaction but I didn’t think pus-filled infection was the way to go! I just went for a general feeling of health and vitality.

This picture shows another change in colouring method. I used oil pastels, since I couldn’t find my coloured pencils and I didn’t have access to a computer set up for painting! These pastels encourage boldness with colour and make it hard to get caught up in detail (I generally really like detail). I touched up a couple of things digitally, using a mouse.

The Skinz rings have various patterns which I managed to put into the background. The idea I was given was that the rings help to express something about the individual, so I tried to get across the idea visually with the tiger-stripe ring. I drew the picture in pencil and coloured it digitally.

This illustration has some slightly bolder colours than previous ones for Intense Titanium. The theme was seasonal change, and I attempted to come up with something which would be appropriate for both Spring and Autumn, since the company sells to both the northern and southern hemispheres. I happened to have a motorcyle-based movie dvd handy, which is partly why I sat the bride and groom on a big ol’ bike! The items above the couple are titanium cufflinks which were mentioned in the companion text (along with weddings, this being a popular time for them). The illustration was drawn on paper and coloured digitally. The bike was based loosely on a photo.

It seems my pen drawing skills aren’t what they were back in my pre-animation days, but these exercises might still be interesting for artists who are exploring different methods (like I am). Finding models the right sizes looked to be a little tricky, so I dispensed with live reference for this one!

All were drawn on smooth, white A4 (the blue one was drawn on standard copy paper). The first picture was the rough I traced from for all the others (with the help of a lightbox). The second was drawn fairly quickly (and a bit lazily) with a Faber-Castell PITT brush pen (I’m not used to brush pens, but I can see some of their major potential). The third and fourth were done with Copic pens with the fixed-width, fine points most pens have. The last was drawn with a 0.7 2B mechanical pencil  (Faber-Castell) and a black coloured pencil (Faber-Castell Polychromos). The last also took the longest to draw, but I have an idea involving markers which may reduce drawing time…

In stages from late 2007 to the first few months of 2008, I worked on some art for a Bluetooth ‘phone game called “Click Tac Toe”, a clever cross between Tic Tac Toe and Battleship. You can actually try the game for free; in fact, I believe it’s totally free for a limited time. I’ve worked for this chap once before (see here) and both experiences were very positive. For more notes, see the comments.

These two cartoons were commissioned to show different ways of encouraging kids with learning difficulties, no matter how stressed the situation might get! I learned a simple and valuable lesson about composition from the top one which I may add later. Both drawings were pen on paper, traced from pencil roughs with the aid of a lightbox.

“Safe Landing” was put together as an entry for the International Christian Comics Competition 2. It was made digitally in Photoshop (mostly Photoshop Elements) with a Wacom Graphire 3 tablet and pen. I got third place in the professional section, which was pretty cool! Another Aussie got second. “Safe Landing” got printed in colour in the competition book, along with my other entry “I Love My Cat”. I’ve edited “Safe Landing” slightly to make it more legible on the computer screen.

This pencil portrait was a new style for me and I’m happy with how it turned out. I kept the proportions roughly realistic, only getting cartoony with the rendering.

This little comic was made for an Australian Christian comics anthology called Pulp Crucifiction. I also entered it in the International Christian Comics Competition 2. It didn’t win but it got printed in the competition book (in black and white). The art was first drawn in pencil, then later I decided to add some digital colour. The cat was based on a real cat named Solomon.

I’ve posted my other entry, “Safe Landing”, which won third place in the professional section of the same competition.