Hittin The Road

So we head out tomorrow morning to Origins 2010, a game fair in Ohio. I've never been before and am pretty excited about it despite the long drive and a few other wrenches thrown into the gears and cogs of life. Nevertheless I am going....

What to do? Play some games, kick back from school stuff, have some drinks and enjoy the exceptional company of friends (<----yes, exceptional company). A nice way to get over those midterm jitters!

I was looking at their website a little bit today, looking for anything art related in particular as well as looking for some possible places to work in the not so distant future. I was surprised to find that Larry Elmore will be in attendance....a legend in the Fantasy field. And also, Echo Chernick who does amazing Art Nouveau pieces (I saw her name and think I almost had a heart attack, she is that awesome!). I am  also pretty thrilled to see that they will be holding some open studio sessions at the convention....so keeping a pretty open schedule all of a sudden looks a whole lot better than it did.

Ok, I'll be honest that I do have my watercolor block and some paints packed for the trip...I can't leave my art stuff behind...it's like leaving your kids at home without a sitter (<----I am told by people who are actual parents that this is false but I beg to differ).

I'll be bringing my camera along for the rare chance that I will use it to snap pictures of places, things, people....stuff in general that I find odd or amusing.

Anyways....it's 5 after 12 here....gotta catch some shut eye.

Process Portfolio, You ARE The Bane Of My Existance

So, midterm is this week and our process portfolios are due on Monday for critique before a final print out...

Let me just say now how infuriating it can be to put one of these together. Going through my process work is like excavating an archeological site. Some pieces have tons of stuff in the beginning stages before I lay out the final piece, others have very little to nothing. Keeping a consistent theme from page to page is hard when each art piece was handled in a slightly different way. 

Now that's not to say that I do each piece of art in a brand new way. The approach is the same, but the number of steps it takes to reach a final piece varies. A piece I am doing that I know I will struggle with takes longer and more planning than one that springs forth from whimsy. 

The piece featured above was a school project in my advanced illustration class last term, intended to be an interior illustration for the Greek tragedy of Arachnia. The process for this can be seen on the left hand 'page' of the layout. It began with some initial sketches on tracing paper (<---something I almost never use) as no bigger than 5x5in scribbles to help me get a better feel for the composition.

From there I doodled out a figure standing trying to figure out how a toga would work, and having difficulty imagining this prompted me to then consider gathering reference materials from books and online sources.

This is a big step for me, reference materials. Normally I create file folders full of pictures to help me think. For this piece I looked at well over 50 pictures of different things from  togas to jewelry and also spent some time at the museum observing things in the Greek/Roman wing (obviously this is undocumented). Some of the reference proved useful so I weeded out some things that really came forward to highlight.

Next came the actual pencil. I had a composition drawn out earlier in a thumbnail, but while drawing the final I ran into some issues. So I asked a friend to model for me on the steps at school and from there was able to solve those issues.

I worked the final drawing up as l ayers on tracing paper (<----again not something I normally do). I didn't do color studies for this piece since I had decided early on to work in a palette I was already familiar with using. Early on in the color stage I scanned in my piece and did a greyscale study to help me figure out tonal issues, then continued on to finish the piece.

All of this is clearly laid out in the process pages above, with the left page being the process part and the right page the final image. Because I don't have a set template of how I am working on a layout I needed to tie things together through common elements. Talking this over with one of my teachers it was decided to scan in actual images of my sketchbook pages and use that as a background, and type and arrows as well.

This (I hope) lends to a more personal feel for what my sketchbook looks like.

This piece was much simpler in some ways than the Arachnia piece. The Girl With The Sleeve was a personal piece created from whimsy with no real application in mind at all but expressing some of the feelings I was going through at the time. She started out simply as a ballpoint pen drawing in my moleskin watercolor sketchbook. Really the only things I needed help with was coming up with the armature. 

I found a picture early on to help me support the rest of my drawing, using the pose for the image and only that, while taking what I needed to help push my own thoughts forward with the other reference material. 

Again I didn't do color comps. This was a bit freer than normal, though laying in the colors was influenced partly by the watercolor and figure studies class I am currently in. From there it was a matter of building up on the piece and bringing it to a state I am content with. 

This goes to show that the only elements tying my art together in my process portfolio is the background, type...and I suppose the actual process itself. 

There are only six images required for this portfolio, which focuses on the way we come to finish our work, as opposed to our final portfolio in which case only the finished pieces are shown. 

This is all driving me absolutely bonkers! I can't wait to put this behind me, though I know I will have to update this portfolio from time to time. And it's interesting to note my own changes in how I work and struggle with issues given how involved I was, how much feed back went back and forth, and also depending on media. There are a few pieces that were done strictly traditionally in watercolor, some that combine traditional with digital, and others done completely in Photoshop. Kinda like a diary I suppose....

Fire and Ice

So I've also been working on a piece for Fire and Ice, a convention that happens every Feb. I looked at past art for the conventions and saw a lot of it was fire vs ice kind of thing, and while there is normally a theme this year it's open to interpretation. I wanted to do something a bit more balanced, and maybe unexpected, combing fire and ice together in one. Here I started a lose sketch of a figure, taking into consideration certain elements in the composition. 

Movement is very important to me in a piece, so it is usually the main focus as here. The little arrows I drew in are lead lines for which way the wind will be kicking up. Yep, even that is an important part. 

So here I've used sepia to start blocking in more of the figure and then going in with the eraser and bringing back my lights. It's working opposite of how I am used to in the comp since in traditional watercolor we paint from light to dark. But, since I have some issues getting contrast, I find this is a much needed step. 

Here I've also taken some consideration into her clothing. In my head I know what she is going to wear, even though it's not flushed out yet. I also made the skull and tusks of the walrus pike longer and bigger to help lead the eye in and around the piece. 

Here I threw a little bit of color into the image to see what it's going to look like as a pallet. This is very basic, and I want to keep to an earthy palette and allow the warm and cool colors to do their thing. 

A thought came to me looking at the end of this step that I could probably continue to digitally render this  piece with the ease it is coming along at, since I still have a personal piece I want to paint in. But it's still early...

The Girl With The Sleeve

Things have been kind...meh. Decided to take some time out today and work on a more personal piece for a change.

Sometimes it's nice to not have to think about anything....deadlines, application, ect.

The Girl With A Sleeve it kinda a narrative being told by the figure. She slowly developed over the span of the day from some gesture sketches into a figure. I did use some picture reference for the final pencil, which was done in ballpoint in my watercolour moleskin block. If anything drawing her arm took forever, just about the entire day.

Anyways, I had a point in mind with her, but I won't divulge what that is just yet.....she still needs to be painted in.

Star Wars GM Screen: A look into my process

So, the gaming group I am a member of (SparkForce7) commissioned me to create a GM screen for the campaign. It's been pretty rough to tackle but I'm currently enjoying the work. The project started out with thumbnails, I did a total of six different concepts in a vertical layout and when an agreement was reached I went out and bought the materials I was going to be needing. 

I'm working on 140lb 4ply hot press illustration board. I wanted to use watercolor paper for this, my ideal media, but given the size it was inappropriate to do so and would have been nothing but trouble. When I had my thumbnail done there were some slight modifications needed before I did the pencils, but that issue had already been resolved. 

Above is a portion of the piece. The dimensions are 11inx32....or possibly 34in. I don't recall, but I did make sure it's to size so no worries =}

This is the starting pencil. Normally I don't go into detail with shadows and what not because it will have a negative effect on the watercolors that I put down, making them seem heavy and muddy. But because I have two lightsabers I wanted to be sure of some of the darks early on.

BTW.....I have never attempted to render a lightsaber in before, so I hope it turns out. Consequently, nor have I ever used watercolor on illustration board...

Ok. First step was to block in some of my pure tone black areas. Another first for me here, as I don't normally work this way but given I am switching up my media a bit for this piece I am adjusting. I have a rather bad habit of not getting dark enough with my work and having very even tonal values, so adding in some black in areas will help me to be aware that I do indeed have to deal with this. After all, you can't have lights without darks, and because I want the sabers to pop, laying dark areas is going to be very important.

Here I have begun with a black acrylic wash and watercolor. Again, I am paying attention to my darks, but also the lights. That red and blue light is going to factor in later, so I need to tackle it early on.

Okay, I added in some basic color to my main focal figure. Instead of painting in black where the shadow of the face is I left that for later. I want to hit the face and the shadows with a blend of the blue and red light, so if I paint in a black acrylic wash here I will not be able to achieve the effect I want of some reflected light in the shadows. All the colors at this point are pretty basic and most of the colors are laid in with watercolor so far.

I threw in more of the red and blue into the figure here because my first washes weren't strong enough. I also laid in some darked tone in the face shadows, using a minimal amount of acrylic wash. I  also hit the lightsaber hilts and the figure in the background with some basic colors. Later on I will add in more tonal values. Though you can't see it in these images, I am working the entire piece in unison, laying in washes consistently so that nothing gets washed out or look separate from the rest of the piece.

I still have a ways to go on this piece, but will have it done by the end of the month.


PS,
I just realized how much of a help painting Mona (see previous post) was in the rendering of this piece since the light source is similar if not the same. Goes to show how helpful studies are. Glad to see the tuition is good for something.

Frustrations in Figure Painting

It's the end of the third week of class today. Watercolor figure studies is going along pretty well even if it is only Lizzie and I since it is the Summer. Summer classes are so nice, no rowdy freshman mucking about the halls or bouts of musical chairs in the computer lab in order to use the scanners or computers.

On the other hand, there is the massive crowd of cubs fans and foodies on the trains now. O well, you win some you lose some.

This was done last Thursday in class. Liz and I both had a bit of a cold but she decided not to come in on that day, so instead of a critique of our work I got to tinker about with Mona, our instructor's mannequin. Wasn't doing anything in particular here aside from filling in time....she's fun to paint though and this is my second time with her.

The two pieces above were done on Monday this week. We have an hour per piece and these are supposed to be done relatively quick, with the initial drawing laid down in no more than ten minutes. Barb is our model, a wonderful woman to work with who has been modeling at the academy for about thirty years now.

I will say that I struggle a lot to free up my form. I like to render and get down to the details, so staying loose is difficult for me.

Tuesday went a little bit better. Barb had on a dark robe which was rather difficult to paint since it didn't receive the lighting very well. I really enjoy the leg and skin form of the torso on the second piece. I was having a hard time, since adding in a lot of colors can fool you into thinking you have value and tone in your work, which I felt was very much the case in these exercises.

Ah yes. Liz was sick again on Wednesday and I had come in to class about 15 minutes late after missing my train. So I was only able to work on one piece as opposed to two. I really like some of the areas I worked on in this piece but again, was told that I am not letting myself get loose. And it wasn't too smart to add in the background, it is too eye grabbing as opposed to laying in a one color backdrop.

I greatly enjoy the first piece I did this morning. I finally was able to loosen up a bit. I think it helped to have a more solid drawing to hand the paint off of. Tom Herzberg is my instructor and he gave me a lot of advice, even admitted that he himself struggles with painting from a living figure as he is having us do now.

So, what did I learn this week? Stop over thinking my process and just put the brush to paper. Treat studies as that, or as quick color comps. And don't be afraid of saturation. Can't have lights without a dark.

D&D Pinup Challenge

Been a while since I've been on here. Time in school is winding down, graduation is looming around the corner....as soon as August, and I find myself knee deep in putting together my portfolio and writing resumes.

I wasn't able to finish my concept for the Mutation Nation Challenge, but when I saw the next challenge was a pin up I couldn't resist.

As you can see in the image above I did an elf inspired by an alumni from school, Gil Elvgren. He's been a long favorite of mine and it was nice to do a more laid back piece that wasn't pending a grade for a change.