Wednesday, April 26, 2006

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.

5 comments:

Peter said...
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Peter said...
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Peter said...
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Peter said...
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:: smo :: said...

wtf yo? so many deleted comments! you should put on the thing where you have to enter secret numbers to keep the robots away.

and on to commenting!:

i think this is great man! it's awesome to see you cut loose with this! i don't know much about painting either and my color theory isn't totally well developed, but it's there! i say buy a color wheel! we surround ourselves with so much digital stuff a physical color wheel might be a nice investment and might help you with those color schemes and all more than SWATCHES or whatever the kids are calling it all nowadays.

also a while back i came across this blog by some guy who was coloring the bone books. i don't know how helpful it is but he might have some other postings on it too! he talks about painting in layers and underpainting methinks! give it a look adn see if it helps!

PHONEY BONE!

i really like this ape and i hope to see more paintings like this! maybe some real paintings! i remember your D & D stamps! they kick ass! why not a post of d & d stamps and dungeon majesty fan art!? am i allowed to make requests?!