Archive for April, 2008

I do have some big stuff to post – my life drawings from the year, my animation and the art that went into it. I’ll catch up on posting things here in the next couple of days – c’mon, it’s not like anybody reads this anyhow, except maybe my parents. (Hi, Mom! Hi, Dad!) Go ahead, prove me wrong.

So for now, take this drawing of my friend’s D&D character.

It’s her unnamed gnome illusionist of questionable morality and even more questionable gender. (It’s nice when I can put my natural inclination towards androgyny to good use…) This character is so undefined that last I checked, she was writing the backstory as a choose your own adventure. Seriously. I think it might have been my idea.

More digital lifedrawing – the last of the year. Hopefully I can do more of this next year, since I finally feel like I was really starting to get it.

Y’know what I’ve got to work on this summer? Perspective. I’m better than I used to be, but it’s still painful to botch an image I’m otherwise pretty proud of due to the fact I can’t draw mechanical objects of any sort with any level of detail. I spent a good chunk of last summer doing endless anatomy studies; maybe this should be my goal this time around.

Case in point:

I’m not what you’d call a car person. They all look kind of alike to me, and boring at that. The exception to this is most cars from before about 1930 or so, which are utterly gorgeous. The one referenced for this particular image is the lovely 1915 Dodge Bros Touring Car, which I managed to mess up completely. I’m not sure she’d even fit in that car.

That aside, I’m quite happy with the rest of this picture, which was intended as a new front image for Otherskies, and may still end up there if I can crop out the worst of the perspective sins. But if I need a goal for the summer, that should be it: do a picture with that car in it, and do it justice. I’ve been concentrating on people too long. Now I should give ‘em something to drive.

Uh, ignore the title. Sims 2 reference. Couldn’t help myself.

Anyhow, more digital lifedrawing. Warning: nudity! Obviously.

I’m really enjoying this; shame the year is just about over. I haven’t done much proper digital painting all year, due to lack of time, and at the same time I’ve been angrily struggling with acrylics in lifedrawing class. My analogy is this: if media were friends, digital painting would be that old friend I’ve known forever. We’re totally comfortable with each other, enjoy hanging out, and even after all these years we’re still discovering new things about each other. Watercolour would be that kid I always saw around in high school, but never really talked to… and years later ran into again, and realized we had so much in common. Wondered why on earth we weren’t friends before. And acrylic?

Me and acrylic are like the cops in a buddy cop movie, except at the beginning, before they’re friends and they band together to stop the bad guy. You know, “I don’t like you, you don’t like me, but we have a job to do, so I guess we’re gonna have to do it.”

That said, give me a couple of weeks, and I’ll try to have a couple of my acrylic paintings from lifedrawing up here. But don’t say I didn’t warn you…

This is an older piece from last summer, and it’s already up on my website, but I’m reposting it for this week’s Illustration Friday topic, “Homage”.

A homage to one of the most outlandish scenes of one of my favourite shows, Torchwood… as well as an homage to the old-fashioned pulp covers that it reminded me of, and that I really love. While I’m not a huge fan of reading this sort of old school sci-fi, there’s something about the sheer freedom and excitement of it that I just love.