Desert (study 8)

This one went faster and I had it done in just under and hour.

I added a noise filter to give it some grit and turned it way down, then used a rock texture and turned that way down as well.

castle in the trees

I've been slacking!  well sorta.  I've been busy with Christmas stuff.

I was going to do a study with a treetop scene, and as I looked for references of say, jungle canopies, I started to imagine if a tree grew up really fast under a castle and broke it up into pieces and while growing around it, contained some of the structures as it grew upward and twisted.    So this piece took an hour.  but I had distractions!

I obviously didn't finish this, but it may be an idea I revisit at some point.  I made the canvas size 2xs bigger than the actual picture I was painting so that I could place 3 point perspective lines, using the line tool as I went.  I just discovered how to use this in the lagoon piece that I still haven't revisited :S  It could be a great tool, but it causes me to be too tight, and Im going to have to watch that.  I think that this could have a lot more character If I were to loosen up a bit more and then worry about finer lines later.

If I were to complete this I would break the structures more and make them look crumbly, and add vine rope ladders and bridges, more branches/buildings/etc.

I originally started doing rounded spires, but I thought the blocky rooftops and buildings were a nice contrast to the trees.

swamp (study 7)

tried a swamp.  This time I used a bunch of references not just one.  it took just over an hour.

the far back ground was more saturated like the bright greens in the water and I desaturated the area and some others by about 50%.  I think it looks much better.  This one was fun because of the shape of the trees.  there is only greens and browns in this but I think it turned out well.  I guess the fireflies have yellows in there as well.

Landscape study 6

I'm back to trying to do a 1 hour landscape study at least 5 days of the week.  this is on top of my figure drawing studies (which I don't know if I'm going to post yet)  

I almost put a fortress in this one but i ran out of time.  I didn't even get this one close to being 

finished as it is.  

illustration project 3

ok so I finished the hidden cave painting I was working on.  I had some tangents that were noticed by Bill. If i could have that man sit and show me what I was doing wrong all the time and how to fix things it would be wonderful.  That kind of correction is invaluable!

I think it turned out pretty well over all.  I added a shadow of a t-rex or a dragon in the warm light.  yikes!

Lagoon

I wanted to do some kind of landscape study, but didn't really know what to do.  I started searching for references and came up with this:  (it is a free wallpaper from somewhere)  I liked the composition and the rocks were great!

ohh also I discovered an amazing 19th century painter by the name of Thomas Moran, who painted absolutely beautiful landscapes.  anyway:

reference -->

after spending a long time trying to just get a basic black and white value base down I got to this point:

Obviously I wasn't painting it to be exact.  I really enjoy finding out where the process takes me.

like this!  I thought that the rock coming up out of the water looked like a skull of a dragon or a dinosaur.  so I added more jagged rocks protruding from the water below.  The rocks are feeling pretty bland at this point. I have't built up the technique of rendering rocks quite yet, although I have some basic blocky values that I like.

one of the things that has helped me the most (as I've mentioned in previous posts)  Is watching Feng Zhu render paintings.  he will always "push"  back the background to lower values and make the foreground elements pop more.  I think it gave my painting a really cool feel there in the back so far.

Because the rocks were feeling dull i placed an AWESOME  rock texture over the whole piece and then masked out the areas i didn't want masked out.  and then for the back ground i masked it out a little bit more so it showed up less.  I'm excited to see where this one takes me in the next couple of days.  I should be done pretty quickly.  there is something missing and I'm not sure what it is.  I'll figure it out seen enough.