Matt Lichtenwalner

Mobile mapper for DMP - roaming the US and Canada constantly. Maybe a bit of art and/or writing here and there to spice things up.

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Some of you may be familiar with Inktober - where there's a list of art prompts for the month of October and the challenge is to create art every day from those prompts in ink. I've done it a few times and 'won' (succeeded) once.

Now I'm doing Smaugust. It appears to be far less popular, but given that I'm the owner of dragonbones.net, I figured I would give it a go. Of course, I have a bunch of other stuff on my plate, and shouldn't really be spending my limited time on a meme, but what the hell. I have an idea that might make it worthwhile (beyond the pleasure of doing it / the experience of 'stretching' a bit).

Anyway, I may a post thread over on Twitter where I'll be posting them every day. I'll probably do actual posts with info on how I made the different illustrations etc on my Patreon page and/or dragonbones.net. That said, I figured I would put the first few up here for you to get a feel for the challenge and what I'm currently doing with it.

Day 1 - the Aquatic Dragon

Day 2 - the Tribal Dragon

I may re-do this one later. I'm thinking about creating an ebook after the month is completed with a write up for each of the dragons to be used in TTRPGs, but this wouldn't make for a good creature as is. Of course, maybe it will be a magic tattoo or something... I guess time will tell.

Day 3 - the Subterranean Dragon

Day 4 - the Wolf Dragon

I went a little 'on the nose' with this one, but I just kinda wanted to.

I used the guy all the way on the right for reference from this pic. Obviously, I stretched him out and didn't stick with it very much. Perhaps it's better to say I used him as a starting point.

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8/4 '20 5 Comments
OMG OMG OMG!!! Eeeee!!!! I want to see the tribal dragon colored, or more of the tribal markings in black. I love the Wolf dragon.
Beeble will like this meme a LOT!
I'm already super behind (of course). More soon!
I love the aquatic dragon!
Awww - thanks! I'm already looking at each of these and seeing nothing but the flaws.

It really doesn't take long, dammit.
Don't think like that. Move on to the next day's drawing, and then go back and revise.
 

Been a while since I did any Patch images, and I got the proverbial itch tonight, so...

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6/24 '20 5 Comments
That came out well!
I love his facial expression.
The shadows on #3 are a little stripy, not sure where the light source is, but the image itself is ... alive and predatory and amused. Reminds me of the t-shirt Houser has that says something about being excited for the zombie apocalypse.
The real take-away for the lighting is that it isn't clear, but just so you have the info, my INTENT was for two light sources: Moonlight or electric (blue) light that is subtle / gentle from behind (to our right) and above and a white light almost directly above (I was thinking 'streetlight').

I'm trying to play around with multiple light sources to add to realism. Honestly, this may be a bit of a mistake since I don't have a really 'realism' style. I'm far too cartoony, generally speaking.

I'm glad his facial expression seems a bit nuanced. Something that... irks me about a lot of wolf / werewolf artwork is that there is zero nuance. Perhaps that makes sense given the subject matter, but I'm a fan of subtle. More than binary seems a good thing. Real wolves aren't either A: I love you or B: I'm eating your face, so I figure werewolves could have additional complexity too.

And thanks!
Sometimes that's A and B. :)
Any time spent drawing is a good time. :)
It's really true. And I have to admit - there's additional comfort with this guy. Like comfort food, or reality tv or... whatever. A little bit of 'coming home'.
 
 

I just had a rather fantastic encounter at my local coffee shop (Peet’s). I had settled in to do some catch up work on art stuff. I had just finished a commission for my buddy Krishna. His wife asked his daughter the age old ‘If you could have a super power, what would it be?’ thing. When they heard the result (a modification of Elsa, of course) K commissioned me to draw it up. The result is above.

Anyway - so I’d just finished up the image, and a family came in with a little boy who can’t be older than 8. I noticed the printer paper in front of him with... are those comic panels? And pencil drawings? Why yes. Yes, they are.

”Are you drawing a comic?” I asked.

He was a bit shy with the big hairy stranger, but with a glance at his mom (grandma?) sitting next to him, he said “Yeah.”

”Well that’s awesome! This is what I just finished!” at which point I turned the iPad to face him and clicked the play button on the time lapse video for the image.

His jaw dropped and his mom started Oooh-ing.

We proceeded to have a conversation about art and comics and I introduced them to software he could get for his iPad and of the very concept of ashcan comic books. He’d said that he was doing them and keeping them to himself. I explained that (if he wanted to) ash cans would let him keep the originals and still share copies with his friends.

The whole family seemed delighted.

For a while now, I have been in seventh heaven listening to the sounds of the little boy quietly narrating his comics to himself as he works. Both dialogue and (far better) sound effects keep coming while he’s drawing.

He’s not playing on an iPhone. He doesn’t have his own laptop here. He’s not watching Youtube. He’s drawing. With pencil and pen on paper.

That. Was. Me. When I was a kid, and it’s just so very good to see as an adult.

* * * * *

In case anyone’s curious, this is the text for the commission:

"Here is what M told me she said: "If she could pick any magic power she would pick being the princess of ice and snow mountains and being in control of fire. And she hopes one eye was clear and white and one eye was red and orange"."

And here’s a link to the time lapse video of the process - https://photos.app.goo.gl/YQEXkK1kQEe4DHw47

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9/23 '18 6 Comments
Gaaah! I can't read what M told you she said. It's in different text that doesn't wrap in mobile. I'm in potrait mode now, so it cuts off at

"she said: "I

When I flip my phone to landscape I get a few more characters, but they display off my display. :-)

Wondering if I should submit a bug report, or should I just reload the page requesting the Desktop Version™?
Anyway, this interaction with the boy made me SO HAPPY. Go fuzzy guy, go!
Thanks for the heads up. It's because I used the 'preformatted' option to try to differentiate - like quote formatting in a book. I've changed it so you should be able to read it now.

I've also added a bug report for the OPW folks. :)
Oh! Thanks! I was gonna do that-- thanks for taking care of it!

And thanks for re copying/pasting the quote so'z I can read it now. Yay!
OK, I'm in DesktopMode now, and it shows a teeny bit more of the quote, but it still won't wrap... and it still runs off my window no matter my phone orientation.

(I'm using Chrome.)

Bummer!
Oh, and Maj. Dickason's Blend from Peet's is the coffee of the house here. They make a half-caf version that we buy from Peet's online, and it's pretty awesome seeing the "Roasted on" date be the week prior to me grinding the beans in the kitchen. Damn tasty.

I have Patty to thank for turning us onto that blend. Peets rocks!
 

Art is my illicit drug of choice. The more I create, the more I need to make to get off.

Okay, so I put it that way to be a touch provocative, but it's also kinda true. I've been doing more illustration work pretty much every chance I get and I'm still getting further behind. What's more, I want to do more. That's kinda crazy.

ETA: Okay, I think I was going to go deeper into this and then change the post to public, but I've lost the train of thought and figure I should just let folks see it as is for now. I can always comment more later if I get that thought back.

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9/11 '18 6 Comments
The dimension in the last female figure iteration is wonderful.
The one that's all the way left? The were-panther?

In any event - thanks! I've been working pretty hard on my female forms recently. I want to be able to do 'ideal' but not make that every female character like in bad comic books. Too often, comic artists learn a 'template' (which, of course, is some kind of idealized Olympic athlete which somehow retains breasts and butt cheeks) and just apply that template to every female character ever.

I don't wanna be 'that guy'.
Not the were-panther, the one in the second picture, the one with the big ears.
Ahhh. Gotcha. Technically, that's a he/him, but you can't really tell since he's wearing a poncho. I _was_ also told to make him quite chubby. If you're curious, there's more info on this one in particular (and my process in general) here: http://dragonbones.net/character-portrait-drawing-process-a-step-by-step-demonstration/
Dood, your coloring skills are really getting great!
Thanks beb. All I can see is how very far they have to go, but I'm glad someone is seeing the improvement. ;)