Reference Study #07

Here's another relatively quick one I did. Based on the photo Dusk Till Dawn by Sarah Louise Johnson. It's been really fun doing these quick DPs, and not to mention helps improve general work speed. It also helps you not to get too caught up in trying to get some of those details just so, I've found. Blah, blah, blah...it's just fun. :)

 

Another Speed Portrait.

Reference Study #06

So this is a quicky I did last night. It took me a couple hours tops (a lot faster than I've taken in the past). This was based on an image of a woman named Lauren Calaway, which can be found HERE.

Earlier in the day I had found myself drawing for a couple of ladies, and so later in the evening, once I was home, I had the urge to draw some more...that is how it came to be.

Speed Portrait.

Hugh

I've been getting back into animation lately (in the sense of personal projects) and so I decided to do a little something with a character that I developed awhile back [but never got past concept designs]. I wanted to break back into 2D animation, so I came up with a simple idea that would just revolve around the one character.

 



A screenshot from the animation showing the character Hugh standing next to a lever.

 

It was just ment to be a fun little animation exercise, really, to get me back into the swing of things, which I found to be successful in doing so. The character Hugh was the central character to a serial concept that I had developed awhile back [and am still sitting on, till I can figure out the best approach that I should take with it - either develop it as a 2D animation or as a 3D animation]. I've been reading a book by Joe Murray (creator of such successful cartoons as Rocko's Modern Life and Camp Lazlo) entitled Creating Animated Cartoons with Character, which has been a really interesting and insightful read which is giving me great ideas/direction for future and current projects that I work on so as to be able to take things to a new level and get my content out there. Anyway, we'll see what happens. It all takes time, and effort.

 

Hugh

Reference Study #05

Alright, so it's been a few weeks since I did one of these, and with other commitments and the like popping up, this DP was drawn out, to say the least. Anyway, I'm fairly happy with the end result, even though I felt like I was rushing myself at the start for some reason.

 

So, James Stewart was the subject of choice this time 'round. I was wanting to do one of him for awhile, so it was great to finally do this image. I'm a huge fan of the Alfred Hitchcock film Rear Window which stars James (and Grace Kelly who I've previously painted).

 

I'll probably start trying to work colour into my works now since I feel a bit more confident with the progress that I've made so far. Gotta keep pushing myself!

 

My attempt at James Stewart.

The James Stewart Reference Image.

The sketch I started with.

Midday

Woah! It feels like it's been awhile since I've posted anything, so I thought I'd show some of my progress using colour. So I've entitled this piece Midday and I decided that I wanted to start on playing with colour with a simple illustration, nothing too complex. A big shout out to my mate Robson Vieira for his feedback when I was working on this; thanks man!

 

I decided that I should start messing around with using colour and getting more confident with it after viewing the work of Pascal Campion. I just love this guys use of colour and his compositions. They're what I call "feel good" images - rather emotive.

 

Anyhow, here's what I've done with some notes..

 

 The final image. Midday.

 So this image shows the original sketch which has been partially painted over already (I forgot to keep a save of the sketch on its own, but it still gives you an idea of what I originally started off with).

 

This image really shows what everything looked like after I had layed down the main brush strokes. It was quite bold and saturated at this stage, which was what I was originally going for, however after some feedback and doing some additional research, I realized that it was a bit flat and needed further work done to it.

 

If you compare this image to the final, you'll notice I toned down some of that intense satuation of the character, softened some areas and added blooming and some additional lighting effects as well as some more texture to the sky to make it more interesting to look at.

Blast From The Past! #01

Over a week or so ago I took a trip back to my ol' home town in the south (Mount Barker, WA) to visit my parents and unwind a bit. I used this opportunity to visit a sort of mural thing near town that incorporated some paintings from various individuals in the community (students mainly) onto a painted steam train (these individual paintings represented windows on the carriages).

 

I was responsible for one of those paintings. I think it must have been back in 2006 as a project for my year 12 art class. It needed to represent something to do with the town in some respect, if I recall. I decided that since the painting was going to end up on a train mural later on, I'd try and include a train theme in the design as well. What I ended up with was of a girl riding inside a train carriage that was passing through the country side with the Mount Barker tower in the background with a sunset glowing over the horizon. I remember it was an interesting and fairly fun experience doing this. For one, I had to paint onto a sheet of metal which I had never done before, but really it was a fairly straight forward process.

 

The funny thing is, this was the first time that I actually had decided to go up and closely inspect the mural in person, some six years after it was put up on display. So if you ever find yourself driving through Mount Barker one of these days and you keep your eyes peeled for a train mural just off the Albany Hwy, you might be able to notice my little contibution towards the end of the first train carriage.

 

The painting which I contributed to the mural. 

Here's a shot of the first carriage (1 of 3 carriages) with the steam train in the distance.

A better shot showing off some of the other paintings. What I also came to notice was just how well the other students did with their contributions. Good job!

Reference Study #04

So after a short break from drawing (and a serious clean of my computer), I've gotten back into it again. I had re-installed Photoshop and was having issues finding my brush at first (it's nothing special really, but I like working with it), but once I had gotten that all sorted, I was cooking!

 

I chose to paint one of my all time favourite musicians this time 'round, the wonderful Enya. I grew up listening to her Watermark album (I specifically remember playing with lego in the living room with it playing on the ol' sound system) and it's one of those great nostalgic moments of my childhood! (dare I say, "subtly defining")

This time 'round I also had the challange of painting a hand which I wasn't too sure about, but I think it came out fairly ok. I think I might have rushed it in some areas, mainly some parts of the hair, and there are still some off proportions, but I feel that I was able to capture some likeness of her still. I feel like the quality of my blending is getting better though, I feel like it's come out more smoother, so I'm getting there. Again, it was an enjoyable process, and I'm eager to start the next one, but it may have to be put on hold for a few days since I'm quite busy through out this week with other commitments.

 

My attempt at Enya.

 

 

The Enya Reference Image.

The sketch I started with.