Yesterday I blocked in the skin areas using colored pencils and oil pastels. Since the areas are rather small, and not a lot of detail needed, I started in on the detail work last night. Nearly completion, I took a step back to look at it overall. That’s when I knew the background wasn’t working for me. I knew it would need some more work toward the end, but looking at it now, I wasn’t sure what it really needed. So, I’ve taken some time off today in hopes of getting a fresh view, and perhaps some inspiration.
Tonight, I’ve taken one of the images from this blog to test ideas on in photoshop. One thing I’ve seen for sure is that the skull needs to be more opaque (and perhaps have some details to it). I’ve also tested the idea of dripping blood (or red candle wax, depending on how you want to see it). This is a tricky thing to do with the foreground completed. Hopefully that’ll be enough for the background, but if not, I may add more candles (and the pentagram candles will need redoing, as they are just too dim).
No photo update today, but hopefully it will be finished tomorrow.
Tag designing concept
work progress – background troubles
finally back to work
What a lull of a week! I was completely tapped out of ideas, concepts, and inspiration. Without any ideas in mind at all, none of the photos popped out at me all week. I think it’s time again for new photo shoots, if I can just get a model to respond to an email.
After a week of nothingness, I had a glimpse of a thought, so I checked a photo set that might work. Sadly, nothing fit with my idea, but I did see a photo that conjured a different concept. I’ve been working on the design for a couple days, and finally feel it’s ready to begin as a new painting. This one will be a slight departure for me, as I plan to add a caption to the final image (only for prints, the original art will have no text directly on it). So, I’m thinking the style will be a little more illustrated/cartoon, although not going too far from my usual realism. It’ll be interesting to see if I can push myself into this new style, or if I’ll revert to the safety of what I’ve been doing.
For now, I have the drawing on the paper…
model – Gia
back from Comic-Con and starting new art
What a week! It was great fun, but it’s good to be back. The convention gave me a few new concepts to play around with, one of which I’ve been working with since I’ve returned home. Since the concept came after any photo shoots, I didn’t expect to find a pose with any ease, but was relieved and surprised to find one that felt right within a few hours. Next, I designed the look and feel of the idea, adding make-up and wardrobe to the photo. I’m still working on what to do with the background, but likely it’ll be fairly simple, as the image itself has plenty of patterns to keep the piece busy.
So, with the design complete, I’ve drawn it onto the board, ready for masking tomorrow…
model – Amber
preparations for Comic-Con, plus new artwork started
These last few days I’ve been busy packing and preparing for the upcoming Comic-Con in San Diego. Things are coming along smoothly, and I have no doubts I’ll be ready for it now.
When taking a break from all that, I kept searching for concepts and ideas to paint next. I would like to get two more done before the convention, although they’re not required by any means. I struggled for a long time trying to find something, then I looked back at a set I shot 8 or 9 months ago with model Mackenzie. The theme was a ladybug, but I didn’t really know what to do with it. I started looking at the poses, then slowly the concept bloomed in my mind. I designed the shell ‘wings’ and tried them on one pose, but something wasn’t right. I looked around again, and found a better pose (now knowing how the wings would fit). The outfit was already black and red (and gray, as well), so it didn’t require much work at all. I came up with a color scheme for the background, tweaked this and that, and now it’s ready. I have it drawn on ill. board tonight, ready for masking and airbrushing tomorrow…
model – Mackenzie
new concept/design drawn today
After the last piece, I wasn’t sure what I would do next. I’ve done quite a few detailed backgrounds lately, so I was hoping for something light and fun this time. With all the excitement and talk about this year’s World Cup, I was inspired to create a football (soccer) theme. Since I hadn’t done any shoots with that sport in mind, I searched through numerous models and sets to find a pose that felt right for it. I found one that was very cute and sexy, and wouldn’t require much work (just creating the outfit). I researched uniforms, but I knew I couldn’t use anything regulation, as that’s just not very ‘pin-up’. So I designed my own, with no affiliation to any team or country. I added a ball and goal to complete the theme, and got it drawn on the board this morning. This is one of those new test boards I bought a few months ago, and since I haven’t bought any more, I believe I wasn’t too impressed with it. Hopefully it’ll be good enough to work for this piece. It’s a bit brittle, and you may notice a chip off one corner in the photo (it came that way, sadly). It only goes in about a quarter inch, so I don’t think it hurts the overall piece, and can be easily covered when framed.
I should get the background masked and airbrushed later today…
new artwork begins
The last few days I was bouncing between finishing the previous piece and designing the next one. The concept of Medusa had been in mind for a couple months now, but I wasn’t clear on the vision for it. This past week it came to me, so I started working on the design. The problem was I had no poses that fit what I wanted. One was close, so I used the majority of it, but then pasted in body parts form a few other poses to make it work. Luckily I don’t move my lights too often, so the lighting from set to set is comparable, making body matching much easier. With the pose working now, I started in on the background. I found some reference images of ruins, and also used Animation:Master to build and render the scene to get perspective and proportions correct. Still, the background is only a rough idea of what I want, but I’m thinking this might be advantageous for this project, to give it a more rustic, loose feel. To add to that feeling, I’m using another new paper, this one very rough, off-white, and has deckled edges. As with every new paper/board, I have no idea how easily things will work, so remains to be seen if I’ll like this or not.
So, here’s the drawing, ready for painting…
model – Kneely
new artwork begins
Last night I got the final piece to the puzzle of the composition for this new piece. I was watching a show about the solar system, and in it they showed a slideshow video of the moons of Jupiter orbiting it. This gave me a better idea of the scale between the moons and Jupiter, and I saw how I might change my design a bit. This piece takes place on Io, with Jupiter in the sky, and many portrayals of this imagery would show it not much bigger than our moon. I had it a bit bigger, but still small enough to see it in its entirety in the sky. I’ve enlarged it 4x to nearly fill the sky now, and although still far from an accurate scale, it helps fulfill the composition of this piece. So, satisfied with the design, I’ve finally drawn it on one of my illustration boards, ready for paint…
model – Gia
finalizing design
Another day spent designing this concept. So many details, and then playing with positioning of elements to find the most pleasing and interesting composition. I’m still not thrilled with creating backgrounds, but I feel this one needs it, much like the Caterpillar piece a few weeks ago. So, that’s what I worked on today, getting a background set up. I do have it mostly set now, and just need to take a step back and see if it works as is. If so, I’ll get it drawn on paper/board soon.
concepts and designs
Yesterday I spent working on some of the prep work needed for next month’s Comic-Con convention. With only 6 weeks left, it’s nice to make progress so I’m not rushing everything last minute. So far, it’s all coming along smoothly.
Today, I’ve been working on a new concept I thought of last night. I’ve been wanting to do some kind of space themed piece for a while now, and I think I have something that might be fun and interesting. I did what I could with sketches, but without all the detail and color in place, I won’t know how satisfying it really is. Hopefully tonight I’ll get that much completed, and with luck I’ll be able to get it drawn tomorrow.
work progress – testing mediums
So today I tried out various mediums to find which will be the best one for this new project. One I didn’t mention last night is oil paint. I figured I’d try them out, just to see. I don’t like the colors I mixed for ‘peach’ flesh, plus it’s a little tricky to blend with the limited brushes I have in the studio. If the blue moves into the peach, there’s very little I can do to bring the color back. Overall, I’m not liking that one.
Next was airbrushing. Without mixing a dozen variants, it looks rather flat and dull. It’s easy to do though, and of course blends smoothly. If I were to use this, I’d need to under-paint it, or at least use pencils to build up the details.
And finally there was oil pastels. I created a grid to compare various mixes of colored pencils with oil pastels. It looks like the blue oil pastels work well on their own, not needing the pencils for enhancement. They seem opaque as well, so that’s hopeful. Mixing into the peach can still be tricky, but I’m much more adept at controlling them, so it shouldn’t get out of hand. I still have the issue of hair hanging over the skin, so either I’ll need to paint the hair with pastels, or I can try to match the skin color in paint and blend the pastels into that paint.
What I may do is airbrush a base, then gesso on top of that, using oil pastels for the final layer. This will also help if it would turn out any of the oil pastels are not as opaque as I had thought. If I mix the paint right, I might be able to paint the hair on with gouache/watercolors, and leave an edge around them to blend the oil pastels. This is what I do on most of my recent pieces, the only difference is the blue skin in this one.
Now that I have a plan in mind, I can get started on actually working on it. Tonight I’ll mask it out and try to get a base color into the background.
