World keeps on turning...with sketches!

As is often the case, life gets in the way, which can hold up something like blog posting. Fortunately it wasn't anything terrible, just the usual hustle and bustle of things.

Most of this stuff is digital this time around, and in color! There's a few things here and there that are observational paintings (a panel from Batman: Year One and a 10-minute still life study), and a few imaginary things.

Studies...Studies...Studies...

If you're wondering what's up with the mitten hands... It's based around an idea I heard in a Glenn Vilppu lecture once...to figure out the hand, you need to treat it like any other thing - Simple ---> Complex.

Don't go at it worrying about all the little forms (even as cylinders,) that'll just muck it up and stiffen the gesture. Instead, work up to it with practice.

-A mitten with a thumb,
-A mitten with a forefinger and thumb,
-A cartoon (3 fingered) hand,
-A fully human hand.

By doing it this way, you're realizing the major forms that the hand takes on, and as you move up in complexity, you retain that information.

Whoo...

This is what happens when your day job gets too busy...you end up neglecting your favorite things! Fortunately things are winding down a little, so I'll be able to post more often.

Expect to see some more color work out of me soon, as I'm taking my first oil painting class this Thursday! Somehow, I slipped my way through art school without ever taking a painting class...and it's been the one thing I've seriously regretted. Now that'll be changing, and I'll get to learn that fine craft for the first time! I'm quite excited.

In the meantime, here are some new sketchbook doodles from the past few weeks.

Blegh...

Work was busy this past week, which meant not a lot of personal stuff to do...ah well, at least there's still something! It's a random smattering this week of life drawings and concept stuff.

Art Dump

Another plethora of Sketchbook pages, as well as two little things I'm working on - an illustration involving a troop of angry gorillas, and a build-up of the ogre sketch from before.

More sketches and an illustration!

Haha, it seems all I ever do now is dump sketch pages then quickly leave in a hurry....

Well, this is more of the same, sorta. Here are more sketchpages and a BC page, but I also left a treat! Below is an illustration I'm working on recently. Ultimately, it'll be finished in watercolor and gouache, but at the moment it's a tight underdrawing. The next thing will be value and color studies, then I just transfer it to watercolor paper and go to town!

Big ol' Artdump.

Here's a smattering of random stuff from this week - sketchbook pages, and digital study stuff. I still don't quite get digital art...as in, I'm still having trouble disassembling the hows and whys of it to make terrific art with it. I feel like I'm slowly circling the problem, but I haven't nabbed it yet and smothered it with a solution...but I think I might be close. Or really far away. Hard to tell.

Sketches and Paints

A few watercolor sketches and a few sketchbook pages...

Sketchbook pages!

Well! A week and a half after Heroes and I decide to update. Heroes Con went very well. Once again, I got to meet Sanford Greene and Guy Davis, both swell guys that I'm a huge fan of, and got to chat them up a bit. Chris and I also met some readers of Border Crossings, snagged a few new people, and I even got lucky with a Mark Chiarello portfolio review (the level of excitement I had for that was immeasurable.) In anycase, I'm now backed and pumped to keep working on Border Crossings, drum up some more freelance, and keep churning out art. Speaking of, here's some new sketchbook pages.

Painter Portrait

Another little paint study...like last time, it was done in Painter, and I focused on developing the light forms out of the dark. If there's three things I can take away from all this new stuff I've learned about painting (and still applying!) it would be these three things:

1) If you think your values are pushed enough, push them some more. Chances are you're lingering too much in the halftone (middle value), which is why your picture looks muddy. (I'm still struggling with one.

2) Don't paint objects. Paint shapes. (This rule alone has gone a long way for me in making me aware of how to paint stuff. Thank you, Richard Schmid.)

3) Don't paint/draw what you know, paint/draw what you see. This is something that I think a lot of beginners (myself included,) don't realize: If you think you know how to draw an arm, I guarantee you that you're forgetting 70% of the visual information (landmarks, how the form rolls, angles, shadows, etc.) Maybe after years and years of drawing it it'll become committed to memory (and even then you should still double-check once in awhile,) but until then, ALWAYS use reference to build your visual vocabulary. It's funny how often this gets overlooked.

On a side-note, I'll be in Charlotte, NC for Heroes Con this weekend! As usual, I'll be selling sketches and issues of Border Crossings, as well as some watercolor pieces! Stop by table 336 (I'll be across the guys who make the terrific book Owly,) and say hi to me, Chris, and our tablemate Eric!