Guest blogger: Noah Bradley – On the Shoulders of Giants
On the Shoulders of Giants
You don’t become an artist on your own.
Even if you lock yourself in your room and teach yourself, you’re still not on your own. You’re learning from the legacy of all the masters that have gone before you. You’re pulling on artistic traditions stretching back hundreds and thousands of years.
My art is heavily dependant on the artists that I look up to. I look up to my heroes and pick apart everything they did. I try and reverse engineer their brushstrokes, their compositions, even the ideas behind their pieces. When my art is feeling stuck I look to them for direction.
Rembrandt gave me an appreciation for rich contrast and thickly textural brushstrokes. Sargent showed me what artistic bravado really looked like. Albert Bierstadt taught me the meaning of epic and George Inness taught me the power of subtlety. Thomas Moran showed me an American ideal and Mark Rothko showed me the feeling of nothingness. Frazetta reawakened an adolescent boy and John Berkey inspired with his beautifully abstract representational paintings. Pyle taught me composition. Hopper taught me silence.
I have been blessed with countless teachers–some alive, most dead.
~Noah
This blog-entry is part of a series of Guest-blogs on Studio Colrouphobia called To be Inspired and Driven where some of the greatest influences on art today are invited to tell about their inspirations, their thoughts on art and their musings on anything related to art.
Noah Bradley is an environment concept artist & illustrator. He’s young but has already worked for an international clientele and has been accepted into the industry’s most prestigious publications. Even if you haven’t heard of Noah, chances are you have seen work he has done for Wizards of the Coast, L5R or AEG.
He is part of Awesomehorse Studios which do a great job of paying it forward to anyone and everyone who want to improve their skills and careers when it comes to art.
Noah Bradley is also the creator of The Art of Freelancing, a video aid to freelancers in art.
We here at Studio Colrouphobia did a review of this instructional video not that long ago. The review is found here:
The Art of Freelancing – a review with ducks
The Art of Freelancing – a review with ducks!
So I thought I’d take the time to do a little review of the Art of Freelancing by Noah Bradley.
Let me begin by giving some background on Noah Bradley, for the rare occasion that you wouldn’t know who he is.
Noah Bradley is an environment concept artist & illustrator. He’s young but has already worked for an international clientele and has been accepted into the industry’s most prestigious publications. Even if you haven’t heard of Noah, chances are you have seen work he has done for Wizards of the Coast, L5R or AEG.
I first heard of Noah as part of an event on Conceptart.org, where he was described with(paraphrased):
“This guy came last year to the illuxcon convention, his portfolio wasn’t really that focused but he took the criticism and came back the next year and blew us away with his updated portfolio!“
Since then I have seen him around (or rather his work and his activities) on the internet. He is part of Awesomehorse Studios which do a great job of paying it forward to anyone and everyone who want to improve their skills and careers when it comes to art.
You should really check his work out, and generally, I tend to listen to any advice he gives, because he is not that many years further into his career than me, but he has attained success faster. He also seem to be a generally nice guy, which is always a plus.
That was a bit of background on the creator of the Art of Freelancing video.
So for the review-
Specs
For $57 you get
- a 5 hour lecture on freelancing (.mp4 format in a .zip archive | 422MB).
- Access to an extensive (and constantly updated) list of freelancing resources.
- Subscription to an exclusive mailing list that feature FAQs and supplemental content.
Noah also gives a 100% Money-back-guarantee on this product, should we in any way be dissatisfied about the purchase.
The topics covered in the Art of Freelancing are:
- How do I break into the industry?
- How much should I charge?
- What should I put in my portfolio?
- Am I too old to start?
- How do I deal with bad clients?
- Do I need a contract?
- Should I work for free?
- How do I know if I’m ready?
- What if my client doesn’t pay?
- How do I start networking?
- Should I go to art school?
The bad
Let’s cut to the bad parts first. There aren’t that many, so let’s get them over with right away.
Video
This is a double-edged sword, really. Noah has made this into a video but beyond one or two websites popping up as text on the screen, as well as headlines in white on a black background, the entire video is void of visuals. On the one hand, this is good, I can work at the same time as listening to the video. On the other hand, it feels a little like overkill to have it formatted as a video when all I really need is in the form of audio. Space could have been saved (when downloading a video it just is a larger size then a pure audio) and the information provided in text could have been provided in an added text-file, or just plain on the resource-website. Granted, sometimes it is handy to have the info of a website pop up directly on screen, it really isn’t that much of a fuzz to go to the resource-website to find the same link there.
The resource-site
This is just a personal note, and probably has to do with that I bought the video quite late, but it doesn’t seem to have been updated at all since I got my copy and access.
Mailing-list
I haven’t gotten any mails from this, though given that this is exlusive content and being a freelance artist myself I know that can be long in between more exclusive material being there.
In short, the three “complaints” I have are really minor and don’t even cause me any trouble because the rest…
…The rest, my friends, is brilliant!
Now before anything else, let me say this: This video wont get you work!
You wont buy this video, watch/listen to it and magically get art directors calling you up with your dreamjobs.
Advice
What it will do, is it will give you clear and honest advice on the things to think about, do’s and don’t's, suggestions that can make or break your career. It is easy for me to look at the list of topics given and answer some of them with “Yes/No” or a one-line-answer, but what Noah does goes far beyond this. He gives us reasons behind why, offers concrete examples from his own experience and he covers it all!
Young and old, new and experienced
I believe this is aimed more at the beginning freelancer, but being in the middle-of-my-career I really feel almost every topic Noah bring up are valuable to me. Talking to some of the people who also bought the video, ranging from aspiring to freelance professionals the general feeling is one of being glad they put the money down for this and that it already paid off.
Is it for me? I’m a Conceptartist/Illustrator/Designer!
Yes, Noah takes up differences between various types of freelance artists. He even gives you a heads-up for when it is going to be directed specifically towards certain types of freelancing. I listened it all through, though. It was worth it.
Is it worth it?
YES!
You should buy it as soon as you can. If you do not have the $57 to use today, save up for them! If you live in Europe, think about the fact that the dollar currently is weak in comparison to the Euro = Double gain! (Value plus less costly currently)
Generally, when buying something from abroad, keep an eye on the exchange-market, you’d be surprised how many times you can make good deals just on account of a certain currency being low in comparison to your own, even during recession-times.
You will notice Noah mentioning some key-important things to put money on in the video, you need to save up for them also. Trust me on that, I have had the same experience as Noah with that.
All-in-all review:
Content
10/10
Format
7/10
Value
10/10
http://www.theartoffreelancing.com/ Go there, take a look at the 30 minute free part from the 5 hour video. It was all I needed to convince me.
And if that doesn’t make you want to save up for it, here is a review by Jon Schindehette, Art Director at Wizards of the Coast -
Unholy Alliances – Speedpaintings
Hello there.
I thought I’d give you something to rest your eyes on whilst we prepare for future posts.
I have been doing these very quick sketches lately, trying to get lighting right and not caring too much about proportions or accuracy as far as design goes.
I decided to take the three speeds I did last and put them together to a little triptych, though at first they did not really fit with each other.
For those of you unfamiliar with the Warhammer 40k universe, the first two from left are normally what’s called “Loyalists” or “the good guys”. The guy on the far right is most definitely one of “the bad guys”.
So I made the three of them lean more towards “bad” then “good”, removing insignia’s of the two first ones, adding more scratches and a hint of…. evil ominous-ness.
These types of speed-paints have proven to be extremely relaxing to me as they take no more then 2-3 hours and I just go with the flow whilst painting them. Very generous as far as breaks, things to paint on now and then between work.
Hope you like,
David
Dragons, maidens and faeries – Where to begin with art and inspiration?
Hello blog-readers,
David here and the time has come for another blogpost!
It has been a while (again) and there are schedule-related reasons for this.
Because of these reasons, we are restructuring the postingorder.
Monday sketchposts will remain as they are and, hopefully, continue to be
posted every Monday for your enjoyment.
Wednesday blogposts will move to Thursdays due to it being more fitting in
the week for us schedulewise. Thursday blogposts, then, will not happen
every week unless we have a mass of things to share with you.
Thursday blogposts will also be alternated with tutorial posts so eventually
we think these will become more or less weekly anyway.
This week I thought I’d show you some completed work, as well as let you
know some excellent pages on the internet to improve your skill as an artist
whether professional or happy amateur.
This lady-knight on a blue dragon, is my sister-in-law. It’s a gift to her
and since she likes dragons I thought I’d paint her riding a dragon.
If you remember well, you have seen a couple of compositional sketches for
this painting in an earlier blogpost. The makings of this painting has been
veiled in secrecy, to not let her know it in advance we had to fake
referenceshoot with a sword and “tring to figure out lighting” with a
camera to get good face-reference.
The reference used for the dragon was a blue-white monitorlizzard,
to get the scales and colours correct.
The final illustration will be printed and given to my sister-in-law as a
birthdaypresent. This will also go into my portfolio, and if enough people
are intrested, might make a limited-run as a poster or print.
Next up is a little something that I think you will recognize.
This is the beginnings of completing the illustration I made in pen on paper
into a fully painted illustration. I am doing this as a test to see how far
I can move the digital medium toward traditional painting. Using the Flemish
technique in digital form, I took the pencilsketch, added a light
yellow/olive “imprimatura” cover over it (after having lessened the opacity
of the lines to make them barely visible).
I then flattened the entire painting, duplicated the layer and used the
real-bristle brushes in Photoshop CS5 to do a two layered underpaintig in
Umber.
This, of course is an aproximation of the colours, and I am doing a lot of
trial and error. Finally (up to this point) I am doing what is called a
“dead layer”. A Grayscale painting with a hint of cool respective warm tones
to lay as a base for the final painting.
This might seem timeconsuming, but the truth behind it all is that I want
to see how close one can get to the traditional means of painting using pure
digital means.
It is not going to be a substitute, and I am not expecting it to look like a
traditional oil-painting once done, but to evolve one must break with ones
patterns and try out some new things. This is how we get ideas and evolve.
What I am expecting to get out of this is an improved workflow, better
colourmanagement and perhaps a more subtle way of painting skintones.
As far as painting skintones, this way of painting will not be more
timeconsuming for me then what I already go through, so possibly it might
help me speed things up.
The Ahadi-painting is a personal piece, and something that I work on on-and-off.
And here is a sketch of something I am painting for a client.
This is going to be the cover for a tabletop miniature skirmrish-game called
Scrapyard. More about that in a later blogpost.
In other, artrelated, news, I am also making an illustration for something
called Feast of Blades: http://www.feastofblades.com/
This illustration will be featured in our next free tutorial and so I’m
saving images for that post. Hope you do not mind.
So with the art displayed, let’s get back to a topic I have promised
previously:
Where on the net can you learn to improve, reach out to the crowd you want
and generally get hints and tips on what to do to have more fun and success
with painting or doing art in general?
Let’s start with some of the heavy hitters-
The blogspots where you can just get buckettoads of information:
(and bucketloads,if you rather would have that!)
http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/
This is the big one ladies and gentlemen. Although there are forums such as
conceptart.org, which I wholeheartedly suggest you check out if you haven’t
already, muddycolors is just the best spot to find information, inspiration
and help with just about anything in your art-aspirations.
Essentially, it’s a blog where several professional artists joined together
to post inspiration, ideas and information on what to think about when you
do art.
It’s not the names that make the place, though there are some impressive
ones: Dan Dos Santos, Donato Giancola, Arnie Fenner, Jesper Esjing, Petar
Meseldzija and Greg Manchess to name some of them.
No, it’s the information and what they share that makes this worth it!
Mostly, the information is concerning traditional painting when a choice
between digital or traditional has to be made, but in general, the
information and inspiration can be used for any medium. Ranging from
exhibitions to check out to how to compose, set your digital version of art
to best suit printing, through art critiques on readers works and all the
way down to how to handle turpentine and the dangers with it.
In short, the amount of goodness that comes from this blogspot to anyone
interested in doing art is just astounding.
http://enliighten.com/
Possibly not as known as muddycolours, Enliighten is a great place to
learn art. Mike “Daarken” Lim (Wizards of the Coast, Blizzard Entertainment,
Fantasy Flight Games, BioWare, Mythic etc.) decided to give back to the
community through giving awa free tutorials and discussions on art on his
boards. This is great resource for anyone beginning with art.
https://artorder.wipnation.com/
Jon Schindehette’s, Art Director at Wizzards of the Coast, exemplary
blogspot for helping aspiring artists and freelancers with tips, tricks and
challenges to get better at reaching future clients. This spot is just as
useful as the muddycolors spot, except this is more directed to those who
want to make art for a living.
Artorder used to be on ning, but has now moved to wipnation.
https://crimsondaggers.wipnation.com/
http://crimsondaggerblood.blogspot.com/
Dave Rapoza began with crimsondaggers and, together with his friend, Dan
Warren, they set up competitons, art-critiques and general awesomeness.
I found out about CrimsonDaggers through Daves Livestreamchannel,
http://www.livestream.com/fuckinartwithmrdelicious , which is also filled
with awesomeness. Metal, awesomeness and painting. Like Artorder,
crimsondaggers used to be something all on its ow, but has now also got a
spot at wipnation.
http://www.awesomehorsestudios.com/
https://awesomehorse.wipnation.com/
Speaking of awesome, awesomehorsestudios is also a good spot to find info
and critiques at. For me, this spot had a little less to offer since they
do their critiques live, and you can watch episodes for free as they air,
but have to pay (albeit a smal sum) to watch thm later. Unfortunately I sit
on the wrong side of the earth to be able to justify watching these live.
The really great one for me was watching their interview-athon at illuxcon
(found here: http://www.awesomehorsestudios.com/s1e5-illuxcon-interview-special/),
As a freelance artist this gave me so much. It was also cool to see some of
the persons I have worked with, as well as some I’d like to work with, even
if it wasn’t pressing hands. Emails are useful, but sometimes a little
impersonal.
Awesomehorsestudios also has a spot at wipnation, but be sure to check out
their own website. There is something for everyone there!
A little edit here: Thanks to Marc from Awesomehorsestudios for letting us know
that all episodes from Season 2 on are now free, live and always.
You can see everything up at http://www.awesomehorsestudios.com/watch-now
Thanks Marc!
Online Galleries and their use:
Online galleries can be really useful for the aspiring artist. It can give
help through comments and critique. It can give exposire and it can be
rewarding to exchange art with other artists.
Here are some of my favourites and their use.
http://cghub.com/
In my opinion, this is the best gallery currently. I might be wrong, there
might be something more suitable for getting more exposure and contacts
with potential clients, but currently the entire website just flows with
proffessionalism, ease and goodness. Mainly aimed at professionals, I was
lucky to get an invitation in the early days, but my bias towards cghub has
more to do with the way you can mark your artwork (time it took to complete,
lists of medium-including programs used, etc.) and the fact that it is
really easy to manouver once you get a hang of it. Nowadays you can get an
account on cghub without an invite and if you want to go professional I
think this is the place you should put a portfolio-gallery at.
The forums of cgub are probably underrated, as I find something useful or
inspiring there verytime I check them out.
Here is a link to my own profile on cghub: http://colrouphobia.cghub.com/
https://www.wipnation.com/
This gallery is still fighting some early hickups, but in my opinion it is
still worth being there. There are several reasons for this: Many helpful
blogs or webspaces have recently aquired a spot under wipnations wings.
(see above), but the galleries can stand on their own. The most powerful
thing about wipnation, at this moment, is the opportunity to do redline
critiques. Redline critique is when you see something that you think
should/could be improved in an image and you take a red tool (for instance
photoshop brush) and paint on the image to show what you mean. Wipnation
allows for this in their own galleries, something that is really useful for
the aspiring artist.
This is a feature I miss on just about every other gallery online. If you
want to check out my own meager wipnation gallery, it is here:
https://www.wipnation.com/citizen/studiocolrouphobia
http://www.deviantart.com/
I think it is safe to say that almost everyone into art knows about
deviantart nowadays. This place has it’s plus and minuses. For one, it is
large. This is very useful if you wish to find something inspiring. Chances
are you can find it on deviantart. The downside is that you might have to
search for it for a long time if you want something more specific.
Exposure, this is a tricky one. If you manage to get the eyes of a few
people, there is a chance you will get more exposure. For me, I had the
fortune of getting into th semifinalists in a huge competition on
deviantart. After that I just got more and more watchers. I am still not
getting as much exposure at deviantart as I would want to, but it is still
a useful tool for other things.
Pure inspiration?
The above gallries are for you to put your works in, and to look through
works of contemporary artists.
How about spots where you can check out the old masters, or where you can
get help with anatomy and such.
There are a multitude of such places on the internet, and so I share with
you only two such places:
http://www.wga.hu/index.html
http://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/art/index.html
Webgallery of art is a great place to see art from museums all over the
world.
The first link leads to their mainpage, the second link directly to their
search engine. Explaining how to search will take a lot of time, so just
experiment, it’s worth it!
http://inspirationalartworks.blogspot.com/ is just pure gold.
This blogspot has really collected a great set of images, whether photos
or artwork, for an aspiring artist to check out and use for studies and
learning more.
http://inspirationalartworks.blogspot.com/p/anatomy-images.html?zx=c96bff9e99005f06
for anatomy pictures and
http://inspirationalartworks.blogspot.com/p/photorefrence.html for
photoreference. Be advised that there is nudity or images deemed unsuitable
for the younger crowd in this spot.
I think that is about whatI have to give you today.
Until next time!
The joys of freelance – As time goes by
Hello again, time for another blogpost from Studio Colrouphobia.
It has been a while and for that we are sorry. The truth is tat it comes with the territory, being a freelance-company mean that sometimes we are just crammed with work and has little time to do anything else. The past two weeks have been such a time.
First things first: The reaction to the tutorial we last posted has been varrying but in general it was received with thanks and praises.
The main concern voiced as the lack of detail and in-depth description, as well as “tips” on how to paint like this.
The lack of depth an detail to the tutorial comes down to what we earlier explained is in store for the future:
Some free tutorials, and some with a cost to them.
To be able to motivate the tutorials, we need to look at the time it takes to create them. As every hour of work counts in this business, most of the free tutorials will be more like walkthroughs of paintings painted in the studio anyway, mostly portfolio-pieces or commission-work that do not have an NDA or where the NDA no longer keep us from showing the illustration.
These tutorials will be less detailed, with less explanation and not loaded with tips and magic sollutions to become a great illustrator. We do, however, feel that these will be invaluable for the beginner-up-to-intermediate illustrator as it will give you anything in the range of inspiration to tidbits you didn’t know.
The paid tutorials will be more descriptive, most of them will also be in the form of videos with voiceover to guide you through more detailed help. Some of these will still be aimed towards the beginner or the intermediate illustrator, but thse will also suit the intermediate to “almost-pro” crowd to a bigger extent.
Finally, the workshops will be tailored to your needs, they will include individual feedback and help on a level that only face-to-face tutoring could out-do (and we have face-to-face workshops in mind for the future as well).
Wen it comes to “tips on how to paint like you do”, there is only one thing that will help you achieve the level of ability you wish to reach and that is practice.
So we hope you are up for the future tutorials and workshops from us, we certainly are!
And now for some works.
This time it is a little limited, as mentioned earlier, there has been a lot of work and deadlines that had to be met the past two weeks, all of which still is under NDA, but here are some further painting on Arbaal (with details). This painting is still not done, mind you, and has quite a bit left to go.
WiP with detailshots click to zoom
And this is a very quick sketch of a Chaos Terminator.
Next time we will probably have a sketch to show you of a current commission that has the benefit of not being under NDA.
Until then!
First tutorial -or- Extra Mayo with that!
-Posted by David
Hello there people, David here with a little update. So last time we posted something, we had a couple of questions added: We wanted to know whether the readers of this blog where interested in tutorials and workshops, both free and paid. The response was good, just not in comments on here.
In the numerous forums that I personalty post on, as well as on Facebook and Twitter, there have been quite some answers to the questions, some in posts, most in private messages. You have also asked questions such as: What’s your favourite art galleries online, how do I protect my art and are there any art-tutorials or websites you recommend for me?
In the future I will let you all know what my personal favourite art-galleries online are, as well as giving info on how to protect your artwork and other tutorials or places to find good tutorials. But this time around, I thought I’d give you a bit of a tutorial myself. For free, to show what the future has in store for you.
(1) I wanted to paint Arbaal, a follower of Khorne in the Warhammer Fantasy universe. To get into it fast I opted to use another painting as a base, I don’t always do this, but it helps to find new things fast and it can really help to get the base values down quick and easy. So I decided to use the Angron painting I just finnised before the hollidays. This character is also follower of Khorne, but in the Sci-fi setting of Wh40k, I thought it was fitting.
-Note: if you are doing a painting in this way, make sure the the original plate, i.e. the painting or photo you start with, is YOURS. This is of particular importance if the painting is for commercial purposes. It also helps covering all your bases when it comes to copyrights and protecting your artwork. Remember, if you don’t steal, then others are more likely to not steal from you.-
(2) I then made the painting grayscale, copied the background and flipped it, setting the second layer to divide at a low opacity. To get to this I experimented with various settings on the layer, ranging through every layer setting and testing at opacity of 30%, 50%, 80% and 100%. Once content with what I had, I fine tuned the opacity to get to this mirrored image.
(3) I decided I didn’t want to make a portrait of Arbaal. He is a very real character in the game, as he has been a playable character (Something Angron hasn’t been) and as such I wanted to show some action. Cue copy/paste and shrink the top layer. This way I keep some of the tones I had, making the image keep in the same range all over.
(4) It looks a little dark, I want to keep the most of the painting at a middle range throughout most of the initial stage. With the portraits series it is easy to keep everything dark and just paint up to light values, but for this I need to maintain a certain atmosphere also. So I take another of my paintings; enlarge it to only show a background section, copy it into the document and set the layer to divide. I move the layer around a little to see how things look. Once content I flatten the image, duplicate the layer and save.
-At this point, I’d like to point out that if you can, and want to, keep the layers. I have learnt to just paint over my mistakes and so I flatten constantly. That way I can also paint at very high resolutions on my slow machine.-
(5) I see something in there, lets paint up the bottom background to look like there could be fire there. Fire good! Then add the typical Khornate helmet-guards. Maybe he is swinging his axe and he should sit on a Flesh-hound of Khorne, let’s add a hint of that in there also.
(6) A bit too bright anyway, darken a little and add in a demon-head for the hound. I used reference for Arbaal, the only one there truly is is of a miniatuer from way back. Hence I wanted to do some re-design. For a while I was pondering horns on the Fleshhound instead of a fleshy collar, since Fleshhounds come in various forms.
(7) Darken it down a little more, mainly to get some details out on the demon-body.
(8) Defining the head of the Flesh-hound a little more, adding some bright to the background again, I want that fire there. Did you notice I dropped the arm?
(9) All right, all Chaos Warriors that have a cloak seem to have fur-cloaks when I look through the internet for ref. So why not? It will bring a bit of character. Also, he need to hold the beast in some reigns and I still want an axe for him. So I paint that in. It looks good in the brighter areas, this way I can also keep his outlines a little less detailed since the bright background will make all sit well in space, at the same time as it makes the character seem more three dimensional.
(10) I didn’t like the background at all, too stagnant. So I added outlines of some structures. I make a mental note that this could be Praag at “the siege of Praag”, since Arbaal was present at the time. I also add the collar for the Hound proper, and decide I want to keep the front of the hound in this pose, but make it a little more flowing. A tail is added.
(11) Making some changes to te values to show more detail. The chain he has to ”steer” the Hound with is added, twirling around its horns and through the mouth. I add spikes to the right-side shoulderguard, define the helmet more. Spikes on the axe, symbols of Khorne. I make the collar a bit more majestic and add some spikes and details to the body of the hound.
(12) First colourpass. This is something for an upcoming tutorial, but to get the colouration I use a hard-light layer. Watch out for tutorials and workshops on how to fully utilize this technique in the future.
(13) Second colourpass, after having flattened and saved the painting once more, I duplicate the background and paint onto it. I lessen the colours somewhat on the armour and begin to incorporate complementary colours of green and yellow/brown. At this point I am not too worried about the saturation as I am opaque-ly painting over it later.
(14) I had a skull on the left-side shoulderguard but I didnt like it. Que paint something else in. A new skull!
(15) And here is where we start to lessen the saturation somewhat. This is the last image in this tutorial as I am still painting this, but in the future there will be more tutorials coming. The free ones will be more loose and not go so much into details, much like this one was. In the workshops and paid tutorials I will go much more in depth and there will also be room for questions and one-on-one help. But more about that in the future.
For now, here is a final image, the 100% version of Arbaal’s face:
(Click to enlarge)
And that’s it for today. If you enjoyed this little tutorial, please let us know in the comments below. Also, if for some reason you cannot post a comment, or if there is anything else you feel we need to know, you can always mail us at studio.colrouphobia@gmail.com and let us know, so we can look into it.
Now go back, enjoy reading it again, click the images to see them bigger and let us know what you think! Next Wednesday, some of my favourite Art-Galleries online!
-David
Do you want fries with that?
So let us know through the comments what you would like to see. Perhaps you’d like to see your favourite manga-character in our distinct style, or perhaps Transformers are your thing. Or something else.
Now our question is: Would you like to see future posters come at sizes A3 also, at a slight price-increase?
It’s not easy to please me
Wednesdays are a bit tricky really,
On one hand, they are not Mondays, and as such not really that chaotic and filled with workstress. At the same time they are not the end of the week and relaxation neither.
Currently, David has found himself working on an unusual job. It’s a cover, which is not something unusual, but it is also contemporary. This is both exiting and challenging at the same time since almost all illustrations we have done so far have either been Sci-fi or Fantasy. For some more info on this head over to this place:
http://projectmabus.blogspot.com/2011/10/dont-judge-book-by-its-cover-unless-it.html
The illustration is seing completion this week and then we will see how long it takes before we can display it.
One of the things that has been asked alot is to show progress and/or doing tutorials.
Whilst this is something great and definately something worth doing, there are such a great number of tutorials out there that we first need to sit down and consider what we want to achieve with a tutorial.
The first one will most likely be a walkthrough rather then an actual tutorial.
David has a set idea on how to work, but usually all of this is just tossed out the window once the work begins. In reality what happends is normally what works. Sometimes it works to paint blobs of colour and go from there, sometimes a refined pencilsketch is the best and sometimes it is the usage of photo’s for interesting textures.
So look out for next wednesday when a little walkthrough will be posted of a personal piece in it’s beginning stages.
In the meanwhile, here are some WiP’s of current paintings and a sketch that was made at FACTS but that we didn’t have any photos of ourself. Courtesy of Alexjodo’s blog. Follow the link below.
http://alexjodo.blogspoAlexJodot.com/2011/10/david-sondered.html
The quest of the minotaur
The image attached here is showing the different steps and processes involved into getting an image ready. In this particular case the composition and details of both the Minotaur and Centaur have been changed. The finished product will probably not at all look like this, but one never knows since the last image is a detail of the current version.
This shows the different processes that are behind making a digital illustration.
And the winner is…
First of all, our gratulations to the two winners of the F.A.C.T.S.-raffle.
For those of you who do not know, David held a raffle each day of FACTS this year.
The winners where Charles from France and Jerry from Belgium who will be receiving their tubes with posters soon.
And how about an illustration?
Ahsoka all grown up…for all you Star Wars and Clone Wars fans out there. After DA decided to remove this image from David´s page, due to some obscure illogical rule, several requests were made to put the image up on the studio webpage. Who were we to deny these requests? So to all: Thank you for the support!
