Monday, August 24, 2009

Owlbear?


There is a great art challenge blog for people interested in fantasy art called ArtOrder.This particular challenge I am working on is the "Owlbear Reimagined." The owlbear is both a loved and hated creature from the D&D universe, and the idea is to reinterpret the creature as something more than just a bear with an owl's head stuck on. These are the sketches I settled on as my idea for the challenge. I'll take the concept to finish with a male, female and infant version.

Saturday, August 22, 2009

Awww Dammit.


You ever have a thing where you have an idea, then you see someone else also had the same idea, but better? Well, for some reason I FAILED to see the blatant similarities between my sketch and the new film District 9. I just saw it, and it was SOOOOO good! Everytime I saw the mothership floating over Johannesburg I thought, "aww dammit." They did such a good job. I don't know if I subconsciously pilfered it, or what, but that idea is a no go. All I can say is, I hope there's a District 10.

I'm still going to work on the story, but the visuals will need a major overhaul. Back to work!

Thursday, August 20, 2009

A Bit New, and a Bit Not


Here is a sketch for a piece I'm working on. You may recognize a few of the elements. One is the space station I posted earlier, and the waterfront city is based on the random sketch I did in photoshop a while back working with brushes mixed with some of my painting studies of the port of Redwood City during lunch breaks. It all comes together for an illustration that goes along with some short stories I'm writing that are space/sci-fi related. I'll post more progress on this as it moves along.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Waterhouse Master Studies II



This is the second installment of my digital Waterhouse studies. (not thrilled about the extra compression and subsequent color and resolution mishaps blogger imposed on my file, blech!) I noticed that I'm learning the most in 2 hour studies instead of the quick "speedpaint" technique I've used in the past when studying master paintings. A teacher once said not to spend less than an hour and not more than three on a study, and I think that rings true, at least for these. My goal is not to copy, but to unlock some of Waterhouse's secrets by retracing his steps. One more painting to go!

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Waterhouse Master Studies


I'm working on some new things with my painting technique, and this is one of three studies I am doing based on John William Waterhouse's paintings. This one was done in the program Painter, but I will mostly also use Photoshop on one of the studies.