castle_chars02 & 3...

quick update on a few the characters from something I'm working on.

landscape

I spent longer than I intended but it was fun. It all started out as a quick sketch, then I got involved in trying different techniques for painting clouds. (yes I have custom cloud brushes) but when I do quick sketches I try and keep it down to a the default round brush and another where the roundness is adjusted to about 15%. Anyway I ended up screwing around in photoshop for the most part then I went in to painter to work a little more uhh "painterly"... Mostly sticking with Oils, a dry palette knife and a pen.

Some sorta dinosaur... Quick sketch,


and a duck.

Did this in my sketchbook on the way to the beach

I have a soft spot for oil spills in the garage, no they aren't ideal but there are some interesting shapes which, when your just messing around, make for some potentially interesting things.

greenland (not the country).

Twas my daughters birthday today so I didn't get much time to do anything creative and at this point... Well I'm spent. My goal however is to post something every day. Ideally it's a quick sketch followed by something else. That didn't happen so I went back and found something I started.. (there are lots of those apparently). Liked the initial direction and figure I'll post it to keep with at least my minimum "post 1 piece a day". it started in photoshop with some standard brushes then I used some custom ones. Not sure if you can see the rock texture on the fg elements but they do exist.

this is going to take a while... What started out as guache, & india ink is turning into something I'm pretty stoked about

Some characters I'm in the process of painting for the castle scene. It ended up being too big to work with by itself so I am breaking it down into different pieces which I'll later add into the final.

castleish

Something from today... Elements were for a project I started earlier on but it went nowhere... I ended up combining the reworking the scene and voila! It is cropped, but I have big plans for those other pixels, big plans indeed.

Stopped the high resolution render for a lower rez version. Only to discover I'm not nearly as happy as I thought I would be. Oh well back to the drawing board...

toad part 3...

Worked on the toad a bit more today and and so far I'm liking it good enough. Of course, it's not as painterly as the earlier version but more accurate in terms of his perspective wise which is nice. (yeah I kinda botched that one in the drawing) no biggie it was all I needed to move on to the next phase. The render is working it's proc's off now, apparently another 23 minutes so I doubt I'll be able to show it tonight. In the meantime here's a painting I did for a book cover as I was working through some roughs. The ol' 3d & "traditional" photoshop paint over.

monday... toad continued

I kind of liked the toad idea... So I thought I'd take it a bit further. Here's it's current state Still basic but the modeling is finished at least.

a quick sketch from this evening.

quickie... the partial toad human

started as a warm-up  sketch from scratch this time... It's rough (as most of what's here is) but that's sort of the point of me doing this. Post work, don't censor and have fun. Even if it's awful. here are the results of 20-30 minutes of work.  

ship concept.

Here's something I worked on a short while back... 

It's a concept for an organic space ship. I started in guache & india ink then combined the results in photoshop. I also used photo reference of our thanksgiving turkey dinner. (specifically the turkey for some of it's textures.).  

My wife says it looks a bit like a turd. Thanks honey... 

I say a 1km turd coming at you from space is going to be intimidating no matter how you view it. 

Here's a version after I messed with it a bit. 

Ok so maybe it wasn't the most productive of days... I guess that happens sometimes. Well, Here's a bird.

quick sketch of a landscape.

palos

warm up sketch. Started out as 15-30 minute thing but went a bit longer. Referencing a photo I took whilst standing atop a hill somewhere in Palos Verdes.

refined some of the detail whilst watching "The Office" it was a repeat... It's missing the inner mouth workings though I was planning on painting that stuff anyway.

teethy

Didn't get as far as I had hoped today but the basics are in place... Now I just have to finish it. 

forest through the trees... and somesorta cave

This mornings warmup started as a means to capture last nights storm. It crazy... Thunder so loud it shook the house. I don't think I captured that very well, but it wanted to be something different.

and then there's this cave.

V

Got the inspiration from a dead frog I took photos of the other day. No it didn't speak to me literally but I could get close enough to take some non-blurred macro shots. the result? Not sure but it reminded me of the show, V "the final battle"

warmup2

warming up... sketch... Photo reference of what I consider to be my backyard.

a quick warm up sketch. Typically I dabble for a few minutes without much purpose. Dave showed me some of his warm up sketches and I was impressed to say the least. That said I thought I might benefit from the same sort of warm up techniques... With some sorta purpose. Here's my first, referencing a photo of a crescent beach in Florida as viewed through my sunglasses.  

Home at last!!!

Finally home from what I can honestly say was the best work experience I've ever had. A special thanks to Dave, Eric and the N2050 crew (Anita, Gabriel, Geronimo, Mike, Michael & Rick... ). I'd be remiss if I didn't mention my leads and sup Mathew, Joeseph, Scott, Allen and Darren. So many people to thank for both their patience and support but a few stood out since I worked with them more, oh right, Mr. John Grot as well.

My kids (aged 1, 3 and 5.)  have grown in both attitude and height but it was a joy to see them nonetheless.  So happy to be at home though I'll miss the days of stereoscopic comping. I showed up on the day of my sons first birthday (the 5th of June) and today my 2 girls (Aniyah and Mara) drew a sweet card for me.