Wednesday, January 27, 2010

ILLUSTRATION FRIDAY: CLUMSY (CONCEPT)



Okay, not a finished illustration but a concept... I am working on doing some new pieces for the old portfolio and I very much am steering towards a fantasy focus with some of the new pieces. I love fantasy art and I happen to think that some of the best illustrators working today are fantasy illustrators (but that's another post altogether).

The process... First, I made a rinky dink model in Lightwave which I placed in a basic environment with some basic lighting. I am not looking to get too dramatic. I just want to give a sense of space and perspective. I just need a wireframe set to work on.



Then, I import the basic wireframe sketch into Painter and then draw/sketch on a separate layer set to multiply--so I can see "through" the layer beneath. I don't do this often but creating simple "sets" in a 3D program can help me work out problems with composition, placement as well as provide a more believable structure to work with. There are dangers to using this technique however. It can sometimes make the illustration look flat and almost TOO believable in how the objects are placed. It is still necessary to apply some "flair" to the elements to give them a little more character. I did this because I wanted to really mess around with the perspective a bit.



This is another sketch I did... You can still see some of the model underneath... Looking at this now, I see that I have a pretty good start but I need to refine the building AND the giant a little more. They need a lot more character. He needs to look a lot more like a big petulent baby and the woman below needs to be set in the scene better so that she stands out a little more. Still, I am pretty happy thus far. Stay tuned folks!

3 comments:

Dayle's Painted Diary-Dayle Dodwell said...

Love to see the finish. Your drawing is very confident It is looking real good so far.

k.h.whitaker said...

great concept, I'd also like to see it finished

James Palmer said...

Working on a new sketch right now as a matter of fact! Thanks for looking y'all!