Venice Grind

Through September my artwork will be featured at a cafe called Venice Grind, located at 12224 Venice Blvd, near Centinella. I'll be putting up some old stuff, some new stuff, and some stuff that was old, but that has been worked on since the last time it was displayed:

Jim

Here is a portrait of I did a few years ago. I worked with Jim for the entire seven odd years I worked at Barnes & Noble. He was hilariously honest, knew a ton about art, smoked like a chimney, and kept M&Ms in his shirt pocket at all times. I heard that he recently passed away, and thought I should post his portrait. Goodbye, Jim.

AFK

The last month and a half appears to have snuck by me in my recent bout of activity. As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up a job doing illustration work for a facebook game. I have also picked up a couple other jobs, one for a fair-trade raw food company, and another for a local cat toy factory.

Unfortunately, this has not left me with much time to put towards personal projects, like many of the pieces featured on this blog. Both long-term projects will have to be put on hold, but I can still sneak in an hour here and there to work on short term proj-- Blah blah blah, I'm busy, you get the point.

So here is my latest project, a shot at character concept art for an air pirate.

D&D Pin Up Contest

My latest contest entry on ArtOrder, for a pin up of one of the playable races from Dungeons and Dragons. It's a half elven woman on an owlbear-skin rug. In order to make it look like a pin up, I softened almost all the edges, and made the entire composition about displaying the figure's anatomy. I'm really proud of the hands in this piece.



Exorcists vs. Demons


On a side note, I recently have started illustrating for an upcoming installment of a facebook game called Exorcists vs. Demons. I can't show any of the work at the moment, but go play this very fun and addicting game and eventually all will be revealed!

Process, Pt 2

Welcome to the second installment of my ongoing series about process; a step-by-step walkthrough for illustration.

Step Three: From Thumb to Rough

Now we have twenty-five compositions, but only one will survive. The first step in choosing the best thumbnail is easy: many of the thumbs will be boring, awkward, or just won't read. Pay attention to the overall shapes present in the composition, where dark shapes are on a light background, and vice versa. You should be able to identify the subject even at this stage.




The second step is to take the search for readability up a notch. Which compositions tell more about the subject than what it physically is? Which ones convey the subject's origins, emotions, and purpose? In this example, I'm looking for compositions that tell the viewer how the hippo rider operates as a powerful, amphibious soldier.




The third thing I look for is a bit harder to describe, and I believe it is something that comes with a lot of experience in looking, or being a visually oriented person. Sunlight shining through leaves and spiderwebs, the reflected light on the underside of a cloud at sunset, the rough textures of concrete under a streetlamp, a backlit figure on a hillside: some things grab the eye and hold onto it. Just like the sublime feeling that comes with listening to particularly good music while drunk, sometimes perception overrides the stream of consciousness, and allows us to just experience the outside world without the internal monologue. The greatest paintings have a certain charisma that draws attention to them and conveys drama. It could be the violence of the moment, the glory of the light, or the harmony of the tones and colors. Something stands out about these pieces, and it can start as far back as the thumbnail sketch. Certain thumbs will pop out at you, and you won't be able to explain why they are better than the others, other than that they are more evocative.

After narrowing down my choices, I am left with three thumbs, each with different elements that I like. Moving counter-clockwise from top left, I like the first for its drama and the how it seems to convey the power of the hippo, I like the second because the rider is clearly shown, while sending the eye back to the hippo with the line from the bow's arrow to the hippo's face, and the third conveys the purpose of the hippo riders as amphibious cavalry. The fourth, at top right, is a new thumb that I drew based on the other three, that will be the foundation for my rough sketch.




When handling a rough sketch I try to retain the loose sense of experimentation that I talked about in Pt 1 when handling thumbnail sketches. At this stage I have a general idea of the finished piece, but elements can be easily adjusted before they are defined. Now is not the time to add details, it is the time to define the major elements of the piece, to make sure that they work together to define each other.




Try to make sure that overlapping forms are clearly one in front of the other. Putting something in the foreground barely touching something behind it takes away the sense of depth. Also look out for lines that confuse the form rather than defining it. Sometimes lines from one object may look like the continuation of the lines from another, and both objects lose clarity. Hold the image up to a mirror, or if you're working digitally, flip it accordingly, to make sure that everything still looks good. Our brains do strange things, and the mirror quickly points out to us where a shape is wonky or a curve is weird.

In the next installment, I'll talk about arranging tones and moving into the final drawing.