Same Chicken Post #8 (2016 Chicken Maker Style, Line Art Style)

In 2010 I tried to codify the way I draw things. It was an interesting project and I think it could use a bit of an update. Welcome back to Same Chicken, where I draw the same chicken again.

Both my Basic Chicken Maker and Advanced Chicken Maker styles have long fallen to the wayside. This is probably a combination of aspects of them both, brought together with a flatter aesthetic that I tend to keep to these days. Since this is basically my 2016 Chicken Maker Style I don't really know how to describe it. It's the default. I normally start with the beak, then the comb, then the wattle, then after I have that face area defines I take a few tries and get a nice clean stroke for the chest and back. The oblong wing shape is simple enough, but adds a bit to the over all quality.

I think my Line Art Style is just about identical to my normal one, but without colors. I usually do more fine detail stuff if I'm not planning to color it, and I almost always add a wavy neck line, but I really don't think I would describe this as a different style. I almost just uncolored the above.

It's fascinating to look back at my own stuff.

Same Chicken Post #7 (Western Style, Realistic Style)

The Same Chicken Project is getting another post!

Making these chickens is relatively simple. It's just a strange shift in proportions combined with the Basic CM Style. The main thing is long neck, big eyes, small beak, round body, head and neck sorta blend together. The Western Style is called that simply because it was inspired by late 90s to early 00s Western Animation in particular that space chicken from the first Courage the Cowardly Dog.

This is what is more or less a Realistic chicken. There's no fancy technique to make making these a simple matter. Because reality is the core this is my Realistic Style. I don't do it often because a) it's hard and b) while it looks nice it's hard to mess with. I mean with the stylized ones I can make a cop or a lawyer or something but putting props on these feels strange.

Same Chicken Post #6 (Sprite, Spray Style)

Dunno how I managed to forget this first one...

Ah yes. Working pixel by pixel like I did in my very first chicken. It was refreshing to roll back to it. That said it works exactly like I said. I take the smallest brush, a single pixel, and make the outline for my chicken. After that I dump in the inside. In this case I then resized it to 4x the original size and shifted it a bit in order to keep with the sizing requirements I put on myself for this project. The zoom made it look pretty tacky but I think it worked well enough. He's basically a Sprite, like in an old computer game.

This is a sprayed up one. I half-ass the outline, copy it, spray it in with the spray can tool, and then I paste the outline back on top of it. That's really pretty much it. It gives a different effect than my usual hard dumping of colors. It feels more handmade and natural. I think of it as my Spray Style.

Same Chicken Post #5 (Photoshopped)

Here we have my Photoshopped Style. It's not really something I use much. The antialiasing bothers my eyes a bit so I tend to avoid using it. Plus it makes me lazy. There's really not much to say about it. This is just my Basic style really, only I use Photoshop to make it. The eye was hard to color and I ended up having to brush it in instead of dumping. Normally I' have taken advantage of it being photoshop and applied a nifty effect(like charcoal sketch) but not as part of this series.
---


I can't think of any other styles I use so this is the end of the project for now. If you can then I would appreciate you linking me to an example of it(or just mentioning it) in a comment on this post. But until another one comes up this series is Currently Complete.

Same Chicken Post #4 (Layered Style, Blue Period)

This is my Layered Style. I just keep on piling patterns behind patterns until it looks complicated. You see, nice simple basic style. Really the first step is to construct the basic chicken, using the basic method. After that I just have to start drawing patterns and pasting the image back over it. Really I apply that method to a lot of things, but this style was where I used it in the first place. It was a key step in the development of my style and so I keep the Layered Style in mind as something I need to remember. Also it's fun working with it.

Yeah, my Blue Period. That brings back memories of when I randomly declared it my blue period and did everything in blue for a few days. I even blued up the purple background of this one. As far as my style goes this could be more appropriately called my monochrome style but all my practice in that sort of look has been in blue(or gray in a few cases) so you know. Anyways the wide variety of shades combine together to give a look that is relatively reserved.


On a side note I figured out why I can pump these out like this. It's because I don't have to try to think of what to make. I mean I don't need to decide it's gonna be a cowboy cop on the wrong side of the law or something... I'll make that later.

Same Chicken Post #3 (Rounder And Cuter Style, Borderless Style, Silhouette)

Yeah, this one might not count as a style I use. I mean I've only drawn two so far, and one of them was just a bit ago. Still it was my intention from the start to use it from time to time. After all there's always room for a cuter cuddlier version of things from time to time, isn't there? Anyways to explain the basic style. First everything is rounded, plus I made the outline using the large circle brush, instead of the middle one. I like the nice round eyes, though those were a newer decision. Lastly I shaded it lightly with a lighter version of the color thinly on one edge. Plush. Plush... Plush isn't a sound effect is it?

This is one of the earliest things I tried after I started. By dropping the outlines I was able to more easily change the shapes of things to suit my needs. In my first few chickens I didn't have a very good feel for how things should be shaped so being able to change them as I went was a very helpful ability. In this one in particular there isn't much of a change from my usual style but if I were doing something fancier I'd have had to make sure not to put any similarly colored bits next to each other.

And lastly the Silhouette. I would never have been able to post up just this. The only time I really do up these sorts of things is when I'm focusing on effects in the background or something else complicated. In this case I decided to leave the eye uncolored because it looked really lazy just putting up a black blob. Anyways the difference in the creation phase is that I need to make the details more extended from the body. After all anything overlapping just gets buried and you don't see it at all. (try copying one of my other chickens into Paint and dump everything black if you don't understand)

Same Chicken Post #2 (Gritty Sharpness)

Here I present another work in the 'Gritty Sharpness' style. As I originally said way back it's basically an imitation of black and white cell shading. First I draw up the line-art then I apply the thick black shading on one of the sides. The sharp contrast brings out a unique effect which I feel helps draw out a more striking appearance. The Gritty Sharpness is something I like to consider as a signature look for this site, though in reality I have less than a dozen actually done up in this style.

Same Chicken - Post #1 (BCM Style, ACM Style, Abstract)

Well, I'm starting a new project. One that's less 'sophisticated' and 'story having' than the others. In this project I will explore the range of my styles by remaking the exact same chicken a while bunch of times.  The chicken will be brown(if color is involved), facing left, the top of the wing visible, on a purple backdrop, with the size 242x246. Using these basic attributes I will demonstrate my artistic range of making chickens in MS Paint. I'm starting it off with three, since otherwise it would just be one chicken and not a very interesting one.

 Well, I suppose it's rather obvious that I'll be opening this project with the 'Basic Chicken Maker Style,' as I've come to think of it.  The basic style I apply is to make an outline, using the middle round brush in paint, with vague shapes for the details, such as the beak, wattle and comb. Following that I dump in colors using the paint bucket tool. I'll be honest with you. My basic style is very simple and easy to do. That's why it's the basic style.

And I'm following up on explaining the basic style with the 'Advanced Chicken Maker Style.' These tend to be more striking, with a sharper more compact appearance. I still tend toward the middle round brush while working on these. The key difference though is in the nature of the coloring. While my first step is still to dump it full of colors I follow that up with using advanced methods to shade along the edges. (The advanced method involves cutting and pasting with different colors being transparent in case you're curious)

  This isn't really one of my usual styles. I've only thrown together a few 'Abstract' chickens. I stick to what I said on the original. Abstract art is the kind of art you make when you wanna do art without actually working on the details. You just toss it together quickly leaving an impression of whatever you're designing without thinking about it too much. If you're lucky it'll look nice in the end. Yes, I know that abstract art is hard to do. You need to ignore everything you've learned in order to draw out of your usual style.