Rarr.

The other day I got frustrated by how I feel I've been progressing as an artist. I've been at my design job for about 9 months now, and it feels like I haven't done enough to push myself outside of work. So I've made some new goals to work on alongside my current projects.

1. Learn how to do computer coloring well (right now, photoshop and my wee wacom). I should probably just be painting, but I guess this is a babystep in that direction. I'd like to get into concept development for movies or games at some point, and it seels like a lot of that work is done digitall. Watch me be hip.

2. Learn color theory better than you already do. My most comfortable medium is pencil/ink. Most of my color work in the past suffers from either an obvious or uncontrolled color palette (the latter sort of resembles an drug experience, I've been told). I'll post some examples later to show you what I mean. Anyway, the library trips mentioned in step 2 will help with this.

3. Sketch more from direct anatomical reference. To start this I went to the Monroe Ave library and got a bunch of picture books of deep sea creatures and cetaceans (Matt says, "Citations?!") This weekend I'll go to the central library downtown and see what they have there. Google image search is handy but should be avoided.

The gorilla above is my second concentrated foray into photoshop rendering, about 1.5 hours worth of noodling. I decided to work on greyscale stuff for now until I get comfortable in the medium and then step into color. I'll try to post more samples as they days go on if things progress well.

It sort of feels like I need to reinvent myself seasonally or periodically. I'm all for shaking up my mode because I usually get better overall by trying something new. We'll see how it goes! I know Tom and I (and others?) are seriously planning on going to San Diego Comic Con this July and if all goes well I should have some good new work together by then.