Windy - Progress Again

I only had an hour to play with this piece today. I will continue to refine it but I have to put her aside for a few days while I finish up the Aquaman commission. Windy is coming along nicely. I am still trying to find my way to a digital painting style but that comes with time and practice.

I hope everyone is enjoying Super Bowl Sunday!

This is Post #842

Windy - Progress

I only had time to work on this for a little bit today. Most of my day was filled doing some graphic design work that came to me late Friday. It was one of those projects that slipped through the cracks and the client asked me to help out. I had planned on taking a weekend off but I couldn't leave them hanging. We've had a good relationship for a lot of years so I am happy to do what I can. I should have it done tomorrow morning and then move on to some DC work that needs some polishing up.

I did pick up a couple of commissions to do after the Aquaman piece. I will be doing a Canson Cutie of Catwoman, in the hi-slit dress and plunging neckline and the second one will be Scarlett from G.I. Joe. Both should be a lot of fun.

Back to the piece above, after doing the line drawing I have started adding some color. I played around with three or four hair colors and treatments but came back to my initial plan of black hair. The sun dress went through some color changes as well, until I settled on the color above. Dakota was around to chime in on the choices too. Always nice to get another artists opinion. I will continue to refine this image and then create some background.

Tonight I picked up a copy of Manga Studio program at the Apple Store. No, I'm not going manga on all of you. The program has some real nice natural drawing tools. Better than Photoshop and Painter from what I have read. As part of my plan to move towards a digital workflow, I downloaded a free trial a couple of weeks ago and really liked it. So it was time to take the next step and buy it. I will be playing with it in the weeks to come and will share my results.

This is Post #841

Windy

Just a piece I started today while taking a break. I did the initial sketch on a piece of watercolor paper but decided to scan it and work on it digitally. :)

One of my plans for this year is working more digitally. For a number of reasons it feels like the direction I should be moving in. Most of my commercial work is done digitally so it's not that big of a leap. But I plan to be drawing more and more on my tablet, and it should get even easier if I manage to save up $2,000 for a Wacom Cintiq. Let's see, if I did 20 Canson Cuties...

Have a good weekend everyone!

This is Post #840

La of Opar - Finished

I finished La this afternoon. With "La" in my head, I kept hearing the song from THE SOUND OF MUSIC. You know the one, "Do, a deer, a female deer". Over and over it played. In the song "La" gets no respect. All the other notes have descriptive comparisons. Not "La", it's just "a note to follow 'So'". Sad. It's one of Deena's favorite movies too. That's why I know the movie so well. I have this plan to take her to Austria, charter a helicopter, drop her off on a mountain, then swing back around with video camera in hand filming her while she spins around singing, "The hills are alive with the sound of music...". She would do it too. :)

Sorry, went off topic there. Still hearing the song...

This piece was finished with some more watercolor, to build up some depth and some color pencils to give it some harder lines and details. The final image is 11" x 16" on Arches Hot Pressed 140# watercolor paper.

This is Post #839

Aquaman - Rough

This is the beginning of a commission piece for Vincent. He requested the Silver Age Aquaman in battle with the fire-haired Karla. I believe Karla first appeared in Aquaman #24, but you can see the reprinted story in SHOWCASE PRESENTS: AQUAMAN v3. Karla's has hair that burns even in water and can send blasts of fire with it or even control the shape.

For the commission, I came up with a circular design. Karla attacking Aquaman, as he swims to avoid the flames he is calling for assistance, represented by the tentacles at the bottom right. We can assume they belong to Topo, the octopus. I showed this concept to Vincent, he liked it and we are going with it. This sketch was done in pencil in my sketchbook. The final art will be done in ink on 11" x 17" Bristol Board.

This is Post #838

La of Opar - Progress

After I finished my work for the day, I got a chance to play with this piece. I think I was overly optimistic about my "free time" over the last weekend when I said I would paint during my down time. There was no down time as it turns out.

Above shows just the beginnings of laying down some paint. I have not been working in watercolors in quite some time. Mostly using fluid acrylics these days. But I want to add some pain and frustration into my life so I am using watercolors. The funny thing is that I used to use watercolor all the time and felt very comfortable with them. But working in fluid acrylics have changed my approach and that approach doesn't work so well with watercolors.

The difference is this: With the acrylics, I can lay down a color, let it dry and paint another color over it with out lifting the first color. They won't mix and get muddy. If I lay transparent colors down and go over it with another transparent layer, I get a nice blending of the colors. Building colors is easier. Watercolor tends to lift a bit or a lot when you try to layer colors. So the approach is a bit different. But as I said when I posted this rough sketch, this is all for fun. Yup, fun. :)

This is Post #837

Opal of SOUL BORN

This piece was completed today for writer Kevin James Breaux. I have known Kevin for years and I have done several character studies, promotional items and a book cover for him in the past. This piece features one of the principal characters, Opal, from his latest novel, SOUL BORN. I am also working with him on a map of the world that Opal inhabits. You can find out more about Kevin James Breaux's SOUL BORN novel (to be released in fall of 2010) at www.KevinBreaux.com. Make sure you tell him I sent you. :)

This piece was multi media on 11" x 17" gray Canson Paper.

This is Post #836