Tuesday, August 16, 2011

End of summer...and webpage update!

Paint-over of my old "wtc-Tomb raiders" illustration

Today officially ends my summer "ILLUSTRATION-a-THON!" If you count my pencil illustrations I reached well over my goal of 12 illustrations, however my greatest victory was that I did alot, I accomplished alot, and I learned even MORE!

With the start of my final semester tomorrow I can face my new and rigorous illustration and homework schedule with confidence. Part of that confidence is that summer really helped me nail my voice stylistically, so that I wont spend as much time wandering around.

Regarding the illustration above it may look familiar to some of you. After I completed the masterstudy from my last post, I realized that the same paint-over method approach would work on an old painting while keeping the original vitality (problem I've dealt with in the past). So I attacked my old Wtc-Tombraiders illustration with my more recent style and rendering. The hardest part of doing this is that I had to do a lot of backwards engineering...since I was trying to correct a lot of anatomical mistakes and other issues. X_x Hope you enjoy.


As part of my self-imposed fall semester illustration program...I plan to regularly update my website...so I did one massive overhaul tonight adding some of my most recent work and throwing out the weak links. Hope you enjoy that as well.



Tuesday, August 09, 2011

The Misadventures of CLINK! part 2 (and a masterstudy)

Opening of Clink part 2.

Ok loyal readers I have completed another part of "THE MISADVENTURES of CLINK" (my wife's birthday comic). So that I don't bog my blog down (oh that rhymed haha) I have made a separate appendage to my webpage (link only available below).

PLEASE GO HERE TO VIEW Clink PART 2:




MASTERSTUDY::
I recently came across a new artist that intrigued me, Amedeo Modigliani. Born in the late 1800's he was one of many who paved the modern art movement. His work is mostly abstract and unfinished looking, but I really like his character designs, some of his paint application and how quickly he seemed to resolve a composition.

Since his work is generally very sketchy I took it upon myself to finalize one in a Paint-over/quasi-masterstudy utilizing what I knew and several other artists techniques. I ended up using a bit of Greg newbold, Jack Vettriano, and ALOT of Amedeo Modigliani.

My masterstudy/paint over of a Amedeo Modigliani painting.


This is the ACTUAL size of the image I did the
paint-over/masterstudy on. SUPER PIXELATED! haha

(btw I count the masterstudy as sketch 2 of 5 and Clink-part 2 as 3 of 5)

Thursday, August 04, 2011

Sketch illustration-1 (of 5?) Rapunzel

8x13 Graphite (0.9 mm) on Bristol board. 15-20 hours.
Please CLICK on the image for FULL VIEW!

Just completed this...I would've finished it last night, but 4am is not the best time to make final decisions. haha ^_^

This was made in behalf of the monthly topic over at Childrensillustrator. There was a lot of topics to vote from, but the majority came to Rapunzel. I strongly voted for Baba Yaga, and since it didn't win, my witch ended up looking a bit like her.


I based the narrative loosely on what I knew and researched about the story...
::STORY::
"Basically a man is caught stealing from a witches garden in attempt to help his wife. As punishment he promises to give his first child to the witch. As expected the witch takes the newborn child and at the age of 12 locks her up in a high tower. Several years later a prince happens to be riding by and hears her singing. They end up falling in love with each other. As it usually does wind eventually got blown back to the witch, so in a rage she cut off Rapunzel's hair, throws her out into the real world, and then using Rapunzels hair tricks the prince. After the price climbs the tower the witch shoves him off and he becomes blinded by the fall. Spending a long time wandering alone through the wilderness he hears Rapunzels singing and finds her getting water at a waters edge. They embrace, she cries into his face and he miraculously can see again. As to the witch, in her haste to shove the prince off the tower, she lost Rapunzel's hair, and since she had no way to get down she stayed trapped in the tower till she died."

Honestly this may look like a complicated and hard illustration, but it just fell together for me. I decided what elements from the story I wanted to portray, loosely sketched them, and then pulling out the bristol and mechanical pencil I let them evolve until I was done. I used the same basic approach as from my 10 hour illustrations , in the sense there is no right or wrong reality. It was also nice to spend time on many different narrative elements instead of one ultimate/all conclusive illustration.

Hope you enjoy! I don't know if I will complete 4 more pencil illustrations before my semester starts, but so far I am doing great!