Tag Archives: art

Catastrophic Success

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    First off, if you can, please check out the newest edition of ImagineFX! There’s a lot of cool art in it, plus a tutorial from Stanley Lau(Artgerm).
  
    Second, I’m starting to get really good at creating digital fx and graphics. How good? I am being asked to do a LOT of it! Since I’m a contractor and it’s not part of my job description, I shouldn’t have opened that Pandoras box, but it’s too late for take backs. Plus, I’m being asked to travel more. As a result, my art has slowed to a crawl.

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Damn my talented brain!

      My clients, who are mostly bodybuilders,  are also getting kinda cagey.  They want the artwork, but more of them don’t want to be seen in unfinished states, not to mention two of them gave me photos that had been published by a guy on a paysite.I don’t want to get into any copyright infringement issues, so I rescheduled something more private. The upshot of which is that I’ve drawn about 23 images and still need to do several cosplay pieces!

   Didn’t I ask for this?

Switch Throw

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          I’ll never understand why some people are constantly being abject dirtbags. After all, what reward can there truly be in such behavior? I guess it’s a crime of consent; if you’re too “nice” to stop them, that’s your flaw not theirs…
         This little rant is due to a potential customer that I should have seen coming a mile away. The request seemed innocuous enough; a favor that was needed by someone who considered themselves a friend. My usual response is “what’s the favor? ” in which case I can freely refuse.

        I didn’t heed my own advice.

        So in the end I had to cancel all of it. Every bit. Of course the person is angry at me, but since they had NO INTENTION TO PAY,  I felt justified in my refusal. You heard right. They wanted an entire wall size painting of a 13 member family by Christmas as a favor.

      Parasites. You never know where you’ll find them.

Mobile

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         Took a break from the craziness of competitor art to do a piece for a facebook friend. A lot of people seem to like it, so it’s something that I’m glad to have completed.

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         To keep from losing interest or burning out,  I decided to do something with the prismacolor markers that came with my college tools. To be honest, I never understood the big craze for using them; digital art was new to me and more exciting. However, now that everyone and their mother are extolling the copic markers, I decided to try them.

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      Right away there was a different feel to the technique of using them. It felt more…digital. It was as though the layering of colors that I used in Photoshop applied! After that, I was into it.

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        While I wouldn’t want to draw this way all the time,  it could easily find it’s place among my skill sets.  I was drawing on Bristol board paper, but I’ll check to see if something better is out there. In the meantime, it’s back to my regularly scheduled projects…

Centrifugal emo

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      My life is starting to settle down finally. A little art seemed to be in order, so I kicked out a political piece. Because I’d definitely vote for Cap!
     All of my paying work is out the door. I’m so happy! Weels have gone by. I am going to have to change my contracts though.  Most people don’t want me to display the art anywhere because it’s private. That’s cool, but I think I’m going to get out of the business of hiding my best pieces. I need to, at the very least, be able to display them in my portfolio!
   

TGIM

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         Ok, deep breath.

        Hey guys!  It’s going to be an awesome week for me. I took up the challenge of creating a color image with multiple themes. Since I haven’t done this before, I figured, “why not?”. Yes I’m a dumbass. Oh well…

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         The themes were a servant, night lights,  reflection, perspective and a landscape. So the kid in me figured Silver Surfer on his board looking down on the nightside of earth, staring at our cities. Bam! Combo!

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         So far, I’d gotten most of the way when I was reminded (well, told) that I needed to finish the digital piece I’d started. Makes sense.

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For an added bonus, the hand of Galactus!

       After a little more work,  it turned out pretty nice.  Of course, the talent is the real arbiter of it’s value, but sense I almost never draw background stuff,  I was pleasantly surprised. All this while listening to enough Evanescence to kill almost anyone. I worked harder at playing this weekend than my actual job!

        Man, I miss work.

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TaDaaaaa!

Reality

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      Well, as much fun as I’ve had in the last few days doing traditional stuff,  you just knew I was going to get back to drawing the new fashioned way. My newest muse is a cosplayer named Callie and hopefully some of you recognize her from her page. Her linework was done with a hard edged brush set at 7. The detail lines were done on a separate layer at 4. I didn’t clean up my lines yet; once I get into a zone, certain lines are done over and over until I feel that they look fairly accurate.

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      Once the lines are done, I grouped all of those layers together and lock them. Believe me, you don’t want to spend ANY time fixing a dumb ass mistake now!

     Next I began to add colors. Under a different group, I create a layer for hair. I’ve decided that (a)I’m going to start with muted versions of the final colors for mood and (b)I’ll use colors already in my swatches. If you look really closely, you can pick them all out in the screen grabs.

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      With the skin, I decided that a little bleed over is good. It will help later to create the effect of her wearing objects, as opposed to them merely sitting on her. What about her eyes and lips, you say?
Stay tuned…

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      This will be the bottom layer of this group; the next two are above it. Again I pick the flattest color for my fill, allowing me to add a clipping mask to any layer in order to work it.

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      So clearly there is NO silver on Miss Amazonia in the real image. There won’t be here as well. I’m using the color and mixing it later to create a sheen on the bronze. You’ll like it, trust me.

     I’m feeling a little under the weather, so I don’t think I’ll get a lot done today; but believe me, when it’s done I expect to be pleased! Have a fun day!

Workrelease

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      For a change of pace, I pulled out my sketchbook and begin to draw the old fashioned way. It helps me get my sense of scale back, as well as the touch needed to create. I’m not much for imaginary images (yet), so these exercises help me somewhat.

       There has been an increase in difficulty with gaining new customers lately. One of the artists who mentors me said to not be surprised in lulls when it comes to clients and to take any downtime to work on personally gratifying projects. I do have a pretty ambitious one in mind…

      A single picture containing every single member of my family who ever served this country.

      As you’d expect from four generations worth, that’s a large undertaking. Add to that the need to procure images and information…yep, not a small task.

     Guess I better get started, huh?

You’ve got the Love

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      The all or nothing approach is getting to be a bad habit. There’s quite a way to go before this is a finished image, but the results should be worth it. More ideally, all of these images done in this style are beginning to have their own flair. In other words, the more I draw, the more clearly defined my technique becomes.

      A friend of mine showed me his brand new Cintiq yesterday. For those not in the know, it’s a digital tablet of sorts, used by artists. So now I have a goal.