Merry Sithmas - Darth Plagueis

 MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Plagueis

Hey, hey, it's the second Sithmas Card of the season!  Always two there are, no more no le--... oh, what's that, I made the same joke in my last post?  Oh, um...  Heaven forfend that I should repeat myself and make the same joke twice.  What's that?  The hundredth time, you say?  Yeah, I guess I do that...

Anyhoo, this time it's Darth Plagueis, the Sith Lord that trained Darth Sidious (A.K.A. Emperor Sheev Palpatine), who was seen skulking in the shadows of a cave at the end of the "The Acolyte" series.  

Did you ever hear of the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?  Well, I guess there's a whole book about it that I haven't gotten around to reading, yet, but I think the moral of the story is that you should never eat or drink anything that Sheev gives to you.  Just sayin' you may not be all that wise if you are so guileless of your fellow Sith apprentice.  

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.  They were mostly done with a 15pt digital brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, three images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Teeth

MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Teeth

Hey, hey, it's time for a Sithmas Card!  This time it is the nameless Sith from "The Acolyte", dubbed Darth Teeth or Smilo Ren (perhaps Darth Dentata?), as the tubing around his mouth looks like teeth when seen from a distance.  Hmmm, I wonder if they will ever give him a "real" name since it appears there won't be a second season to "The Acolyte". 

Always two there are--no more, no less.  So, look forward to another Sithmas Card in a couple days or so.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, mostly symmetrical between the two sides, then turned it off for parts of the helmet and cloak.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.  They were mostly done with a 15pt digital brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, three images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

Maybe next year I'll do some genuine animation for the Sithmas Cards.  As always, my dumb brain and mouth writing checks that my hands (and @$$) may not be able to cash.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Zannah

 MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Zannah

Hey, hey, it's another Sithmas Card!  Always two Sithmas Cards there are... and this time, fittingly enough, it's Darth Zannah, the apprentice to Darth Bane: The original "Rule of Two".

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, symmetrical between the two sides.  Originally, I was going to do the outfit in red with white Santa-type trim along the collar, but then changed my mind and did a full on Santa-type cloak.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks, mostly done with a 15pt digital brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, three images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Sion

 MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Sion

Hey, hey, it's a little late, but here's yet another Sithmas Card!  This time, it's deeper into the lore with Darth Sion, The Lord of Pain.  And dry skin, no doubt; he needs to up his skin care routine.  Darth Sion first appeared in 2004 with "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords" video game and has shown up in some comics.

Hmm, with the position of the necrotic-type skin on his torso, I just realized it almost looks like he is wearing a tank top or suspenders.  Sigh... Oh, well.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, symmetrical between the two sides, then turned it off for the hat and a couple other random bits.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.  They were mostly done with a 15pt digital brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, three images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Malak

Merry Sithmas
Darth Malak

Hey, it's another Merry Sithmas card done for the holidays!  This time it's Darth Malak, who along with Darth Revan (see tomorrow's post), was first introduced in the "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" video game (and have since appeared in comic books and novels).  They were best friends and Jedi before both being converted to the Dark Side, and were the model used by Darth Bane for the Rule of Two for the Sith.  Darth Malak sought to overthrow Darth Revan and lost his bottom jaw in the battle, resulting in having to wear the metal collar.

I will admit it is difficult to draw Darth Malak without thinking of the "Kilroy was here".

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, such as they are (I mean, it is really just shy of random scribbles), done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, symmetrical between the two sides, although I shifted Darth Malak over a little bit to make room for the lightsaber.  Also, I later decided to add a Santa hat, which I did at the inking stage.  Speaking of...

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, two images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Happy Groundhog Day (Or, Too Many Two's To Do Today)

GROUNDHOG DAY 2-2-22
Two-Face

I asked semi-rhetorically in an earlier post what year would be best exemplified for Two-Face than 2022?  And, in that year, I thought today of all days would also be best for our ol' pal, Harvey Dent, with the date 2/2/22.  I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out what (if anything) to do involving Two-Face today and my stupid brain just barely figured it out at the last minute.  So, with a couple hours to spare, I did up a quick, semi-passable Bill Murray from "Groundhog Day" (1993)/Two-Face Mash-Up.

P.S.: The movie "Groundhog Day" (1993) is great!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done on a 1,000px x 1,500px canvas @ 300dpi.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.

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STEP THREE:  And the colors, man, the colors!

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Done digitally with Clip Studio Paint.

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Bane

 MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Bane

Hey, I got another Merry Sithmas card done for the holidays, this time it's Darth Bane, founder of the Rule of Two for Sith.  I was gonna have the shading of his eye be either a Christmas bulb (it just looked like a couple black eyes) or a Christmas Tree (I've already used Christmas Trees too much recently).  So, I went with a star shape, instead.  

I even added some Rankin-Bass type primitive snowflakes this time around.  Marginal improvements to the animated .GIF.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, symmetrical between the two sides, then turned it off for the hat and a couple other random bits.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.  They were mostly done with a 15pt digital brush.

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STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, two images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Talon

MERRY SITHMAS
Darth Talon

Key, Kids, do you have your stocking hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that Darth Talon will soon be there for Sithmas?  That's right, it's Sithmas-time again, this time with Darth Talon, the red, tattooed Twi'lek who worked with Darth Krayt and Darth Nihl.

I always thought she looked pretty cool, so I had her on the list (hmmm, on my naughty list?) for Sithmas.  Last year, I had the Darth Talon card about 98% finished, when my iPad ate my homework--every artist's worst fear.  Of course, it didn't delete the whole thing, it just took it back to the pencil stage, which I found even more infuriating, as it was just mocking me at that point.  I mean, totally destroying it, I can understand that; just leaving enough for me to realize I have to redo most of it was just sadism on the part of my iPad.

I have some more Sith from the Expanded Universe I hope to do in the future.  Not sure if I want to do another Sithmas card this year (one is tempted to say "always two there are..." but that is not always accurate for my Sithmas posts).  I have another Christmas-based post I am hoping to get in under the wire.  I guess we'll see which one (if any) gets to the finish line!

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, symmetrical between the two sides.

* * *

STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks.  They were mostly done with a 15pt digital brush.

* * *

STEP THREE:  Here are the colors, done in a variety of layers under the inked layer before the animation lights were applied.  For the animation, two images were imported into Photoshop in the Timeline, and exported as an animated .GIF.

* * *

Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the animated .GIF produced in Photoshop).

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Happy Merry Everything! - Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

HAPPY MERRY EVERYTHING! 
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964)

Here's one of the titular Martians from "Santa Claus Conquers the Martians" (1964)...

And Santa from the self-same movie...

Well, because 2020 had to keep being 2020 'til the end, I was putting the finishing touches on a "Merry Sithmas" Card of Darth Talon, when the iPad ate my homework.  It didn't do anything that you would expect, like just destroying the the entire thing, or even going back to my last save from the previous half-hour when I had last saved.  Instead it chose to save as a previous version when I had the digital pencils finished and only the rough, digital pencils.  Everything else was gone.  So, not having to start completely over, but just enough back to mock me for all the work which was lost.  Sigh...

Sure, there's not a specific date for Sithmas of which I'm aware, but I always presume around December 25th, give-or-take, and I have a lot of other stuff to finish up before the end of the year.  To be positive about it, I guess I'll just pretend that I have an early start on next year's Sithmas Card with Darth Talon.

Instead, in a fit of desperation, I grabbed two relatively quick digital paintings I did for my other blog for Figure Drawings (which, thanks to COVID-19, is now just showing scans of sketchbook drawings since May 14, 2020, as the two Figure Drawing Sessions I used to run are currently cancelled.  Mother-Loving 2020 strikes again!)  I touched up the Martian a little bit and re-uploaded them here, as they kinda sorta work here, too.  Kinda.

In spite of 2020, I hope everyone has a (now belated) Happy Merry Everything!

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Done digitally in ArtStudio Pro.

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Merry Sithmas - Trilla: Second Sister

MERRY SITHMAS
Trilla: Second Sister

OK, I admit to having to go to a slightly more obscure Sith-Adjacent character, just to make it interesting.  She was introduced in an appearance the comic book series "Darth Vader: Dark Lord of the Sith", and was the main villain in the video game, Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (2019).  Alas, I gave up video games a long time ago, in a galaxy right here.  But, I liked the look of Trilla: Second Sister and figured it would be cool to do a Sithmas card of her.  And here it is.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 2,00px x 2,791px document at 300dpi.  I used the Symmetry Tool to keep everything, well, symmetrical between the two sides.

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STEP TWO:  So I can scale the drawing up in the future without having to redraw everything from the beginning, I did most of it as Vector Graphics (Vector are mathematical lines and shapes, keeping their sharpness as they are scaled up; Raster, which use individual pixels, generally get blurry as they are enlarged).  Given the lined style I normally use for the Sithmas Cards, I think it generally worked.  

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STEP THREE:  Several Layers later--each with their own color linework--and we have the finished project.  I also imported it into Photoshop so as to animate the card.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint (with the .gif done in Photoshop.

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Merry Sithmas - Kylo Ren (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker)

Merry Sithmas

Kylo Ren (The Rise of Skywalker)

When I saw Kylo Ren's repaired helmet in "Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker", this was the first image that appeared in my head for a new Sithmas Card.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint.  It is a 1,000px x 1,400px document at 200dpi.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks, also done in Clip Studio Paint.

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STEP THREE:  The color was done with a series of layers in Clip Studio Paint, then it was imported into Photoshop to animate two frames and exported as an animated .gif.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop.

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Merry Sithmas - Knights of Ren: Scythe Warrior

Merry Sithmas

Knights of Ren: Scythe Warrior

Hey, it's time for a Sithmas Card!  What's that--Daft Punk is a Sith Warrior?  Actually, this time, it's one of the Knights of Ren: Scythe Warrior (also, The Rogue).  Darned if I can find a more accurate name at the moment--although, I'm sure they will officially release it just after I post this...

The Knights of Ren caught my interest in "Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens", and appeared in the trailer for "Star Wars: Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker" (which I plan on seeing this evening--just 'cuz I'm a nerd).

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital pencils, done in Clip Studio Paint (formerly MangaStudio).  It is a 1,000px x 1,400px document at 200dpi.  Frankly, the pencils above aren't all the good, or close to the finished image.  But, I include them so people can see how much things can change, as well as the actual work involved in finishing a drawing.  They don't all come out immediately correct, but also can need some work.  Like this one.  The helmet is wide and a little short at the top of the head, for example.

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STEP TWO:  And here are the digital inks, also done in Clip Studio Paint, as I find the ink brush engine superior to all other programs I've tried.

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STEP THREE:  The color was done with a series of layers in Clip Studio Paint, then it was imported into Photoshop to animate two frames and exported as an animated .gif.

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Done digitally in Clip Studio Paint and Photoshop.

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Merry Sithmas - Asajj Ventress

Asajj Ventress

It's another Sithmas card, Asajj Ventress, from the "Star Wars: Clone Wars" animated series, as well as appearances in various comic books.  It's another case of a character catching my eye because of the look of the character.  Apparently, she is in Star Wars canon, being an apprentice of Count Dooku (Darth Tyranus) and a member of the Nightsisters (a group of Sith Witches), and it would be cool to see her turn up in a movie.

Below is the work in progress, which is the same as the previous one for Darth Nihilus.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital inks, done in ClipStudio Paint (formerly MangaStudio).  It is a 1,000px x 1,400px document, with 200dpi.  The pencils eventually just became the inks in this drawing, and I mostly used the Symmetry Brush to mirror the drawing on both sides.

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STEP TWO:  I colored the drawing in ClipStudio Paint, and using Photoshop to create the two frame animated .gif.

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Done with Clip Studio Paint and animated with Photoshop (yeah, I know I should learn to use the Animation feature within Clip Studio Paint, and I will... eventually. :-)

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Merry Sithmas - Darth Nihilus

Merry Sithmas

It's time again for a Sithmas Card!  However, since I've pretty much used all the ones from the movies, I've moved on to Sith from Video Games/Comic/Expanded Universe.

In this case, it's Darth Nihilus, Lord of Hunger, from "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords", as well we several appearances in comic books.  Taking place about 4,000 years before the "Star Wars" movies, he was a human who survived an encounter with a Mass Shadow Generator super-weapon and became a "wound in the Force", hungering for and consuming Force energy to survive.  A cross between a Force Vampire and Galactus, as he eventually became powerful enough to absorb the Force energies of worlds.

And, I always liked the design of Darth Nihilus.  Vaguely skull-like in his mask, he was one of the spookiest-looking Sith.  I'm not sure where he fits within canon nowadays, but I've since decided that such things don't really matter: cool is cool.

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STEP ONE:  Here are the digital inks, done in ClipStudio Paint (formerly MangaStudio).  It is a 1,000px x 1,400px document, with 200dpi.  The pencils eventually just became the inks in this drawing, and I mostly used the Symmetry Brush to mirror the drawing on both sides.

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STEP TWO:  I colored the drawing in ClipStudio Paint, and using Photoshop to create the four frame animated .gif.

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Done with Clip Studio Paint and animated with Photoshop (yeah, I know I should learn to use the Animation feature within Clip Studio Paint, and I will... eventually. :-)

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