second illustration under way

Ok so I have been beating my head against every surface available to comprehend the figure in new ways, and also armor and how it wraps around the body.  Of course I couldn't do simple medieval armor.  I had to do layers and layers of cool armor.  here are some of my pics working through some of the issues

This one below was a variation of a similar drawing done by my life drawing teacher for me as he tried to explain to me how to draw my figure in a better pose.  (my other is not shown here)  His is still much better, but until I am as good as he is this is what we get for now.

Then I set out to try and comprehend armor and how it would lay on and wrap around the boxes.  for many this may be very simple but for some reason I was having a hard time wrapping my brain around this.  I was even using references from a video game, but the textures are flat and so the form around a flat-ish box.

This was an initial sketch that I did before the above, and I quickly found out that the pose could bring problems in the shoulder area with the armor covering the face.  either I need to reduce the size of the armor (lame)  or move the head.  I have to say on a side note, that my hammer on the right side is pretty dang cool.

Then I set out trying to understand the shoulder armor.  this is the piece that eludes me more than any other.  I'm still trying to get it right...

And below we have a sketch after agonizing I just decided to go for it to see what I could get.  I think it turned out much better than I had hoped that it would.  there are still a lot of issues

the left hand needs moved and reworked, for example.  and some of the armor is messy.  the shoulder armor is smaller than I would like, but as you can see making it any bigger will defeat the purpose of what I want to do with the face.   

So anyway, the final will be a paladin channeling light through his hammer into the skull of a skeleton or otherwise undead creature.  the paladin will have his eyes lit up and the skelly will also have light bursting from the orifices in his skull.  

Im super excited to get painting this.  I will need to completely redraw it however, which I am OK with because I learn a lot every time.

All thanks to my Life Drawing instructor, Dan Scott by the way, because he sat down with me outside of class and tried his darndest to help me understand things.  I'm still trying!!!!!

holy hotcakes, Batman!

Im so STOKED!!!!!  the Muddy Colors blog (by far one of the best blogs out there)  had a virtual cake decorating contest.  They chose 11 contestants to give away prizes and I was one of the lucky ones!!!
Im so grateful that they chose my cake.  There were so many good ones.

here is the one that I did

It was made from a virtual cake decorator (they provided the link)

here is a Link to the other winning contestants

and here is a link to the original call out for submissions, along with the list of prizes.  Not sure which I won yet!  doesn't matter IM SO EXCITED!

The consumed

This is a painting that I did in my oil painting class last semester.  It was our last project and I got good reactions from it.  I need to get some of my other paintings posted, but this is the best one I have as far as oils go.  It was fun to learn oils, but i think I'm more comfortable with Acrylics.  I hear a lot of people say that it is the other way around for them.

but it aint no use

Im doing an illustration for a poem that has been passed down in my family for generations.  I chose to do acrylic because I think it would be a great challenge.  I'm trying to learn to paint similarly to Bill Carman.  It has made me appreciate his work so much more.  It is certainly challenging to me, anyway.

this is a process shot, so it isn't done yet.

just for fun (isn't it always?)

My friend is building another company and he needed a logo, of course.  So he came to me and another mutual friend and asked us to come up with something.  My first design mockup was too dark.  it would have made a cool illustration, but I guess it wouldn't have been real family friendly.  So I began to brainstorm and then got carried away and came up with this.  I actually didn't finish it, because I realized that I got carried away and needed to quit and work on the other numerous projects that I had.

This was fun however because I did a series of very interesting and dynamic poses for paper.

so here we have a paper gun fight old west style.  no guns in it yet, didn't plan on putting any in.  just kept it plain and simple.  If i were to finish it i would put in a back ground and add some textures and such.

good times.

Yeehaw

I'm finally buckling down now that I lost my job.  Im doing more drawing from life.  I have to say there are a few hurdles that I have found.  1- I don't see really well, so things are a bit blurry.  2- sometimes I sit there and think to myself, "gosh, none of this stuff is interesting enough to sit and draw" (i hate still life)  3- interesting things don't sit still, and I have a hard time remembering just how that person looked as they in ____ pose.  oh and 4- my excuse for never doing life drawing is that I hate carrying my big sketchbook around.  so I got a small journal and now Im going to be using that wherever I go.

anyway, these are just some sketches I did of a cowboy hat.  I have always been terrible at drawing them so I found some reference and went at it.  I think some of them have quite good character!  It was fun anyway.