The Color of Shadow

I'm back in Washington for the time being, waiting on starting my next job. So I'm attending the open model sessions at the local community college. I'm trying to work mainly in gouache, but lately I've been enjoying charcoal again.

I enjoy how each lifedrawing experience offers a unique set of problems. This time the light was positioned behind the model, so it created very strong shadows near the model's head. Trying to capture the temperature of the shadow and just how many colors there actually were was very difficult for me at this point, but such a great exercise. Shadows have so much richness and subtlety to them, but it's hard to see it all sometimes, because you just tend to overlook them and focus on the contrast of light and dark.

Lots of Nudey Drawings

The paintings were done at Blur Studios' (www.blur.com) open model sessions and the charcoal studies were done at a workshop taught by Concept Design Academy founder Kevin Chen. All were incredibly valuable. Gotta love that there are so many ways to making images of people.

Lifepainting

I used gouache exclusively for this and I must say, even though it takes some getting used to, I really like this stuff. I think I'm going to start using it exclusively for lifedrawing from now on. I wish I could take it with me everywhere I go, but it's ok. Right now I'm trying to get experience working with color, the more I familiarize myself with it, the better. She's not as an elusive mistress as I once thought, thankfully.

Wolverine

Trying to capture energy in a pose is very difficult. It's a great challenge to try and be anatomically correct and have an incredible amount of energy. Over rendering kills a lot of energy... it's interesting to see the expressive strokes mixed with a more tightly rendered face... it almost lends itself to be the focal point because there are more details to look at. The rest of the image almost vibrates. Could be something useful to think about for the future.

Going with the Flow

I moved to Venice, CA a few weeks ago and it's great. The goal is to work at a game or animation studio creating concept art and storyboards. The weather is fantastic out here, very good for the soul.

Voltron Covers

These are for the covers of Voltron #1 Convention Special and Voltron #4. The one with Voltron was much more planned out and took the most time. #4 was done much more quickly and without a plan, I enjoyed experimenting with the textures to create a feeling of energy.

BirdMan Concept

New Sketches

An Exercise in Texture and Silhouette

This is a year and a half old pencil drawing colored recently in Photoshop.

Grape Ola

I think I got a little carried away with the striping. I'm like a kid playing with his dad's gun.

I've been flirting with design, shape, and color in hopes that we can get some action and see if any sort of relationship can come out of it.

This is all watercolor with a bit of gouache every now and then... just a wee bit. I have bunch of gouache that I'm still holding off on messing around with. But I'm sure I'll be looking into now that I have my fancy shmancy Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.

I've been realizing a few things about making art and maybe life in general. The more care I put into something, the more I build it up in my mind, the more difficult that very thing becomes and the higher chance that I'll screw it all up. But when I just relax, have fun, and don't think about the outcome then good things happen. I guess that's something I'm having to learn little by little in what I do and how I live.

Woo Paintin's!

Feels good to make some paintings.

Watercolor w/ gouache finishes.
A drawing done on location at the Trevi Fountain in Rome, painted very roughly. Watercolor n/ gouache

Voltron Preview

That last panel is of the ship warping into space.... can't wait to see this colored.

Giant Walking Stick, etc.

This is a giant walking stick, it has a little village on its back.

The other images are for a concept art test.

The last one was drawn by Tim Seeley, colored by me for a movie.

Cartoons! Cartoons!

Just messing around with a different style... me likes.

Finally, an Update

It's been awhile, but I finally made something that wasn't work related and was really just a quick, just for fun, piece of art. It's been awhile since I made anything for fun, so this was a pleasant experience. I may go back in and touch things up with colored pencil, but for now it's just good ol' watercolor over a loose pencil sketch.

I'm not sure exactly what the picture is about, but I'm sure my subconscious knows.