Beck Kramer

Test Driving the Monoprice Tablet

bkadmin — Sat, 05 May 2012 17:31:59 +0000

After reading Ray Frenden’s glowing review of the Monoprice graphics tablet (that retails for just shy of $50), I did something I almost never do: I made an impulse buy that wasn’t a candy bar. And I’m really glad I did.

I’ve only fiddled with it a little bit today, but man oh man is it giving my old battleworn Wacom a run for its money. Count me on the bandwagon, it’s a great tablet for this price. It’s also bigger than I expected- I wanted to use something for a point of reference, and all I had that I felt people would have a good feel for size-wise on hand was some ramen. So here we are:

It just about doubles the amount of drawing space I had with my old tablet. I haven’t futzed much with the preset buttons, but I can see myself using them. The one thing I miss is the eraser on the Wacom’s stylus- the Monoprice stylus just has one business end, which really isn’t a big deal. It also has 1 AAA battery housed inside it. This was my one concern- I figured if the tablet worked great, this is $50 dollars very well spent, but if the stylus feels too heavy/bulky, I’ll never use it. Well, it’s a tiny bit heavier than my Wacom stylus, but the difference is very very slight. It feels akin to a lightweight old-school fountain pen, which is kind of nice.

Bears are fun to draw.

bkadmin — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 03:13:20 +0000

It’s true.

Quick Self Portrait

bkadmin — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:08:25 +0000

I wanted to draw today- to work on some technique stuff for the project I’m currently working on- but I found myself staring at a blank piece of copy paper for a while. Whenever I want to draw but can’t think of much to do, I usually turn to self portraits (to paraphrase Mike Jittlov, I’m very affordable, and always available). I think this one turned out okay, just a quickie, and even though I feel like I draw myself too much sometimes, it reminded me about a few lighting ‘quirks’ I’ve lost track of. Not a bad way to spend half an hour, I think.

Hourly Comics Day 2012

bkadmin — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 05:41:04 +0000

So I decided at the last minute to take part. Here’s what I put together for the day.

Theonious (with Process Shots)

bkadmin — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 01:35:21 +0000

Decided to scan as I went on this one, from quickie digital sketch through to the finished inks for this drawing that ended up being a gift for a good friend.

I’ve been sketching with my Wacom tablet a lot more as a prep step for my pencils. Since I don’t use blue lead, I need to stay pretty light with my pencils. Having the digital step to just wig out and make a mess is a great load off, since I have a good idea of what direction I want to take things once I get to my pencils.

Sketching Daredevil

bkadmin — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:53:52 +0000

After excavating that Daredevil drawing I did a while back, I’ve been wanting to draw him some more. No idea if this sketch will lead anywhere, but it was fun.

Daredevil

bkadmin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 03:37:20 +0000

Did this ages ago, but just got around to scanning it. I liked the idea of him wearing boxing boots as an homage to his dad.

The Big I.G.

bkadmin — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 18:08:52 +0000

Can’t go wrong with the Iron Giant (you really, really can’t).

Foxes foxes foxes

bkadmin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 01:50:43 +0000

Robin of Foxly, meet the Fantastic Mr. Fox.

Some Ink Tests

bkadmin — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 23:57:24 +0000

Going through in stages and scanning after each step- I’m trying to see where I can make tweaks along the way in my process lately, to see what I can do to make life easier, but also to reassess what works and what doesn’t when I’m inking. I thought I’d share with the class. If you’d like me to go more into depth about what the heck I’m doing along the way, let me know, and I can put something together.