Sketch Book 11: The Eyes

An eye study I did.  Looking at the eye as from different side perspectives.  The eyes are fun to draw, but can cost you if you don't do them right.

Mysterious Rose

This is a some what old illustration I did back for my portfolio when I was job hunting at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con.  Actually, at the time Lady Mirage was just released by one of my favorite artists Kenneth Rocafort.  This illustration looks much like fan art for Lady Mirage, however at the time I illustrated this, I had no idea about Lady Mirage.  You can call it fan art if you like, but it wasn't intended that way.

This is made of marker, ink, and colored pencil.  Colored pencil after it sits for a while does what is called "wax bloom" which is where all the wax rises to the top putting a glossy sheen over the picture.  I pretty much hate wax bloom.  It was hard to take the photo of this because the glare, scanning doesn't work well with the wax bloom as well.  Natural media, always looks better in person.  Scanning and photos can only do so well, but nothing compares to what your eyes can naturally pick up.

The Sea Fairy Kingdom Project 5

Now this is much better.  As this is coming together, the composition is very strong.  I worked with some gradients with the atmospheric perspective.  It's looking very nice.  I also have begun to separate the objects and their color values.  It's going to take a bit of testing to find the colors and their intensity keeping the foreground strong, but yet not too strong.  The foreground needs to be strong and vibrant, but the trick is to keep the foreground, middleground, and background working nicely with each other keeping a form of balance and enhance the story telling of the illustration.  I'm looking forward to finishing this!  But, there are many other things on my plate at the moment too that needs attention - such as school assignments, which means more heads and hands studies and storyboarding :)  Looking forward to it!

The Sea Fairy Kingdom Project 4

This is something that should happen more often, but should happen more on the beginning of the design project.  The composition kept annoying me, and I sat down and looked at the original composition for a while and browsed through other under water illustrations and photographs.  What's very amazing about under water ocean life is the coral reefs, the strange plant life, the countless fish, and the very powerful and fearful large creatures of the deep.  I decided to explore more of the world these fairy-like creatures lived in.  So, I needed to change the perspective to show more of the under water life.  I decided such creatures needed to live in a ravine to keep them safe from predators much like most every other sea creature.  I'm just quickly added some color flats to help show the atmospheric perspective.  Depth is now being used and is easy to perceive.  As I start building the depth and exploring the values and color intensity of the foreground this illustration is going to be very powerful.  This illustration has been a very big learning experience for me.  Especially, since I've never done an illustration like this before.

I really want to explore my style in this composition, and push it to it's limit.  So far it's coming along nicely.

The Sea Fairy Kingdom Project 3

Adding more detail, and working with lighting differences.

Things are coming together, but everything still is a little weak and not very bold.

I started coloring and detailing the characters.  For a beginning stage they are coming along alright.

 The composition seemed a little flat to me, and there is no focal point.  Everything has the same intensity.  So, I started to work on just the background and try to push the feeling of depth more.

I muted (took the color intensity down) of the mountains in the back, which helps the front mountain structure pop out more.

The Sea Fairy Kingdom Project 2

Changed the illustration to Black and White to check the value of the drawing.

Working in the drawing and adjusting the values to strengthen the foreground and background.

Messing around with adding vegetation.  It's a little distracting, but better with plant life than without it.

The Sea Fairy Kingdom Project 1

This is a sketch for an illustration commission I'm working on for my brother and his wife.  It's going to end up being a very large picture to hang above their sofa in their living room.  It's going to be a tryptic, meaning it will be divided into three separate frames when printed.  The reason is that it's supposed to be 3 feet tall, and 6 feet wide!  Pretty huge!  Originally, I was going to paint this on wood with oil paint, but calculating the cost, I decided against it.  Also, because I don't have much experience with that medium, and there is much I can do digitally.  Had to purchase a new graphics card  in the process of this illustration, btw.

 

I liked the sketch I originally made, and started to flesh out the concept of how the painting was going to end up.  I'm just focusing on separating things by color in this step of the design process.

 

I now have cleaned up much of the sketchy lines that were from the original sketch.

Sketch Book 10: Head Studies

Some more head studies.  I don't particularly like the way these turned out.  They are done well, but some of the minor facial features are not very structurally sound - more along the lines of the specific personality traits.  But, the expressions turned out very good.  Also, I wouldn't mind learning some more blending techniques.  I just don't like the grainy effects of the charcoal paper.  I like drawings to be smooth.  But, that's just me.  I'm only a novice at using a blending stump.  The darker side is pretty good, but the lighter side I'm having difficulties with.

Sketch Book 9: Joe Mad Study Cover Design Badies

This is one of the cover variants of Ultimates 3 #1.  The pencils were originally pencilled by Joe "Mad" one of my most favorite American artists.  He is one of the more fortunate artists who was able to start illustrating for Marvel at such a young age.  In any case, this is just a photo of a pencil study I did of his cover art.  It was a good study of learning how he does his cross hatching and pencil techniques.  I also learned a few new tricks of pencilling and felt like giving it a test drive.  The result was a success!  Unfortunately, this is such a large pic I wasn't able to scan it.  It's just a low quality pic from my camera which doesn't do it justice.  Fortunately, I just found a large format printer near by and some time soon, I will be scanning this in at 600dpi, which I'm excited for :D

I will also be doing the alternate variant cover for Ultimates 3 #1 which is all of the good fellas and chicas.  I just wanted to do the badies first.  This pencil drawing took about 8-10 hours.  I think that is a good pace.  Though, I doubt I can go that fast at the moment working on a design from scratch.  But, word on the street is your making good time if you can finish a page a day in the professional world.  Though, I think that's slow - but then again I think that goes for the American comic industry.  I think in the Japanese manga world you need to be able to finish a spread or two a day, perhaps more if possible.  But, then again, they don't have as much detail per page as most American style comics generally.

Norman Rockwell Hobo Master Artist Project Part 3 Finish

All finished with this one!  I love how this turned out!  It's so fun to do these studies of my favorite artists.  Norman Rockwell is just so good.  Hope you enjoyed the start to finish process on this.  It took a little longer than I had planned due to the fact I had to attend Jury Duty for a week.  That really put me behind schedule, but it ended up being a good experience.  In any case enjoy, and be inspired.  If you're really wanting to improve your skills as an artist, I suggest doing the same thing.  Find an artist who is better than you, and push yourself to create what they did.  It will help you figure out how they got to that place in their drawing.  It'll help you also to reach higher peaks as an artist too and develop your own style.  Which is something I'm doing myself.

Downhill Derby: Kevin Rough

Here is some rough work for a character of mine, Kevin.  He is the star of a children's book I'm currently working on.  I have a current project that is my top priority, once that is complete I will be working on the children's book a great deal till it's complete.  I'm currently working on the style of the book, and my own style for that matter.  The book is called The Downhill Derby.

Sketch Book 8: Hands Study 3

Some more hands in charcoal.  I think I will do just a few more maybe, then back to heads.  Hands are very awesome if you get the details in them and can actually be fun to work with putting all those details in.  So much of a persons character can be told through their hand gestures.  I find that very interesting and unique about people.

Norman Rockwell Hobo Master Artist Project Part 2

Here is the second part of my Norman Rockwell Hobo study.  After drawing a basic rough draft focusing on shape and plane changes, now I'm separating the dark and light side of the drawing.  Usually, at this stage when drawing in charcoal you separate the image to roughly values.  I didn't quite do that here because some areas were just too light, but I still wanted to make some sort of difference to go off of later when I start separating the dark and light sides.  Next step is to divide the dark and light sides into more values and then add details.

Sketch Book 7: Hand Study

Working on some hands here.  More charcoal practice work. 

Sketch Book 6: Hand Study in Black and White Charcoal

Here is a hand study I did for class.  It's drawn on Canson paper Steel Grey I think.  It's a nice mid tone paper.  When drawing in black and white you typically draw using 5 values.  This paper works nicely as the 3rd middle value.  So when you draw, you draw the dark side of the value scale in black charcoal, and the light side of the value scale in what charcoal.  I usually don't draw on toned paper, but it's fun.  It helps me divide light and dark in my mind when drawing.

In this study, I think I could push the core shadows a little more to help divide the reflective light from the core shadow.  In some areas it is done well, but in others it can be pushed more.  The thumb side perhaps is pushed a tad too much, but then if the pink side of the hand was pushed a little more as far as core shadows go, then maybe it would bring more of a proper balance in the drawing.  As far as a composition goes, I probably should have made the ring finger the focal point of the drawing making the highlights there and the shadows there more intense.  Looking at it now, there is not one clear focal point that stands out.  From first glance, this is a good drawing, but on the second and third glance there is room for improvement to take it from great to a master drawing.  Pushing your drawings beyond your current skills is perhaps the hardest thing to do.  But, reaching new heights is very thrilling as an artist.

Norman Rockwell Hobo Master Artist Project 1

A project from my Heads and Hands class at the academy is to reconstruct a portrait study from a master artist.  I chose Norman Rockwell, and am currently working at constructing the base layout and structure of the figure in vine charcoal.  This step is done to begin the whole process.  Vine charcoal can be erased or brushed away easily making it ideal for under-drawing construction.  From this step I can make adjustments with no problem comparing this drawing to the model or in this case a blown up version of Norman's painting.  This picture will be done in only charcoal and will serve to only be a value study of the original work.