Boy Studies

Posting another series of studies. This time from randomly selected images by Jason C. Taylor. It really helps to have multiple photos of the same kid to learn from!

Otherwise, doing well and keeping busy. I can't believe May is just about over.

Study: Painting of a Smiling Girl

This is a quick digital study, 1.5 hours. It's part of my ongoing effort to get better at painting children. I'd like to shoot for 2-3 of these per week.

Note: the aim is more to capture a bit of the essence, expression, and character, rather than an exact likeness.




Study based on Another Smile! by adwriter.

Nectarine Study

After struggling with a certain painting yesterday, I decided that it might be good to paint something that wasn't complicated or frustrating. Partially inspired by the awesome daily paintings of Duane Keiser. The study below was done in ArtRage 2, from life, in about 2 hours.

Visual Ergonomics and Angels

I've been doing a little re-arranging of my "office" space. So, my neck has really been bugging me these past few days. After a bit of research I came upon THIS website and did a bit of reading, enough to convince me that trying a configuration where I sit above my computer monitor was worth a shot. So $0 and a good bit of make-shift engineering later, I now have a keyboard/art tablet table that is a good few feet higher than it was and a raised platform for my computer chair. The point is to see if this really works. If it does we'll see about a better looking arrangement, probably a Steelcase Criterion Drafting Chair (which would raise as high as my Steelcase Criterion Office Chair is presently) and a custom built table for the keyboard with a cabinet sliding mechanism whereby I could have both my keyboard and mouse on it and my Wacom at the same time, sliding either section in front of me as needed. I took some photos of the ghetto set-up for kicks:











Oh yeah, I also finished the angel book cover I've been working on. I've got the manuscript for the next cover (unrelated) and hope to start on that shortly.

Almost Done

I "fixed" many little things. My biggest difficulty was with the main angel's face. I swear, I must have repainted that one about a million times!

Layers of Candles

I was working on mainly little things today. I spent a good deal of time on his face, which I still don't know if I'm happy with. I also have been messing with levels and blend mode of some of the layers above the candles. I hope to get some title work done next, along with making any corrections my fellow artists point out.

In unrelated "news" I've discovered an interesting new musical artist, a KPOP (Korean Pop) singer who goes by the name of Se7en. His slower songs are rather sweet (and he sings well). It's rather funny watching his little dances for the faster ones too. Okay, okay, he's kinda cute too...

The Little Things II

Urgggg, so tedious. I think one more day should do it, as far as the initial blending pass. Then I'll be tweaking stuff and adding final details.

The Little Things

Cleaning things up and "detailing" is always the slowest part.

On a random note, I got my pair of USB heated gloves (bought off of Ebay) today. They are a tad itchy (as they are wool) but they are really warm and well designed. I've been painting in them all day.

Color

Today I played with color :)

Too. Many. Scrolls.

Too. Many. Scrolls. ;) Just getting the sketch cleaned up and adding some detail to paint under.