Overcast: 2012

Monday, December 10, 2012

Final Portfolio

Life and Death of a star

Approved!

The trick is that the live star is the one on the right but the dead one is much nicer to look at. It's not a supernova though, it's supposed to be a planetary nebula, which is what happens when anything but a super-giant dies. The nebula has nothing to do with planets.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Book Cover Illustration

Approved!

I had more fun painting this than most but I wish I could have added the same kind of detail to the tentacles that I did to the Nautilus. My main problem when making this was fighting against what I remember from my scuba diving classes about what colors are visible at certain depths, that would have been really limited and dull looking. More so than it is now.

World Record: Smartest Animals

Approved!

The most fun I've had even though it didn't take me too long. I was going to use my horribly done gauche 3-image project and only did this one as makeup, but I liked it enough to add it. The background was unecessary but it was too bland without it. In the last blog post I have alternate versions that could actually be used for a magazine nicely. I feel like the image by itself would be great if used in a magazine but by itself with no text it's awkward looking. My original concept was to have these two inside the outline of a chimp's head, but it didn't look so nice in the sketches and I'd have to throw in a dolphin somewhere too if I'm being fair like that.

Nine Ball

Approved!

Having the numbers on the other balls seemed to distract from the theme, even though they're set up appropriately for a game of 9-ball. I like what the 'alien' characters do to the feel of the piece. I need to work on the highlights and overall colors to this picture. It's too foggy and bad looking because of my rushed attempt as adding some atmosphere. It might just be me though, someone else might thing it looks more mysterious or something for it. They'd be wrong but they still might think that.

Progress details

Alternate versions of final projects

I've messed with the color and filters of this piece a few times but this was the only experiment that I like almost as much as the original. I should have done something similar to this earlier but without the blue filter, or at least a lighter version of it. Then I could paint over that and created some nicer detail on the tentacles and the ship. My main headache was making it pop out, this makes it pop but at the cost of some of the other aspects I liked about this picture.

Two alternate versions of my world record image. One is a simple .png image that would work as part of the overall design of a magazine page but is odd looking by itself. The second is just experimenting to see how that water layer works on a dark transparent background like this blog.

Production Stuff

I don't work with digital painting nearly as much as I think I should. I enjoy it more than creating vectors, lineart, typography, or and traditional art medium for the most part. There are a range of options and potential for some amazing detail but I always feel a little inept in making anything given how often I'm confronted by digital work online every day that I could never do myself.

Now at least I'm actually getting into it and taking example from others' work instead of letting it get to me. One thing I was surprised to find was how often very many of the best digital painters rely on 3d rendered models of a kind. It would be hard to qualify something as a digital painting if it relied too heavily on that type of thing, but there's one place it's almost a necessity.

traditional drawing and painting has the advantage of being more easily able to pull out a ruler and draw straight lines at any angle. While some painting programs and tablets allow you to rotate the image, Photoshop itself lacks this option. So I've had trouble creating perspective in digital paintings a lot of the time. That's just the place where 3d models come in that I've taken too long to try out. There are programs made specifically for this so I wouldn't have to fuss with something as frustrating to learn on your own like 3d Studio Max, but using that or simpler programs like SketchUp I can create basic shapes and lines, position a camera, and place it into a Photoshop later for reference.

The amount of help you get from this depends on the amount of effort you give it still. The program doesn't automatically allow for spheres and is more for blocky architectural references. I had to try out a lot of custom models out of the many people have made and provide online, until I found one that worked well enough for what I wanted. And then I had to jump through hoops to make it work. Even though I'm very far from satisfied with my 9-ball painting I liked the perspective and I want to try this out for some more paintings in the future.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Midterm Portfolio Reflection

When making illustrations with the mediums we've used so far I think I'd rather mix them. I'd much prefer drawing something to redo digitally, making line art to color with watercolor or in Photoshop or even using whatever type of paint or even pen is needed to better sharpen or define a rougher medium. I'd rather work with color but with the ability for well defined lines and shadows that watercolor doesn't easily allow.

I'd rather not use watercolor alone, ever. The medium has always been my least favorite. I love colors, I love painting, but I've never understood watercolor. I can never master any techniques and fall back on the same methods I use with any other painting, where I paint in a rough shape of color only to mold it into what I want. I even treat pencil sketches that way and always prefer doing those before making any lines in pen. But when the process of painting is about adding layer upon layer from light to dark, without being able to lighten up an area later, then anything I make feels sloppy. I'd rather that sort of painting in a digital form, where I could just as easily lighten with a low opacity eraser or brush. Despite all this I have no trouble working with the Gouache subtraction. It's just watercolor that I feel I can't ever do right.

I also think I enjoy having more instruction given when it comes to large pieces or many little ones. When I have to make something big I hesitate more in deciding the subject matter, and when I have ten small and unimportant images to make and a completely open instruction on their subject, then I have a hard to knowing where to even start looking for inspiration because I'd rather it be something I want to do in that case, and I never know what I want to do. When piece is small enough to not take as many resources if I need to restart it but I only need to do that one, then I have no trouble figuring out what in my infinite range of options, I want to make, and if I don't like it I can more easily start over.

Midterm portfolo 0.7 - Open Category: Missouri Watercolor

Fitting that when posting this right now the image I have is blurry and out of focus (hopefully I'll have edited in a better photo by the time you see this). I decided to paint the Momo, short for the Missouri Monster, this state's own personal variation of bigfoot. Really it's just like a normal bigfoot except he disrupts picnics, attacks dogs, and has enough hair to play every part in a death metal band.

I didn't have my illustration board at the time I started it so I ended up painting it on foam board instead, which was weird. The surface was too smooth and I should have just painted on a completely level surface so I could take advantage of that instead of having it be a problem. I feel like no amount of detail I add or changes I make can make it look how I want. The brushstrokes just naturally decided to all look like the same sloppy thing all over no matter what I did to it. If I ever use this sort of paint on this sort of surface again it will only be with very specific type of images as a darker sort of thing like this just doesn't want to play nice.

It really is a horrible photo. You can't even see his glowing red eyes! Photoshop refused to show them if I did anything at all to improve the contrast and lighting. I also had to actually warp the image to make up for what was sadly the best angle my webcam mounted on top of my laptop would allow for a picture leaning against the wall, but mostly because that foam board actually warps itself! I'm going to flatten this thing under something until I can barrow a camera and I'll also paint the red eyes with more contrast. Maybe some yellow even.

Midterm portfolo 0.6 - Product Illustration

Midterm portfolo 0.5 - Facebook Illustration

Midterm portfolo 0.4 - Digital

Midterm portfolo 0.3 - Ten a Day Lineart And Watercolor

Midterm portfolo 0.2 - Ten a Day Watercolor

Midterm portfolo 0.1 - Ten a Day Lineart

Monday, October 8, 2012

The Addition of An Artificial Subtraction

Worked from an image. Traced the basic shapes and shadows just to get everything sized right, but after just painted by eye with the reference image in another window. Done by taking a dark color in a layer above a white layer and using a low opacity eraser to imitate the gauche subtraction technique.

Maybe when I call later to find out why I still haven't gotten the Matte Medium I ordered over a week ago still hasn't gotten here, or if anyone can lend me some again, then I could do this with real paint. First digital picture for Wednesday.

I guess I'll just make a new post when I finish the second one.

filler

Filler post, want to put one thing before another but that one thing isn't scanned yet. I'll have it up in a few hours.

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Lineup

So I've stopped updating this blog for stupid reasons. I didn't want to post assignments out of order so I kept putting off updating it at all because of one assignment I wanted to post first "once I have the time to go back and do it." and even after deciding to stop waiting on that and to just start posting for some reason I never thought to actually scan things ahead of time so I have to go back and scan whatever is worth scanning and post it late.

So I'll label any posts for those as "Catch up" posts and just get to actually posting things as they're done, including the in process stuff as it happens.

I'll start with the latest assignment since I had time to scan it all. I sort of got myself into a figure drawing fix this week and can't break out of it, so with these I started sketching action poses, inking them, erasing the pencil, and adding the wash.

No tracing, decided to do everything freehand. Might not have been the best idea.

Had a horrible mistake with that hair that I had to rub out so thoroughly it damaged the paper. That mess of a wig is just to cover it all up. I shouldn't have bothered with the background. I'd be better without one than with that one.

I don't usually do morbid stuff like this but I felt like doing a falling sort of pose and decided on this instead.

Same as the hair before only with the pens and not paint. Goofed up with the sharpie but liked the rest enough to try this. I could have done better with this idea but it's something at least.

These are the first two I did and in this order. The reason I have masks and weird things is partly because it's something I do when drawing lots of figures so I don't distract from what I'm trying to focus on by drawing faces. A few lines to show eyes and nose are enough and if it mattered I can do the full face, but I really get distracted if I don't hold back at all and it can ruin the whole picture because I drew most of the face before finalizing the figure.

I also do the masks because I wanted to focus on the poses and also I think masks are cool.

These are the wash first ones. I did eight of these but they're all so bad that these are the only ones I'll show. I think I'd do better with these if I were tracing or had some pencil under the paint that the lines went over or something. I can see the point of this method but it doesn't work for me if I don't have every detail already pinned down and planned out.

Monday, August 27, 2012

Little Bumblebee

I had to do the lines twice in photoshop because I was accidentally drawing in the sketch layer.

Then I got bored and did a quick color and shading thing, like under a minute quick.

This scooter is mine. I got it a week ago to ride around town. Bought it from a guy on Craigslist for $300. Little Suzuki 1984 50-something. 49cc, legally no more than a 'motorized bicycle' in the state of Missouri, but they still won't let me chain it to a bike rack on campus. Doesn't break 22mph but with a little work I could probably get it going 25mph. Brand new it's supposed to reach 29. Buzzes like a bee though, I feel bad riding it to this early class with that noise.

And here's all the other drawings scanned,