A WIP check-up

So for final's week I did turn in my SOI contribution of the mob boss. Although, I'm not done yet. It's about sixty percent of the way there I would say. Still have a lot to do with the frames, general transitions/clean-up, color corrections, and his hands. Considering entirely repainting the hands. With reference this time, because up until this point I've ignored reference. I'm sure there are teachers somewhere scheming to have me off'd right now, just because of it. 

Thanks to my friend, Nathan Biroschek for the photo.

From a small competition between friends.

Through pure blind luck, me and a few friends got the chance to compete for a cover contest for Columbus Alive Magazine. Unfortunately, finals took their due on the image and it became a last minute thing due to simple deadline dates. Very rushed from beginning to end, with alot of things I would like to change... may just change them.

Concept was a contemporary twist on Santa. They threw some suggestions our way, and two of the three involved alcohol. I think all of our illustrations have beer in it somehow.

Final ComicBook Page

Just finished this up tonight. The second comic book page of my 13 wives story. Technically not the second page in the whole story, but for the class, it is the second page. It's annoying to me that I can't ink it. I really, really want to ink it. It would be so much easier to read without that visual noise. Lemme know what you think. Not a whole lot happens on this page, it's mainly just a intro page for this character.

The other page is in the mega-post, just a tiny bit down the page.

A Knight, His Soul, and Some Crazies.

Quick Edit: A speedie I did as a warm-up for today, before I get painting. Started it last night when I couldn't sleep, added highlights and a few more scribbles today.

Finished it up as much as I will for class. Getting this to print halfway correctly will require an act of god. Lot of things I wish I could do, fix and work on, but I have to crank out another painting tommorrow and tonight I have to get some more LA class stuff done. Figured I would just throw it up on here.

All photoshop from start to finish. No ref.

Two Chinese and a Speedie.

Edit: Can't sleep. So I did a really quick speedpaint. I really loved painting it. At the end of it though, I can feel Ashley Wood's resent haha. I can't wait till I have a new tablet. This squiggly line/no control thing is getting old after about a year. Anyway, done for an Oondu activity.

Two new things. The first is based on the memoir "No Name Woman". It came out rather clse to how I wanted. I doubt I will change much more about it. The second is a sketch on bristol I started for a bookmark.

A Redesign, and SOI Shenanigans.

But with this redesign comes a small, not really important announcement. I will be buying a domain soon, and finally, for real, no kidding, putting a real website together. I've done all my research, have a good idea of what it's going to be called, and I should be done with it over Christmas break. If I don't do it... Find me, break my legs, cause I've put this off for forever.

So up and coming is the Society of Illustrator's contest. Here's 1 of 4 pieces that I'm doing. I plan on documenting the step by step on this one. Why? Because I've convinced myself someone out there cares, and that is all I need. 

So what did I do so far. I did the sketch right there in pencil, in a sketchbook that was just bundled regular printer paper. As far as I'm concerned, you can't beat printer paper. Mechanical pencils love it. The second step there is a color comp.

For the color comp I just scanned in my sketch, and multiplied the lines. Colored with some of my favorite photoshop brushes. I've tried to use painter, and I still try to from time to time, but it just feels so clunky.

Last step, posted here, is the beginning of my paint. About an hours worth of acrylics right there. But the hard part was the transfer. The whole shebang is on 24x36 inch masonite, gesso'd board. Which, so far has proven amazing in every way. Has a fine sandpaper like texture for the paint to adhere to. So I took that original sketch and just blew it up in photoshop to the size of the board. It helped that my original scan was in 400 dpi, and that I made the print out at 150 dpi. So it stayed relatively clean. 

Did I pay 40 bucks for a large print out at kinkos? Nope. Thanks to a feature I just discovered, and have never looked for before in adobe acrobat. I fed it the pdf, and in the print settings, sure enough, there was an option to print it in multiple sheets, so I could tape them together. It was a monetary miracle, that I have continuously over looked all this time. Then to transfer I smothered the pieces in graphite dust, and transfered just like normal.  Although if I was really smart, I would have used an opaque projector. Eh, this was easier, kinda, not really.

 

Playing Catch-up

A major dump of stuff here. Random assignments, speedpaints, WIPs, and sketches. Forgive the formatting. I can't get blogger to play nicely.

So, it's been awhile.

Haven't really been updating this like I should due to a more recent endeavor.

Oondu.blogspot.com

It's a group of like-minded artists I respect, and we all go to school together. Awesome stuff, really should check it out. 

I got stuff coming... awkwardly this is another vampire thing, but this time with an "I Am Legend" cover. It's just a roughand I will be posting the final when It's done. I know that is not his name now... but at some point I went and thought it was George. I'll be doing a big repost of all my stuff from Oondu soon along with some stuff no one has really seen I think. 

Also, used to have a fabled website project going. Due to teachers pushing it so hard, i figured I'll get off my butt and get one together.. just somehting simple and not all crazy like I had recently tried to do so many times before. Alas... I have also said this before, several times.

I'm really, really excited.

Dark Knight tonight! Enjoy a snowy batman, and a green lantern that may see some color tommorrow. The normal clothes idea is from a friend, as I was drawing out one in spandex at the time. 

I'd love to actually get this post formatted like all of my others, but blogger is being a buggy POS right now. 

Colorless Concepts.

A friendly reminder: You can click these to make these bigger. No need to squint.

This is mainly just a little sketch dump of the little I've done this summer. I got pretty lazy, but I'm starting a few actual illustrations soon. I said I was going to get a website up, and still plan to, but it's on hold (again) in interest of doing some new art that will make me better. I also haven't uploaded year end art from school either. Laziness mostly, as I now not too many people will be seeing this, and some Counter-Strike Source has been taking up quite a bit of my free-time, along with some HL1: Opposing Force. Video games are the most enjoyable time-sinks... ever.

I was toying around with some concepts all within a similar universe for the first four here, and the last two pirates are random Photoshop speed paints. No references used all around, as per norm. I'm such an idiot for not, but all of this was rather random.

Next up, some horror and adventure illustrations... and maybe some quick landscapes.

Fable Part Two

The second part of the fable illustration. This is the part of the story where the vampire has slaughtered all the girls at the party and will now start to stack the heads in the window. The very window two posts down. Done in Painter. It is not really completed. Close enough to pass, although one day I would like to redo the bottom where the girls are... either more graphic, or painterly stylized like the vampire. 

So, soon I should be dumping quite a bit of end year CCAD art on here. And a ton of sketchbook pages I've enjoyed scrawling out recently. So if you actually watch this place be checking in during the next week. If I ever get off my butt, you may also find a link to a brand new website with what I have right now for a portfolio. Speaking of that I need to do some light hearted illustration, cause everything I have right now is pretty dark.

The Rat King.

Picture Courtesy of Grant Richardson.

This is a Design for Illustration assignment. I chose rats cause I thought it would be fun. Took about 4 hours to do, but that time is a bit off, since I was also watching No Country for Old Men at the same time. It's black ink applied with brush over acrylics, on canvasboard. Colors are a bit off, but I think all real paintings are never done justice when photographed. 

Fable Part 1

In electronic Illustration we had a fables assignment. Before you judge me as a murdering psychopath, let me explain. We had to choose a fable to give two illustrations and work in painter. I was browsing for some russian folktales when I found this Romanian vampire tale. It's a rather bloody and grim tale, but after hearing about everyone's disney-esque  choices for subject matter I had to go with. Also... vampires are awesome illustration material. In the story the vampire takes his victims and stacks their heads in the window. I wasn't going to do this, I thought it may be a bit spooky, but my teacher talked me into it. Well, suggested and I jumped at his approval. So I did my best to keep this tasteful.  In the story he rips off their lips to make it look like they are smiling, one of the more grotesque details in a rather unspecific tale. 

Here's a link to the tale. In the next illustration I'm kind of combining all the elements I like from all three, but I used number two primarily. 

http://www.draculas.info/vampires/romania/vampire_stories_from_botosani/

Here's a few bonus sketches.

  

Crazy, and a Pirate.

An assignment for Illustration Methods. We had to do a full-size face with an emphasis on "expression". I still have no idea if that means whether the subject is expressive... or the mark is expressive. Oh well. The acrylics worked out, so I'm happy. It photographed with that light gradient... I kept it as you can see. Nice happy little accident. 

This guy was for another blog (sparetimedesign.blogspot.com). It's all CCAD illustration majors, and every two weeks there will be a new theme. This weeks theme was "pirate", so I took it in my own little direction since I figured everyone was gonna do overcoats and pirate hats, and missing limbs and all that. The story behind this pirate is he's the type that goes into active battlezones while war rages, and he loots and steals till his little hearts content. I want to take this concept further, since I rather like it. 

Characters? Concepts? Sure.

Jon Foster came to CCAD today in the visiting artist series. He really put me in the mood to render out something, so I drew this at work today.

These are my meth-heads. Drew it in Illustration Methods. This stuff is just fun to draw. I drew a ton more during this class, but they were all really... really weird caricatures. The more cartoony faces inspired the cool dude down below. It's kind of a no-rules stylization. Nothing but crooked eyes and something that would destroy perception if turned 90 degrees. I mean, it's really just taking a normal angle and going, no... I feel like doing "this".

This is a doodle from philosophy class. Fun as heck to draw out. Easy enough to still pay attention to the lecture.

Zombie concepts used to inspire myself for a project.