Jungle Elf

This painting started out as a warm up sketch, then it evolved into a value study. I wound up pushing it a bit more by adding a background. I decided to try working out a depth of field effect. Then I played with giving the environment a a sense of temperature, to portray hot and steamy.

The general idea of the figure was that if, if elves lived in the forests of the world, they'd probably be found in the jungles, too. I wanted her to be both primal and elegant. I leave it to you to decide how much I succeeded in what I was trying to accomplish.

Catching Up - Santa's Elf

I haven't posted to my blog in quite a while. I'm going to try to be more regular.

This was done for Christmas, obviously. I consider it one of my best attempts at portraiture. All the pieces came together for me on this one. From the skin tones to the hair to the texture of the fur, I was very satisfied with the results.

This painting raises my personal bar, which is a good thing. I don't think that you can maintain status quo. You're either moving ahead or falling behind.

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!