Pixelated Ritz



Just trying a square brush in photoshop. Worked pretty well for a low-rez image. Just for fun...

SELF-PORTRAIT MANIA!!! For Cold Paint...
1hr 30mn Digital Self-Portrait

Right Ear is really jacked up (for starters), I'll fix it soon.


25 Minute Self-Portrait

Digital painting by me, nose by The Jackson Family surgeon.
For Cold Paint

SpeedPaints Vol. II
From Todd Haynes' Far From Heaven


Speed Paint: BOUND by the Wachowski Bros

For Cold Paint: So far
Joined Cold Paint: One Painting a day blog for winter break with some folks from SJSU. All these are from around 1/2 hr - 1 1/2 hr: Speed Paints. Good practice. Just want to keep the skills up and get the speed up as well. My focus is to get a catalogue of lighting into my arsenal. Started digitally, but happy to do traditional as well. One week till school...

Figure Paint: Figure Drawing Marathon
01/11/09

01/10/09

Saturday's session. The SJSU Winter Figure Drawing Marathon culminates with Saturday's Figure Painting session instructed by the great Cameron Chun and a 5 hr uhhh..., "whatever" session on Sunday. Man, I am so glad I took part in this, its been great. This work: Figure painting 3-4 twenty minute sessions, I lost count it went by too fast and it was fun. Acrylic...

Also want to give props to Mike Matessi for last Sunday's FORCED figure drawing lecture. Thanks guys!

SARGENT, Another Study: Side by Side

What are these two doing exactly? Hmmm, is it some kind of business transaction? Anyhow, Sargent sure could paint, and I have nerve for attempting to copy him. Amazing painter he was: this one was fun. Hope some good rubs off on me. This is it for a minute as far as studies go... next up gotta do my own shit. I put it in writing so I gotta do it now. Hope to revisit Peter Pan...

You Oughta Know...

Taking a page from my buddy Jaime, strayed from artist studies and did a speed paint of a pop star: Alanis Morisette. She looked cool in the reference picture (almost like a superhero) so I did her digitally, uh... painted digitally. Simplified, pushed the lighting just a little bit. Key idea I'm keeping in mind lately: I'm painting the light. Tip of the hat to Ruben Perez & John Clapp for the painting tip.

Apologies...

(after Sorolla)

(after Sargent)

2 quick studies based on portraits by Juaquin Sorolla & his homeboy John Singer Sargent. Like the Speedpaints, just trying to get a feel for the form & the lighting. Don't think I quite got the light: esp. in top painting (ala Sorolla) reflected light in face is not there. I would always see homages to artists' works with the words "apologies to..." Now I see why, 2 beautiful portraits mauled by my crude attempts. Apologies to Sorolla & Sargent... fun nonetheless

The Long Form Sketch


I'm gonna try more of these "Long Form" sketches. it spanned 2 pages in my sketch book and done in one 50 minute sitting at Panera. I like that place. I get some drawing done there. I added tone. I wanted to keep it simple, similar to some sketches I saw in Kelsey Mann's Blog, but didn't quite get the same effect. Anyhow, hope to continue on stuff like this, get quicker, more polished, yet looser, etc. etc... =

Petey Pan...

A new project to work on. Trying to loosen up with this one for Creation Engines. Our current topic: Peter Pan. Hope to make it into something a bit more developed. Something to work on over the break...

"Plein Airing"...


Exercising the observation skills. Went out and did some painting from life at Guadalupe Gardens in San Jo. Love it 'cause I always finish it up with a meal at Panera... I hate the sky in these, they reproduced poorly, but in the original - its not much better. I keep loosing my whites. I know, I know... I gotta preserve my whites when working with the medium (i used acrylic). Anyhow, good to know for next time. Going into winter, so I there'll be an abundance of light values. Gotta remember that when I go out: restraint!

SURGE of POWER: Cover II

Following Vinnie's cover notes, this is the cover I have come up with as another prop for the Surge of Power sequel. Basically had to crank this one out this weekend cause the prop goes into the production next week! Vinnie had quite a few specifics for this cover, hope I delivered. I will have problems with it I'm sure. Wonder why Surge is in such a hurry and where's he's coming from? heh heh...
Another SURGE II Cover

After a little back & forth, we've come to this cover layout. Still awaiting full approval before I can move on to color. Here's a cleaned up line & quick tonal pass for values. A fresh look tomorrow will help me tweak the values better.

Another prop cover needed for Surge of Power II. Just sent off these thumbs to my producer Vinnie Roth, for approval. Awaiting his follow up comments. Image based on his description. The figure in the 3rd image (far right) is kinda cool, but I'd definetely change "Surge's" position. But the "Surge Mobile" is meant to be a center of focus, so don't know if Vinnie will want the front of the car obscured. I'll have to wait and see... Any other comments/suggestions appreciated. Could use the feedback.

Happy Halloween from Creation Engines

for CE's halloween blog post. the bride... (not the Sting/Jennifer Beals version, the original)

Speed Painting...

Jumping on the Speed Painting bandwagon. I've wanted to do this for a long, long time since I heard about it. I was introduced to it at school during my senior year but never got around to doing it... until now! Well, here are my first Speed Paints...done digitally. Recognize the movies?

CRYPTOZOOLOGY: The Yeti

stages

tonal thumb

For Creation Engines blog. Just a quick little sketch just to say I did. From most current topic "Cryptozoology" the study of "hidden" animals.

Playing Around with Value

Something I did for my students, just to show how to separate ground planes using value.

SURGE of POWER: The Sequel


A sequel is in the works to SURGE of POWER, a fun, campy Superhero movie released in 2004 produced and conceived by my friend, Vincent Roth. I initially did artwork for the original movie, SURGE OF POWER: The Stuff of Heroes, including props, framing artwork, and concept work. Now Vincent is back at work on a sequel after touring the first film at film festivals and conventions. He's asked me to do new art, and this is the first piece I've conceived: A cover to the JUSTICE BRIGADE comic, a fictional book the main character is a fan of. More SURGE movies = more art for me to create. Looking forward to seeing how the projects develops, no doubt bigger and better.

Some initial concept thumbnails for the cover. I initially thought the cover on the right would be great, after talking with Vincent the concept was revised, and I think the second idea (left side) works much better in showcasing the heroes (Blue Beacon, Splendorella, & Captain Meteor).

Original cover "prop" artwork from Surge of Power I conceived and created back in 2003 - oh, the horror!!!

Tree Tonals: Big & Small


Things I do with my class. Good practice for me, to do what I assign them to do. Quick studies, focusing more on value/tone to define form. Man, like anything else, if you want to draw, gotta draw everything. Yeah, I know its good for me...

War Is Hell (CE Post)


This quick little illo is the latest CE Challenge: WAR. I really need to start painting a) More & b) Faster. Here it is from loose sketch to digital paint.

Outdoors: Guadalupe Gardens, SJ

Some outdoor painting I've started up. Hope to gain a keener eye at painting & determining subtle shifts in color & light. Pretty fun, but only so much pollen one can tolerate. More to come..? I hope so.

One Tree
Another warm up before I focus more and more on painting and technical skills this semester. I spent this last weekend in Bakersfield with my wonderful family. This little paint is for my mom. Painted in Tehachapi, a little ways from my family's home.

Nekkid Ladies

More figure drawing from the last two weeks. Man, out of about 50 sketches, these were the only ones I think were somewhat successful.

Quick Paint - Stanford U., Palo Alto

Warming up 4 the new semester... great weather today.

The Marvel Way #2: Spider-Surfer

#2 in my exercises from How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way. Still learning in several ways how to go about this right. Number of things I am hoping to get out of this from economy, neatness, referencing, line weight, composition, figure drawing, etc, etc. Gotta start somewhere. I'm enjoying myself, trying to see where I can improve. Its difficult, but I hope to go a lot further with these exercises. Next up: a multi-page story. This is my last one pager for a while.

Live. Nude. Drawings!

"Draw Your Own Comic-Book Page..."

I needed to crank this out. Still have this burning desire to draw comics one day. One can talk and talk about wanting to do something, but unless you do, its just talk. Well, here's hoping this is the start of something. I took one of the exercises from Stan Lee & John Buscema's "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way." Tried to do it as blind as I could (they offer up examples), and was surprised how different mine was. Anyhow, probably a crappy comic book page by industry standards, but its a start...