General Iron Nuts - And some TBS 4 talk

Well I finished this week's character design challenge & it's barely Wednesday! Usually I'm rushing to get these in at the last second, but this one was so much fun I couldn't take myself away from it.

Here is the final image. I'm pretty damn happy with it. Couple things off as always, but again, I still feel I'm improving, & that's enough to keep me satisfied.
Name: General Iron Nuts
Age: Unknown
Weaknesses: None
Special Move: Iron Teabag of Death


I went nuts with some of the new features in TBS 4.0. Feathered edges in particular. I've gotta say I'm a huge fan! Something I discovered while playing with them was that you can go outside the set parameters of the # of steps and their width. TBS says the width can be between 5-100, and the # of steps can be 3-30. I actually can't say I tested all boundaries, but I know you can drop the width all the way down to 1. I got some really nice results with the settings on 1 width & 3 steps. It gave the drawing a lot of depth and also added a more painterly feel I think.

Here is an example using General Iron Nut's face. The first one is exactly as drawn, and the second is with feathered edges applied to thew whole thing, using the settings I mentioned above. I used that one for the final image.

I like both, but the feathered edges really add a lot to me. It's not a huge difference, but the subtle softening of the fur on his "cheeks" makes for a greater sense of depth, and it adds a little irregularity, which is also good. I've been trying to get away from putting hard black outlines around everything. It works sometimes, but more often than not I think it makes my work look flat & 2D. Not outlining everything in black was already helping, and I'm finding that using just the right settings with feathered edges can really add a lot to my drawings as well!

I plan on posting more soon about some the uses for new features in TBS. I have one in the works already that involves using feathered edges increasingly over time to aid in the effects of acceleration & speed. With a looping background it can be quite easy to make someone run/ride/drive from zero to light speed in no time!

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