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!