How to Digitally Paint a Character/Crafting Job's tears Jewelry
PoeArtry Creative Movement, LLC & Cowries By Ayxa LLC and Cowries By Ayxa
PoeArtry Creative Movement, LLC and Cowries By Ayxa are Creatives Antoine Dijion Mitchell and Erica AYXA Williams-Mitchell; specializing in visual/graphic art & illustration and handcrafted jewelry using cowrie shells, beads, and other materials. Together they produce the Afro-Fantasy Comic Book series, Sankofa's Eymbrace. You can find Antoine and Erica vending various markets; some are the Baton Rouge Arts Market, Mid-City Micro-Con, and White Light Night. Antoine has exhibited Art in various galleries and currently in the East Baton Rouge Parish Library: Carver Branch.
More Maker Info
https://www.poeartry.net/More Event Info
More Project Info
https://www.poeartry.net/
What inspired you to make this project?
Antoine has been creating his own characters since 1992 when he [officially] started collecting comic books. He always wondered about the coloring process and has been fortunate to live through the change in technology that has made coloring easier than ever. Having access to affordable programs such as Clip Studio Paint has allowed him to create characters and other illustrated content professionally. Having access to a graphics tablet, be it a screen that hooks to a computer or handheld tablet, has allowed him to discover many time-saving tools without losing the original passion and knowledge of working with traditional media. Digital Painting, especially in the world of comic book creating, is a perfect marriage of traditional medium (pencil and paints) with digital medium (Clip Studio Paint, Adobe Photoshop, Procreate, etc...)
His goal is to hopefully provide an understanding of creating a character using Clip Studio Paint and many shortcuts that will be useful to young creators.
Erica has been crafting jewelry using cowrie shells for years. She's always discovering new ways of using cowrie shell jewelry with other materials such as fabrics and clay. She always includes education around Cowrie Shells and how it resounds personally, culturally, and historically. In past Earth Days and other Agricultural events , as a Southern University Ag Center employee, Erica has used natural materials, such as Job Tears, to show students how to assemble them to create bracelets and necklaces.
Erica hopes to once again impart that knowledge and understanding to young crafters willing to learn about how to use Agricultural/natural objects to create beautiful and unique jewelry.
What are some of the challenges you have encountered and how did you address them?
For Erica, finding and harvesting the Job's Tears are the biggest challenge. However, that challenge becomes the fun of adventuring in nature to discover new natural objects to use for crafting. This gives Erica, and anyone, the opportunity to "play with Earth."
For Antoine, the biggest challenge of creating and coloring a character is finding ways to cut time without losing authenticity (I:E letting the computer do the work). Sometimes his file sizes can get extremely large because of how many layers are used in his program, but learning how to reuse assets, layer folders, and the magic wand tool (for example) has helped in cutting time while still producing original, clean, and eye-catching work.
Both Antoine and Erica are 100% against using artificial intelligence to produce their creations.