Post-Graduation

School's finally over, and I've been cruising right along project-wise ever since I got back into New York. I think the fact that I was so burned out last semester helped me find inspiration faster once I was free to do what I pleased, and I have to say it's been a lot of fun so far. For the past month, and next few weeks, I'll be working on as much art as possible. At the end of June I'm headed back to Buffalo to room with my brother- and that means I have to job hunt for a part time position somewhere hopefully nearby to pay rent and the impending school bills, and get resettled after moving again. So things might get stagnant for a little while after that.
For now though, I've completed two new paintings, and started a third (the digital line comp was done last week so it's a bit further along than that right now). The Daft Punk piece was a lot of fun to work on, and it helped me develop a much more intuitive and efficient way for doing final layout and color comps. The painting with the girl in the yellow dress was a trade through the pretty recent tumblr group- Crayon Crunch. Essentially a monthly secret santa event where people sign up by sending an email out of one of their original characters, and they'll be depicted by someone randomly chosen. The character I received for May was Ironmary's Mariska Morevna.
The third wip piece is something I'm playing with, concerning individual songs by groups I'm really fond of.

 

As usual there's a lot more to see on my tumblr: http://klang-art.tumblr.com/  where anything and everything goes up!

Some stuff

This semester (as usual) is out to get me.  Bless whomever's in charge that this will be the last one.  All griping aside though, I have a couple of new paintings to show for it (I'm already glaring at Brazil, but Marlfox is still ok in my book).

But now there's only one month left, so what have I got up my sleeve?  Good question.  There's some projects that are trailing along to be completed soon-ish, a couple new things to be started, and some stuff I'm really ridiculously excited for that I won't get an opportunity to work on until after school.

In progress is lots of ceramics work, which I won't have pictures of until after graduation.  Also in progress is my other sculpture work for the semester:

Apparently I really really need a fantasy creature's taxidermy head attached to the wall of wherever I'll be moving to.  He's a good bit farther along than this right now (hoping to start his concrete mold on Monday), and he's been my fun salvation this semester.

On the 'to be started' front, there will be one more painting for my Advanced Styles and Concepts class (looking to illustrate a fairy tale) and a second short story for my writing fiction class.  Which I plan on converting into a web comic as long as I'm happy enough with it once I've completed writing it.  Sci-fi is all I'll say for now, but hopefully I'll be able to digitally play with some character and environment concepts so my head will be in the right place post-graduation.

Heavens above...

Blogger, I certainly did not mean to abandon you for so long there.  I apologize.  But I do have a fab excuse this time.
This semester has obliterated my chances at producing finished work up until this point in time.  Two months into my last semester... that is far less than promising but I am moving as relentlessly as I can toward accomplishing some work whether my classes like that or not.  Next weekend should produce at least one completed something.

But, in the meantime, have a medley of stuff I've done in the past couple months.

Illuxcon V

Wow.  Where to even begin.  This year Illuxcon blew all of my expectations away once again (I can only imagine what it will be like in Allentown next year).

I guess to start things off I might as well begin with the journey there.  Since this was our second time going to Illuxcon we had two Jacks.

The scenery on the drive there was lovely, and it wasn't raining the entire morning as it was last time which was nice.

We arrived in Altoon at around 3:30pm on Thursday- we had wanted to arrive early in order to hike around some of the local areas before the show.  But due to Altoona roads being confusing beyond all reason we got lost in the wilderness and decided to hike around a graveyard we stumbled upon instead. It was delightfully creepy.

We got to the show Thursday evening right when it was opening up (and many artists were still setting up).

Some views from above:

Part of Petar Meseldzija's table on the left and Patrick Jones on the right:

David Palumbo:

John Harris:

Mark Poole:

Eric Velhagen and Travis Lewis:

Justin Gerard's table:

Tom Kuebler's work- stunning and shocking as always!:

Most delightful of all though was being able to talk with Petar Meseldzija and his wife Anita every day at the convention.  They are most definitely the kindest individuals I have ever met- I hope I can make it to Illuxcon VI in order to visit again!  Petar also demoed again this year on Saturday and I'm excited to see where he takes this guy to finish.  Nothing makes me want to paint more than watching another artist work their magic.

On Friday night I partook in the Illuxcon Showcase at the Ramada Inn- and what a wonderful turnout!  To say I was amazed at the feedback I received would be a monumental understatement.  

I'm now back at work on several projects with the inspirational hum of Illuxcon hovering around my head- expect to see new work here soon!

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.  

Halloween!

This was a project for Children's Book illustration- essentially we had to create a wrap around cover for Cricket magazine with an autumn/harvest/halloween theme.  I came up with the idea of monster children going trick-or-treating in normal folk town and scaring plain folk.

After thumbs and what not, we arrived at a final layout

Playing around with color schemes

Final color comp

We then had crits in class, and the teacher felt in terms of the magazine layout, I should flip the image to have a more rewarding lead in to the back cover.

And finished!

All in all I'm not super satisfied with how it turned out, but there are aspects I can't help but appreciate.