studies in landscape

I've never been real interested in landscapes.  It has hindered my artwork so I've made an effort to try and do a 1 hour painting every day from reference.  I don't copy them perfectly, but I try to get the basic idea.  These 3 were done pretty far apart, so obviously I haven't done one a day :P
they are fun to do tho, and I am learning a lot, which is the whole point.

and my latest that I did today.  much better :)

oh and these are 1 hour studies.

broken tower - loosening up

My Illustration professor had me look at a great digital painter and concept artist named Feng Zhu.  He has a ton of great tutorials and he talks about the industry, digital painting, and a lot of other really interesting and helpful things.  I wish I could afford to go to his school!  Oh you can see his site here!

anyway, after watching some of his videos, I felt like i needed to loosen up and be more expressive, and not work so much on details right away.  I did a 1 hour painting here, using a photo reference only for some inspiration.  I like the feel of this for the most part.  I spent some time getting to know some new brushes that I made and making some new ones.  Im really liking this and wonder how this will work when I do a character or something.  I always want to do hard edges, and I'm trying hard to find a middle ground where my edges aren't so boring.  also trying to come up with a  cool sig.  meh.

anyway:

illustration project 2 for this semester

Updated 14 Nov

DONEZO!  huzzah.  I think it turned out great!  Thanks to Bill for some awesome suggestions

Updated 12 Nov

added some ground and monsters in the back ground, worked on the leg armor.  not super happy with the leg armor, but the other new stuff is interesting!  I just noticed I need some sky colors in my ground!!! All that is left so far is the smelly hand, something on the belt, and the hammer/arm.  oops and the hand holding the skull.  /sigh now that I'm counting it seems like a ton!

it's fun tho, and I'm learning lots.

updated 11 Nov 2011

Updated 8 november 2011

trying some effects and I think I like this blue color for the atmosphere better

also some random changes to the armor

So I'm running out of time for all my projects.  I'm not completely happy with my initial drawing, and neither is my instructor, but I've been pulling my hair out trying to figure it all out.  I'm just going to move forward with what I had.  I guess I'll learn from this experience and make the best of it.

My dad talked some sense in to me, and he told me something is better than nothing, and I needed to just go to work on what I had.

so I sat down and used puppet warp on my line art and then went to town painting on it.  I'm learning a lot in the process so that is exciting.  there are a lot of other issues that I will paint over and correct as I go, but here is a process shot.

It isn't as eerie as I want it, but I think that will come.  Im happy with the direction it's going. this has been a difficult project for me to get started on

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.