Long Live the New Flesh

Movie have played an important role in my life.  Being able to create something new based off that passion is a rush that drives me to hone my craft only that much more.  So, when CCAD's Illustrative senior-level class (Advanced Styles and Concepts) handed the reins over to me, movie posters were the first thing on my list.
One restriction was provided for a set of 3 illustrations- we were to create a series of 3 ads/posters/announcements about an event or character or who-knows-what.  I looked into upcoming film anniversaries and compiled a short list which I posted on my tumblr.  I received a good chunk of feedback on what people would like to see and David Cronenberg's Videodrome was chosen.
For the first teaser poster, I knocked together several thumbnails, four of which I refined:

Two were chosen by the teacher and myself, which I cleaned up more:

And in the end, we have our first final!

Now the tricky part- creating two more original concepts to see this series tied together nicely.  

A session in landscape.

Ok, I know I post about this class a lot on here but I felt it would be nice to give a run down of why I'm particularly fond of it and how it affects how I work.  

Now, being an illustration major, the majority of my classes are, well, based in illustration.  Which is fine but it gets to be particularly frustrating when you realize you're just as behind in composing original images as you are in painting the final product.  Last year I took landscape painting not knowing what to expect.  What I got out of it was an invaluable opportunity to play with paint.  It wound up building not only my ability to compose competent environments, but also my style.  

When you're put on location for (at most) 3 hours to create a painting that is compelling and could be considered finished...you're not quite sure where to begin.  It only takes some practice to get in the swing of things and this painting class pushed my skills on my illustration projects so much farther than if I'd been left alone. 

Needless to say I signed up again.   When starting, I kept with my habits- earth tone palette and underpainting, "fuzzing" painted areas to draw the viewers attention to where I wanted, etc.  Then something important happened (at least, I'm assuming it's important).  I was told to (a)- not blur areas unless completely necessary, and even then reconsider. (b)- break my comfort zone with earth tones and play with color.  I agreed, acknowledging my weak points and lo and behold, there was color.

Intimidation.  Pure highlighter green and simple.

Ok, I've chosen my view, have my borders mapped off, some quick pencil work to indicate where things should be.

Quick underpainting consisting of cobalt blue/paynes grey.

Laying in colors.  Ugly?  Yes.  Expected?  Yes.  Moving on.

And right around here that start-off color is throwing me.  By being so bright, anything I put down appears in comparison to be nothing more than vaguely differentiated hues of mud.  This is not good.

Still pushing forward you can tell how mad I'm getting at a painting by how much I've scratched guidelines into it with the opposite end of my brush.  Questioning what made me think I could paint.

It's going downhill.  Rage quit foreseeable future.

Colors and brushstrokes in general have been softened, adding a bit more warmth and consistency.  (apologies about the difference in photo color- adjusted my lighting settings and forgot to change them back)

Looks like the nasty has come to an end, with some sky popping up and more work in the foreground.

And where she lies now.  Still need to go back and fiddle with the sky (ran out of time in class).

In the end, I need to continue with this "color" thing.  It's taking me to unexpected places and I'm curious to see how it pops into my illustrations this year.

3D Illustration

Sculpture has always been a side bit of fun for when I got bored with painting or drawing.  As a kid I loved to play in clay and make a general mess of things, and as I grew up, I found out that people liked to customize what I collected (model horses).  I spent years (all through middle and high school) customizing horses of my own.  As a result I built an understanding of depth and anatomy that I would desperately need in college.   

As an example to illustrate the model horse customizing, here's one from a couple years ago, before and after:

It wasn't until the past couple of years that I started playing in clay again to create original sculptures, and it's proven to be a wonderful venture.  Unfortunately last year due to some emotional randomness, stressful assignments, etc everything from my 3D illustration class wound up on the back-burner.  I did accomplish the projects on time but things were rushed and I was left unsatisfied.  I rushed ahead at the very end of it all and did a lil orc bust I was fairly pleased with and vowed to do more work over the summer.

Over the summer I did stay pretty productive, with sculpture included (a Redwall ferret bust was posted earlier on this blog if you'd like to go digging).  I also created a piece based off of Slagar the Cruel from Mattimeo by Brian Jacques.  He actually has a little ways to go but he's nearly finished and will be (hopefully!) cast.  I'd like to do several casts and paint up a variety of fox coats and selling most and keeping a couple.

Now that I'm back in school and in 3D illustration once more I'm feverishly working on projects- sculpting is no longer on the back-burner!  First up (and almost complete) is a minotaur runnin' around, being epic 'n stuff.  He'll be cast in class with many many copies, and I'll be offering some painted and some unpainted for sale at the Illuxcon Showcase this year if all goes well.

And just started earlier this week is a fat lil orc guy.  Clearly very early on in his life, but he'll get finished fast.  He'll just be an individual sculpt, no casting or anything.

Hopefully many many more to come this year (already have plans for a centaur).

2012 thus far.

Alright, just going to post a medley of stuff that I've been working on so far.  Will do a more in depth post on a single something or other this weekend!

Painted film.

Anyone who knows me knows it's no secret that I have an obsession with movies.  It was only a matter of time before that finally found it's way into my art, and it's finally done so with a bit of a bang.  Looking at how these pieces stand up next to my work from the rest of the year, I have no idea what took me so long to finally get to this subject.  That being said, I think this will be a common subject choice for future work.

Now Alien had been dwelling in the back of my mind for a while this year and while I'm not entirely happy with it (wish I'd thought out more thumbnails and compositions, making it more experimental at the start) it still turned out fairly decent I think.

There was still a lot I had to force myself to push color and contrast-wise, and even then I was fairly leery of it.  As a result, a few paintings in the near future will feature more strict color-palette choices and more experimental values (no more of this hiding in the middle norm, I need to push these things that I'm finding I'm uncomfortable playing with). 

All of that being said, the second movie piece I wound up doing kind of at random has made me absolutely giddy with future experiments.  I had no idea what I was doing half the time while working on this painting, so when things kept winding up looking great I was a bit astounded.  Eli is therefore my encouragement to get the hell out of my comfort zone and start playing more.  My paints are demanding more spontaneity and they're quite right in doing so.

And some detail shots for those of you who are just as obsessed with paint strokes as I am.

   As always, if you want to see more progress shots or other various projects that haven't made their way to this blog, check out my tumblr.

The Griffin

So far this summer I'm surprised at how productive I've been.  Now that I'm done moving until the end of August things have been kicked up another notch and the first piece to be finished is this particular painting.  Overall I'm rather pleased with how it's turned out!  Initially after drawing out the line work for the underpainting I had to cut off more from the sides for a much better perspective.  Beyond that it's been a fairly trouble free journey.  Why?  As I'm quickly figuring out reference and best of all lighting is your best friend.
After creating the drawing on the board and cutting down the edges, I shot several different lighting scenarios on a quick little sculpt I did of the pair.

Following those shots and my culmination of reference ranging from various antelope and deer to owls, hawks and eagles the underpainting progressed and was finished within a couple of hours at most.  

Not quite my usual method but it worked nonetheless.  

At this point colors are the biggest obstacle.  And I've kept it no secret that I'm pretty terrible at colors.  But between advice I received from Tardigrad (whose work you should definitely check out by the way) on another project and a painting I've always adored it wound up being fairly straightforward.  

The painting I'm referencing is Horace Vernet's The Lion Hunt.  I realize my colors are more muted than Vernet's palette but I would be remiss to not credit this work with this post.

In the end the brushstrokes just fell into place better than I could have hoped for and I'm glad whatever my style's become is finally finding a happy place.

In the end I've wound up with a piece that I have learned a lot from and that also made me remember how much I really do enjoy painting.  I couldn't have asked for more.