1/31/15 - Two Enviroment Concepts

So I know I wanted to update the soldier from last time, but, well...I'm not happy with how that turned out yet. I'll do more work on it and put it up when I'm happy with it.

For now, I've got two enviro paints I did today. I'm trying to work on environments, mainly the ability to establish the scene and feel of the painting. As such, both of these are still very 'rough' - until I nail the first stage of enviro paints I'm hesitant to practice other parts of environment paints.

So with that said, here's my two for today:

I'm happier with the first one, but I sill think there's much more to do. I'll probably continue doing more rough environments till I'm happy with the composition and feel of the piece.

1/30/15 - Soldier Speedpaint

Hey guys, it's been a busy day so I'm gonna keep this short:

I've got my footing again after missing the first few days of class, but I think I'll upload an older paint, seeing as tomorrow I'm going to try and redo it and see how much better I can make it:

So, yeah. I'll be back to top this tomorrow!

1/29/15 - Seraph Line

So I'm finally back and caught up with classes. Phew.

Work is in full swing and as I promised, I'm working at full speed again. I'm just posting this now because I just finished my arting for today.

A lot of it was classwork, exercises and other things that really aren't the kind of stuff that's very interesting outside of its intended activity, but some of the things I did outside of classwork were kind of interesting. So today I have a sketch - a digital sketch that I refined a little bit.

I thought the perspective - though slightly incorrect - was rather interesting and I wanted to play with a more dynamic pose. I thought it was a fun little experiment.

Well, that's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow!

1/28/15 - Project Thumbs

Hey! So I'm finally at uni, and as promised the work will start pouring in. I'm getting a scanner soon so physical uploads, such as some sketches I did today, should be possible uploads in the near future. In the meantime I have some thumbnail sketches I did for a project today, so I'll put that up.

The project asks us to design an image to reflect a specific city of our choice. Style and composition are ours to decide freely. I went with a lot of towering, blocky buildings as most of my city experience has been NYC and that was the impression that I got. More naturey pieces were a result of my trips into Salem and Boston and the much more free feeling air that I felt in that town and city.

Well, I hope it's interesting because I'd like to dump more thumbs in the future! Thanks for looking, and as always I'll be back tomorrow!

1/27/15 - Goal Statement

I really didn't know what to put here, so I think I'll fill it with a couple thoughts on what I hope to accomplish with this blog. I'm still sick, still have nothing to show until uni and I'm starting work on school projects now. It should be interesting but for now this is all I have:

I want to use this blog to develop a work ethic. First and foremost, that was my goal when creating it and its the main reason behind daily posts. I started on my birthday and the intention is to give myself the present of a strong work ethic next year. These text posts are to keep me in the habit of posting, but do not truly help me towards my goal.

Anyway, I also want to improve my artistic ability, obviously. My goal is to become a concept artist, and from my understanding the best path is to generate connections and have a high level of ability, especially in the fundamentals of art as well as a good eye for design. That being the case, I hope to improve my understanding of light, value and composition while simultaneously looking to create interesting designs. I've been falling short on that side, and I'll be trying to fix that up starting tomorrow.

And of course, I wanted to create a blog worth looking at and reading. At some point I want to tidy up the presentation of the blog and possibly put up short stories or links to anything I think might interest readers. Hopefully improved quality of art will help, and I'll look in to other things I can do to make it more interesting.

Well, that's probably it for today. I'll be back tomorrow, and with pretty pictures too!

1/26/15 - Something different

So I don't have an image today. I'm still feeling sick, still home and I have none of my materials out and available for today and probably tomorrow. Sorry about that, but I felt I should make a post anyway. So I'll discuss something that I've wanted to try for a while - designing a separate world, from the ground up. I'm shooting for everything from language to location to people.

Now, that's pretty ambitious, and I realize that. So I'm going to start smaller. One culture, one island. Of course, in this I have to establish the theme and guidelines for the fiction of this world as a whole, so I think I'll start with an origin/precursor culture of sorts.

Still looks big? Yeah, I agree. But I have a lot of the world already thought out, I just need to plan it and map it out on paper.

I've always wanted to do this, and with this blog I hope to deliver occasional updates on this project, in addition to other rants that I might have on any given day. It won't replace art, of course. Most of this work would be visual anyway, but it will still not replace what I've been doing with the blog so far.

Also, I still haven't forgotten about the Met trip or Cabal Raid Gear. I have plans for that, and I'll be executing on those when I get to uni. Some of the Met inspiration will probably make its way into this project, actually.

So I guess that's it. I need to get some sleep. Sorry about the lack of pretty picture today and apologies in advance for tomorrow. In any case, I'll be back tomorrow.

1/25/15 - Sick Delays

Short update; I'm feeling pretty bad still. I couldn't leave for uni due to illness, and snow is gonna delay me further. Dang.

Well, at least I have the pretty picture for today all ready to go:

It's a Journey speedpaint I did a while back. I replayed it yesterday and was reminded that I made this. It's an older piece and it shows, but even a year later there are some parts that I like. That might just be because it's Journey though.

Well, I hope I'm feeling better tomorrow, because I'm running out of reserves and I really do need to paint more consistently again. In either case, I'll be back!

1/24/15 - More uploads from projects

So today is rather busy - packing for uni, which I'll be heading to tomorrow. That said, today I'll have more work for said project I mentioned yesterday. Again, I'm away from PC but I want these updates on time so this is my placeholder. Will be updated by 2 am! Sorry!

EDIT: Aaaand I'm late. Figures. Tomorrow starts uni so I should be on a better schedule then.

1/23/15 - Dreamer title

Today is gonna be another late upload, sorry. These last few days have been busy and I've been sick. Not a good combination.

In any case, I'm going to be uploading something a little different - a title design for a project that fell through. I figure that since it was a design job it's still worth the upload. It should be up by 2 am est.



EDIT: Here it is:

1/22/15 - More Figures

I took another sick day today - I'm coming down with something and haven't slept much in the last two days. As such, I stuck to something quick. Here's some figure drawings I didn't upload last time:

You'll notice the proportions are off - I was playing with emphasis and expression more that proportion and realism with this set. Hope it's interesting, and I'll be back again tomorrow!

1/21/15 - Mountains speedpaint

I ended up doing this quick digital painting to warm up - I hadn't worked with PS in a few weeks and felt I should warm up a bit to get ready for uni. As a result, I hope to put a couple of speedpaints up here as I get back into the groove. Mostly environments probably as I'd like to work on them.

So this is today's speedpaint:

I'm trying to get the feel of these environments and the basic shapes down as quickly and decisively as I can, and build the image around that.

Hope you enjoy! I'll be back again tomorrow!

1/20/15 - Courage painting

So I've got the piece ready to put up today, but I'm not near my PC with the pic right now...I'll edit it in later, probably by 2 AM or so when I'm back. Sorry for the delay but I wanted to make sure I got the post by the end of the day!

So it's a fanart piece I did a while back of Spiral Knights, a game I was playing at the time. It's an older piece but I think it held up pretty well.

EDIT: Got it, here it is:

1/19/15 - Comparison

Yeah, I'm kind of stalling for time until I get back to Uni. I have thumbnails and basic sketches in physical notebooks, but not the means to upload them effectively. So instead, I'm putting up older stuff until around this time next week.

So I thought I'd take a look at two paintings; one was the first that I 'completed', and another (I did already upload) was a more recent painting that touched on the same concept. Basically, comparing my ability and increase in skill over the course of about two years (I think?).

Here's the first 'finished' piece I did, just playing around with the idea of digital painting:

And here's the Guardian piece I uploaded earlier:

If I keep this up, I'd like to put up comparisons every couple of months or so just to track progress better. With that, I'll be back tomorrow!

1/18/15 - Phone Test

So I haven't tried uploading from a phone yet, so I thought I'd give this a tr . Here's a figure drawing, sadly I don't have anything else on hand to upload:

I realize I haven't had much to post lately - I'll be heading back to uni soon, so I'll have many more tools and more time devoted to art up there. In any case, I'll be back tomorrow!

1/17/15 - Quick Study

A couple days earlier I did a quick composition sketch for fun. It's pretty quick but I was fairly happy with the arrangements of value. Right now it's just a thumbnail, but I'm posting it before it gets too old and buried because I might come back to this later and make it into a finished piece. So, here it is:

So today was a bit quick, but I figure it's really the picture that makes this blog work, so I'm gonna try and keep the text shorter. I'll be back tomorrow!

1/16/15 - Met Trip Results

Well, I'm back from the Met, and I've only got a couple minutes...

So I didn't actually sit down and do studies in the Met; there was just too much to see and not enough time to do both. I opted to take pictures of things that I found particularly interesting to jog my memory while I use them as inspiration or material for master studies later on (hopefully over the course of the next month). So, to make sure I put some pretty pictures in, I'll throw up a few pics of things that I thought were interesting and not as commonly displayed in the Met:

The transition from relief to carved out struck me as being really interesting. Not to mention the torn away part a the top seems to add to the design and compliment the carved portions.

Okay, so the Arms and Armor part is pretty well documented, but the ceremonial Japanese weapons hit me the same way the carving did. It's a fun way to play with well known shapes such as spears, swords, arrows and the like.

It might be hard to see, but the wood splits in this carving and gives it a really neat texture. Not to mention the grain works with the elongated proportions to create this interesting figure.

I got really excited in there, and hopefully I can go back and have the time to do actual studies of the artwork in person. Honestly, I think I could spend a whole day just in a single wing of the building.

So this was a little different than I usually do, but hopefully it's still interesting and I'll try to make use of these pics in the future. I'll be back again tomorrow!

1/15/15 - Illustration Project and Met Trip!

These kind of late posts are probably going to be more and more common. I'm gonna try and standardize when I post them, but for now my priority is just to make these posts a habit, so if you're reading this, bear with me please. Today I have a final project from my last semester:

The project was to design an illustration to correspond with an article. I got an article about US infrastructure, specifically one dealing with the US's 'report card'. Given that information, I tried to incorporate engineering and test-taking motifs to get a working, simple image.

Also, some fun news: I'm going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC tomorrow, so I'll most likely be uploading sketches of things I found interesting during the time I'm there. Hope you enjoy and I'll be back tomorrow!

1/14/15 - Sick Day

As the title suggests, I really wasn't feeling it today. My sleep schedule's been messed up and I'm finding it hard to get the energy and mental power required to draw and design. That said, I don't intend to miss a day so I'm gonna pull another older piece out:

This was a study of Winged Victory of Samothrace I did a while back to fill out my portfolio. I took a look at it again today - I can see where I started, where I finished and where I learned what not to do while scratchboarding...

In any case, I'm still pretty proud of it and I hope you like it!

I'm running out of vault pieces I can show without embarrassing myself, so I'll certainly put more current stuff up soon!

1/13/15 - Warlock Raid Set concept

So I did actually get the pen and marker done today. Here's a kinda bad upload of it:

In the process I realized I hadn't really practiced pen and marker...at all. I actually just got those markers and decided to try em out. Well, it isn't the nicest drawing but it's gonna be my starting point for a painting. That might take a while, though. I'll pretty it up, but I might wait until I get back to Uni for that.

In the meantime I'm gonna work on improving both my pen/marker skills and my upload quality.

That's all for today. 5 days in so far. Hope this ends up being a long run.

1/12/15 - Personal Project Start

I really haven't been working a whole lot recently. I suppose I can attribute that to being on vacation, but still. At any rate, here's a peek at what I'm working out:

So I'm a big fan of Bungie and a big player of Destiny, so I thought I'd try my hand at designing a set of armor for each class. With a raid set for the Hive, Vex and Fallen already known or available, I thought I'd work out some ideas for Cabal raid armor.

The right side shows some of the reference I had while the left shows some of the thumbnail sketches. I've worked out some potential helmets for each class and have an idea of where I want to take each of the classes as far as armor is concerned. Similar to how the Hive and Fallen sets base each class's armor on a different enemy in that faction, I thought I'd do the same with the Cabal. The Warlock set will have heavy Psion influence, the Titan set will be based on the Centurion and Colossus, and the Hunter takes inspiration from Centurions and Psions.

My goal is to have the Warlock ink and marker done by tomorrow.

Also, I'm guessing that most of my posts going forward will be put up around this time or possibly later. I expect them to be up between 8 PM and 1 AM EST.

Hope you like it, and I'll try to deliver the ink tomorrow!

1/11/15 - Cop Bot and Phone Uploads

Bit of a late upload this time!

Today I learned I need a more efficient method of uploading sketches to my computer. As you can see, this quality isn't really all that great for uploading sketches to PS:

 And from that I made this:

That was an older sketch whose helmet I liked. Its nice to see the transition from physical to digital; I just need to figure out a more efficient way of uploading what I have.

In addition, I need to work on my rendering. Specifically, clarifying forms. I've recently invested in a few books on the subject that I'm reading, and I'm resuming classes on the 26th, so improvement should be coming. My goal this semester is to improve my fundamentals - I want to improve my perspective, proportion, use of line, value and understanding of form and shadow specifically. Hopefully, that will be evident in my work for the next few months.

One final note: Unless I can dramatically improve my current setup for digital painting, I might hold off on doing digital uploads until I get back to school. The way I have everything set up now it is difficult to line up my actions on the tablet with the monitor. If that's the case, I'll be sticking to line and marker until the 26th.

Hope you enjoyed, and I'll be back tomorrow!

Day 2 - Airship Speedpaint

Again, I'm gonna pull something from my reserves for today. This one was a speedpaint (1-2 hours?) done last week or so. It was done as a demo for family, so I rushed through the initial phases of the painting to keep interest. In the future, I'd like to prepare thumbnails and quick sketches beforehand so I can focus on rendering without sacrificing design and composition when I do paint for an audience.

After a while, the ship began to take on a more organic appearance, so I tried to emphasize that. I might go back and redo this painting in the future.

Hope you like it! Tomorrow I'm thinking I'll be posting thumbnail sketches or line drawings for the project I mentioned yesterday or for a redone airship. I'll be back tomorrow!

Lets get the ball rolling

Hi potential readers! This is gonna be a personal project of mine, but hopefully some people will find it interesting.

Well, time to get started on this project. My goals:

• Upload one post a day (every day) with artwork I have completed or am currently working on
• Include updates on more work intensive pieces while I'm working on them
• Go on rants while disguising it with pretty pictures

Some of these days I might upload older stuff if whatever I'm working on at the time isn't really something I'd like to show in it's current state. Like today!

That one was a project from last year, but I never got around to uploading it. I kind of feel like cheating by starting with an old project, but for now all I have are small sketches for a self project, and I'd rather start with something more...illustrative.

That's all for now, and I'll be back tomorrow!