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.