Some sketches!!!

Here are some sketchbook sketches. The scans don't really translate very well but they look good enough. :}

Getting it done...

Worked a bit in photoshop today... Here's the results

I'm now adding color to this ref study. I had done all of mine so far straight color, and in this one I'm going from greyscale to color. Trying out the different approaches to see what works best for me.

This illustration is moving along. I'm still not sure about the face... but I guess it comes in the final rendering. As you can see, I'm going into straight color with this approach.

Some improvements and starts

So here's an update of what I did during my stressful time at UCSD this last quarter...

Some concept sketches I drew up for a friend... I don't think this will go any further.

Here's a start for a new illustration. I need to get the girl's anatomy fixed in proportions and change her costume.

Witch's Moon contest WIP, I've added lighting and color. I gotta work on the rendering.

Here's an update on the girl I drew in photoshop before. As requested on Conceptart.org, I went ahead and continued workin on it.

Moooo Sketches

School is runnin out of juice! It's time to kick some butt!

SKETCHES???!

Study Study... Oh noes! Study!

Well I've been killing myself with this intense schedule but I plan to keep at it. Here are some drawings from my quick sketch class, my figure invention class (drapery) and my last long pose sketch.

Drapery

Long Drawing

Quick-sketch Portraits

I've started an illustration for the iFX monthly challenge so I'll be posting up before and afters here over the next few days.

Quick Sketch and Long Sketch

Here are some quick sketches from the past week. I think I'm getting the hang of the maniquen but I still need more practice.

And here is a 2 1/2 hours pose that I got kinda far in. I like this better than my previous long drawings. You can see a huge improvement compared to they way I used to approach this subject matter.

Ref Studies and Practice Paintings

Practice Painting #1 starting. I'm trying to define a rhythm/rule set to follow when approaching my paintings. I think working out the anatomy of the pose on paper works, but I need to be sure to think about the thumbnail as a whole and not simply the figure. This image isn't a good example of this, however I just plan on working through some challenges such as invented lighting, skin tones, and action. (Experimentation Time)

This is where it's at now.

First time try sketching with the tablet before I started doing Painting studies...

Heres another Painting study from reference.

Ok well I've been feeling really down about my ability lately and I feel like I'm so far behind in what I should know by now that my brain is beginning to fry as I struggle to keep up. School at UCSD is kicking in and it looks like my schedule is going to be chaotic... but I think I should welcome the chaos and work within it...

Being Selective

Lately I've found that I'm learning rapidly to a point that keeps me from working on a single piece to get the majority of learning experience. Due to my time and limit of knowledge, I've had to be a bit selective with what to work on, as well as when to call anything finished.

This axe is slighty unfinished, made by following a tutorial by Cabrera on digital painting. Here is the near finished version. I learned a lot from this piece, including that I need to stay at a low resolution in order to get a better picture. The higher the resolution, the more artifacts can be created with your brush, and things can look way too muddy. Keeping a low resolution keeps the colors crisp, and the lines solid. This was also a great exercise in drawing in photoshop and bringing that drawing to a finish.

I worked on this for about 4-5 hours yesterday from a reference picture. I'm very pleased with how well this came out in such a short time, and it's all thanks to the previous work and practice that I've done in the past few weeks. I kept the resolution down and carefuly included the skintones. Fabric is getting easier for me, as I start to feel what brushes to use for different situations. I'm going to continue doing short paintings of refference pictures and hopefuly learn to control my pace to get something like this done in around 2 - 3 hours.

I called it quits with this image when Andy told me I needed to move on. I agreed, there were way too many design flaws that I didn't work out earlier because I didn't think about them. The lighting is confusing and wrong, the mummy's face is crooked and the anatomoy of the girl is a little off. These things should have been fixed during the sketching process, but because I used a push and pull method to paint it out, it was harder to adjust it. I've learned that sketches (line work) is the best way for me to see and make corrections before going on to further stages.

Keep checking in to see new studies and what I've been able to do with that knowledge.

Slow but Progressive

Here are some updates on the 2 projects I've been working on. I really need to get these finished soon...

Updates

Further Work

I've been so busy helping with my grandparents estate sale and disposal that I haven't had much time to work on anything. But tonight I started back up on this piece. From observing other artists, I'm starting to get an idea as to how they use light and contrast, but it's still taking me some time.

Form Drawing Class

These images are from my form drawing class with Vanessa Lemen. Starting from the first week to the third week, you can see a major difference in skill. I just wish I could be around to take the other five weeks.

2nd to go...

Ok so now that Eddie's picture is done, I can move on to this experiment. I decided to make this more of a supernatural/halloweeny theme and turn the space ship into the moon. I added a mummy in the foreground to give it some compositional structure as well as better intensity.

Before

After

Now I'm having problems with the left arm at it's insertion at the shoulder. the bicep is crooked and I'm not really sure how to fix this... I still need to add a face and render out the details but once all the problems are solved I can kick this one out the door in no time. I think I'm going to take a break from it for a little bit though to work on the third illustration, just to have fresh eyes later.

One Down...

And I'm calling it finished.... 2 more to go.

Madness

Ok... So after a long day of video games and movies, I jumped onto Photoshop CS4 for the first time to start working on Eddie a bit more. Here's the current progress.... I'm deeply amazed with the outcome so far, and the way I'm seeing the strokes stack upon one another. This has been a huge problem solving challenge.

Before

After

Notice the corrections to proportion and relationships. Thanks to Ron and Vanessa, I'm starting to see these relationships and patterns better, and it's making it easier to see the process from stage to stage.

Painting Breakthrough

I was working on this image and started playing around with my brushes. I realized with great glee that the brush I had created for hair worked better as an oil painting brush. Here is the result of just using it to paint the forms.