In the pines, where the sun don’t ever shine…
Well I think the rendering in black and white is pretty much done. I’m starting on working colour into the image now. Just slapped some gradient maps (I need to try those out more) to get a base idea of colour. I blurred up that hand in the foreground, but I’m not sure I like it that way. It doesn’t quite look like it fits yet.
Almost there.
“It’s much to late to be alone…”
I’m no longer an idiot, but I do miss the title blocks, oh well. Closing in on the final bits, colour will be coming up very soon. I’m probably going overboard on things, but honestly this is what I like to do. I’m looking forward to seeing it all done and meshing well.
Right now the trick is getting the soldier in front with the pistol to look like he is juuuuuust outside the light, I think over all there will be some tweaking done after this rendering but its coming together nicely.
Might have another two posters to start very soon. I’m excited for that, gonna try and go meet up and find out what they want. I have a fun idea for one of them, but we’ll see if they want a full illustrated poster again or just use pictures.
So I’m a total idiot, and all this time I could have been putting up larger versions of my pictures. Soooooo I’m just going to slap these up here so you can enjoy the whole process of my mailer to date over the next two posts.
Can’t wait to toss this into a gif when it’s all done. It’s been fun taking process pictures to see how it changes. Again, wish I had done a full drawing so that all this shit would be a bit more set in stone than it was. Oh well.
Ok, I suck at faces, I’m totally out of practice. I’m finally happy with how my elf came out though. It hasn’t helped being out of the country, and now that I finally get back I have been running all over the place. There was a week I did actually stay home….buuuut I wasn’t in the groove yet. I think I am now. So I decided that I have one week to finish this mailer off, then go find a job to not be a total bum (I need to shave too soon).
Spent some time on the Muskoka Mayhem 4 poster design too, I’m sure I’ll toss that up as soon as I get a go ahead on it from the boss. I honestly think it came out more awesome than last years. And I really liked last years, I had a hard time figuring out how I was going to top it.
Anyway, it has been a long day of energy drinks, painting and loud ass music. Feels good to be home.
Still not sure about that one guys hand and gun, but it’s time to figure that out and get this fucker done.
2 months, been away for 2 months in Australia. Wonderful time, simply an amazing place with great people. As far as trips go, it’s about as far away as I could get from home, but at the same time it’s not a huge culture difference so you can feel pretty at home there.
Sadly I did not accomplish a lot of art down there, I did some sketches, a painting study, and started my first oil painting down there. Could not finish it due to time constraints and the fact that I don’t know what the hell I’m doing with oils, but it is coming along well. I will be practicing from now until my friends come back, so that I can finish the painting for them and be able to do with the medium how I want to make it look.
I spent a lot of time walking around and seeing the sights, lots of picture taking. Really just trying to relax, there was so much to see. And let’s face it, I have never been a prolific sketcher, and having to keep moving around all the time and have a camera in my hands did not help. But that just means I have almost 2,000 reference pictures now.
Anyway I highly suggest anyone that can stomach such a trip (and afford it), do so. I do plan on going back someday.
But now that I’m home, I plan to get back into painting hard, today I’m going to start planning 3. One digital, one acrylic and one in oil.
I would like to toss up my progress with my first oil painting though, cause I just HATE making posts without any artwork in them. This isn’t a blog where you are really supposed to hear about shit other than my work, but hey, 2 months in Australia. I suppose I should put up some of those pictures later. Btw, if you want to see some my friend took, check out http://jeremykruckelphotography.tumblr.com/ my friend who so graciously bugged me for 4 years to visit and put me up for my time takes some really nice photos. He finally listened to me and brought his tripod to take some amazing shots during our last big trip. So please check his tumblr our to see some places I went.
Now…onto the paintings.
Been a little while since I have done anything here. Then again it’s been a while since I have done much but walk around.
Australia is fun, I suggest everyone should give it a shot if they can. It’s “fall” here now, so the weather is just perfect for me. Still 6 weeks left of adventure to go, haven’t seen one snake yet tho :( A few other neat animals. I will make a picture post one of these days (but most of you are on my facebook so you can see the pictures there).
Between walks I have started working back on the mailer again. I brought my CS4 copy with me here to use and Jer’s computer works pretty good. But its so odd to have only one screen, it’s not as comfy as I’m used to really but I can work. I have noticed that for some reason CS4 won’t save my file to a Jpeg. And that is pissing me off.
I’m finding a lot of things that CS4 won’t do that I’m so used to CS5 now. And it suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Anyway I will have to muddle through the next few weeks with it. I’m going to kiss my computer when I get home though,
Alright onto the picture, I darkened some of the background, changed the lead guy in the back, the previous pose was much too stiff I decided. Now I just have to make it fit together a bit better but I like this pose more. Worked on the Elf’s face but as I just opened and looked at it again, it looks TERRIBLE, so that will need to change some more.
Still need to darken up the background characters to make them it. Once the rendering is done it will come down to making it more cohesive.
Aside from artwork I have gone through a shit ton of books so far. I need to sketch more and start an actual painting before I go. I bought two canvases and I have all my paints and brushes, I just need to pick something to actually paint.
So I’m not totally sure what it is, but I am totally broken when it comes to being able to paint anything lately. Should I just blame it on the Februrary blues? I’m sure it has a lot to do with the utter lack of contact I have with others here at home. Now I like my time alone, but holy crap I think the lack of back and forth I had with everyone back in Toronto/Oakville has really hurt my work flow lately. Everything is just so blah these days it hurts to be creative
I even went so far as to start my own “art director” bag. It’s not done yet, but it’s basically a bunch of genre’s, themes, cliches and adjectives written on paper and pulled from a bag/hat/bowl/cat’s ass (you get the idea). After I watch a movie or something, I write down characters names and randomly draw it out of another bag/hat/bowl/cat’s ass and then pull the art direction paper out. So if I got Doc Brown from Back to the Future as a character, and then out of the art direction bag, I pulled “Make a Pirate”…I would draw Doc Brown as a Pirate.
I “made” this whole idea up as a game for artists to do after a collective activity or movie watching so we all get random things to draw. But I never actually got around to using it with other artists while I was down in the city. So feel free to try this game for yourselves. My current list of art directions is as follows:
make it hipster, turn it into a robot, make it hillbilly, make it elvish, more Victorian, Riding a Dragon, make it a Ninja, Paintball, make it a pirate, like if it was in Alice and Wonderland, Zombify it, make it punk, make it a samurai, make a kid version, using magic, badass soldier, more sci-fi, flip gender, medieval, steampunk, make it a werewolf, turn into a biker, make it more Canadian.
I would like more, so I’ll bug other people to come up with ideas and genre’s that I haven’t thought of yet. I’m hoping once I can actually make myself draw something, that this will get me to do some warm up sketches.
I guess something I should be a little excited about is my upcoming trip to Australia. I was happy to see I was approved for a working holiday down under. I finally get to visit my friends who moved down there several years ago. My friends Jer and Dom have been having a good time down there and have been bugging me for years to come down. I can finally do it, I can barely afford it, but what the hell huh? Only live once. I’m hoping to have a nice adventure and post up some really nice pictures of places I get to see down there. Maybe wrestle a crocodile or a shark while I’m at it. You know, really adventury stuff. There’s another one for the art direction: something like Indiana Jones/ 1900’s treasure hunter.
I should really stop typing, you all don’t really want to read all this. You’re just going to look at it and think “oh fuck he doesn’t think I’m going to read all this does he?”
The answer is no, I don’t. Then again the only people who are really going to see this are my friends and I guess they will read it just to see what I’m going to say. Well, rubber baby buggy bumpers….there.
I have to get up early and go get my hair cut tomorrow finally. And do a few more errands I guess while I’m actually out of the house. So I guess I will stop.
Btw, Jess this is for you.
Just about time for details and textures.
Please, any critiques are welcome.
