MOVING TO NEW SITE!

I'm moving my entire website along with my blog. The new blog is

http://www.bfowler.com/wordpress

So, update your feeds and bookmarks. I've also redesigned and upgraded my entire website using Joomla, a content management system. It's very nice and allows me to easily and quickly update my site. It took me over a week to really learn it and then another week to tweak the site until I figured out exactly how I wanted it too look.

The new site won't go up right away but you can get a sneek peek by following the link from the new blog.

Thanks for reading!

The Assassin

Told ya I was working on an oil painting. Well, now it's done and it's on the next one.

I like pirates.

I mean who doesn't like pirate. They're cool and while they may rape and kill and pillage I think most have good heart and will try to help your average helpless cabin boy when he's being unfairly picked on by the rest of the crew. That's just the way pirates are. Good to the animals, just don't come between on and his treasure.

Here is the latest addition to my page of character designs I'm working on. I've very happy with it as I've had a ongoing struggle with wanting a loose more choppy style when still retaining a level of realism. This is getting closer to the style of pictures in my head. It's also the first time I used painter (on top of photoshop) and it not turn out like a polished turd.

The best there is at what he does.

I've been seeing trailers for the new Wolverine movie all over the web so I thought my next oil painting should involve my favorite mutant with a healing factor which in partial thanks to the Weapons X program everybody is getting these days.

Here is a couple of pages from my sketchbook where I filter though my ideas to figure out what I might want to paint. I ended up with Wolverine jumping off a cliff on to the heads of a military group of mutant hunters. It probably very hard to make out in the thumbnails. Seems I'm the only one who can read my own handwriting.

Than I drew a hungry Wolverine and a bunny.

Character Design 12-26-09

I took a small break from the oil painting I'm doing to put some pencil back to paper. Character designs are always fun. I always have this secret fear that if I don't actually draw for a week I'll forget how.

Sketchbook 2-17-09

I try when I can to take some time between the oil paintings I'm working on to do whatever comes to mind in my sketchbook. Here's what dribbling out lately.

Sketchbook 2-13-09

Looking forward to a great year!

2009 is going to be a great year. I don't care what all the talking heads on CNN and Fox News are saying, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Despite the economy, which does suck, and is having an effect on just about everyone, myself included, my ambition and attitude about my work has never been stronger. Necessity is the muther and I do mean "muther" of invention and a little financial incentive is going a long way.

Towards that end I've been working my butt off and very soon I'm going to be showcasing some brand new stuff. My best work yet. I've realized a number of things about myself and the way I work and so I've changed some of my process and habits. Things like proper reference, strong initial drawings, and all around more attention to all aspects of my prep work. Many things I skipped because I just couldn't wait to get to painting.

All good improvements.

So, here's to 2009.

On my easel.

Beginnings of my next paintings.

Messing around with Acrylics

Broke out the paints in my sketchbook the other day. Here are the results.

Gregory Manchess Study

One of the best ways to improve your artwork is to copy somebody else's work. I'm not talking the swipe of the week here or trying to pass off an entire issue of an Adam Hughes Gen13 as your own work. I'm talking about learning from masters.

I've found that one of the biggest weaknesses in my work that the lack of life. To that end I've been working on getting some life into my brush strokes. One of my favorite artist that does that well is Gregory Manchess. I'm hoping that by coping some of his painting that I'll gain an understanding of his work and better be able to apply certain aspects to my own work.

Here is the first one. I'm working from a copy of one of his oil paintings (left) and painting digitally with photoshop.

What I learned!

First, this guy is incredible talented. The first thing I found was how much easier the painting is if I take some time and do a pretty tight drawing to build my painting from.

There is a lot of be desired digitally when it comes to "touch" with a brush. In real life you don't realize how much control and variation you have using your mitts. A slight roll of the brush or a dab, dab to very lightly blend something is much harder digitally than with traditional oil. Manchess has finesse galore in the handling of his brush and I felt I had to be more bold and confident to get a semblance of his work. I did almost no blending of one color into the next, instead I let a layering of similar values make transitions. I love the look of this and will think twice in my work when I want to gradate one color to another.

I also learned to be more economical with my strokes. I tried to be less pit, pit, pit, smear, pit, smear and more BAM, BAM, BAM.

Value/color is a big deal painting like this because you need to get that right when you put down your stroke. There's not a lot of room for messing around with paint after you put it down because the life of that stroke will be diminished. So, I didn't do any glazing type things like painting over with my brush on 10% to smooth out things or alter their color. You can see how I missed the color/value in the purples around the check bone that transition into the hightlight. Mine are much too brown and over all it's too anagolous in color.

That is it for my first study. I'm hoping that by explaining all this in a post my ideas will be clearer to myself and I'll retain more of what I'm trying to learn. Hopefully, you've gotten something out of it too.

A couple of faces from my head or rather my sketchbook, eh. For some reason I love the bottom one. It may be the best face I've ever drawn. It was one of those I'm in the zone, loose, and boom, boom, done. Nice.

Drawing Session # 124

Another image from a night out drawing with a friend and fellow artist, Jason McLellan. Check out his website at www.headstatic.com to see some of his fantastic art.

I've always been a little leery of drawing Batman because of his damn mask. That thing is very easy to draw badly. That not withstanding I'm somewhat happy with what came out here.

All in the hands.

The reference is from George Bridgeman. I saw a post of an artist I admire though I can't remember who. Anyway, he said that to really know something draw it 18 times. That has a ring of truth to it. Repetition can help you understand a subject and the form it takes to draw it. After that though you still have to be fluid and flexible enough to keep the life in your drawing and not just put down the exact same lines in a pattern. We want lively happy lines, not boring dead lines.

Awesome Storm Justice #40 page 1.

I'm doing the pencils for a 6 page episode (#40) of Awesome Storm Justice, a community art project over at PencilJack.com and Uggabugga.net. It's a lot of fun and I got the ok to post my pencils as I go so check back every week to see the new pages and I'll let everyone know when the entire thing is finished. Go to Uggabuggy.net to check out previous episodes.