Hello fellow traveler! I Papa Sweets am chronicling NEMOS a solarpunk fantasy world full of anarchy and adventure!
Age 42
Artist/Arts Educator
calarts
Rochester, NY
Joined on 11/10/24
Posted by PapaSweets - December 4th, 2024
I used to draw swords in class. I remember doing this as far back as 3rd grade. I also remember playing Ninjas and Superspies back then. Here are some studies/research I did looking for swords for pirates. Keep making art kids!
Posted by PapaSweets - December 1st, 2024
I went through a lot of iteration trying to figure out the cafe. At first it was a tree house. But something was off…I think I tried two or three designs like that before I got set on an island as a location. Through sketching…and I often draw airships and onion domes…but that making it a port gave me possibilities for so many characters. I will do another blog on character ideation, But for now…
The intererior came first. I had seen those eagle headed espresso machines on a trip to San Francisco years ago.
When I did this I drew the floor plan in a bird’s eye view then deformed that and kind of “popped up” the elements from that sketch when painting.
Earlier versions of the inside were trying to establish mood and color. But in a more expressionistic way, not really understanding the structure/architecture.
This was one of the first exterior sketches. The title of Octopus Cafe had come to me in a dream. And I was stuck on Octopus…so the walk ways to the cafe we like the tentacles. But I knew it wasn’t working.
So This was the next iteration. I liked it a lot more. But the cafe even though it looked more like an octopus, didn’t feel right. So I kept pushing. I was teaching a digital illustration class at the time, and had given an assignment for thumnailing so I did 20-30 thumnails in 5-10 mins.
I had been looking at houses in Normandy France where they had turned old boats upside down. So I think I turned a tug boat upside down for the roof. The overlay sketch is an attempt at how the ventilation system could work. I also knew I was going to have a giant in there so I needed a really high interior ceiling. It’s been a while since I finished this project, and I think I would approach rendering very differently. But I stopped using photoshop. When I was using photoshop I would take pictures of lots of different textures, or scrap that I had laying around and make brushes with that. Lots of watercolor, but also things like circuit boards and textiles. Now that I’ve divorced myself from adobe and tried to limit my interactions with AI….90%of what I’m doing is in procreate. I’ve been using procreate for 7 years or so and I’m just starting to play with making brushes. Keep making art kids!
Posted by PapaSweets - November 27th, 2024
So I ran my online class out of my classroom again. Intermittent power outages so I had to be where the internet was available. I was drawing with my students again. I had already done some sketches like this one a month or two before.
Now I was working on paper and I haven’t been doing that because I want to stay portable with my tablet. That being said if you haven’t had the chance to work on paper or physical media…it’s expensive, but it’s worth it to help with decision making. The computer doesn’t have limitations…so you have to define the sandbox you’re going to play in.
I enjoyed this sketch but I didn’t think it was doling what I wanted…and I want to push it farther. So I went into procreate and redrew using the paint sketch as an under drawing…
I knew the position was wrong. So I kept resizing and adding and tweaking things until I had a whole figure.
Maybe I thought it was getting too close to one piece, but with normal human proportions. Just not enough, so then I threw the kitchen sink at it. And what I got from that felt like things I was doing 9 or 10 years ago.
I had changed the body position to be more forward leaning more aggressive. And I kept trying to incorporate the canon fuses Teach was known to wear into battle to scare the piss out of the people he was robbing. That’s the thing about Blackbeard, he didn’t kill a ton of people.
After that I tried to pull back and simplify. Maybe getting close to things I tend to do with printmaking. Maybe it was out of frustration, but I wanted to add the theatricality back. I knew I didn’t want a tricorn hat, it’s not really a thing to wear on a boat with heavy winds. Anyways I loosened up and started doodling.
This is where I landed before I added the skulls. I remembered Blackbeard’s flag with the devil and the heart on it. So I think that’s where the Wagnerian opera horned helmet came in. And I’m not sure if the hands are me just cartooning or if I would thing he would wear to again scare the ship he was boarding into thinking they were being attacked by a demon or devil. The pants are linen…the sharp teeth are probably wooden. Again scare tactics. I like this much better than where I started. Peace, Nic
PS Reading books about Pirate history also helped. Pirate Enlightenment or the Real Libertalia by David Graeber is a great read or listen if you do Audible like me. Doing research is good. Keep drawing kids.
Posted by PapaSweets - November 26th, 2024
Talking about old ways of ink and paint the other day in class. This was done on acetate with acrylics. Back in the day it would have been done with vinyl paint, but cartoon color went out of business years ago. I think there is still at least one company in england that still makes vinyl paint.
Another factoid was that most of the ink and paint in the animation industry in the states was done by women. Walt Disney gave a strange explanation, saying that women we better suited to detail work.
I started with a rough sketch, laid the acetate over that and made my line art. You can see on the right where I flipped over the piece to show the paint process. I just went with flat color, no light and shadow. It's a lot of fun but super time consuming to work this way for animation. But with animation you are always running out of time.
Posted by PapaSweets - November 24th, 2024
Man I’ve been wanting to post random stuff for a while…lol I have a huge back log of caricatures and political cartoons, other random stuff. Here’s Jack Black.
Posted by PapaSweets - November 23rd, 2024
If you don’t know me… I am an art teacher. I teach k-12 art in Alaska and I teach an illustration class for Calarts. I tend to draw with my students. The power was out in the village I live so I was working out of my k-12 class room. Usually I’m on my tablet, but I decided to used paper, crayon and tempera paint. It felt so good to use physical media for doing these studies. Big ups to the model Shadia. Every semester we have a different topic we cover, in the past we have done high fantasy, cyberpunk…currently we are on pirates. So partly this means looking at historical examples, eg the golden age of piracy or Zheng Yi Sao. Or the late 1990’s early 2000’s file sharing internet pirates/hackers. Or contemporary issues of pirates like Somalis. And then still farther what about fantasy or cartoon versions like One Piece. I have no problem talking about anime or manga in my classes as was my elders bias against that culture. I still hear of art teachers that bash anime or manga. But doing so from a place of ignorace of the beauty of those art forms.
Anyways, I think while I will be very on brand NEMOS content for most of my posting. I will use this channel to blog about art or life or whatever I want to. Keep making art kids. - Papa Sweets