Wacom Spotlight: The Defender

I decided rather than just tossing out all of my best work in one big slough of posts, I'll do spotlights on specific ones, just cuz I feel like the better pieces of work deserve at least some better explanation and credit. For today's (there might be more today since I'm starting out obviously) I'll be talking about a pre-mission piece I did called The Defender.


This one was one I had a pretty clear picture of in my head, as seen by the outline I did. This was done during the time when I had started figure drawing classes, so the pose isn't too bad that way, maybe not completely realistic, but I like how I framed him in the canvas. When I had him in my mind I just knew I wanted some cool armor and a cool sword.

After developing it a little bit, I started just piecing together the sword, followed by the armor. I really like the color scheme for the sword, the only part that I'm still not fond of is the hilt, it's a little too heavily detailed to fit the runic blade and claw-looking hand guard. It's kinda a subtle detail, but if you look at this earlier version, the blade was originally planned to be much broader and even a little bit shorter. As I went through the rest of the armor and everything I realized that it just didn't fit the guys size and implied physique. So as I did the finishing touches I slimmed and stretched the blade out a little to fit him better.


The "final" product turned out really well detail wise, I really like how the armor has the gold highlights  and trim. The fabric might not be perfect, but I think I at least disguised the fact that I don't know how to do fabric folds :D The obvious problem with the picture is it's lack of a background, which is tricky because I made the lighting on this drawing come from above and to the right, and the original idea had The Defender facing some demon or glowy monster, which would have made him just a silhouette. So, this is obviously a good place for input if anyone has an suggestions or ideas on what kind of background would look good here. Obviously backgrounds aren't my strong point so I might be a little limited, but it's always good practice to try a new one out!

Wacom Development

So as time went on, I continued to experiment and develop my wacom-ing skills. It's kinda fun to look at drawings and see how I tried new techniques on different parts, and even years after doing a lot of these I still have the mental picture in my head of what I was going for. Some actually turned out very good in comparison with what I wanted, and others I just never was able to pull off what my brain was imagining. I guess that's how art goes, and that's why I'm always trying to learn and experiment more and more! These ones here I consider to be my good works, but not really the best.

The Realer Side of Photoshop

So my brother Austin and I have discussed how photoshop has two specific sides - photo editing, and simply painting/drawing. My forte has always been the latter and thus most of my work is just hand drawn ideas, but there have been a few projects that have come from the photo editing side. Some have been very experimental, but overall I just love Photoshop.

First Wacom Tablet Creations

Years ago, I had heard legends of a device that could be used to allow you to actually draw on a computer. I have loved drawing ever since I was a wee lad, and dreamt of the possibilities of color and effects that a computer might achieve if somehow intertwined with the art of pen-on-paper drawing. Finally after scrimping and saving, I was able to purchase none other than my very own Bamboo Wacom Tablet!!!

The tablet was simple but SO much more advanced than using a mouse!! I immediately went to work trying out the pressure levels, colors with Photoshop Elements, and just let my brain have a hay day. Here are some of my earlier Wacom tablet works. Mouse over them to see my thoughts on each one.

I have quite a few other doodle type drawings such as these, but these were simply the earlier foundation ones that served as spring boards into my next "levels" of Wacom art.


(PS - I can't get these pictures to format right, so I apologize that they look all weird)

Welcome to Flufhamster Summit!!!

    After much anticipation and procrastination, I have finally created a receptacle for the many ideas and creations I have compiled over the years. Between my art (digital as well as traditional) my pursuit of becoming an animator, and then just other aspects of being me, I have amassed a large amount of... stuff. So, from hence forth this will be a place where I will specifically show and display my art and other projects, and then of course will document some of my personal happenings.

    The name, Flufhamster Summit - Coming up with a name for most things is always difficult, and doing an interesting blog name is one of the trickier ones to do. For anyone who doesn't know, the name Flufhamster has been my username since the first time I used usernames. The history of the name stems from as far back as 5th grade (possibly earlier, but that's hard to confirm) where I had a specific obsession over hamsters. About this time was when my brother Austin and I purchased two pet hamsters. My brother's, a teddy bear hamster, was named Hermes, and mine, a dwarf teddy bear, was named Joe. From this focus and obsession, the word "hamster" found its place in my username, and then my knowledge that something like fluffhamster might already exist, I used the shortened version, Flufhamster. Ever since then, Flufhamster has been used in email addresses, character names, etc. Flufhamster Summit then stemmed from this, as here is where I hope to show and develop my best and "highest" art work and ideas.

    Without further ado, let the past works and more importantly the future works of Flufhamster be brought forth!