Fun with the Wacom

In my endless pursuit to distract myself, I recently bought a Wacom Graphire tablet, something I’ve been meaning to get oh, for the last five years :) Thing is, it’s been so long since I last drew *anything* that I’m admittedly rusty. Anyway, here’s what I’ve done so far:

Both were done in Painter IX and Photoshop CS, and I did the guitar in Illustrator CS. I used the FHM 2004 calendar as a reference for Francine, and relied extensively on the watercolor, artist’s oil and blender brushes (Painter). I used Photoshop mainly for the detail work, with the burn/dodge and smudge tools. For the self-portrait I tried something new, something that I’ve been dying to do, and that’s paint using only the palette knife. I didn’t have a photo reference so I kept going back to the bathroom mirror to see how I look like. I *eherm* accidentally made myself look thinner (honest!) but it doesn’t really look like me :)