Santorini doors

the doors

really great doors on Santorini, wish I had more...

more photos

here's some more

busy busy

If anyone is out there checking in on me, so sorry. Since mid-August I've been working on a major motion picture at Paramount as a costume illustrator. That paired with me and my former fiancee, now wife, planning our wedding for mid-November has congested any possibility for free time. And since starting this movie, any freelance work is done when I get home, and on the weekends. Very tiresome. Anyways, on a happy note, Kerry, my wife, and I got back from our honeymoon in Santorini, Greece a couple weeks ago. Here are quite a few photos. Hope fully some 40min images will follow soon.

Der Clobbermeister

So I skipped few days. Got some pretty urgent deadlines to tend to this week. Here's a quick sketch of something I was working on in my book yesterday. I've always loved the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales. One of my favorites is the story of the Six Soldiers of Fortune. Read it. Nifty, imaginative tale, and Terry Gilliam made and equally wonderful film revolving around a similar storyline (The Adventures of Baron Munchausen). Anyways, I recently pondered the possibility of revisiting this as a picture book of sorts, yet in my own twisted, crushed, minced, and blown-up way. This character "Der Clobbermeister" would more than likely play the part of the Strong Man. Of course my version is a wild little red-haired girl at the helm of a frightfully powerful steam-powered behemoth. Exciting.

back in action

last week was a doozy, lots of different things going on at once; helping my fiancee move, a wedding for a friend, and IN a wedding for one of my very best friends... so both you and i missed out on some painting time. Well I'm back and here's the newest 40min sketch. I like this idea of some wretched, twisted tree being used by witch-like figures as some source of power. Might do a big one of this in the future. Maybe the same composition, or possibly going bonkers and making in some action scene where the warrior figures are trying to claim the witching-tree for themselves. And no, the dimensions aren't 6x9. I intentionally wanted this to be more cinematic, so its around 5x9.75.

Con-worthy

So this is what happens when you listen to the "300" soundtrack while you're painting. A big step since my last entry, and really a big step for the piece. Just sat down, cranked up the music, and my fingers sprang to life. Got to the point of being worthy of taking to ComicCon for review. I took it. The ADs from Wizards of the Coast seemed to really enjoy it. Nice. I'll probably touch it some more before sending it to Spectrum, no drastic changes, maybe just some snugging.

a little more part 2

Jumped into more parts. Kind of moving all over the place. Added some texture, redefined some shapes, added a little detail. Still needs work, but its getting there.

a little more

busy work day. Worked on Achilles a bit just now. I really feel like its working rather well. I knocked lots of things back, to enhance the drama of the composition. Next step is adding some textures and finishing up the background. I'm hoping to finish up my other work by Thursday afternoon, that'll give me both Thurs. evening and all of Friday to finish this up before the Con.

new things

Here's a small update on Achilles. Worked on it just now, dabbling for 30-40min.
The two white concept pages were sort of idea pages, taking a couple hours a piece, for a project I was working on for one of Phil's friends. Alien artifacts. He ended up wanting just a painting of the interior of a big-budget set. Turned out pretty nice. I'll post when I get permission.

slow and steady, doesn't get much done

worked a little on this today, during breaks from work, etc. Progressing in the right driection, I think.

Achilles the great-part 1

No Goodnights for a little while, 'cause I started a painting today. I hope to have it finished by the time I go down to ComicCon next week. When its "totally" finished, I think it will be one of the few paintings I sumbit to Spectrum this October.

eh

didn't fully visualize again. interesting how that seems to result in big monster, little guy paintings.

Lucifer the fallen

And here's my version of Lucifer; same angel design as Michael, just defeated, smoldering and crispy.

Michael

Ok, so I haven't posted these past few days; I actually haven't painted either (shame on me). I was busy being on a neat Santa Monica date with my awesome fiancee, and last night was a TUB for one of my friends. Like a bachelor party but without all of the nastiness, just pure, testosterone-infused mayhem. Bashing up broken/unusable household items...super fun. Anyways, here's tonight's installment: Michael the Archangel. This design will more than likely become more detailed and complicated, but this is a start.

djinn

ah, much nicer. took a little over 40min. though; gotta cut that down. Anyways, I took time to visualize this during the day, so jumping in made much more sense. I tried to get a little more courageous by adding some background shapes, and small foreground elements. That's probably what took me over 40, but i'd say it helps tha sketch quite a bit.

little red man

Learned my lesson, I didn't visualize this at all until i sat down to work. If I have a vision in my noggin beforehand, even if its just a shape or two, it helps a ton.
and if any of you recognized the little red man as some character from a popular movie series, one: it was not intentional, and two: you're a nerd.

better

feel like i'm getting the hang of this. Its definitely more "complete" because a good two thirds is in deep shadow, but still...not bad.

back to basics

wow. today was just one of those "not gonna happen" days. both work and this painting were just way too hard to accomplish today. But, I pushed through it and came up with this. My brain's been dwelling on the sort of Witch Hunter character for awhile now, might make it a series, or hero with backstory...do I smell comics, movies, and the like?

fussy

so this one was a bit more than 40min.--maybe close to an hour. I get pretty fussy with my faces. I don't seem to get the colors quite right off the bat, so i usually have to glaze it and work back into it a bit. It wasn't extra hard, it just adds time in order to make it actually look halfway human.
Also I wanted the little drone to be more refined, but what you gonna do?
And yes-this soldier is paired with the Elephant

its no Syd Mead

it's a bit fuzzy at 72dpi, but enjoy. I'm gonna call it an "Elephant"; it's a jungle/marsh tank. But instead of big floppy ears, it has rocket launchers, and in place of an adorable trunk, its an adorable mini-gun. yay!

catching up

yeah, i know i lectured you the other day...now i'm behind. Good news is that I'm house-sitting for a friend who happens to have Painter9.5. So the paintings are a bit more "finished". Mainly because his mac has some speed to it. I'm not very happy with the Green Witch; I'm going to give her anothr go, maybe as a finished painting...
That Samurai-ish one I just pulled out of my butt. Pretty happy with that. See what happens whn you relax?

catching up

these are the other goodnights from the past couple of days. The one in the last post was the start of my habit on 6/28/07...so from here they go in order from 6/29, 6/30, etc.

Goodnights

So this was actually from a few days ago (for anyone actually deciding to tune in to this programme). I'll be posting the new ones soon.
I'm starting the habit of making digital sketches, roughs, whatever y' wanna call 'em as I'm getting ready for bed. The goal is to eventually be able to develop a fast and accurate system of painting so that any freelance work could be done in record speed. The more specific goal is making a fairly "finished" 6"x9" painting within the alotted time for a "goodnight"--40min. Once I'm able to save for PainterX, results should be a bit faster and more complete.
If you're an artist, I dare you to give it a go, with any medium. 40min. a day, that's all. At the very least it will ensure that you're drawing everyday, LIKE YOU SHOULD BE! If you don't work any harder, you won't get any better.

It begins...

So I finally figured out how to use the inter-web enough to communicate in ways other than the email...Seriously, its about time I blogged it up, so you can witness my exploits and adventures. Lucky you.