The Hulk is King!

I found a sketch I did at the Hero's convention last year that I never finished. I did it as a warm up to a huge poster size painting I did for the art auction they do every year to raise money for the con. I fixed it up and rendered it out.

The Elf Prayer

I went back and did some more work on this making my brushstrokes more pronounced and fixing some anatomy error mainly around the neck area.

Well, after hours of hard work this bad boy is finally finished. I spent a great deal of time trying to make this as polished a piece as possible but without that slick digital feel. I'm really, really happy with how the face came out. I've also put together a little how I did it piece. For those interested I did this completely in photoshop except for the initial sketch which is a scanned pencil drawing. Most of the painting is just the standard hard round brush with the opacity set to pressure. I did use a few other texture brushes in select spots. Now, it's on to my next project.

More Sketchbook.

Sorry to have been away so long but last week I was on vacation and boy did I need it. Anyway, I'm getting back up to speed. Here's a little peek inside my sketchbook this week. I've also turned the Elf Sketch below into a digital painting and it's almost done. More on that later.

Fantasy sketch.

Not sure where this came from but it was fun.

Rest of the Best

Here are the last few images from Mark Charke's Chronomancer RPG. I hope you like em.

I missed the update yesterday so you get two today. More of the RPG work I've been doing lately. A friend asked me the other day how I've been able to do so much work lately and I've got an easy answer. I've been getting paid. Yes, all the rumors you've heard about money being a good motivator are true.

Queen Isabella

Ohhh, look at the pretty lights.

Here is the second illustration from Mark Charke's Chronomacer RPG of the eight I did.

Some Published Work

I've just finished some work on Mark Charke's RPG entitled Chronomancer, Time Travel for Everyone. I did a number of pieces and I'm going to post one of them a day for the next 8 days. Hopefully, people will come back over and over. (I can dream, right?) Anyway, Mark was fantastic to work with and I had a ton of fun doing these. Run out and buy his RPG today.

The piece below is probably my favorite of all the work I did for him. All the pieces were done in photoshop with a little big of painter mixed in on a few. The idea was for each illustrations to reflect a certain time period.

"The Dragon's Ruby"

Another personal piece. I ended up learning a lot on this piece and doing a few things I haven't done in the past. First, I paid much more attention to my edges, focusing on crisp sharp edges in my foreground, especially where I wanted to focus my viewer's eyes. In contrast I used a lot of similar values in the background without very many sharp edges. Many artists try to take a shortcut and just make it blurry trying to reproduce what the human eye does but I've found using value and edge control does a much better job without the distraction of something being fuzzy.

I also used a little technique where I paint 95% of the image in grayed out neutral colors but in key areas I pop a local value. The local value is the true value of an object unaffected by surrounding light. Since this turns out to be a color of much higher saturation it works well to add volume to things as well as pop the color. You might notice it a bit on the dwarf's face and the green of his shirt around his shoulders. You have to be careful where you place them though. Local color usually only shows up right where your shadow and halftone meet.

I hoped I haven't bored anyone with my ideas here but I think an artist should never stop learning and I find that by explaining some of the methods behind the choices I make I cement the techniques and ideas more firmly in my brain.

Hulk.

My favorite Marvel character has always been the Hulk. I loved the old television show and watched it all the time as a kid. Like many people I wasn't blown away with Ang Lee's movie version but last night I purchased the DVD to the latest incarnation. I saw it twice in theaters and it was just as much fun watching it at home. My favorite Hulk is the more Ape like versions but I do love the realistic and gritty tone the movie took and there was plenty of smashing so I loved it. Anyway, even when watching movies I love I have a hard time putting down the pencil so I did some Hulk sketching as well as watching.

Just Run!

I watch a lot of movies. After seeing Quarantine last week I got into a zombie like drawing phase. I'd planned to really push the realistic rendering on this one but the cheap paper in my sketchbook started to tear so i stopped here. I may do another one on better paper (some heavyweight bristol board) and maybe even brake out the charcoal. Nothing beats the value scale in charcoal.

Sketchbook

Sketchbook has been getting a workout lately. I've recently switched to a different sketchbook. I use to use a pad of 9x12 bristol board but I just wasn't comfortable with it. So my present one is a 6x9 bound book with really, really crappy paper. I just like the way I can hold it up in one hand and sketch with the other.

I just posted this on my website but I figured it wouldn't hurt to cross promote. I have no idea how many people see my blog but don't visit the website. This is all photoshop and part of a submission package I'm sending to a large variety of companies that may have need of sci-fi or fantasy illustrations. Hope you enjoy it.

Creature Feature

Today is a little monster from my head. Just off the cuff, drawing and painting whatever popped into my mind.

Superman Sketches

I've always had a problem drawing Superman the way I see him in my head. So I took so time an did some reference to who I think of when I think of Superman and that would be actor, Gregory Peck.

Speedpaint 33

Speedpaint 9-18-08

A couple more speedpaints.

Daily Speedpaints.

I'm doing more and more work digitally. Usually a combination of Photoshop and Painter. Sometimes just Photoshop. For over a month now I've been doing a speedpaint a day. A speedpaint is just a quick painting in a short amount of time, say 30 minutes to an hour, which is usually how long I take. It's more of an exercise to work on your speed and decision making process in making a piece of art. I have a tendency to to hesitate and ponder and ponder and ponder what I want my next stroke to be instead of just doing it.

Anyway, I'm going to start posting a few of these from time to time. Some turn our really nice, others my mother wouldn't even love.

Sketchbook Pages!

I've added a new feature here on my blog. I've decided to start posting some of the pages out of my sketchbook. So I hope you enjoy.

Batman in the Rain

I watched the new animated Batman: Gotham Knights movie last night with a friend. It's a collection of animated shorts that tie together. They were ok with the exception of one called, "Working through the Pain" which was fantastic. One of the best Batman pieces I've every seen. The animation was wonderful to boot. So between that and the movie coming out soon I did this little sketch.

Spider-Man Painting Process

I always do a few thumbnails to work out what I might what to draw. In this case I went with the first one because I liked the composition and I happened to have some really good reference for the anatomy.


Doing color studies is something that I've just recently started doing. It helps to nail down what your palette is going to be. There is a lot of harmony and balance that goes into color and it's not something you should just makeup as you go along. In this case though I ended up altering my background colors quite a bit. Never get married to one idea. If something isn't working, throw it away and find what does. This probably happened because I didn't take enough time and due multiple colors roughs. I tend to be a go with my first idea kind of guy and it continually bites me in the butt.

Here are the pencils. I changed the way I work with this piece. I usually mount a copy of the image onto illustration board but this time I draw right on my gessoed board. It doesn't erase very well so you have to know what you're drawing pretty well before putting it down. I could have drawn it out and used transfer paper but I don't like to take the proper time to do something right because I'm in a rush to get to painting. Again, you shouldn't do this as it'll bite you in the butt. Luckily, I got away with it here.

After I draw the image in pencil on my 15x20 gessoed illustration board I spray it with spray fixative to seal the pencils so they don't smudge. I think do the bulk of the paint with traditional oil paints. I use synthetic brushes to get a smoother look then you would get with bristle brushes. I usually lay in a brown sienna wash to get rid of all the white. After that dries I lay in my first layer of paint paying special attention to edges and my darks. It's important to get this right at the start as it's harder to change and fix things later on. I let that dry. A note to any oil painter reading this. I use a 50/50 terpanoid/pressed linseed oil medium with a few drops of cobalt dryer. My stuff usually dries overnight, something it might take an extra day depending on what colors I used as different colors have different drying times.

I should have taken some process shots during the painting but I didn't plan on posting this as a process. It just kind of turned out that way. After the painting I use a Nikon D80 camera to take digital photos of my painting. The best way to do this is outside on an overcast day but if that's not an option I've got a lighting setup in my studio. When ever I get some time I'll post an detailed "how to take pictures of my art" post.

After I get the image into photoshop I do quite a bit of tweaking. I saved all of Spidey's webbing on his costume because it's was easier to do digitally and I could play around with how I wanted to do his webbing. I also adjust my levels, contrast, and tweak the colors. After I got all that done I won't happy with how saturated the colors were or how the large yellow abstract spiders in the bottom corner competed with Spidey. The unfinished section at the top didn't turn out like the cool abstract background I was shooting for. I made a layer in photoshop, through some blue in there and changed the mode to "hue" This tied the background together much better. I also zoomed in for the final composition. There was just too much space surrounding spidey and I didn't like it.

In the end I think the final one turned out pretty decent. I just wanted to post this to show how much things changed as you go along in a project. It would help a lot if I took more time in the initial planning stages and I plan to in the future but for my it's a constant war between keeping my interest high while working on the piece and becoming bored because I've make all the decisions and there are not surprises left.

I didn't proof this for grammar or sentence structure so please overlook those faults. English is my first language.

More coffee house drawings...

Another Starbucks session. I really dug how this one came out as this is, stylistically, exactly how I want to draw.

My fellow art studio mate, Jason McLellan, and I get get together weekly at the local Starbucks for small talk a sketchy goodness.

Here's a little bit of my process I go through when I paint. I really wish I'd taken some earlier photos as there is quite a jump from the pencils to the first picture in color. I usually work with reference but not always. (Good luck trying to get me to post that) I'm trying to use reference to get that lifelike quality but not be a slave to it. I don't want just photo reproductions.

I use Rembrandt paints, Utrecht brushes, and for my medium, it's a mix of 1/2 refined linseed oil, 1/2 turpernoid, and a few drop of cobalt dryer so that it dries almost overnight. Some colors take a little longer. One day when I have time I'll do a more in depth tutorial.

Special thanks to artist Dan Dos Santos (although he doesn't know it) for recommendations on supplies and technique. I use many of the same materials that he does though no where near to the level that he does.

These are the pencils to one of my recent oil painting that I plan on submitting to Marvel comics. Check out the final painting image by clicking HERE.

Alwasy eat your veggies & do your figure drawing.

Figure drawing is done best when it's done from life but there are dozens of books on the market of posed figures.

More Linework

Line

I been doing a lot of drawing lately paying attention to how line works. How different directions of line affect a drawing. For instance, a bunch of lines going in all different directions will create a atmosphere like effect. Lines running around the form will re-enforce that form. Think of an arm coming at you in perspective with the shading following the curve of the forearm. I've really picked up a lot of the book by Harold Speed called, "The Science of drawing." Highly recommended and can be had for very cheap on Amazon.com.

Plant the Seed, Watch it Grow

Welcome to the top of the Beanstalk.