You don't watch sea monster. Sea monster watches you.

I'm streaming again. New link, and you can watch me here! 

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/drawing-painting

This was the rather random result of streaming last night for a good 4 hours. I was watching a stream and the broadcaster had to leave, and I ended up broadcasting in her place. For the first hour I struggled with a weak drawing until finally giving up on trying to save it. So, I asked what I should draw/paint and "monster" was thrown out. After the previous effort, I stuck with a relaxing headshot. There's a lot of stuff here, technique-wise, reapplied from the fictional mass effect character I did, but some new stuff too.

My favorite thing being that to get the red tint in the eyes I made a copy of this very same painting, tinted it heavily read, then stretched the picture so it wouldn't be recognizable, then masked it over the black eyes this fellow has. Im quite pleased with this one. Had fun with it, because it was painted with 6-7 other people who were great company, but also because of the result achieved in 3 hours worth of work. 

All Photoshop - 8.5x11

Mike Puncekar... LIVE

So I finally found an easy way to stream what's happening on my screen and I tested it today for the first time. Ustream, I would like to thank you and your fantastic software. Getting this to work with any sort of decent quality on justin.tv was too much.

I streamed for 3 hours taking requests from people and just sort of screwing around. So far I think I'm pretty happy with the set-up. I can run music in the channel and talk to people with the mic while I paint and work on projects. As long as it's fun or personal chances are I'll be broadcasting it.

But for future reference I'll be announcing when I start on my twitter here: www.twitter.com/mpuncekar

And broadcasting on the channel here: www.ustream.tv/channel/mpuncekar-live-stream

Anyway, I got three mini-paints done during 3 hours. Something for the irish today, a meaner sonic, and a magician dude who is looking a bit venture brothers.

Edit: Just realized I uploaded the wrong sonic. Finished version now in the post.

More fun stuff I guess

I did this while I was waiting for a friend to tell me to head over to his place. Could have been more ambitious though, I also watched the social network while I waited. Which speaking of, is such a  seriously good movie. Even as a pretty stalwart anti-facebook user, the dialogue in that film is just so good I just have to adore it. Paired with a favorite director, fantastic cinematography, trent reznor bringing his brilliance to the soundtrack, and a trailer hooking you with radiohead lyrics... it's just not fair to other films.

Anyway, more mass effect poop since I was just screwing around in photoshop. Had a happy accident and found a new way to add a great texture. Love it when that happens.

Boneface Alien

I kept coming back to this one off and one today. I started it this morning when my body just up and refused to sleep, and then did some other stuff and finished it up just now. I've been playing through mass effect 2 off and on for a long while now, and while I've made really no progress in the game itself, expect some aliens and fun stuff because that is one inspiring game. Sort of want the art books. I mean when I do give in and play it I only play for like an hour before I find myself looking for concept art and wanting to paint stuff/work.

Also took the time on this one to practice some texture stuff and what not. Pretty sure I'm gonna chase a concept art gig eventually. Might as well get some of the techniques down instead of being all stubborn and stuff. While I still prefer the painterly look, it did make this really darn quick.

Mass effect 2 is one hell of a game I want more time to play. I bought one of those ridiculously huge steam deal packs where you get 600 something dollars worth of games for like 75 bucks, and I haven't really gotten to play any of them yet. Actually still haven't played anything of the humble indie bundle I plugged not too long ago. Need to turn into a robot, get rid of sleeping and eating... just work and play at a constant rate. I am getting antsy though. I'm spending way too much time behind the computer. A scary amount of retina bleaching time.

And photoshop cs5 is awesome, but I swear it's even slower than cs4 handling psb files. Crashes so much on me, and the half hour save times are really irritating. When I get the cash, 4 more gigs of ram is going into this computerin' machine ASAP.

Bootlegger Speedie

A really quick speedpaint with a theme suggestion from Kevin Havens. Starting to warm-up to cs5's new painting engine. Love that I can actively soften an edge without having to paint a softened edge.

Cobra Commander is sort of the best. Ever.

This is my extremely late entry to the sketch-2-death activity that me and some friends have been doing for quite awhile now. Here's a link to the blog, definitely worth checking them out, and their respective blogs. Talented folks, indeed. (LINK)

The theme this time was Childhood Memory. I was going to choose something more activity-ish like nerf or losing my shoe in the woods, but every time I thought of the words I just got a mental picture of this guy.

I had some fun with techniques on this one if you couldn't tell, it's still 100% photoshop start to finish, but there is a lot of textures, adjustment layers, and other stuff at work here. Many of the layers just plain got covered up. Just sort of had fun with it.

Vamp Concept

If I made a vampire film this is what they would look like. Not some pretty boy teenager. They'd have a tail, a belly full of blood, and a face fit for scaring. I'm in a concepting mood, so expect some more of these, especially while I'm currently teaching myself z-brush. Which crashed a lot. So I quickly ended up back in my comfort zone, photoshop.

I've always thought nosferatu type vampires were the best though. To me that romanticism is strange for something that sucks bloods out of human throats. It's irritating how quickly people in the stories can overlook this quality. I think a vampire hunter is up next though.

I tried out some new techniques in this one. Let me know what you think. I'm building a concept portfolio and I need a direction.

More Character Concepts and A Fortune

First set of concepts were for my last Professional Practice assignment. Story behind this is the teacher, Dave Groff, used a random hero generator for us to illustrate. I managed to miss class that day accidentally, so as punishment my hero was a "Ballerina Karate Master". This is in contrast to "Amazon Adventurer", "Warlock Hunter", and annoyingly what I would have got if I had been there "Astronaut Zombie Hunter". Everyone in the class got something that was easily a winner of a character. I deserved it. The irony being that I missed because I was so exhausted from working on the assignment from this very class the entire night before. Lesson learned.

The last thing was from today's Professional Practice class. It was a 3 hour timed challenge where we had to illustrate our fortune from a fortune cookie. After about 2 hours give or take, once you include printing the thing and meeting up to discuss concepts. It was fun. I'd call it a sketch-a-day, but I'm not sure if I feel right using that term anymore with all of these sporadic updates.

Lastly, I got a tiny new red moleskine, pocket size. Love a new sketchbook. Nothing beats that feeling.

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.

Vega Redesign/A sketch 2 death event

Over in the Sketch-2-Death camp, a fellow CCADer started this activity, where we are all being a bunch of fanboys, and pretending we work at Capcom, sketching out some Street Fighters.

I took early dibs on Vega. Why? Because he is clearly the most super fantastic, and I mean that in the most arrogant way. While he may be a pretty boy under that mask, he was just so incredibly awesome in street fighter 2, that he just had to be done. He climbed on the cage wall, and slashed his foes to pieces with the only real weapon in the game, and it's an AWESOME weapon to have in a fighting game. No one beats him in sheer amazingness. Which is why they never bothered to change his character in future incarnations, because he is just that perfect.

I did try to make him a bit more matadorish, tone down the muscles, and spruce up that silly arm band though (he's still perfect though!). I also punched some holes in his mask, because that thing has to be hot. So that leaves the only real addition being the claw hand. I was just going to put another claw on him, but he isn't wolverine, and I think it fit's the whole snake tattoo thing resembling the fangs. Plus, just think of the cool in-game moves those could bring in tandem with the claw.

Lastly, I'm on spring break! But I don't have my scanner cord (although I have the scanner) so while I had planned to post a metric crap-ton of art on you to make up for my absence here the last month, I can't unless I get to a scanner. It'll be a busy month or so working up to graduation, so updates will be very sporadic as I get my portfolio together and finish branding, but I'll try to keep updating.

Lastly, lastly... everyone needs to tune in or somehow get their eyes on HBO's The Pacific. It's two episodes in, and it is glorious.

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?

Some characters from a story.

Meet some of the cast, of "The Lifeless Bones of Edmund Barret".

This has been a long project in the making, that up until this point I've been calling the monkey project. I really haven't been posting as much as I'd like (everyday...) so I threw together this portrait of sorts off of the character boards I have thus far. I have such a long way to go on this before the deadline roughly two weeks from now. Not really sure how it's going to happen. Hopefully it will see a decent finish though, because it's certainly been fun up until this point. Alas, I have so much other stuff due, I'm afraid to write it all down.

But here is Agatha, Edmund, and Hanuman.

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"

A Teaser/Detail.

A little teaser shot of my latest project based on the Baba Yaga. Definitely an exercise in control for me. The size of her head is about the size of my thumb. Will be full color when I'm done. Stay tuned.

"Mad" Jack.

I live to tell the tales of Spring 2009 finals week. Only one in-class essay separates me from summertime. Feels good. Bit scary knowing I'll be a senior again. 

But I'm back, and since I'll be in columbus for 2-3 more weeks without a job, and enrolled in a pretty freeform painting minimester class, expect alot of updates and for sketch-a-days to resume like normal.

This here is my styles and concept. Definitely a favorite of mine from this year. Hadn't really done any fleshed out portraits this year. Was a lot of fun, and I wouldn't mind even going in more and fleshing it out. This is definitely going to be included in some prints I'm going to get going over the summer, along with my website and revised blog. Woo.

Hellboy/Spawn Crossover

What I worked on today. Took quite a bit longer than I thought it would. Shouldn't have waited till the day before. But! I do like it much more than anything else I've done for comicbook. Has  slew of problems that could use fixing. We will see if I can get to them tommorrow. 

Assignment was to take two comicbook characters, same series or different, and put them together into one splash page of sorts. Basis that it could be a potential portfolio piece.

For now, I sleep and worry about the massive amount of film and lit homework I have, and the rewrite I have to do to save my grade. Essays. I. Hate. Essays. Really paying for some slacking off in there right now. Big Time. On top of that, english exam next monday.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Haven't done anything worth posting. Bit of a slump the past few days. Seemed like every mark was a bad one.

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.