Weeping Willows

I'm not sure why I never posted this. I thought I lost all of my portfolio files today with an accidental rewrite, but I didn't luckily, and I went through it all real quick. This was a C.F. Payne assignment, as he was trying to get me out of my monsters and military gear mindset a bit. So he gave me this, which at the time was really annoying because I was trying to set up a heavily editorial ink port with a dark influence. Borderline horror/fantasy sort of stuff. So I sort of pooped this thing out pretty quickly, but to be honest, I think it turned out pretty good and it's the one all my family members like the most... probably becuase it doesn't make me look like as much of a weirdo. So here it is in all it's colorful wonder.

I still sort of revel in the timeline for this one. It came together really quick once I abandoned the plan to paint it traditionally. It was drawn out on a piece of scrap cold press illustration board I had laying around, and the grain of it really benefited the reddish brown prisma color pencil I drew the lines in. So when I colored it, it probably took all of an hour and half to do.

Prohibition - 1920s

This was what I got to do last night. I really love doing this sort of ink work so I figured I'd post it up on the blog. This one was really fun from start to finish, with start being midnight last night, and finish being a little bit ago, with a whole lot of troubles in between.

The concept came from an old photo I had found where the stage was up on top of the bar. I just exaggerated it. If Iget more time to work on it soon I really want to get a subtle band up behind her. For now I have to start work on a Play Poster based on "The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds". I picked it because of the awesome title. Unfortunately, it turned out to be quite a screwed up depressing story.

Before the Bull

So this is what I had to paint up last night for the CCAD Illustration Workshop Class. It was completed on a very tight timeframe, and at this point I swear it's the only way I can get my brain in gear. I've come to the conclusion, that I enjoy tight deadlines. Bit masochistic I guess, but I just like the silence of the night and the 4:00 am Mcdonald's breakfast trips. Working on something during the regular daylight hours just feels... wrong.

And I have an excuse to drink an unhealthy amount of coffee.

Story on this one was that we had to take our character concept we had done previously, and relate it to the Haiti Disaster. It was an odd one, very odd. I kept it simple though, since my character is placed in time quite a bit after the disaster. Not to mention I didn't feel quite right putting my character there in a mocking way. I tend to live in a box, and check the news every long once in awhile with no tv, and any reading time going to books or fun stuff like cracked and science/tech, not counting the infinite loop of wikipedia. So when I finally did see photos, it was the day before he gave the "twist" of the assignment, since when we designed the characters we didn't know the second part of it, and they weren't the easiest photos to look at to say the least. This was my solution. I wouldn't mind getting some more arena equipment in there and solve some outstanding issues, but for now it's off of the queue and on to something else.

FARRGOO

So here is a recent assignment for school that I finished up last night. We had a list of column A movies, and a list of column B movies, and then we had to pick one from each category and combine them. So I chose Peter Yate's "Bullitt", and the Coen Brothers' Fargo. In other words, 1968 in snow. I had also been looking at some minimal french 1970 movie posters, so that crept in as well.

This one was really a challenge, since I can't remember I took a legitimate stab at a car. Pretty happy with how it all turned out on the short time frame I gave myself due to a start over last night at midnight.

So I haven't really slept yet, and I'm feeling pretty darn sleepy, but if all goes to plan I may have another piece for you by midnight.

The Hound of Kings

Recently I was contacted to do a quick sketch for a silent auction in alabama. The subject was weimaraners. More specifically for a an event to raise money for a rescue foundation for weimaraner's in Alabama, Mississippi, parts of Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana. The event is march 6th in Homewood, AL. Looks like a good time, so if you live around there check it out, and bid on my drawing, please. Thanks to Vanessa for giving me the chance to contribute. The idea behind the drawing was that Weimaraner's are considered the dogs of king's since their breeding came about as a result of the king's wanted decent hunting dogs to accompany them. They did their job so well, that it was among one of the first breeds to be accepted in the home to live with their owners, so in a sense, they have a royal bloodline, as well as one of the most historic.

More information on the event by clicking here.

In other news this place has been a bit quiet since I have a lot of projects going right now, but I'll be updating soon enough. Want to thank everyone for the support lately. Gives me the ol' warm and fuzzies in the heart regions.

A Space Rodeo

This was a fun one. This one was for Thom Glick's half of the Illustration Workshop at CCAD. Everyone had to concept out a few characters based on the theme "rodeo". I eventually landed on this rodeo rider that essentially rides a multi-rocketed platform with bull riding rules. I devised a ruleset for it, and arena type atmosphere that I'll be using when I take this concept further.

Interestingly, there was a "twist" second half to the assignment and we have to base an illustration on the character. Unfortunately for me, it has to include the character, and be based on the Haiti Disaster. Gonna be a tough one to pull together tastefully. Excited to see where it goes though. If you want to see what some of the others in the class came up with click here: CCAD Illustration Workshop.

Also on the table this week is a borderline children's illustration with some bird creatures. I got a bit ambitious and the scenery is very... perspective...y. A friend suggested I use sketch up to eliminate a bunch of the complicated perspective work. I have to really recommend this software. Absolutely great, if you haven't tried it. It's incredibly intuitive. Download it, it's awesome.

Also, also, I found a early leak of Massive Attack's new album. Just couldn't wait, so I nabbed it and I gotta say, definitely a return to form to the likes of Mezzanine. It's called Heglioland, and if you can get it, not sure on the actual release date, you have to check it out. Good stuff.

Some Finals

Here are two finals done from start to finish on the same day. Luckily I had all the parts I needed going in, but halfway through I feel asleep from exhaustion and almost didn't get a good enough finish on ahab here. Haven't sketched a whole bunch since being back home, but I'm looking to get an activity going during my month off. I'm getting antsy without any type of real assignment.

Moby Dick

Tour De France 1923

Portrait of a Mobster

Apologies for the lack of posting as of late. It's finals week though. Here's a quickie from tonight that I had to do for a homework figure drawing class assignment. I just sort of pulled this one all from my head so it has some issues, but it's also doubled as a bit of a skin tone experiment for an upcoming moby dick illustration I have due friday.

Here's everything due this week:

-One Exam

-4 four corner illustrations for monkey project

-25 11"x17"concept boards based on the monkey tale and present

-2 out of class figure drawing assignments, second one is going to be a painting. Over-gesso'd the canvas, though. Still drying. Need to Start!

-2 Editorial illustrations, one based on the tour de france, one on moby dick

-one artist paper

-and some other odds and ends like a contact list of companies, portfolio reviews, and a artist compendium.

In other news: Last week I had my website due. And now you can go there and look through my work without stumbling through this blog here. A lot of really dated work on there, but hopefully I can really start overhauling my portfolio soon, because in my opinion it's pretty weak right now haha.

Anyhoo: Check out the new website, hmm?

Bad Moon Rising

This one is the culmination of alot of research, alot of drawing, and then about two hours of quick inking. We had to illustrate a song from the 60s for a class assignment, and I chose Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival. It had some type crammed on it, but when I shrunk it down from print res it got all wonky so I ditched it.

I have to ink more stuff. I really love doing it.

Happy Halloween!/Sketch-a-day 91

The Tell-Tale Heart WIP

So this was part 2 of the two day all nighter. I slept pretty good last night but I'm still all sorts of groggy. But after classes I did go to barnes and nobles, as tired as I was, and picked up this book called France 360. Totally awesome. Just plain amazing reference material. The pages open up into like 3 foot long panoramics. For the price it's so worth it. Here's a link to it. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/France-360/Jean-Taverne/e/9781435104730/

Back on track, here. I had to do an illustration on the Edgar Allen Poe's "Tell-tale Heart". Really fun assignment but I had a lot of issues getting it off of the back burner and working on it. It's kind of like the mongol piece, I had to edit it quite a bit to meet the deadline, can't miss those, and did the best I could, but this one in particular could use a few more hours, and I cropped off the bottom that sounded good until I drew it. So I'm declaring this a work in progress until i get around and fix a lot of the issues with it. Till then I gotta start cranking away on my Monkey tale I've touched on a few times, and get moving on a Tour de France illustration.

The Mongols.

So, it has indeed been awhile since I've updated. This is mostly due to craziness of my current schedule and not wasting a single scrap of free time I can scrounge up. This is part one of a two part all-nighter. Tomorrow calls for another complete finish. And maybe I'll be able to post it before I fall asleep.

Started this one about 6 p.m. with just a blue line drawing. About 10 hours of work here, and a lot of waiting time as the amount of layers in the file tried to murder my computer. I can't say I'm not pleased with how it turned out in the end, especially for something with such a last minute, nervous kind of deadline over my head. There's a lot I'd like to still do to it, but all of my other assignments are urging me onward. I over heard a senior my freshman year talking about how easy senior year is. I would like to punch him in the face.

Really, really hard.

Anyways, this one is about a battle that the mongols and the french templar knights had oh so long ago. The Templar knights were the only ones who really put up a good fight against the mongols. Plus, Templars are o.k. guys.

Photoshop over Blue Line Drawing 9"x18"

"Wet" "Willy"

So this was a really fun, quick assignment. Goal was to pump out an illustration based on two words, mine were "wet" and "willy". This one started off really scary. The previous night I skipped, what I assumed to be a work day, due to being up for over 24 hours. I took a nap, that turned into impossible to get off of couch disaster. I went into sleep coma, and didn't even get the text from a buddy telling me to get to class and get my words.

It was a great sleep.

So the next day I go into class, a six hour studio class with C.F. Payne. I took everything I could carry, supply wise, as I had no idea what were words were gonna be. Everyone else was given their words and allowed to do research, take reference, along with any and all preliminary work short of working on it once it was down on board. I get to class. No Payne. Panic sets in as everyone else is working, and I really start to feel antsy. It wasn't until an hour later that I had my words. To compound my problems I settled on acrylic and color pencil, a combination I have never truly worked in, and I was utilizing a 2 year old piece of cold press illustration board I had sitting in my closet.

How I pulled this out of my butt, and why it went so smoothly I'll never know, but if I had to guess it would probably have been that nap. It's not perfect but it was done from start to finish in under 5 hours.

Acrylic and Colored Pencil on Cold Press Illustration Board 8"x8"

Type Treatment and Layout for The Undertaker.

This is the second part of the assignment for the "Professions" piece. I was on a crazy deadline for this, and as a result this was done during a completely sleepless time, therefore making me like it even more. I had to do a bunch of self branding due at 8:00 in the morning and this was due at 12:30. So I stayed up all night and did this directly over the text I drew out, just pushing and pulling at it until I got this kind of barely readable but fun thing happening. I wanted something pretty different, rooty, and dirty for it.

Also finished a mini piece I'll post later tonight for the word's "Wet" and "Willy". See ya then.

The Hyena General

This is what happens when I have a short amount of time to do an assignment, and it comes up suddenly on the horizon. Does feel good to have the urge to do a Hyena out of my system.

Mixed Media on Wood Board, Digital 8"x 6"

The Undertaker: Is Ready to Under Take

Wrapped up on "The Undertaker" art today. The story here is that he's leading a parade of the dead. I have more textures in this thing than I have ever used on anything else before it. I'm sure you can tell. Definitely a fun one.

Next big assignment is to illustrate an edgar allan poe story. Still flip flopping on what exact story to do but that should be a fun one.

In other news I'm embarking upon an older movies marathon of sorts. Whenever I can, I'm gonna squeeze in my favorites. I just finished "The Great Escape" and I think I'm feeling like "Jeremiah Johnson" to usher in the cold whether. The majority is totally going to turn out to be Steve McQueen movies, but the dude is awesome.

Edit: Toned down the blacks into something more manageable and easier on the eyes.

Lincoln's Secret Letters: Complete

Abe is finally all wrapped up. A lot of time, and a tiny bit of actual work went into this. All around a smooth project though. I included some detail shots since the scan of the oils was pretty immaculate. I knew I was gonna lose a lot of the textures while getting it to book size, but in photoshop, it's a beautiful thing to behold at 100%.

So glad to be done. Every time I had to haul the thing to school it rained. Thing was cursed.

Lincoln's Secret Letters Underpainting

Oils have slowly become my favorite medium. They scare the heck out of me, but as far as traditional media, gotta love this stuff. The process, especially the underpainting is so much fun. I like to just throw down my base color and just straight to picking up instead of painting really, just wrapping a paper towel or rag around my finger and using that. Adult finger painting if you will. Today, on top of the finger painting, the freakishly talented C.F. Payne (if you aren't from CCAD google him, then be super jealous of me (seriously.)) suggested simply that I use a fan brush to soften some edges. For whatever reason I never tried it. It had such a great impact and ease of use... I think I owe him somehow even though I am paying outrageous amounts of cash to take his class in the first place. Because it helped a stupid amount.

Just did this today in class. Struggled a bit with the hand positioning and pose for a long while before settling on this particular composition (Yea, the thumb is a bit stinky). So far it's 20 something inches tall and in oils. Final color scheme is going to be blue with grey skin tone with redish purple fleshtone hot spots. Like subtle purple on the nose, lips and fingertips. A very cool color toned image image.

In the end it will be a book cover with the text running right across the chest. Really want to do hand drawn text, but I'm a big chicken. A big, can't draw type, chicken. Again, I'll be posting a sketch dump soon, so I'm going to leave this post without a sketch-a-day. Sorry to those who are following my sporadic updates. And also thanks to anyone checking in, it's very much appreciated and makes me keep pushing a bit harder, because I really don't want to post junk and lose you few valued people.

The Undertaker Value/Color Study

Could you imagine my luck, for me to get undertaker as an assignment to illustrate for Professional Practices? Although I almost ended up with Florist. Did this tonight for approval from Groff, and I'm pretty happy with it so far. The major problems can all be fixed once I actually get down into the drawing portion of the final.

I was taking screengrabs as I went along, so I made a strip out of them for your viewing pleasure, for all those extra curious ones out there.

This is still really early on in this process, so now is the time to make suggestions if you have any.

The Runner

Just finished this sucker up about 10 minutes ago, once it got printed. This is that assignment I mentioned in the last post that I sort of forgot about. So I got a piece of bristol and started to sketch, which slowly but surely turned into this over the course of 5-6 ish hours. Definitely a rush job, but that doesn't keep me from liking it, and it prints off reeeaaaaal nice.

I would have posted my sketch-a-day with this, but I'm pooped and i have to be up in under 4 hours.

Tomorrow (today now) is going to be the crazy day of. If I stop posting forever just assume I've gone into mental coma and have stolen a helicopter and zipped off to some remote island without civilization and homework, where I'll draw pictures in the sand with a stick and turn ordinary random objects into best friends.