Friday, January 30, 2009

TALES FROM THE SKETCHBOOK

Lately, I have been taking a break from work and other stuff to look at old sketches and came across some from a while back when I was thinking about The Jungle Book. I was wanting to create a Shere Kahn design that is less Disney and more "Terry Gilliam." Anyway, I like these tigers a lot. Big cats are a lot of fun.

Friday, January 23, 2009

I posted this on conceptart.org in their critique center and got some amazing feedback... One of the major points was that folks felt that there needed to be more variation in the colors overall--that is, adding more warmer colors, browns, golds, oranges. Others felt like it needed some more atmospheric touches to the background--maybe add some more cooler greens. I even desaturated some areas in the background to provide more of ma feeling of depth. One artist did me the honor of doing a brief "paint-over" on the image to better demonstrate his suggestions. I loved it so much that I tried to recreate the wonderful touches he added--though, of course, I added my own spin.

I attempted to do a "do-over" of this image--basically to flip the axe with the blade down (one critique was that the axe looked a little unnatural posed upright). I also did some revisions to the figure as well. I ultimately felt, however, that this piece was, overall, much stronger. Anyway, I had some printed today and they look amazing. I am pretty pleased with this--although, I see a lot of changes I want to make already. I am most likely going to be doing more pieces on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as time permits. Stay tuned!

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Just finished this illustration that I've been picking at since before the holidays. I really do love fantastic art and have long wanted to try to tackle some more challenging subjects... The above image is my depiction of the Green Knight from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I read it many years ago in Medieval Lit class in college and always thought it would make an interesting illustrated text.

Overall, I am pretty happy with the illustration--although I would like to try and re-work the character a little bit. We'll see. Time permitting...