Ride of the Headless Horseman

Well, wouldja' look at that? I turn my back for a second, and a two-week break from art sneaks up on me! At least I got one thing done, and it didn't turn out half bad, either!



I got to try out my new Raphael brushes on this illo, and they make my old generic brushes feel clumsy and unwieldy in comparison. Wheee! I felt pretty guilty for slacking off so hard on this (coulda' been done in two days! Two days!!), so I also made a pseudo-tutorial that demonstrates the process I used. Happy Friday the 13th, everybody!

Happy Halloween!

Some of you may be heading off to parties, handing out candy to masquerading miscreants, or even prowling around in costume to earn said sweets. As for myself, I'm going to finish off what remains of my evening by watching some Vampire Hunter D and by getting some frags in Team Fortress 2's holiday event, all while listening to monster metal courtesy of Lordi. In any case, here's to an awesome and safe Halloween, no matter what your plans. Take care of yourselves, friends!

Art-related work has been slow, because I allowed myself to be lazy (for shame!). I should have some new stuff to post up - random sketches and new work alike - sometime next week, hopefully before Wednesday.

Blum is BACK!

With the site recoded and revamped, I am proud to declare "Blum - the Incompetent Knight" officially relaunched! Read it by clicking here!

Snails, Sketches, and (Owl)bears, Oh My!

Does a month-long gap between updates count as being lazy? At any rate, here's some new stuff!



The sketch page above was made before the illustration for purposes of research. The illustration itself was made with India ink, watercolor, and gouache on cold press watercolor paper. I hadn't planned on using gouache, but a number of failed ink hatching forced me to experiment with ways to save the image from itself. Thankfully, it worked, or so I'd like to think.



This was my entry for the most recent ArtOrder challenge, which asked for a redesign of the Dungeons and Dragons Owlbear creature. When glancing over the brief, I only noticed the phrases "Owlbear," "not flipbooked," and the size specs of 5"x7", which was good to start with. Sadly, right as I was ready to send the entry e-mail off, I reread the description and discovered that what was specifically asked for was one adult male Owlbear, one adult female, and one infant. D'oh! The color technique I tried didn't quite work as intended, either. It's not eye-gougingly bad (I hope!), but it is a rather odd hybrid of two working methods - vectory and painterly - that doesn't quite mesh.

Aside from these pieces, I've also been working on a graphic design job and putting pages together for my webcomic, which can be seen both at the comic's website (URL to be posted once the site has been thoroughly recoded) and in my DeviantArt gallery. Keeping busy feels good, indeed!

I Tried! Honest!

Finished up my summer Italian course last week (allora posso parlare un po' del Italiano!), and now I can begin client hunting and working full-time on my comics. Fun! The above image, however, was not so fun, sadly. Y'see, I figured it would be a good idea to integrate linework into my digital painting process, and I wanted to experiment with a greyscale underpainting like so many other digital painters do. ...Seven hours of pain ensued. On the bright side, I finally found some use for a few custom brushes that were laying dormant, as can be seen in the background tiles and smoke, and in a few places on the hat and skin.

In other news, I've decided to take a stab at things and make myself available for private commissions. My pricing structure is currently posted at my DeviantArt page, and will be added to the contact portion of my portfolio site later this week.

D&D Sketches

Here's some sketches I've done within the last two weeks or so. Both sets were done during gaming sessions of Dungeons and Dragons whilst playing, waiting for dinner, and in the van in mid-transit. Sketching random stuff when around other people seems to be a bit easier for me to do than when alone. It's a lot more fun, at any rate, especially when the guy next to you keeps shouting, "BACON OF HOPE!"

It may be a bit hard to see at this size, but the eyepatch-wearing tree is saying, "Yarr!"

Balls!

It's been a while since I posted something, but I'm too tired to scan in my recent sketchbook pages. Instead, here's some lighting practice (sans reflected lighting. Shhh...) that I did a few minutes ago with my current brush loadout. Most were rendered with custom brushes I made with either Photoshop's standard round brush or ink marks, washes, and splatters that I scanned in from a mangled piece of bristol board. The balls labeled "Ditlev's" and "Yumedust's" were made with custom brushes courtesy of Ditlev and Yumedust, respectively. The one labeled "signature," if not immediately clear, was made with a stamp brush I use for...well, my signature. On stuff. ...Yep.



Tomorrow I'll have an honest update with those sketchbook pages I hinted at earlier.

ArtOrder Challenge: Vampires

I was so downhearted yesterday when I tried to submit my entry to ArtOrder's B&W Vampire challenge, only to find that my e-mails were being bumped. Thankfully, the fellow that sponsored the challenge was cool enough to extend the deadline by asking for resubmissions! True, I did resubmit pretty late today - around close to 6 p.m. or so - but if he checked his mail at 7 yesterday, I should be fine, right? ...Right?

Anyway, here's my stab at Gwenth and Garreth, the two necuratul described in the challenge brief. 3"x6.75", India ink and white gouache on bristol.

Character Challenge of the Week: Envoy of the Khemethar

I entered Conceptart.org's Character of the Week (CHOW) challenge for the first time, and have learned a good deal about my process and tastes as a result. Poor pyramids, though. I'm still covered in shame from butchering them. Anyway, the brief this time around had us illustrating an envoy of the Khemethar, a spacefaring race that inspired the Egyptian pantheon. I chose to depict Osiris, green skin and all.



CHOW regulations also require the posting of work in progress images. Here are mine:


In other news, I'm going to be entering ArtOrder's black and white challenge. I gets ta' use ink fer this one, and art directors from three different companies will be jurying it!

I graduated! ...Yay?

With all my course work and units taken care of, I walked the Walk at yesterday's graduation/commencement ceremony at CSU East Bay. The Traditional Arts B.F.A., eet eez mine! Of course, this is no time to rest on my laurels. Gotta get my webcomic restarted, gotta send off a storyboard portfolio to Pixar...so much stuff that must be done!

Perhaps they'd get done sooner if I actually sat down to work on them? Hrmm...

Last Batch of Independent Study Images

The academic quarter is over, and I've submitted the last of my I.S. works, including a 5-page comic as my final series. First, the weeklies:






The comic that follows was done entirely in Photoshop. The last few pages were really rushed, and I think it shows, sadly. Still, as with the weekly pieces, the process of making each page was good practice. Note to self: stop abusing the multiply mode!



Fonts from Dafont.com and Blambot.com, by the way.

More Dinking Around with Digital Painting, Plus Scribbler

More stuff from my independent study. As before, my time limit on each of these was three hours. Wheeeee~


This one (below) is unfinished, but I like where it's going. I'll probably finish it up and use it in something else next week.


Also, I found this nifty little Flash procedural drawing whatsit. It's called Scribbler, and it basically takes vector paths that you draw in a mini-window and extrapolates lines upon them. Quite fun. Example:

Independent Study Stuff

I'm currently taking a self-directed independent study on digital painting, since it's an important skill to have these days. As part of this course, I've been making two paintings each week, and each at 3 hours maximum. Posted below are the results thus far, in order from oldest to most recent. By the way, the Kirby one was originally drawn by a friend of mine who goes by the name of MathiasMeioh. Go pay him a visit!

Gasp! It LIVES!

A number of artists I respect mention the importance of having a sketch blog and whatnot, so I figured it was high time I jumped on the rickety old bandwagon and got me one of my own. So! Here it is. Let's see if'n I can keep this thing regularly updated...

Anyhoo, I may as well start things off with a few digital paintings I've done this week.





This one was made in Photoshop on Monday using a spiffy scumbly brush available on Katie De Sousa's DeviantArt page. With this, I've been able to scumble like I do with traditional oils, which has been quite a kick in the pants. Fun times.










This...monstrosity...was made today in Painter using its so-called "oil" brushes. I guess I just need more time with the program, but as it stands, this is just...poopy.













I will say this for Painter, though: it's a heckuva lotta fun to just draw in it.