Started on the SB Explore 2013 Challenge

It's been a busy few weeks, haven't had much time for drawing, and what I have done I can't really show at the moment. I unfortunately lost my mother-in-law suddenly and unexpected last weekend, and that has in fact inspired me very much to go forward on my art interest, an extra push if you want. Life's too short to not fill it with what you love.

BUT.. I also started on the Voodoo SB Explore 2013 Concept Art Workshop Challenge. (Got it's own forum in CGHUB.) So I can show what I have done there!

Started yesterday, then I worked some more on it today. Haven't decided yet if I should keep the background simple or throw up some recognizable New Orleans architecture yet. Also, I know it's prolly a dumb idea to not dive directly into colour since I have a hell of a time with colour usually, and putting them on a monochrome after sketching might be tricky for me.... but we'll see.

I liked the idea behind this character right away, and here is the sketch I posted to make my own thread in there yesterday, might as well show that here too:

Birthday gift, final Fire and Ice, random coloured pencils

First, a birthday gift for a friend of mine. I had to stop due to the light, but I might get some time fix a couple of things on it tomorrow before I give it away, but I thought I'd post it anyway. I can post it again if I get more done.

Also, here is the final that I did the for the Anatomicae challenge, Fire and Ice. I didn't have any more time to use on it, and to be honest, I've spent too much time on it anyway, hehe.

Aaand here is a rather hopeless dive into the coloured pencils again... ;) For some reason I cannot manage to take a proper picture of it though, so it looks even weirder as a photo... It might be that there's too much "stuff" there, and that the paper has been acting up a bit since I kept adding more... So that it shines in weird places no matter what. Anyway, it also isn't THAT colourful when looking at it in real life, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing... :P

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Current Anatomicae, Fire and Ice

So, the current Anatomicae over at CGHUB has an extension. Maybe I will try to finish this thing anyway then. I think I might have been a bit over- ambitious, I wanted to do a tricky one with reflections, but I kinda forgot all the other stuff that would come into play (like, oh man, the shadows... the SHADOWS!), hehe...

I didn't post earlier since I was pretty sure I'd not finish this in time, but I might have time tomorrow to try to finish this thing. I've already spent more time than I should on this image, the tricky thing, it's starting to become a power struggle. :P I think I might have to do something else than what I had in mind for the warm light source, we'll see.

So this is where it's currently at:

And here's the earlier progress:

Mixed media and more kid/light study

So, time to post again.

I had tons of fun earlier today mixing pencils, ink and coloured pencils. Which is funny, because I used to - well, not hate... but not exactly like... - coloured pencils. I have been thinking a bit on how fun I am having doing the traditional stuff lately, and I have come to the conclusion that I used to be really unsure about my work earlier. I would get to a point where I would not dare do anything else on an image, because I was afraid of ruining it. I seem to have lost that feeling and way to work. I think this is one part being more secure on what I am doing (also on fundamentals), one part having played a lot around digitally and now wanting to do the same traditionally, and one part finally getting rid of the "everything I do have to be for a reason to get better, and I need to able to show it off". In other words; I used to feel that if I screwed up it was a wasted effort. Now I realise I learned something anyway. :)

Here's three of the ones I did that I took photos of before the evening fell. There's more, but there's no good light here to take a photo, and the blitz makes more shine than showing anything. :)

 
This one is just me... doing stuff. And not really thinking about it. :D

This I made after rediscovering some pictures from our honeymoon, we did a trip to the petrified forest. I also have a ton of photos from grand canyon, so I guess I'll have a go at that later. :) 

And this is a ferret. It was very fun, kid have this thing with a small, small picture of a ferret on it, and I found the shape nice, so I did the shapes, and went from there. :)

And as the light grew worse, I've done a bit more digitally on the kid that I posted earlier. I have to make sure it doesn't look like the kid that I took the photos of, since I have no permission from the parents, I took the photos myself during a birthday, but I think I'm still managing to pull it off somewhat. I have however done the hands twice now and deleted them. You see, I was so clear on what she was supposed to be looking at there, but I kind of forgot... and didn't write it down. So now I'm trying to remember. Ops. Hopefully you can see that I have progressed on it. :)

Speed painting with kiddo

Got a kid that's home sick, and yesterday we were having fun painting with watercolors. I made this one on a whim, used about one minute on it, and she meant it was good enough to take a photo of, so I had to, haha.

Guess it's a lesson to myself that even if I have just a minute to do something artsy, I can get something out of it. :D 

Pink and stuff

Back to the digital for a little while, even if I got myself some nice new paper - more traditional this weekend, I'd guess.

Anyway, here's an image where I am working on some photo refs I took myself during a birthday party for kids the other day, I prefer to take my own photos so I can focus on the things that I need to learn the most, and took a friggin ton that day. This is turning out pretty pink to be me, I am surprised. ;)

Also, here's some of my progress shots, currently "keeping an eye" on myself trying to find out where and when I am sidetracking too much so I can try to better my process.

Also, on a completely different note, this might be interesting for anyone that follows this blog and at some point was a part of the CA community: Cryptcrawlers DA journal note about not getting paid by CA/TAD and here's Cryptcrawlers CGHUB post about not getting paid by CA/TAD

This situation has now been solved for Brad, which I am happy to hear. TAD: Making it right at Brads DA journal and this is TAD: Making it right  posted by Brad at CGHUB

Coffee Paintings

Yeah, so one evening I decided to paint with... coffee. Blasphemer, you think. Yeah, I'm sure there's people out there that would've loved having the substances I made in an IV drip.... Well, anyway, it was fun and I did some more the day after, as they were a bit "light" in the color from the evening before. Was a fun experiment, I might do some more of this. I just need some more paper and tape it down next time, I'd totally forgot about the warping, hehe.