Assorted flavors of May and June

Need to learn to post more frequently than once a month. Here are some various things. All of them silly.

hodge podge

Here are a hodge-podge of things. I'm dabbling in comics a bit right now. Just read Bill Sienkiewicz/Frank Miller's "Elektra Assassin" a couple weeks ago and i'm still reeling from it. It is just such a potent work overall. Probably one of my all time favorite comics, it's such a visual fiesta.

So anyways, I've been doodling dumb stuff, did a study of a cadillac in 30 minutes and then tinkered around with some other things. The last image is unfinished fanart of Vivienne Michel from Ian Fleming's "The Spy Who Loved Me" in ridiculous technicolor. Not so much the character from the film as what I imagine she'd look like from the book, right before company shows up. I don't know if I'll ever actually finish it.

eth.

041113_ too long

It's been way freaking way way freaking too long since I've posted and I am done with that. That being not posting. I've been getting caught up in the crap of being a professional and liking games like CS:GO too much. 

Of course, playing isn't bad, in fact, I make new distinctions about art every time I play another video game. Working in the industry certainly makes you attuned to every little thing about the craft of game making. 

I recently began playing Age of Empires II HD with some of my family, like old times, and I've been really blown away by how much is done strictly to serve the the player. There is no slavishness to realism in the visual sense. Horses are as big as houses, etc., everything has a consistent visual hierarchy which makes discerning what is happening on screen actually feasible.

But that's just a ramble. Someday I might try really writing/talking/videoing about these nice visual qualities in games and all of the smart decisions that are made by some art peoples in the games industry.

Enough chat. Here are selection of scans from the past couple of months in my sketchbook. I'm ashamed that there are not more that I actually like. I've allowed my relationship with my sketchbook to become a little too casual. All of these are pretty much graphite and ink.

My tools of choice for anyone that is curious:

.05mm Pentel Twist Erase mechanical pencil

.03mm Copic Multiliner

.03mm Pilot Hi-Tec C

Thanks for looking.

eth.

Thoughts about stuff and space.

I'm still fighting to get out of my rustiness, but this is some really self-indulgent work that I did. 

It's also worth noting that a lot of the work I've been doing lately would be completely impossible without some good influences:

My girlfriend Rachel, whose work can be seen here: http://www.rachelgregor.com/
Because she's always encouraging me to do more self-indulgent art and not worry about my professional life quite so much.

And my friend David, whose work can be seen here: http://everybodysalone.com/
Because I'm constantly exchanging emails and images with him about our work and with whom I have been collaborating with for the past few months. He also has been very encouraging as well as challenging me in my work, especially with regard for the digital medium.

I'm also going to leave a note for myself here, with hopes that I check back and find comfort, perhaps it can do the same for you.

Usually once a month and definitely once a quarter I have a week where I feel like a fraud and that my work is terrible and I'm not progressing and that I'm a poor wretch of an artist. This is normal. It happens. It will continue to happen. If it happens it means that you are none of these things. If it does not happen, re-evaluate yourself because maybe you aren't experimenting enough, or you've fallen into a procedure for creating your work instead of a process.
For some reason, this phase always feels like the first time I've felt like this and I forget that it has happened, and will happen again, and it will all be okay. So here's to worrying a little bit less next time it rolls around.

eth.

space

I feel super rusty. I haven't been painting for myself enough lately.

Started doing this 1950's sci fi stuff and I haven't quite figured out how to address this subject matter completely yet. The source is so simplistic and elegant I really don't want to trample on it or leave out things that I feel like are important.

Tricky.

eth.

Nothing to do with anything

That's what this is. But I find myself kind of drawn to using this french ultramarine/cobalt blue. There's something about it I can't quite pin, I think it's mostly just that I find it very hard to use. It's such a bold, obvious, kind of annoying color. And it's not nearly as sexy as a pthalocyanine or prussian blue. It's also vastly different from the gray blue/green color that I have a natural tendency toward using, and I'm always up for trying to break myself out of color habits.

Corel Painter 12. 30 min.

But look at me talking about digital paint as if it was oil paint. It's funny isn't it? I don't really see any reason not to talk about it in such terms, I really don't think any differently when working in analog or digital media, except that when I'm working in analog I have the recurring thought of "mixing colors is impossible and sucks" and "wow, paint is so luscious and creamy, I have to find a way to replicate this digitally."

I also find myself drawn toward using colors to great space or dimension rather than value--as demonstrated in the grayscale version of this image. I'm particularly fond of the area directly under the chin, because in the grayscale it's a strange negative version of the illusion of depth created by the color  relationships.

Thus concludes me talking about paint.

eth.

back to pulp

This one is a little silly. But it's what I've been thinking about a lot lately. 

I haven't been in the concept art mode for a couple of weeks, I've been mostly leaning toward illustration. For me, these are very different processes and mindsets. I think this begins to communicate a small bit of where I'd like to go visually in some future work, but it's just not quite there. Maybe it's not researched enough or maybe I'm just rusty, but I'm not quite capturing what I really want to capture in this.

I'm pretty sure I ripped the mysterious alien figure in the background directly out of a Frank R. Paul painting. They are too good.

Painter12. 1hr.

eth.

tangerine

I'm back a whole two days in a row! I impress myself sometimes. I worked on this tonight. 

2-3hrs. Painter 12.

eth

021913_sketches

Returning again after some absence. I've been a little swamped with freelance stuff in recent weeks so I haven't gotten any personal work out of my system.

This is in essence just an exercise, using a brush that I made. I'm trying to avoid using the stereotypical facial features for me but somehow they keep showing up.

An exercise in economy. Really digging 60's lifestyle illustration. They have such fantastic color combinations.

Aaand here's this chickenman. Not sure what he's all about yet.

eth.

012913_what's new

This is it, folks. Not a whole lot going on lately, these are the best of the bunch.

In other news, I've been finding myself trending toward leaving more marks in my work lately. I really enjoy the gesture in general and I think I'd like to preserve more of  the artifacts of digital painting in my work. For some reason I had it in my head previously that I needed to try to keep things as clean as possible, but I've been starting to enjoy letting the seams show a little more. The greatest difficulty is doing that with confidence. And of course, that just takes more practice.

 2 hrs. Painter12

1 hr. Painter12

eth.