Not quite the new year!

Not the new year yet but trying to get a head start on drumming out those bad habits.   I really want to get more serious about my studies and work in the new year. Here are some morning studies I did to get the ball rolling before starting in on regular work.  Discipline and consistency is the key!  Here's to a great 2014!

Legend of Zelda Fanart

I was in the beginning stages of quickly concepting some costumes for a more involved painting, none of which were terribly inspired, so I turned it into more of a redesign project. (Maybe or maybe not to be used in a painting later) A little bored of the basic high fantasy Zelda setting I switched things up to be set in ancient Rome.  (Thanks Ryse. ;D) I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out.

Mage!

The 3rd character painting in the set of 4, trying to fit these in between other work, taking a bit longer than I would have liked but having tons of fun painting them!

Sum more studies

More studies!

...

Line Art!

More more studies.

Elf Rogue Concept

Another simple character painting, trying to work on my rendering and anatomy with these quicker pieces.   2 more left to do, then going to paint all 4 together in one large action shot.

Some studies, a speed paint and a sketch. It's so important to continually make new paintings even if they're only 20 -30 minute speed paints/studies.   Spending too much time getting wrapped up in single illustrations or client work can really limit the amount of learning you get done.  All of my favorite artists, no matter their style, have one thing in common...they are constantly creating drawings/sketches/paintings.   

30 min speed paint based on a Facebook group. The word was "paladin".   Defiantly need to work on quickly defining edges for these so I can have a defined painting with no lines after 30 min.

Studies

First Studies of November!

Part of my morning studies on the first day of November. Hope everyone had a nice Halloween yesterday, it's rainy and shitty out today. ( although warm )  

I'm trying to get back into using a timer and limiting myself while working.  I didn't scan any of the heads I drew on paper to start as a warm up but here are two 20min heads from this morning  and one color head I didn't time myself on from yesterday.  Running a bit behind so back to work!

This one of several character designs I'm working on for a personal project, culminating in a illustration ( I hope) using the characters.  It's mostly a project I'm using to work on character design, anatomy, painting/rendering techniques then using redesigned character and plugging them into a fully painted illo and have them still read as the characters.  

On top is the finished, fully rendered character design. Below are  second stage of planning for the design.  I already had a basic idea of what I wanted the general look to be so I just needed to work out details.  In the end I picked one of the more simple designs but I think it ended up fitting better with the feel of the project it's being used in. 

More shapes stacked on more shapes, stacked on more shapes doesn't always make a cooler design! I'm sure I could have added more belts with more pouches, more weapons and engraved armor with sweet skulls on top of dragon heads eating the melted faces of ancient wizards, but oh well. ;D   I see a lot of  artists making these overly complex characters with very non-iconic silhouettes.  The costumes are so complicated and mismatched you can't tell what the artist was really going for. That's not what I was going for in this piece or any of my art really.

Maybe in any future iterations of this Ill add a few more elements here and there but I like the way the simple design turned out.

More Studies

Forcing myself to do more painted studies.

Studies and Sketches

Some of the studies and sketches I've done over the past few days!

Hunted

Some new personal work. Still trying to nail down fantasy costumes, interesting armor and humans faces.  Also tried working some foliage into this one, something I needed practice working with.   I designed the idea around a spot illustration surrounded by blank space on all sides.  I've had similar ideas to this one in the past but this is by far the best executed one to date. I was inspired by old spot illos I've seen in books from the mid to late 1800's that use a lot of leaves/flowers/plants to create interesting shapes.

The finished image.   

The original quick sketch I did when the idea popped into my head.

A slightly more cleaned up version, trying to fix placement and anatomy.

The final sketched I used before going to paint. 

Studies.

Some head studies.

Some Sketching!

Business Cards

I came to the realization I don't have any cards to hand out to people!

Not that in this day and age of interwebs you meet too many clients in person, but I figured what the hell, it's more professional to have them and not need them than be asked for one and look like a scrub.  So I did some sketches, got mad, realized I'm not much of a  graphic designer and ended up with a handful of designs.  I didn't really know what I wanted when I started but my first batch of cards was horrid, I'm not showin'! ;D    But I did know I didn't want to use art I already created. (unfortunately I ended up having to anyway, long story)

I'll probably end up using several of these but the forward facing dragon was the one I chose to initially work with.

I ran out of time to order them off line, which was my original plan, so I went to staples and bought those do it yourself cards...... yeah, they suck.  There is no physical way, I could find, to make everything line up correctly every time, which made printing full bleed images impossible.   You'd end up with part of one card printing out onto the part of another.   I was going to just buy  heavy weight paper and cut them myself but no store around here sells good quality paper 100lb or over. So I had to leave white space around the outer edge, thus I made a last minute design to use for an event I was going to and this is what I came up with:

I guess I could have just done this with the mouth design but I didn't really care for the way it looked and I don't even really like the temp design.  Time to hurry up and get some better cards printed!!

Boston FIG

Had a great time this year at my first Boston Festival of Indie Games at MIT.   There were a ton of great games being shown and I even had a few paintings in their art gallery!   Just some personal fantasy/non game work this time, hopefully I'll be able to have some game related work (personal or client work) up there next year.  MIT has a great campus and any excuse to get out of the house is always good, even if it is being surrounded by hundreds of strangers.

Sketch Page

Nothing huge for this update. I've been busy with client work and trying to finish up a personal piece on the side.  I've unfortunately been spotty with doing studies in the morning these past few weeks. I felt like I was just going through the motions of doing them just to do them, rather than learning anything.   So instead  I've been trying to draw in my sketchbook more, working on coming up with better props/costumes/characters.  Even if I don't feel like doing it  all of the amazing pros I love religiously draw from imagination to compliment the studies they do from life.

I see a lot of pro artists who get the 'study disease' and start spending all their free time painting from life  and photos  (IMHO because it's easier) letting the imagination portion of they work/sketchbook suffer/evaporate.  That's pretty much my worst fear....ever. Drawing big titty women in dresses from Macy's with some metal shoulder pads thrown to give it that fantasy feel. I rather drink drain-o.

Welp, I've had more text than art this post, fail!

New Stuff

Some practice.

New painting!

I was posting some 'looking for work' threads around different websites and noticed someone replied to one of them and asked if I had any b/w work......I realized I didn't!   So i figured I'd make some.   

I always start my paintings off in black and white anyway so easy peasy!   And since I didn't have to struggle getting interesting colors and all that I had more time to focus on edge work and rendering!   I had fun doing this and I think I did some of my best to date in this one!  I have another planned out but I may take a break from fantasy for a bit to focus on broadening my portfolio with some sci-fi/modern genre stuff!   

Dwarf Sketch 2

Another quick sketch/painting. 

Golem Master Drawing and Tonal!

Here's the drawing and the black and white under painting for my newest piece.    I love to draw and the urge to make pretty line drawings for my paintings is huge!   Unfortunately the more complex my paintings become the less time I can dedicate to making sure all the line weights and details are penciled in!  I have a tendency to draw everything out, including details that will never be painted in.  

I don't know if anyone else is this way but I always loved looking at artists drawings more than their paintings. Now that I paint a lot more I'm starting to appreciate the paintings more but I'll always have a soft spot for those well drawn pencils.

New Painting!

I spent a ton of time on this one, but i really wanted to push the design and rendering of a piece further than I had before, and success! Happy with how it turned out.

Freelance!

I'm currently taking on paid freelance work.  If you'd like to work with me please contact me at aubinchris@gmail.com