I don't know what to do with the skin, if anything. Skin tones done with diluted acrylic on Animus look so much better.

So, am I satisfied? Yes, pretty much! :D I have scanned some of my drawings and paintings and the scans are just sooo much better than the photos I made of them. Here's an example:

See the new scan of Animus :)

I used my Pentax k100D SLR for the photo, I took the shot in daylight with a tripod, and preserved the RAW format so basically, that's the best you can get without studio lighting. I retouched it to get more accurate colors, but there simply wasn't enough color information to begin with. Compared to the scan it's washed out. The scan is very close to the original, the colors are very vibrant, contrast is perfect, I had to make minimal color adjustments. The paper texture is maybe too harsh (it's not so evident in person), but I can live with that. I noticed on the new scan of Ascent that it picked up even the subtlest creases on the paper, but it can be retouched — as long as all the shades are there (and they pretty much are!) it's good.

I don't really need the transparency unit so much, but 25 Euro difference wasn't a big deal so it's nice to have that option in case I decide to go camera obscura again. Canon LiDE models were out of the question because of the CIS sensor which is pretty much useless for anything that's not completely flat. Forget about mixed media/collage, warped watercolor paper, paper that has been folded and such.

I've been without a scanner for over a year, but the one I had was not very good (one of the older HP all-in-one printers), it used to cut off subtle shades and this was very frustrating, so photographing pieces was actually a better option.

If you don't have a scanner, it's OK if you have a decent point-and-shoot camera. Some of my artwork photos were taken with a Sony Cybershot DSC-W170 from my hand, and it worked well too. The only trick is that you take it in daylight so the colors are accurate, and you have a steady hand (I take 5-6 photos and pick the clearest one). My sketches and WIPs were taken on incandescent light, so it took a lot of Levels adjusting to get the colors from yellowish to neutral. If you're thinking about a scanner for your traditional artwork, I can recommend this one. I'll let you know if anything changes :)

This is the castle of Tarsatica, and a part of the mausoleum. I did the drawing from observation with fine-liner (non-waterproof, ugh) a few weeks ago, but the northern wind was hard I froze up there and decided to color it at home.

The waterbrushes are very interesting and I liked using them, although the flow of water will take some getting used to and I suppose I will still rely on regular brushes a lot for precise work.

And a bonus, one very old (2010?) ink sketch of my old apartment that was in the same sketchbook.

I was supposed to get a new scanner today, but the delivery guy came when I was still at work, so he'll bring it tomorrow. So hopefully these are the last photos of drawings I have to post, it got very annoying.

And these are some face sketches I did in a pub today after 3 beers, tee hee :P

After that I bought a fancy Winsor & Newton spiral-bound A5 watercolor sketchbook that to this date has 3 drawings in it. Because it's fancy n' shit. I got a teNeues sketchbook to replace the small one and I currently use this one the most since I have it with me all the time. Next I bought two Lega-lega notebooks, one regular A5 and an A6 with red pages. I considered the one with black pages, but I figured the red one will be more usable. I haven't used it much though as I rarely carry it. The regular one I use pretty often, I take it whenever I have room in my bag. You can see the scribbles I made on it here if you're interested. I had more that I ditched because they weren't as good, so I won't address them here. You may have noticed that I don't use a Moleskine. Frankly, I just refuse to pay that much for a name, and the paper quality does not justify it imho.

Pictured above you can see a fragment of unfinished Tarsatica, contemplating on the In obscuro logo and some jewelry doodles in the red notebook, a spread of the used up small notebook (posted: random typography, Lectures are back), a glimpse of the teNeues spread (posted: Summer sketches), and in the Lega-lega you can see a quick sketch of Animus and another that I won't out yet, but it's a personal project I'm currently working on.

For now I've been mostly using ballpoint pen, mechanical pencil and fineliners, but I've started to use some color and watercolor pencils as well.

And as a bonus, here's a sketch from last night - Michelangelo's Bacchus.

So to wrap it up, get a sketchbook, or if you're a writer, a regular notebook :) You never know when inspiration may strike, so you better be ready!

I'm currently looking for a new scanner, photographing is tedious and I don't have the perfect lighting conditions every day.

Ink lineart of a new piece I'm working on... there are more details on the drawing but the pencils can't be seen because it's a poor quality photo.

This is a rework of a really old, crappy sketch I did in 2005 that you can see here. I changed the concept drastically, but at least she still has wings, heh..

Ink wash on 20x36cm paper. Photo is very grainy, blergh. I tried to pull off some minimalistic comic look and I think it's OK, but I messed up the shading on the hand.

After that I did another study of a rose in a glass, watercolor pencils as well.

Both are 12x20cm. I'm thinking of buying actual watercolor, maybe I even learn to like this medium, hm?