Busy Busy Busy...

Wow, I have been very busy with work school and the holidays, and as a result I have not posted much here. I will be changing that pretty soon. I have some stuff that was posted on my DeviantArt site that I will be removing to post here, in addition to some newer stuff.

I need to get some better photographs of some of my art before I post, but it has been snowing and cold outside and so I have not been outside to get any decent shots (for the natural lighting).

Anyway, look for some new updates soon!

First Man on the Moon

This was a school project for my Digital Painting class. The project was to combine two (or more) mediums together and make them seem like they all fit together. So, in this picture I painted the background (the earth, moon, and space) using acrylic paints on Illustration Board. I then scanned that image into PhotoShop and digitally painted the ladder and the Astronaut.

The entire image, from start to finish was about 15 hours, if you include all the time I spent locating reference images, thumbnails, roughs, and the final painting. I think the most difficult part was finding good space suit pictures from multiple angles.

Anyway, I think that it worked out and everything came together nicely in the end.

Gamer's Widow

This was done as gift art for a person who plays City of Heroes. This is their character, Gamer's Widow.

Freddy and Amphora

This is one of the projects that I was working on that I mentioned in one of my other posts. I finally finished it, yippee!!!

This project took me a while longer to complete than most of my other pieces because I ended up having to do quite a bit of research for it. I ended up studying lots of underwater images of people and animals, trying to get a feel for how the water affected the colors and how light refracted and broke apart. I am not certain I got everything correct, but overall I think the illusion worked well enough.

The image is dark because the scene is taking place at night, underwater, during a storm. I tried to include enough light so that it was easy to see what is happening, but still trying to leave enough in darkness to complete the feel I was going for.

This painting was inspired by a short story that was written for me. The main character is Freddy Sunshine (a Hero from the City of Heroes game that I created). He was on a boat out in the water when a huge storm hit and he was capsized. Amphora is a priestess of some underwater goddes who saves Freddy and grants some of her powers to him. Anyway, the full story explains it all in more detail. My short descriptions does not give it justice. Anyway, while reading the story I had this image come to mind and so I just had to paint it.

PhotoShop CS2 and Wacom Tablet. Not including any of the research, this took about 16 or 17 hours. With research, it was closer to 20.

I am now working on some other projects. I am going to try and finish a piece based on the Legend of Sleepy Hollow before Halloween. And my firend wants me to do a painting of one of his CoH characters after he hits level 50. Then I have a person that I am going to do a Volleyball painting for, and finally I was commissioned to do an Acrylic painting of a dog (that needs to be completed before Christmas). So, I am pretty dang busy with stuff, and this doesn't even include any of my school projects.

Sassy and Rad

Well, I think this image will just about end my ramp up to commissions. I think this has shown me that I can accomplish what I need to in an amount of time that will be both convinient and allow me to keep my costs low enough to hopefully get people to commission me.

This image was done in about 2.5 to 3 hours. I used no referrence during the actual design and placement, but I had seen an image previously that I was trying to emulate (but I could never find the actual image to use for reference). I know that there are some flaws with the anatomy, and that I need to clean up my colors a bit more around the edges, but overall I think this is a pretty good piece. Also, since this was a freebie and that I wanted to finish it in one evening, I had to cut some corners to get it posted before it got too late.

Now to decide on pricing...

Nurse White

This is a digital painting I did of another City of Heroes Character. The person specifically asked for a similar pose and wanted it to be playful and sexy. Anyway, I tried to capture those qualities in the image.

The painting was done in PhotoShop CS2 using a Wacom tablet. It took about 2.5 hours to complete.

This image, like the one below, was done mainly for the pupose of trying to decide how long an average piece will take to complete. I am trying to get a feel for time so I can start devising a payment schedule for doing commissions. I don't want to charge so much that people will not want to commission me, but I don't want to charge so little that I don't feel the price is worth my time. And so, by knowing what I can do given a certain amount of time I am better able to compile a price list for different projects.

Anyway, I think I my style lends it's self nicely to comic characters since I seem to have a more cartoonish style when I am working fast and from memory. Anyway, here is to hoping that I am able to make some extra cash on the side doing commissions...

Demon on a Rock

Well, I got bored the other night and decided to have some fun with my Wacom tablet and this was the result. A lot of it is based heavily on options available for characters in the City of Heroes game. Like many of my drawings, this idea (the one of a demon type character standing on a rock with flames behind him) has been running through my head just waiting for me to draw or paint it.

This piece took me about two hours to complete. I spent about 30 minutes on the actual sketch and then about an hour and a hlaf painting it. I was not trying for perfection with this, but rather I was trying to gague what I was able to do in a limited amount of time. This had it's roots in my 30 minute sketches, but trying to take it up a notch. I wanted to work fast, have fun, and get a decent, semi completed look to it. I think it was successful on all accounts and I am very happy with the results.

I did not use any referrences for this, but rather tried to just make it up as I went along.

PhotoShop CS2 and a Wacom tablet.

30 Minute Quick Sketches

In an attempt to try and work on my figure structure and gesture drawing I decided to try a new approach. This is what I call the "30 Minute Quick Sketch". The five drawings above were all drawn and colored in about 30 minutes.

My goal with this exercide was to visualize a pose for thses characters and then draw it quickly and with very little care for fine detail or extras. I was specifically looking for dynamic poses that worked well with the individual character. I felt that this would help me visualize the pose and be better able to draw it.

So far I have really like the results. I have made some glaring errors in some of the anatomy, but overall I feel that it helping me to better understand the character's structure. As I get time, here and there, I figure that I will continue to do these. They are fun for me, and it seems that people always like to get free drawings of their characters.

All the characters above are from the game City of Heroes, and so I do not own any rights to them. All rights belong their respective owners. All the drawings were done using Adobe PhotoShop CS2 and a Wacom Intuos3 Tablet.

Tundara - Art Trade

I did an art trade with a person on the City of Heroes forums. I offered to draw a picture of their character and they offered to write a short story about one of mine. Anyway, the image above was my half of the art trade. This is her character, Tundara.

This was done entierly in Adobe Illustrator CS2. It was drawn with only a mouse. I have trouble using Illustrator and a tablet. My goal here was to create an image that had no gradiants but still had a sort of cell shaded look. I am actually very happy with this piece.

Self Portrait - School Project

Well, school is back in and I have decided to take a Digital Painting class. I felt that this would help me round out my abilities and help me improve in some areas I need help in. As the first project we were asked to do a self portrait. Part of the assignment was to somehow mix our image with something that we really like, enjoy, or that makes us, us. I chose the beach as my subject, since I love the beach, and tried to add my face into the clouds.

I think the attempt so far works pretty well. I still want to make some changes based on feedback received from my teacher, and so this piece is still a work in progress.

So far I have spent around 8 hours working on it. It was done using PhotoShop CS2 and a Wacom Tablet. The reference photo was taken by myself using a Olympus Digital camera, but there was no tracing of the photo. I only used the photo as a referrence and painted the image while looking at it.

I have also been working on some other stuff that I may be posting pretty soon. I have a digital painting that I am working on (not school related) that is based off a story that a person wrote for me. As I get closer to completing it I will post it. I have also been drawing people's characetrs from the game City of Heroes because it is good practice for my figure structure class. One of my new ideas to help me get better is what I call a 30 minute sketch. I will post more on this later, with images that I have done.

So, even though I have not been posting much recently I have been busy with projects, probably not as many as I would like, but I keep letting other stuff get in the way...