Happy Halloween - The Witching Hour

Just a quick Halloween greeting!

Inspired by this stock photo from Tigg-stock.

Marvel-Disney Fusion

A little something that I painted to commemorate Disney's recent acquisition of Marvel; a fusion of Natasha Romanov (aka The Black Widow) and Jessica Rabbit.

Pretty Girl Art

I decided to paint a kind of manga fusion portrait. I planned to use my usual technique for creating a fully rendered painting while adding some manga elements; Large eyes, hint of a nose, angular head shape, etc.

I started with a sketch over a neutral color background, blocked in the lights and darks over a midtone and blocked in the skintones.




















Next I carefully blended the skin color transitions, worked on the hair, refined the details and worked some of the background colors into the skin and hair. The following is the finished painting.




















One of the things that I focused on in this painting was to portray the appearance of skin texture. To accomplish this, I used some of Painter's digital watercolor brushes on various paper textures. I also used some custom watercolor brushes of my own design. Following is a detail of the skin texture.

SciFi Armor Sketch

A sketch that I pushed a little further than usual. It was mostly about working with texture and a limited palette. I wanted to create a look of worn armor against a subtly textured background. I think that the trick, when working with texture brushes, is not to overpower the subject by using every brush in your repertoire. I believe that I did pretty well in holding back this time and am pretty satisfied with the result.

The Art of the Matrix

The concept art portion of my personal library is growing nicely. I picked up a hardback copy of The Art of the Matrix for $3.00 today!

This book has it all:

• Concept art and designs
• Storyboards
• Screenplay
• Assorted thumbnails and other art

Lots of ink drawings. Many color pieces also, which I assume to be guache. A very good find indeed!

HellGirl

Most of the art boards that I frequent have activities that center on a monthly or weekly theme. Artists will paint or draw works based on that subject or theme. One board's theme was to create a female equivalent of the Hellboy character. This was my take on the subject: Lucy Van Pelt, the original Hellgirl!

The Art of Star Wars - The Clone Wars

Another trip to the bookstore yields another visual gem. The Art of Star Wars - The Clone Wars is full of concept art. As I've been noticing, more and more of the concept work is being done with digital painting programs. There is still a fair amount of tradition marker work, but even that is starting to be produced with digital tools.

As for the art itself, its loose and vibrant. There is just something about roughs that really draws me. It may be the telling of a story or the relaying of an idea artistically, without much detail or refinement. It takes a very skilled and imaginative artist to pull it off.

I would have liked to see more storyboards, but that's a minor nit. All in all, its a very enjoyable collection collection of concept art and background studies.

Blue Wizard

I had a little time today and was able to knock out a quick, monochromatic doodle. If I was going to push it further, I would probably have punched up the the highlights to provide more contrast and maybe added some type of embroidery to the hood.

Pinkerton

I came across an old scribble today that I thought was worth sharing. I believe I'd recently watched "Pale Rider," starring Clint Eastwood, when I scratched out this sketch. I always liked those dusters that the "lawmen for hire" wore in that movie.

Art of Guild Wars

While browsing at Half Price Books, I came across a piece of artistic goodness called "Art of Guild Wars." Its just the type of "Art of" books that I like: Lots of sketches, roughs and concept art. Aside from the figures, there is a fair bit of environment work, too.

You can view samples of the concept art on the Guild Wars gaming site.

Blue Mystic

I took an hour or so for myself to do a little painting. I put on some Melody Gardot and Diana Krall, while pushing some color and textures around until I had an interesting background to work from. I decided to work without drawing an initial sketch this time. Using the colors from the background, I blocked out the figure and then, refined it. Since I finished in under two hours, this would qualify as a speed painting.

It was relaxing to do a one sitting painting. I have to find the time to do them more regularly.

Unfinished Works - Elf Portrait

Sharing another abandoned piece. I can't remember why I stopped working on this one. I suspect that it was during one of times when I had several paintings going at the same time. I still like the composition. I was trying out repeating an element in the painting. In this case, it was the angle. You'll notice that the leaves, the top of the tunic, canting of the head (and subsequent angling of the feature, direction of the eyes, angle of the hand and slope of the shoulder (our right).

Repeating an element or color kind of "harmonizes" the painting. If done well, the viewer probably wouldn't recognize why the painting is pleasing, just that it is.

After looking over this one again, I may take a crack at finishing it, but no promises! LOL

Character Study - Orc

A quick character study of an Orc. Mostly, it was an excuse to slap textures and colors onto a page to see what would happen. Turned out to be a pretty fun piece to do and its always nice to be able to post brand new work.

Bigfoot

Goofing around with a photo. It just seemed to need a Bigfoot, so I painted one in.

Unfinished - Sci Fi Female

Like most artists, I have a number of unfinished or abandoned pieces of art. Despite my best intentions, I rarely get back to them. Its hard to continue advancing the older works, once I've set them aside, because my style may have changed or my technique has advanced. Still, I think some of them deserve to see the light of day. So, I'll begin interspersing the better ones among my other posts.

As I recall, this one was an attempt at utilizing some Manga-esque elements as accents on my own figures.

Rough Work

I picked up another book of Frazetta's art titled "Rough Work." Its a collection of his roughs, thumbnails and sketches. Its a nice companion book to, "Icon," which contains finished Frazetta pieces. Its very informative to look at the roughs of the covers for works like "Conan the Usurper" and then go to the finished piece in "Icon." I love seeing the progression from concept to completion. This particular piece is a study in adding tension and immediacy to a painting. I also like seeing the rough sketches of those larger than life figures that he's made into such a trademark style.

This the third Frazetta book that I've added to my collection. The other being "The Frazetta Pillow Book" (Which I picked up for a mere five bucks!). I really enjoy Frazetta's work. There's a lot to enjoy and to learn from. I recommend adding "Rough Work" to your library.

Anthro Mouse Sketch

I don't usually do a many furry or anthro pieces. A while back, I was in the mood to do one, so I started this mouse character. I later lost interest and it went to the unfinished pile. I'll probably never complete it, but I thought that it was finished enough to share.

Annalyn

Hi! It's been a while since my last post. Due to other commitments, I hadn't had much time for any real drawing or painting, aside from a few doodles here and there. This piece was sort of a "rust" test, to see how much the skills have slipped in the interim.

I used photo from a magazine as reference. I really liked the lighting, so it became the foundation for the portrait.

Here's hoping that I can get back to a more regular schedule!

Dark Eyes

It's been quite a while since my last blog post. Suffice it to say that my plate has been pretty full recently, which hasn't left a lot much time for art. Still, I made time to paint this little quickie, just to keep the rust off.

Painter XI.V

Star Wars Scribble - Sith versus Jedi

A little Star Wars doodle that I'd started and was inspired to finish after spending some time looking through the concept art from the book that I profiled in my previous post, "The Art of Star Wars - Episode III - Revenge of the Sith."

The Art of Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith

I came across another great book at Half Price Books, "The Art of Star Wars - Episode III - Revenge of the Sith." I've seen this book selling for as much as $72.00. I picked up a brand new hardcover copy for $5.98 plus tax!

If you like concept art, this book is a visual feast. What really made it special for me was how much of the work was digital. I have some of the concept books from other Star Wars episodes, but most of the images were rendered with traditional tools. "Sith" was the first one that I've seen that appears to be 70-80% digital. Even the pieces that would have been created with marker and watercolor were digital. Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop appear to have been the tools of choice for much of the creative process.

I'm not knocking traditional mediums, I'm sure there will always be a place for both. I just find the evolutionary process fascinating.

I'm thinking that it will probably be a long time before I shelve this book.

Forged

A painting referenced from and inspired by this great stock photo by Ahrum-Stock.

Manga-ish

A quick sketch inspired by a photo of a KPop personality.

Choose Your Year

This one that I had hoped to complete by New Years Day.

Its titled "Choose Your Year." I believe that while we may not be able to control the events going on around us, we can control how react to them and thereby choose the way we perceive the year ( which is the message of this painting.).

A Quick Cutie

I've neglected the blog for the last few weeks, so here's a quick one to prime the posting pump!

Gun Guy

Just goofing around with a pose from a Manga "how to" book. Their example was a Joker-esque character, holding a stylized knife. I liked the pose and body shape, so I played with the costume design and weaponry. This is what I came up with.

Pet Peeve Series - The "Mute" Point

This is one of those misuses of a word or phrase that is like nails on a chalkboard to me. This is just me trying to do my part to educate and illuminate. Being a visual artist, I use my art to help express my opinion on the subject.

Mute: Refraining from producing speech or vocal sound.

MOOT: Of no practical importance; irrelevant. A moot point is a point that doesn't matter any longer because circumstances have changed.

Disclaimer: Do I always use the correct words, terms, phrases or context? Nope. Am I a member of "The Word Police?" Nope, again. I'm just doing my bit to help folks avoid embarrassment by offering the correct usage of this particular phrase. No claim of superiority is implied or assumed on my part!

A "Continuation"

I came across this portrait that I'd painted in 2006. I decided to push it a little farther and mostly liked the result.

Digital oils and impasto.

Color Vibrations

A "two-fer" this time. Sketching for practice and relaxation while experimenting with creating visual vibrations with color.

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009)

We lost a great painter today.

Cartoons Doodle Session

Its been a while since I posted some stuff from the digital sketchbook. I'd recently been looking over some model sheets that I'd collected and some of my cartooning books. That's what sparked this doodle session.

Two New Caravaggio Paintings Found

Two paintings by master painter, Caravaggio, were recently discovered.

They are titled:

• Boy Peeling Fruit
• The Calling of Saints Peter and Andrew

Caravaggio's work is some of my favorite paintings to view. I love his use of color, particularly reds and blues. They are always so vivid. I consider him one of the best at portraying folds in fabric.

You can read the full article here.

Drawing Cartoon Hair

Sharing an interesting paper on drawing cartoon hair. The authors are discussing an animation software system, but the techniques are applicable to free hand drawing and coloring. The paper is a bit scholarly, but worth the read.

"Non-Photorealistic Rendering of Hair for Animated Cartoons"

Abstract
In cartoon drawings, hair is a strong vehicle of personality,emotions and style. In this paper, we present a powerful procedure to imitate the appearance of cartoon-like hair with a small set of parameters. Our approach is inspired by an inking technique called feathering, which consists of drawing hatches along the hair orientation while emphasizing the highlights with ink stains. Our system provides a set of tools to facilitate the positioning of the generated hair over the hand-drawn hair while keeping an intuitive interface for the artists. We can also achieve hair animation by interpolating various keyframes set by the user. Our approach has proven successful and flexible enough to adapt itself to different styles and is particularly well-suited for traditional animators.

Analyzed!

I used some blog analysis tools to analyze my blog. The results are above.

The tools:

Readability Test - Determine what grade level your blog is written.
Genderanalyzer – determines what sex you write like.
Typealizer - shows you the area of the brain that your writing style reflects most.
What is your blog worth - Determines your blog worth based upon Technorati ranking and advertising potential.

Analyze yours!

Custom Brush - Lines

I decided that I may as well finish off the week with this theme, so here is yet another image created with one of my custom brushes. This brush is simply called "lines." I'm able to created some nice line patterns with it. I mostly use it in backgrounds, when I want to add a bit of an edge or a gothic-y feel to a painting. I keep it light and subtle.

Custom Brush - Watercolor Grunge

I thought that I'd share the results of one more custom brush with you folks. I call this one my watercolor grunge brush. I used it to create the texture on the sphere. My goal here was to achieve an uneven soaked/saturated kind of effect.

Custom Brush - Texture Spray/Noise

One of the features that Photoshop has that Painter doesn't is the ability to create "noise." I wanted to have the functionality in Painter, so, I created a custom brush to do the job. This brush "sprays" fine bits of "texture" which generate a noise pattern. As you can see from the example, the pattern is pretty random, just the way I like it. As an added bonus, I can generate noise in any color or combination of colors that I desire.

Pen and Airbrush Portrait

Playing around with Painter's airbrush tool. I usually don't use it much because it tends to make things look a bit mushy and undefined. I was pleasantly surprised at the results of this particular sketch session. Using in combination with the blenders worked out better than I thought that it would.

Custom Brush - Sandstone

Here is the result of another custom brush that I created for use in Corel Painter 9.5. I call it my sandstone brush. The image above was created with only the sandstone brush, even the edge shading. I think that it does a decent job of creating the illusion of texture. You'll also notice that you'd be hard pressed to find any repetition of pattern. Recognizable pattern repetition is something that I try to guard against when I design my brushes. I forgot to mention that bit of information in the impasto brush demonstration post.

As I stated in my last post, I enjoy creating these custom brushes. I can't let the Photoshop artists have all of the cool custom brush fun! LOL!

Custom Impasto Brush

The effects that you see were achieved with a single brush in Corel Painter 9.5. This was created with a impasto brush of my own design. Painter's brush engine is one of the reasons that I really like working in this program.

With this brush, I'm able to create recesses in the paint as well as raised surfaces and edges. I'm also able to achieve the illusion of depth in the paint itself. The consistency of the light source on the edges further adds to the 3D effect.

I have to admit, I've come to enjoy creating custom brushes. I think they add a nice "accent" to my work.