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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Working on my first instructional ebook. How to Draw Fantastic Humans.

The idea is to follow it up later with How to Draw Fantastic Elves, then Dwarves, etc..

If you've ever wanted to learn how to draw people, I would deeply and sincerely appreciate any questions you might have so that I can address them in the book.

Please and thank you!

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6/18 '23 23 Comments
Hands: how do I even
I'm on the job!
Starting in on this. Is there anything specific you’re wondering about?
There will be text to go with these, obviously, but for now, I’m working on the illustrations.

Are these helping to make sense of hands at all?
Holy crap yes!!! This is all considerably more thorough than I expected from this book. Way past beginner's/simple. But in a good way. But also could reaaaaallly split this up I think into multiple books.
Eyes: how to make them look normal, and more or less the same size, and like...like eyes. Young eyes, old eyes. Squinty, wide-eyed, surprized, narrowed, loving, contented, laughing, angry...
Good call - I planned to do something about eyes in general, but I really appreciate the clarity on finer points, and I will be sure to add them!
Ooooh this is exciting!
Maintaining proper proportions of parts while the figure is in motion. I'm thinking back to a drawing I did in school of a soccer player kicking a ball towards the viewer....had the worst time getting the kicking leg to look right.
Ohhh. That’s a tricky one. Perspective and foreshortening are both challenging on their own, but together, they grow exponentially harder. I do plan to at least start into them in the book though, so I’ll let you know when I have something.
Oh that's a good point. Maybe doing a beginner's book would be good and then you can get into the finer points in a second edition since people like to learn one chunk at a time...?
Or, in our modern era, I could create a ‘living book’ that grows over time. 😏
I like it. Though ya may lose some revenue there as you won't have repeat customers on the same topic.

I've seen people do a similar thing for courses though that helps you get something out fast.

Beginner's version: First incarnation sells for a lower price, and ya get feedback to find out what else people want. Then as you add more from their suggestions or questions, it sells for more, but the OG's get the additional content. Win Win for everyone.

Then the Intermediate book, same thing, etc.
 

Guess I'm just going to have to try number 2.

For the record - it's a rain day, so I'm back at my favorite local coffee shop (The Spokesman).

If you're curious, a quick search yields this article about Lichtenhainer beers at the Beer Advocate.

Heh. Spellcheck auto corrected the beer name to my last name.

Update:

It's delicious! Honestly, I've never had anything like it before. I suppose I should point out that I'm generally not a 'beer guy' so maybe this sort of flavor is more common than I realize, but...

It seems salty and sour. Kinda like a dill pickle brine. Obviously, I wouldn't drink a dill pickle brine down, but this is in that direction. If nothing else, it's something interesting for a change.

Also:

In the Mario Brothers series of games, my understanding is that you play the Mario Brothers and have to rescue Princess Peach. Then, Bowser immediately recaptures her and wash, rinse, and repeat.

This seemed... like it was in need of an update. So I didn't spend long on this, but I wanted to get the idea down before I lost it.

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4/25 '23 3 Comments
[small voice in the corner] I used to drink pickle juice as a kid…
Oh, I’m not saying I’ve _never_ done that…

…a lot…

Just that it wouldn’t be a go to. But this seemed like something I could drink fairly regularly. I won’t, because it’s apparently a seasonal ‘ short run, but…
We drink pickle juice as an Eagles football superstition. Green, a little rough ... go Eagles!

Also it's perfect that the beer with (almost) your name is the beer you like.

I know "Lichtenwalner" means "Light in the Woods" so Lichtenhainer is "Light in the something".

"Hainer" is a name and translates as a name as far as I can find with some quick googling/translation dictionary searching.

This is as close as I could get to a translation of the name, "Hainer Name Meaning
South German: from the ancient Germanic personal name Haginher composed of the elements hag ‘hedge enclosure’ + hari heri ‘army’."

Light in the army's hedge?
 
 

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'.
 

First, I should point out that I hate the name Drawlloween. I love the concept behind it, and I'm taking part, but there's just something about the name that is very much like fingernails on the chalkboard for me. I think it has something to do with the way some people have asked me throughout my life to "please drawl me something?". That's not the word.

I'm not really a grammar nazi. Not really. I just play one in my head.

Okay, yeah. I kinda am.

Anyway. I love the idea behind Inktober and Drawlloween. (Links are to their respective FB groups.) This year, I decided to take part in both. Yes, that's a little bit insane.

Unless, of course, someone got the idea in their head to combine the two. Which I did. So I created a quick cheat sheet which can be found here: Inktober Drawlloween Combo Prompts. (Document also contains the list of prompts for each separate group.)

So - I don't know if any of you were thinking of taking part, but if so, feel free to let me know! (I'll probably be posting the images here - or at least links to them throughout the month.)

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9/30 '16
 

So I'm late posting this (how often do I manage to get it posted in time?!) but whatevs.

It rained today (yesterday) for my birthday. That may sound like a complaint, but it's the opposite. It meant I had the day off.

Went out for a nice big breakfast at a chain restaurant called Cora's. They're only up here in Canada, and I think they might only be in Quebec. I don't recall seeing them elsewhere, at least.

Anyway, after my tasty breakfast and about a gallon of their coffee, I retreated back to my hotel room where I watched most of the second season of Daredevil and just did a shit ton of drawing. Quiet, peaceful (the rain was very soothing), and productive. The images above and blow are what I did today alone.

In addition to these, I updated my Deviantart page, and created a couple different videos. The only video I uploaded is here. The technique I used is very different for me. Far more 'painting' than 'drawing' once I got past the initial sketch stage.

Alright - I'm hitting the sack. Hours to make up for work tomorrow!



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9/9 '16 6 Comments
Kudos for keeping up this giant productivity streak! You've been dropping the hammer, as we used to say. ;)
Thanks hon. Feels pretty good indeed.
Happy belated Matt!! The art is rockin.
Thanks - for both parts!
Happy (belated) Birthday! Patch's arms are magnificent.
Thank you. Yeah, funny thing is that I drew it back in 2007 and just inked/colored it now.
 

You'll get that awful pun in just a second...

I'm working on (yet another) new illustration project. Or rather, I'm picking up work on an idea I had a while back.

I've been looking at Patreon for a while. I would LOVE to do something that allowed me to make some decent money on illustration stuff.

Here are the problems with that concept:

  • I'm not that good. That's not an attempt at some kind of false humility. It's not an attempt to seek praise. It's fact. If you're feeling like jumping to my defense, please don't. Trust that this is an area where I am likely better versed than you. You'll note that I don't tell musicians whether they're good or not. I tell them whether I enjoy what they did. I'm certainly not qualified to say whether or not they're good at what they do. Same concept applies here.
  • I'm driven to distraction. I don't know if things would be different if there would be a bajillion dollars on the line. So far, no one has offered me that much. In fact, I've pretty much only ever made $4 per drawing with exceptionally rare exceptions to that rule. Anyway - it's hard for me to stay motivated for anything more than 'quick hit' projects. One or two single character illustrations for a small gaming manual? No problem. The dozens and dozens of drawings for my own card game? Well, how long have I been working on them and they're not done yet?
  • I like simple illustration work. This is significantly tied to that last item, but it also deserves its own point. I don't have any great desire to do uber in depth, full colored, fully rendered illustrations with complete backgrounds. The amount of hours required versus the reward (up to this point, we're talking purely personal here - see aforemented low paying gigs) has just not been in my favor.

With all of this in mind, I had a recommendation from someone on Google Plus: Paper Minis.

For those who might not be familiar: Paper minis are kinda what they sound like. You've likely seen the small lead miniatures that some gamers painstakingly paint and use to lay out their table top gaming sessions (think Dungeons and Dragons). Well, you can now buy plastic covers which allow you to take a small drawing (printout) and use that as your character, or in the case of the game master - the NPCs / monsters.

You put the paper minis into a stand - something like this.

Anyway, I thought I might give it a shot. It seems like the kind of thing that works on Patreon: give even a small amount and you get access to all the paper minis that I create (they will come out in sheets (PDFs) that you can print at home). Give a little more, and you'll be entered into monthly(?) drawings to get a free custom drawing. Give a lot? You'll get a custom drawing from me each month.

Dunno. There are probably bugs to be worked out, but I need to start to find them.

Which brings me to the title of this post. I really am ridiculously verbose sometimes.

This guy Bruce Gulke created a program called Tablesmith a long time ago. It allows you to create your own tables (think 'recipe') and randomly generate results from that table.

I love the program and paid for the 'registration key'. Something I very rarely do in this world of exceedingly functional freeware. I think it has uses far outside gaming for folks like writers and concept artists.

I created one to give me some quick descriptions to use for a starting set of characters to be used as the initial set of minis to describe the project to potential Patrons.

Below is a quick screen grab of some of my initial results.

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5/9 '16 2 Comments
1) Then keep doing it until you are good. Copy the greats (privately), try different techniques, try the opposite of your usual style, try different tools, draw for an hour every day until you like what you see.
2) Distraction and reward are different things. How many stories are there out there of illustrators who were given 50% of a sizable paycheck up front, who blew deadlines or handed in shitty work at the last minute? If you want to write for compensation, that's a separate topic, and I'm the wrong person to answer that question. If you have trouble with distraction, SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP AND GET IT.
ADD is a harsh mistress.

3) you like simple illustration work. Your style is your style and there is nothing wrong with that. Charles Schulz built an empire based on pen and ink drawings of a round headed kid and a floppy eared dog. Just keep drawing.

I asked Ed, my former advisor, once, about how to write the kind of play people want to see and theaters want to produce. He said that kowtowing to trends and chasing what it seems like people want is not going to result in an honest product. If you create what's true, honest and real for you, it's going to resonate with people who are waiting for it.
So, I wrote Wreck of the Alberta.
First and foremost: thank you for the well thought out response! I'll take each of these one at a time:

"1) Then keep doing it until you are good... draw for an hour every day until you like what you see."

You're right, of course. I should point out here that I don't say "I don't like what I do." I actually do (most of the time). When I said that I'm not that good, I should have completed the thought by adding "...in comparison to those who sell a lot of illustrations." Much of the problem is in marketing. Some of it is not. I was accounting for the parts that are not.

"2) ...If you have trouble with distraction, SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP AND GET IT. ADD is a harsh mistress."

Again, I agree. I DID go and talk to a psychologist many years back now. He gave me a referral to a psychiatrist after re-testing me for ADD. While he said I don't have an extreme case or anything, I'm *cough,cough* years old, and I know the 'coping techniques' and they haven't worked thus far. I, of course, proceeded to fail to stay focused long enough to set an appointment with the psychiatrist. Which would be funny, if it wasn't also frustrating and sad.

"3) ...I asked Ed, my former advisor, once, about how to write the kind of play people want to see and theaters want to produce. He said that kowtowing to trends and chasing what it seems like people want is not going to result in an honest product... ...I wrote Wreck of the Alberta."

In my 'perfect world' scenario, I do some writing and some illustrating - for the variety of things. The two seem to activate different parts of my brain meats. Writing is very focused - logical (even when it's pure fantasy I'm writing) and illustration is almost entirely... I don't know... mindless? Kinda a zen thing? I'm not at all shocked by the current popularity of adult coloring books purely because of how I feel when I'm drawing.

Anyway - on the thoughts of your former adviser: This is going to seem like extreme hubris coming from me (vs. your adviser, who, you know, gets paid to advise...) but I don't agree. Or rather - I think it's a kind of scale.

On one end of the scale, you have what I'll call Pure Art. That's without compromise exactly what one wants to write/draw/paint/whatev. On the other end of the scale, you have Pure Sellout. I think of the guy who likely wrote the most recent 8 Steven Seagal films, for example. (Yes, perhaps it's a matter of love for him. I wouldn't bank on it.)

Why does it matter? Well, I've been listening to MANY hours of audio book and podcasts that focus on self publishing. The topic of Writing to Market comes up often, and is hotly debated. You have proponents on both ends of the spectrum. As with most things in life, I find myself thinking that there's a balance to be struck somewhere in the middle(ish) for me personally.

tl;dr version: Don't let the Perfect be the enemy of the Good.

(Said the guy who's making Jack and shit from his creative endeavors.)