Cake Town ...

Just a quick piece I did for The Prince of Cake as a part of his new 'Cake Town' links page. Basically, he asked anyone he deemed link-worthy to do their own personal rendition of one of his characters. This is probably one of the coolest ideas I've heard in a while, and I'm a little bummed I didn't think of it first.

I'll be starting my next big piece this weekend, so expect some progress photos in the near future.

A Stranger in a Strange Land ...

After finishing up the mural, I immediately got started on a smaller piece for next months Hive group show. I basically cranked this out in one weekend, starting on Friday and wrapping it up around 7am this morning.

I decided for this one that I'd actually do a more comprehensive process walk through. Mostly, I like posting this kind of stuff because its the kind of thing I like to hear about when I look at other peoples work. So here goes:

I start out the character by painting in its silhouette in the local color. The local color I choose is usually for the most prominent aspect of the character, in this case his armor. That local color is then used as the basis of all the other colors of the character. So for this guy all the colors you see, even the green of his skin and the white of his eyes came from that original red color.

After blocking in the silhouette, I render the portions of the character that are that color, and then block in the next piece. I tend to work from back to front when I paint to save me the hassle of having to paint around things and keep them looking dimensional.

After the black sleeves are rendered the silver armor bits are added and then rendered, followed by the right hand, which is done later because its over everything else.


Heres a better example of my actual rendering process. Staring from the local value I render in the shadows, I do the shadows first because they give me a better idea of the form of the object. After the shadows are in I start adding the lighter values. I then repeat the process from blocking to rendering with the eyes and lips.

"Stranger in a Strange Land"

The last steps are to add texture and then finally outlines. The outlines are probably the most important part as they bring everything else together, and tighten up the rendering.

Not bad for a weekends work. Busting back to back all nighters kinda takes me back to my good old Otis days. By the way thanks as always to my good friends Rockstar and Cheez-Its, my one-two combo in the fight against deadlines. Check this piece out at the Hive next Saturday for a cool $100. Toodles.

Finished-ish ...

Okay, so I said yesterday but I meant today. In either case the forest is done, until such time as I decide to do more to it. I'm still waiting to hear from the client (read Mom), but I have high hopes of a good reception. Anyhow here's the rest of the process, enjoy...

Adding in the rest of the ground

Adding the path and boosting the overall contrast. Note the brighter trees.

Adding the final elements and doing a tiny dance. (Note: Dance not Pictured)

and Behold!
It's as if I've been transported to some kind of magical, wrinkly forest! Neat, eh?

The Elephant in the Room ...

Wow, ten days since my last post. That's pretty awful. Although in my defense I was out of town on business for most of this week (fancy, I know). All excuses aside however, here's a look at what I've been working on most recently. A few months ago, when I was struggling for money and had almost no job to speak of, my Mom helped me land a job painting a mural for a Smokey the Bear photo shoot (sort of like pictures with Santa, only with a bear). Since taking on the job my to do list has extended exponentially, which is sort of the nature of working in art, as it is punctuated by profound periods of ebb and flow. But thats a whole other kettle of fish, all you really need to know is that this mural is roughly the size of my kitchen and that I'm painting it almost entirely by ear. No sketches, no planning, just some reference and mindless optimism to get me through.

Here we see the sheer size of the beast.

Followed by some very distant trees, and possibly some leaves.

Still More trees, and still more leaves. Perspective and atmosphere just starting to work.

Still more trees (its a forest you see)

Its all working out pretty well, and I'm hoping to have it done by this evening (LOL). And I'm actually pretty satisfied with the "solving problems as I create them" mechanic of the live painting process. In any case, you can expect my next post to be something entirely different as a new painting for the hive will be due on Sunday. Which reminds me, my last entry into the Hive ("Watering Hole") sold at last month show! Proof positive that the $100 price point is the way to go.

Anyhow I've got a forest to paint. Enjoy the rest of your three day weekend.

Fresh Start Sketch ...

I must apologize for the almost super human amount of laziness I have exuded of late. I've been doing a lot of sleeping lately, which most people would assume is a good thing, but I beg to differ. Of all my vices, sleeping is the only one which denies even the possibility of working. By example I can drink a beer and paint, but I cannot draw with my head on a pillow. But these are just excuses, and I promised you sketches and sketches you shall have ...

I apologize for the sub-par quality of the image, but the drawing is a whopping 14"x36", which more than dwarfs my diminutive scanner. Thus the badly retouched photos.

Heres a close up on the character. This cute little dude is just waiting on the bus, hoping it will take him somewhere better. This is the first piece I've started for a featured show next year. Why start so early? Becuase I hope to get about 20 paintings done for the show, and pieces like this one might take me a month on their own.

Orphan Works Legislation ...

For those of you who haven't heard, there is currently a bill in Washington which if passed would dissolve all currently held copyrights and make it legal for anyone to use your creations, for any reason, without your consent. The bill would require artists to pay a registration fee to a private organization on everything they created (including sketches) for them to be considered "under copyright". And its possible that more than one such registry would exist, meaning artists would have to have to pay a premium to each company in order to ensure their work is protected.

In addition to being just plain evil, this legislation also violates international copyright law, and will theoretically effect anyone who creates anything, even photos posted in flickr. You can read more about it here

and after you do, you might want to write your congressman

Sorry for the rant, I should be posting a new drawing soon. But seriously, this is important, please spread the word on this and do everything you can to stop this bill from passing.

"Toesies"

"Watering Hole" with process ...

So, as promised, an actual art related post. I've also included some in progress shots to give you all an abridged version of my process. I say abridged because once I really got into painting I sort of dropped the ball on the play-by-play idea.

The idea for this painting was actually an old one. I doodle from time to time, though not as much as I should, and these doodles are usually little character designs or painting ideas. I took one such character doodle from a few months ago and began experimenting with some quick thumbnails, and when I got one I liked I blew it up and made a loose drawing from it. Like so ...

Then I used the loose drawing as a basis for a tighter final drawing.

You can see I made a few corrections, and changed a lot of the stuff that was bugging me about the preliminary sketch. After that was finished I decided to do a quick color study to figure out my light sources and whatnot. I don't always do this step but this painting was going to be a bit more complicated, so I opted for the extra step.

Now painting starts.

I blocked the background in in black and white, which gives me a lot more control over the value and fell. This is actually a relatively new technique for me, I've only used it a couple of times and I'm still getting the hang of it.
After I finished blocking in the background I used thin washes of color to bring it into line with my color study. In addition to being easier to control this style of backgrounds is also much faster and waists a lot less paint. Now fast forward a few nights hard labor, and ... viola!

"Watering Hole"

Wow, I apologize for my astounding powers of laziness because that kind of time skip really doesn't show you much in the way of process, but I digress. If somebody asks real nice I might actually do a more succinct play-by-play, you know one that actually shows process. In the mean time, enjoy, this piece will be up at the Hive's next group show this Saturday for a very reasonable $100. Huzzah!