warm up still life

about 10 minutes...then the urge to drink my coffee became too strong :)

Poster for "Illustrating the Commentary"

Ok, I got annoyed at those "Make art, not war" shirts, so I figured I'd return to the source, Sun Tzu...if it's good enough for an ancient Chinese master, should be good enough for everyone, right?

Obviously, done as a Chinese propaganda poster. Photoshop.

Alien Mountain Goat

For the Madrid short story, another of the 3 illustrations in progress. Approx. 45 mins.

Ok, here's the last one before I submit for the anthology.

I have until Friday to fix it for class, but the anthology entry is due now ;) I got some great suggestions, some of them I couldn't implement in the time I have, but I'll keep them in mind for the next painting. It's been a good experience overall, I think it's a bit *too* Impressionist for me to be totally comfortable with it, but the last couple have been a bit too tight, so the pendulum swing is probably a good thing.

the end?

Reaching the kill-point on this one, gotta move on to other illustrations.

another day of work on the Madrid painting...

Got some great advice and help from my friend Simon, and spent most of the day playing with this one.

tightening up Madrid painting

Oh, and working on the spot for the same project:

...and we add colour

Up-rezed to the final size, began resolving colour and forms. Gave a little attention to the helmet.

Probably a bit under 2 more hours spent working

Increased the resolution and began figuring out what things are actually going to look like. The figure and his gear in the FG are still obviously unresolved.

The Madrid, Lost sketches

Thumbnails done, moving on to try some basic lighting and mods to the thumbnail I picked. Still fast, and using the advantages of photoshop to prototype and change things rapidly.

Personal Project - The Madrid, Lost thumbnails

Choosing my long-standing project, "The Madrid, Lost" to use for my final self-generated story for Narrative Illustration. Here are a page of thumbnails...as you can see, I do pretty rough thumbs, but they do help focus my ideas and give me a sense of direction.

Take a Stand for Kids Reading, cont.

This came together relatively quickly this morning, still more to do, but going to take a break for a bit and work on other projects.

Illustrating the Commentary - Take a Stand!

My 3rd assignment for class is to create a spread in which I make an argument for or against something...in my case, "Kids reading books is a good thing." I have several older friends with children that are basically illiterate from not being encouraged to read when they were growing up. I know I'm a bit old-school, there were no XBoxes when I was young, but I read constantly, and it's one of the reasons I have been as successful and happy in life as I have.

Anyway, here are my initial thumbnail drawings and starting quick sketch.

The Princess nears her end.

The Princess comes to life.

And just for fun, checking out the B&W graphic composition.

Princess of Mars

Doing a book cover illustration for Edgar Rice Burroughs' "Princess of Mars"...Here are my first two roughs. Entire project will be in Photoshop.

test...

Based on some presentations I've seen at IlluxCon, I wanted to try to reduce my last Conan painting to 2 colours to see if it's still readable. I'm moderately happy with it :)

Calendar project

Here are the 5 watercolour paintings from my Editorial Assignment. They are all 12"x12" on cold press illustration board.

Final inspiration piece.

Assignment for my "Illustrating the Commentary" class, based on a quote from "Joe vs. the Volcano"

"My father says that almost the whole world is asleep. Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to. He says that only a few people are awake, and they live in a state of constant, total amazement."

2 more quick Conan updates.

Based on crits from yesterday, I removed the torch and played with the contrast a bit...which required some more webs to balance things out. Also touched up the ruby and his hand. Should be one more update - it's due tomorrow.

Conan today

First I fixed the anatomy a bit, based on a reference photo I took of myself.

Then I pushed the contrast a lot.

Then I continued to tighten things up more.

Conan progress

Spent a little over 2 hours work on this this morning.

Conan again...

More lighting, fixing anatomy, general rendering.

Conan in process

For my Illustrating the Narrative short story project, I chose "Conan and the Elephant Tower". I'm going to be doing a full page and a spot illustration, but I'm starting on the full page first. Photoshop.

After the initial thumbnail sketch, I began to lay in a bit of texture and lighting.

Commentary progress - next step

This may be the end, depends if I come up with something else cool to do to it before Friday *and* have the time to do it ;)

2nd Commentary Assignment - In Progress

Decided to go with a 3D piece for this one, to break it up a bit.

Ok, unless I see something blatant..

or hear back from someone I trust with suggestions, I think I'm throwing in the towel on this one.

Occupy Wall St. nearing the end?

Ok, I'm getting to where I think this is close - I don't want to over-render it, but I want it to read properly without using a lot of contour lines.

Occupy Wall St. tightening