Action Analysis Concept

Pretty much that ^ We had to do 5 pages of just thinking and experimenting with colour or characters or bg or whatever. I chose to do mostly characters stuff and one fancier coloured background (then some experimenting with different colours). Anyway, it took a long time and I am very tired. Good night, everybody. 

Heroes and Villains vs SAI!

Okay, so I finally went for it and bought SAI Painter (an older edition). It's a Japanese program, so you actually buy from a Japanese site; about 5000 yen, or 70-ish dollars. Anyway, the point is it is TOTALLY worth it. It's amazing. I'd heard it was good, but THIS GOOD?? Very, very good. Allow me to explain.

I haven't been using my tablet very much. I only bought it when I came to this school and even so I haven't used it for everything, I still preferred using pencil and paper over Photoshop. I always thought my lines in Photoshop were too clunky, not really going where I wanted, and colouring in was such a pain! You needed to go around the edges to fix all the white pixels and UGH. What a hassle.

Using SAI is completely different. It feels like a much better connection with movement on tablet -> what you get on screen. Or maybe the way it applies it is just much more like what I expect to see? If that makes any sense. And it's just a much more pleasant experience over all. I have only used it for 4 drawings and already I am in love.

Enough about SAI, though, here's some art. It's for our Life Drawing assignment about Heroes and Villains. I guess I'm a story person, because before I could design characters I had to imagine a place for these three characters to be in the first place. First I thought: Superheroes. But then the teacher told us it didn't necessarily need to be Mr. Incredible everywhere, just someone with hero-like qualities or villainous qualities. So then my mind went to these two battling FBI agents, possibly fighting over the third. As if the third has information of some kind or is valuable to both agencies in some way. I knew I could do anything with these character designs, and I didn't want to to something like I always do...

So, instead, I decided to challenge myself. For some reason I always draw white men. Why? I dunno. But it's true. So I decided this time it would be three different WOMEN of different races. And I just went from there. When I had finished the drawings on paper I didn't really like them, but I thin the colours and more decisive line have helped quite a bit. Now I am all right with them. That's the best you can expect from an artist, right? Right. Yes. Right.

Without further adieu, the art!

BONUS ART: Me :) Why not.

Action Analysis Storyreel First Pass

Exactly what the title says. This all has to be redone, of course. Just something to get a rough idea for the final piece.

Business Card

My business card is done! Well, the design, anyway. I need to add text later, but this is the part you're all here to see:

This is also a good example of the kind of thing you would get from a digital commission. Personally, I enjoy vector art; doing it and the finished product. It's just so classy.



Til next time!

Commissions!

Seriously, though, it's been a long long long time since I updated. I've done two commissions since then and figure they should be up here. 

The first had very loose requirements. She wanted something involving a woman/girl and the colours orange and/or green and/or red. Warm things. I suggested ideas, she liked what I came up with, and  just went from there.

It ended up being 4 feet tall, a few feet wide (hard to measure, it's an irregular shape). It consists of three layers. The bg, the bird of paradise, and the flamenco dancer on top. It was a pain to put together, I'm not going to lie. Cutting the boards was more difficult than I thought and I might have failed (lash taken longer to complete...) if not for the amazing power of my Dad and his jigsaw.

Four panels as they hang

...and how they looked while I was working on them

Right this second I'm working on making some business cards to put out where the 2nd painting hangs; direct people here, let them know who I am, etc. I'll probably put the image of that up when it's done. It's just a small vector self-portrait. I might zazz it up a bit just to make it interesting, though.

Not Dead!

In case anyone was wondering if I was still alive, I assure you, I am not. You may have heard that it is now summer, and I am hard at work on art. Not digital stuff, however . I'm neck-deep in a commission . It's a traditional painting featuring three layers of hard board stacked on top of each other. It's an abstract background, a bird of paradise, then a flamenco dancer.

I had the rough idea for this a while ago, but after going at it again and again I decided I definitely needed to overhaul the idea. Instead of being three panels on Arches paper, it's a four-foot-tall piece on boards.

Anyway, here's a sneak-peek of my work in progress.

Minoans 3.0

Been so busy with school, but that's to be expected. Assignment due left right and center. Two of these assignments are to continue the Minoan theme project which was started in our Character Design class by creating a few layouts and painting them. In order to save myself a headache and because I like the way it looks, I decided to continue this assignment with cel shading. It took longer than I expected, but I took a lot of breaks while doing it. I guess sitting in a chair all day in the same position has a negative effect on your muscles.

I'm really feeling it now, as a matter of fact.

Anyway, before I completely collapsed I thought I would post my day's efforts here for alll to see. Enjoy a labrynth surrounded by forest, everyone.