a study

This was quick..had about an hour before heading out for the long weekend :S

robot guy

Aren't we surprised...another robot. Ha!

quick study

from a photo I took from Getty images. Came in late today so wasn't as productive.

graphic study

quick study; birdie on a rock

dystopian robots

Since that's apparently all I do. lol.

graphic shapes cont'd

more graphic shapes

more graphic shapes

Scuplteyface: a study

study

this is a quick study I did of a sculpture. A few things I will say. It's easy to lose sight and turn a dude into a chick...into a dude. Haha. I'm also working on economy of brushstroke...so larger forms that read more. And I started this because I was thinking about what makes the difference (when one is painting) between a "person" or character that is living and breathing, and a sculpture. I saw a lovely photo of a guy behind a sculpture touching it. How does one paint something made to look real but that has no life in it, and one that does?

keep pushhing

Yes, that's an extra "H". I took a one-day workshop with Robh Ruppel (see, extra H). There were a LOT of gamers in there. And while yes, I too, used to cut primary school early to go to the Arcade (back in the coolest days of Mega Man lol), I really can't spend my whole time playing video games. LOL. Especially when I can spend it painting or reading. Knowledge and tiem are really important to me. It was something my family stressed had significant value. It was funny, because he pretty much said the same thing, and has an interest in film and lighting and yes, painting(which is EXCELLENT!). And, like me, he doesn't own a tv and gets up early every morning (yes, there are some of us out there who still have that work ethic). So count me inspired! It was funny watching the gamers go "Oh my...6 o clock! What?" Haha. Yeah...well guess what..my mom gets up at 2! And my parents go to the gym at 3! So there! Ha!

So I've been continuing to work on graphic shapes and form and rendering (I know, that sounds like a lot). I noticed in his book, Aspect Ratio (which is actually pretty cheap but I'm being a cheapskate at the moment because of a book I bought on being a cheapskate..which is ironic....), that he has an economy of brush strokes. He explained his disdain for "speed painting" (I never quite got into that, thank goodness) and made it clear several times to his class that everything that is worth something takes TIME and EFFORT. He equated art to exercise. What gives you the edge is doing things that your competitors do not. Those two things, I can certainly do. Pull a mint out of my butt for a piece of paper...maybe not. So...we shall see.

a black and white sketch I started

With a quick colour balance shift...

penguini!

Study of a penguin from a photo...limited general value, focus on graphic shapes and then filling in with some texture.

graphic breakups

So I'm taking a workshop with Robh Ruppel this Saturday at CDA. So I was looking at his work and thought about what Michlap said about simplifying an graphic shapes. He has an excercise where students just do the graphic shapes of things...a portrait, a frame from a movie, etc. Very interesting excercise because it forces you to think about grouping, which is an integral part of painting. So last night while arguing with people on Facebook (yes, I can be a troll from time to time lol), I also thought about doing some graphic studies to strengthen my composition skills. I took a friend's photo shoot image and did the graphic overlay. It's a fun exercise and especially in colour it helps you to think about value...picking the right colours in juxtaposition so that the shapes work together. Thank you Lindsay :)

water ice and metal

Weird. For this one I found that simplifying the water helped more than putting in every single ripple (because then it would be too muddy).

rocks

Man, rocks are hard. But I'll keep trying and I shall get better! Mwahahaha!

some more guns WIP

pacing

Trying to do longer paintings (ones that take more time) from time to time. Ones that you def have to spend a lot of time researching, etc. I'm also really interested in conveying form and materials. I think that if an idea is great, but the form and the materials are not there (particularly for environment), then something just doesn't feel right. I get frustrated because sometimes I want to convey the essence and the way light kisses an object and makes skin just glow (particularly tungsten). Tungsten light just has a way of filling objects with this whole other thing...like the object transcends itself. Or sometimes you just want to find that right colour that makes an image sing. It makes you just want to pull your hair out, but I guess it's just experience.

I'm really intrigued that (James) Gurney's process is so concept-driven; he spends the majority of his time researching, making maquettes of his scene, observing and even doing the actions and playing dress up to get expressions and texture as close to reality as possible. Just awesome. And Gurney has so much work, it's inspiring. If it one thing I can definitely do (if it's a requirement) is just work my butt off!

study of a lady

Starting some studies on silk and other cloth materials.

the oldest bot

Was thinking about creating a bot that had lived through a lot. The last....he has seen all his peers pass away and lives alone. He himself is about to fall apart. His clothes are of those days where his age ensured he was regarded in high esteem. Something of a cross between a member of clergy and a robot.

I'm not sure

what this is. I was working on material rendering. But I kind of strangely like it. LOL. I was reading Gurney's book this weekend (the one on Imaginative Realism) where he said to forget about the details of painting for a while and let yourself just paint. I think it really helps in figuring out afterwards what you instinctively 'get' and what you don't.

A robot walks into a bar

Okay...no corny jokes. LOL. But I swear...robots hang out at Acapulco at night! I started this one last week, but with break and all that, didn't get around to 'completing' it today. (complete is always HAZY because you could probably keep going and going....)

some gun breakouts

So...this Thanksgiving was not exactly lazy, but I didn't have the luxury of the 24 inch screen I have at work (yes, they let me paint at work :)) So here are some renders I did after I got frustrated with drawing 3/4 breakout views for my Prop design class. These are for the guns, and they were done in Modo without any lighting or anything. Of course, they're really rough.

been working on

this dude. I feel like a lot of concept is actually more like acrylic than oil painting, and I used to like oil painting more (more impressionistic, more about capturing the essence than showing clean lines). So trying to work on putting in a lot clearer reads, etc.

painting with armour

Yeah..it's a task to paint both characters and backgrounds..but I'll get there :) One of the profs in a Digital Illustration class was telling his students that Charlie Wen didn't really paint backgrounds before. He was okay. And then in a few months he was busting out the characters AND the backgrounds. Mindblowing. Maybe if I keep at it I can be 1/10 as good one day lol.

study of a guy...

bad painting day

So..sometimes we all have 'bad painting days'. Bob Kato told me it's important to not be too hard on yourself, and to keep pushing, because if you keep at it, you WILL improve. Today I was not at my best, but hey, you only live once. You HAVE to keep on pushing! Yeahhh!!! :)

quick sketch-study

I was experimenting with quick brush strokes to give indication of materials. I called him Mr. Helmet-Soccer because his headpiece reminds me of the American football helmets, and since I don't call football "Soccer", I tend to associate "soccer" with American football (yes, I know that sounds wrong-sided).

helmet dude

changed around some of the materials he was actually wearing. I would like to be more efficient with brush stroke. That is, some illustrators/ artists can use less brush strokes and still make the material look believable in rendering. Much 'better' than drawing every strand of hair or fur, etc.

more studies

Here is an armour guy using my favourite new brush!

penguin study with texture brush

With this texture brush (that I made), was able to make it look a little oil painterly, which is kind of a good starting point for me because when I was younger (speaking as though I'm a senior citizen, but) I LOVED painting in gouache and oil paints, particularly landscapes from my home country. I was thinking about what Kekai Kotaki said in class, which was that he uses one brush because he knows the capability of that brush. It's kind of a safety blanket, if you will, as you can get LOST with thousands of brushes and effects and all the capabilities of photo montage, etc in Photoshop.

On top of that, I was reading in James Gurney's book, "Colour and Light" (a MUST for everyone interested in light, colour, painting, etc) that painters before our time had a really limited palette. If they could create such life-like colours with so few pigments, do we really need all these brushes? Why not just master a few tools instead of being just okay in many? I think that the hard edged rounded brush (that I either got from Steve Jung or Jamie Jones; I was drawing a turkey in my professor's Storyboarding class so he realized I loved painting more than Storyboarding, and as a parting gift at the end of his class he gave me Jamie's brushes) and the texture brush I made recently are my two most used at the moment. I would LOVE to see someone do an entire painting with a leaf brush! Making it look like other things..metal, cloth, wood, etc...that would be interesting...

it's Winter time

This one actually doesn't have a story...I was just practising painting from memory and rendering materials but here goes. Two robots on a date. They travel to Antwerp (low skyline, right?) and one poses for a photo. Okay, that was a load of crock. Geez, my composition skills are rusty..lol.

armour study:take three

Here is a goofy guy trying to look all cool in his armour :)

armour study: take two

Here is another study of armour with a brush I made...

ninja dude: a study

do you ever get tired of painting robot dudes?

Um..no. This was actually to practise the texture for armour thing I've been working on since taking Kekai Kotaki's workshop at CDA last weekend.

study of another helmet guy