Digital Freehand Inking With Adobe Illustrator

Being a good inker is a valuable skill as either a comic book artist, graphic designer or an illustrator. While traditional inking skills with brush and pen makes for a good solid foundation, having digital inking skills in today's day and age is a must. When it comes to digital inking, knowing how to handle the pen tool is a must and it was something I quickly had to learn during my internship at MGA Entertainment, however using the pen tool, while can give you a lot of control, also takes a lot of time and has it's own problems. The ability to ink fast is another skill that is a must in the art world, because let's face it, the faster you can do quality work the more money you can make. So in this video I am showing how to digitally ink using the blob tool which is more intuitive and has a more natural look. In this video I have used a Cthulhu sketch I did for T-shirt flair in my new clothing line I am calling Lovecraftian Flair.

Talent, Potential and Skill

I want to talk about a little thing people call talent, it doesn’t exist, except in the minds of people who are unable or unwilling to do well in something creative or wonderful. Let me expand on that, from my own experiences and through talking with other creative types about their experiences, I found that when someone says, “This person has talent”, they have the mind set that the person they refer to has some innate ability that allows them to do wonderful and creative things without effort. This is from the truth, because every successful creative person out there had the passion to dedicated themselves to the time and effort it took to get their skill to that level, it isn’t easy.

While I don’t believe in talent, I do believe in potential and aptitude. Every single person has the potential to do wonderful things if they dedicate themselves, but some people have more aptitude than others in achieving wonderful things and that is the only real edge they have. Lets take artists for example, they start off drawing young just like everyone else and for the most part they don’t draw any better than anyone else and the only difference is that they either took more enjoyment from it or took it more seriously. So, as that artist grows up they continue to draw and learn from mistakes. Sometimes, if lucky, the artist grows up in a family that has an artist or two living with them, whom they can learn from. If the passion is particularly strong that artist might ask for art lessons or get books on the subject, but still that is not always enough. If the artist stops their artwork longer than a year they become rusty and have to retrain and this is devastating. The successful artist is the one that seeks help through training but also continues self education and is willing to explore, make mistakes, and discover for greater understanding to create wonderful art. So, the successful creative person often puts years upon years of time, effort, and dedication in order to become good at what they do; sometimes this takes a life time.

Enclosing, always remember that if you want a writer, artist, musician or other creative type to produce something wonderful for you, your business or any other venture, remember we all work for a living.

"If you are good at something never do it for free"— Joker (Heath Ledger)

The following pieces of art are to the best of my knowledge in chronological order to show how long it took me to progress to my current skill level in art.

  Around Age 5

 Around Age 8-10

 Around Age 8-11
















Around Mid Teens ( I think I am going to revise this comp it is just to fun to pass up)

Around mid to Late Teens (was modifed in PS 10 years ago can't find original was two separate pieces)














Around mid to late Teens














Early 20s

 Early 20s





















Mid 20s











Mid to late 20s finally in college studying art

 Late 20s still learning to paint digitally

Present day!

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art, or catch me at @TobiasWhite1
Don't forget, you can also purchase many of my works as full sized prints at TBW Designs On Zazzle

Speed Painting Techniques Act 3

Continued from Speed-painting-techniques-act-2

It was one thing to talk about the techniques of speed painting and another thing to watch it happen. So I finally decided to record one of my speed painting sessions. This painting was done in an hour but I have sped it up so that it is only 8 minutes long. For best results watch it at 720p HD or higher, although if you do, depending on your connection speed, you may want to let it load a bit, so that it plays smoother. If anyone has questions I am willing to answer.

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art,  or catch me on Tweeter at @TobiasWhite1

Texture Hunter Act 1

 One of the many techniques that digital painters employ is the use of texture overlays. Usually these textures are applied over a certain part of a digital painting with reduce opacity or using color blend modes such as multiply, overlay or soft light. The digital painter then paints over these textures to blend it even more into the painting.

You can find plenty of sites on-line that offer textures for sale or even for free. However, in these times of cell phones that can take quality photos and digital cameras that fit in your pocket, hunting your own textures is easy, rewarding (for uniqueness), and fun. If you pursue it everyday you will soon have a vast library of textures to use for your digital painting.

To be a successful texture hunter you need to actively be kept aware of your surroundings; look for differences in contrast; look for differences in color; and to think out side of the proverbial box. For instance the very first photo was from an ash tray at the Getty Museum, which was pretty funny to see someone taking a picture of at a museum. You can hunt for a lot of textures right in your own home; try looking in your refrigerator, garage and backyard if you own one. Things we take for granted like the fiz from a soda or the reflection of light in water can also make for great textures. Think beyond your ability to see and use your scanner (if you own one) because most scanners these days can scan at very high resolutions which make them almost like magnifying glass or a microscope. Using a scanner in this way can open up a world of textures we normally can't see. For example: tearing apart a Q-tip and scanning it or stretching a kneaded eraser.  Lastly the best source for texture is mother nature because she can produce things that can't be produced anywhere else, so keep your eyes open and get to hunting.

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art,  or catch me on Tweeter at @TobiasWhite1

Evolution of Cthulhu

 When I began getting into digital painting I decided I needed not only be able to do a variety of things but to also have a niche at something I would be really good at and known for painting. Cthulhu one day caught my eye and that started my niche and my love for the works of H.P. Lovecraft. Through the natural exploration of being known as Cthulhu and the progression of my artistic skills I have watch him seemingly evolve slowly over the years as I explored his form. From this I learned how much variation and exploration can be done in visual development which is the career I now pursue. From top to bottom you can witness how much and how many different forms I went through to get to his latest incarnation. I also learned not to work in a vacuum and found that the more research you do for a certain project the easier the process. Such reference include photo references of similar things and reading up on the descriptions of the original author. In fact one of the best resources I found was sketch that Lovecraft did himself of Cthulhu and it helped me form my own design. Cthulhu will probably continue to evolve for me but I glad for that as it will keep me fresh when it comes to visual development.

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art,  or catch me on Tweeter at @TobiasWhite1

Speedpainting for progression

 Almost all digital painters know what speed painting is and I am sure that speed painting is even practiced by other painters as well. There are no real rules when it comes to digital speed painting except do it fast as possible. A speed painting can take from anywhere from 15 minutes to paint to 2 hours, although some people like to take as long as 3 hours. There are plenty of arguments out there what the max time for a speed painting, but in reality --- it is all relative to the size or complexity of composition of the painting. Some ask why do a speed painting other than the reason for showing off. Well there are a variety of reasons. First off, time is money and if you can create a quite composition in as little as time possible then you can save time and earn more money. Another good reason to do speed painting is it is intense training designed to sharpen the compositional skills of the artist. Being able to speed paint is also vital for visual development in a variety of industries because visual development is about getting out images fast in order to communicate a visual idea that we as artists have in our heads. Lastly from my own experience some of my best portraits and other paintings have started off as a speed painting but which I just moved forward on. The reason I believe this to be so is because I am not thinking of what I want or need to do but instead I react and counter react as a speed painting I am doing develops.  Also when I am working on a speed painting I usually like having some kind of loose photo reference(s) as this allows me to react without having to think to much.












Before (1 Hour Speedpaint)

 After (2 Hours more)

Before (1 Hour Speedpaint)









 After (8 Hours more)

Check out more of my work at Tobias White Illustrations

You should also follow me on Facebook, linkedin, Deviant Art,  or catch me on Tweeter at @TobiasWhite1