So I think I’ve found an illustration style with which I can live for a while.

When I first started doing digital artwork, I experimented a lot with the monochromatic style in Paint Shop Pro or Photoshop, in which I would flood-fill a canvas with a single color and then dodge and burn the hell out of it. Then I dallied a bit in a quickie natural media style while fooling around in Painter, but I didn’t really like the results much. Then I combined the two very different techniques and came up with a better style of illustration.

Meanwhile, I was getting paid to do black and white line art—toons for business newsletters, you know, that sort of thing. I was also doing simple vector art in Illustrator for some of my graphic design work, but really nothing to write home about, mostly stuff I never even bothered to put in an online gallery.

Then I moved on to 3D, Poser and Bryce specifically, and forgot all about drawing with the Wacom.

…until I went back to my roots, back to digital doodling in Photoshop. This time, I combined all the different styles I’d been developing—the toons, the vector paths, the 3D textures, the coloring, smudging and airbrushing, everything… and there you go, the style of Alien Barbecue.

…which led to other things—the topsy turvy images on this log and to this, Broch’s new look. Go tell him how you like it, why don’t you? The toon, I mean, not… well… I mean the toon, okay? 😉

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