Moleskine

Getting into a habit of sketching and then painting those sketches at a later date in my moleskine watercolor book.

Warm-up!

Warm-up sketches are really valuable. Exploring colors and designs that you rarely use in your more finished work is a lot of fun, and really important to an artist's development.

Tank City

This image comes from a love of the art of Japanese artists Otomo Katsuhiro, Hayao Miyazaki, and Australian illustrator Shaun Tan. There is a story to this, but I want to save it for when I can actually do something with this idea.

X-Mullets

Here is the next super hero, going along with my friends from SCAD. The category is X-men with mullets. I know Wolverine doesn't have a mullet, but I couldn't help it. And once you draw a mullet on a guy, you have to make him have really weird proportions and then have him stand around with a jug of moonshine near a broken down old truck with dogs on a hot day.... right?

I started with a Col-erase pencil, then inked it with a pigment liner, then used gouache on it, all on a smooth finish bristol board. Slight touch ups with the always handy colored pencil.

A Green Lantern

Maybe a little bit of a boring pose, but I'm just getting warmed up. It's been a long time since I've drawn comic book characters. I guess I'm more interested in colors and form right now than pose.... looking forward to the next one!

Gouache and Lattes

I've been bringing my pallette with three colors (ult. blue, some cheap yellow, and alizarin crimson) and white to some of the local cafes to paint in my sketchbook. I used the leftover red to make the second image, no plan, just makin' shapes. Then used my colored pencils to tighten things up and make some stuff. Yay for sketching. Definitely not acurate values and such, and I know theres a lot to improve on for color variation and depth, bla bla bla... I'm still getting used to this medium and for maybe 20 minutes, I can't complain.




Here is a colored pencil sketch I did from people I saw in Starbucks, minus the naked guy.

Sketches from a nomadic life.

I haven't updated my sketchbook in a long time, so here goes. These sketches are from the past 8 months, from the time I moved from Chicago to LA, back home to "near Seattle", and finally to Boston for my new job. Life is crazy.

Just when you think you are achieving your goals, you find out that what you want to do and what you are made to do are two different things. Thankfully, I have the artist part right, but as for what kind of artist.... that is to be decided.

We're all just spinning solar systems slowly forming as time wears on.

Update!

I started a new job at Rockstar New England and have not been able to update. So please enjoy a little warm-up sketch. It's a lil' rough, but u get the idea.

I'll post a bunch of sketchbook pages soon!

Castle WIP

A little work in progress, inspired by landscape artist Albert Bierstadt. And also, since I've been back in Washington, I've noticed the beauty of sunsets on cloudy days. Just before sunset the sun peaks through the clouds, just above the horizon for a few minutes, creating an amazing view of the landscape and clouds being lit up by the sun. It almost makes it worth living your days under the gloom of clouds 24/7.... almost.

Land Bat

Another piece for the portfolio, using Photoshop and alias sketchbook pro to get this to it's final stage.

Here is my initial description:
Land Bats. Millions of years of evolution have resulted in a land-based bat. It's wings have shrunk and transformed into giant daggers, made of keratin. It is now over 10 feet tall and has no natural predators. It dices it's prey into small pieces so it can manage to fit them in its tiny mouth.

Zombie Love and more

Land Bat (Gray Scale)

I think it's pretty done in the gray scale painting. I'm going to try some color variations and see where it goes. Might possibly alter the design based on experimenting in color. Should be fun.

Land of Giants WIP

This is a fairly quick color sketch I was working on while on the phone. I started refining some parts already. I hope this is the first of more to come. I might try adjusting the aspect ratio of the format when all is said and done.

Sketchin'

Been looking at some Sebastian Kruger. I love his work.

This is just messing around with value and warm tones. I'm starting to just experiment with color schemes. Can't be too worried about making mistakes now.

Monsters go "RAWR!"

Here is my first attempt at a fully painted made up illustration, without line art. It took me longer than I normally would take, but it was more of a learning tool than anything. Things will speed up as I get used to working in color, with rendering.

Application!

This is an illustration I'm working on. I designed a monster and a character to do battle in an erie jungle cave setting at night under a full moon. It's probably going to be the most rendered thing I've ever worked on but I'm learning a lot about value and just taking my time creating accurate lighting and color with make believe characters.

It's still in progress, so I imagine the final will be quite different when all is said and done.

Experiments

Part of the reason why I love figure painting is so that I can have an excuse to just mess around and experiment, no pressure to make it good, just let things happen, good, bad, and ugly.

Every session I usually start out by making a really crappy first image during the short poses. And then do something slightly more confident, and continue until the final, which is usually an hour or more.

Here is my progress.





Whether the final outcome was something that improved upon the others is still up in the air. I personally like the energy and the lost and found quality of the short poses. I guess that is a part of it too, learning to keep that sort of rushed energy, but learning how to control it.

Figure Painting

All gouache, water color underpainting. Definitely a challenging medium, but fun to use. I think we are becoming friends.

Land Bats (WIP)

Cursed Land Bats. Millions of years of evolution have resulted in a land-based bat. It's wings have shrunk and transformed into giant daggers, made of keratin. It is now over 10 feet tall. ( in the final version I will draw a little dude in there to show you the scale) and has no natural predators. It dices it's prey into small pieces so it can manage to fit them in its tiny mouth.

Bigfoot, Ninja Robot, and some guy

These are some very quick prelim sketches for what I hope to finish very soon. Well, at least the first two.

Random Art Makings

An in progress painting. Watercolor over pencil, soon to be layered in gouache.