Clocking in Another Head

Happy Thanksgiving!!

I clocked in another head drawing last Monday. I like it, but there is an important caveat: The near eye (the really good lookin' eye right there) was reworked by my instructor, Lucas Graciano. If you like fantasy illustration or representative art in general, his blog is well worth following.

Anyway, here is the result:

I think that I did an 85-90% good job of making the far eye look as good as the near eye, but there is still a visible skill gap (as there ought to be if you see his blog.) I recall when Lucas reworked the near eye he said two things:

1. Once you have a two value drawing completed, work an area (I had chosen the eye) to a complete value scale, from darkest to lightest.
1. Try and unify the darkest darks that you put into the eye. By connecting them, you give the drawing rhythm.

Anyway, back to Spectrum. We're in luck, it's Thanksgiving and I have time to catch you up on my progress (or lack thereof, lately.) Last I left you, I had found my thumbnail- it was a match made in heaven. Decent composition, a potentially good story that can be told in one image, my favorite animal, and potentially cool characters. Next I gathered a bunch of pictures from the internet of Klipspringers, african tribal masks and other garb, and kopje habitat. I also decided that I would try my hand at "maquette" making. I realized that I wouldn't be able to draw a klipspringer jumping from the angle that I chose, with the lighting I chose, so I decided to make a sculpture. Off to the zoo!

I spent two hours shooting photos and making sketches of the Klipspringers at the San Diego Zoo. Here are a few photos / sketches from the shoot.

And a couple of sketches. At one point the female one posed for me for quite some time. She was either excited about getting her portrait done, or she was terrified that I wanted to eat her.

Over the next week, I made one bad maquette, which will probably not grace the pages of this blog, and one adequate one, that I shot and edited in photoshop to make it look like it was "flying."

The purpose of these is to get a sense of how the shadows fall on the form, and where the cast shadows lie.

Now I thought I would catch this blog up to where I am today- but it's getting a bit long and I'm eager to pick up my sketchbook again on this precious downtime, so I'll pick it up a little later. At the airport yesterday I did a quick sketch of what I want the rider's head to look like. I toned the hair down a bit and gave her a mask that is pulled up over the top of her head. I'm not entirely clear on how this mask is affixed to her head, but I also don't care and don't really have to solve it from this angle. One of the benefits of picture making rather than animation.

-J

The Spectrum Contest

Hello and thanks for being patient. :-)  I have been meaning to get back to this blog since last Wednesday- it's in danger of becoming one of my more short-lived experiments...

It's a little past 11:17- I just got home from head drawing class. One of the several self-serving purposes of this blog is to help me see what my level of progress is (as a motivational tool, in other words.) Below are two head drawings. The first one is the head drawing from tonight. The second is one that I really liked from about a year ago.

11-15-2010

11-??-2009

To me, it seems like the newer images has some advantages: It's at a more consistent level of finish throughout the drawing- The mouth, nose, eyes, etc are all "working" together somewhat (though not as well as I'd like.) The older one has some funky areas where it looks like I threw some tone down hoping I would be able to fix it later. (See the left side of the neck below the too-small ear.) The first drawing also has somewhat superior structure in the mouth and browline area, and has better symmetry overall. (Especially the eyes.)

I'm still making the bridge of the nose too wide though, gotta remember that for next time.

Anyway, getting back to the purpose of this post: The Spectrum contest: For this years contest I am making my first-ever illustration, following a process that I will post step by step as the weeks roll by until I submit my entry (if it's not too embarrassing) by January 8th, the deadline.

I don't want to be up until 1am, so I am going to run through the first step in the process tonight, and follow up with the rest of the steps I have taken later in the week.

For most illustrators, the ideation process begins with thumbnails. I didn't know what I wanted to paint right away, so I started out cycling through a bunch of ideas. At first, I thought I might kill two birds with one stone by doing an illustration based on an idea for an album cover I had for the band Scarlet Stoic involving a character with a red cloak blowing in the wind, it's torn edges ending in hands grasping forward (lower left):

After spending some time fleshing the idea out, I realized that for the purposes of an illustration, it wasn't telling a coherent story, and abandoned it as an idea for the Spectrum contest and moved on to an idea centered on my favorite animal: The Klipspringer - Highest jumping mammal. I also really like dung beetles (Yes, I know I like random animals.) I thought it might be cool to have a tribe of elves riding klipspringers doing battle with a giant menacing dung beetle-like creature... gosh, that doesn't really sound cool now. :-) Some of these lack narrative as well, although I sort of liked the one in the center and worked on it for a while. Ultimately I decided it wasn't dynamic enough (looking at it now I wished I had picked it because it would have been easy.)

More thumbnails, trying to come up with an idea that has action, but is also coherent and tells a story.

I lost interest in dung beetles entirely and started focusing on the klipspringers and their riders. Erik Gist encouraged me to pursue the images at right of center (the ones with the characters in midair.) He said to push the 3-dimensionality and change the angle a bit.

My vision for this painting is a group of elves with face paint and flowing hair and cloaks, riding on klipspringers at dawn. Ideally, they will look as though they are bounding through the air. I want the painting to be dreamlike. I got the go ahead from Erik on this one, and started the next step.

Stay tuned for STEP 2: The Agony of Collecting Reference

J

Introduction

Hello,


I have started this blog to share my successes and failures in art with you- my friends and family. In addition, I'm hoping to create a space where I can bounce ideas off of you, where you can interact with the works that I am creating and shape them.

For those who I haven't talked to recently, I am putting myself through art school in order to pursue a long time interest in picture making- I have always craved the ability to draw with freedom, to make whatever is in my imagination come to life in a way that is seamless. When it comes to drawing and painting I have always had the ability to get an idea across eventually, if perhaps not in as elegant a way as I'd like, but I have always felt that I have had to labor so hard over a decent drawing that by the time the resulting image is complete, the idea has been fragmented, twisted, or otherwise distorted by the process. By pure chance, the perfect place to learn these skills is 15 minutes away.

This is year 3.

I'm not ashamed to say it- I like showing what I am working on to my friends and hearing what they have to say about it (both actual criticism and blind enthusiasm are welcome.) Even though I am motivated by improving my skills, I also want to use my art to connect with people- both my friends, and other artists.

I might also try my hand at moving on to other subjects, if I'm feeling daring.

Today I went Plen Air Painting with Stan Prokopenko in La Jolla Shores and produced a fairly good painting (for me anyway). 

I felt a bit guilty going out and spending my art time frivolously like this, I should be working on my Spectrum painting... but something new happened today. (Someone offered to BUY it.)

Anyway, thank you for reading, next episode: My Spectrum Contest Entry.