In Progress Character Design

I've got a number of personal character concepts in the works right now which I hopefully will be posting soon.  This is one I just recently came back to after putting him aside for a while.  I've noticed that I do better work when I have a chance to take a break from the image for a while (preferably overnight or longer) and then come back to it with fresh eyes.  I don't want to say too much about who he is right now as this is still in the early stages.  You can read his character on the right.  I'm still trying to "dial in" the features until I'm happy with it.

Sculpts!

Thought I'd post some old sculpts.  Some personal, some commercial.  Sculpting has always been my first love in the arts.  I haven't had much time for it in the last 3 years though.  Hopefully 2012 will be different.

A Thin Model

   Had a good week at the Life Drawing session.  I do miss the professional lighting setup we used to have at Art Center in Pasadena though.  It is definitely much harder to render form in a diffused lighting situation with multiple light sources.  The strong direct light source also casts hard shadows and makes clearly distinguishable shapes.  And your drawings have a greater sense of drama.  But I guess it'll make me a better artist in the long run because I'll have to learn to organize my lights and darks more carefully and to make those decisions about what to emphasize and what to leave out with a more discerning eye.

   Another thing that helped back then was that we often had the model standing in front of a solid colored backdrop rather than looking at the model in front of a distracting smorgasbord of fellow artists, windows and furniture.  But then again I suppose I could be thankful for the opportunity to to rise to the challenge and come up with a creative way to interpret the model's surroundings.  I know, I know, it's all for practice anyway, quit whining, shut up and draw.

Draw Life

Selected drawings from recent life drawing sessions.  First three are my favorite.  Tried to fix the reclining female in Photoshop, but it still looks over-worked, and something is off.  I've been trying to do a better job with proportions and measurement lately, but I have to slow down to get it right.

What, More Figures?!

Yep, more Sat fig drawings...  Oh, and last year's halloween pumpkin carvings just to round things out a bit.

Small Figure Drawing Update

Just a few more figures - from last week.  Progress has been slow on the fig drawing front as of late, but I have seen some improvement with composition and color in my digital work.  Will post some of that soon.  I wasn't planning on making this simply a figure drawing blog, but that is what this has been turning into lately.  It always seems that the images I most want to share from my job as a concept artist get stuck in NDA limbo land.

Two Recent and One Old

This painting is an old one that I thought I'd share.  It's oil on panel about 4ft X 2.5ft.  This was done as a class assignment back in college, and is a self portrait done from life.  From life?!  Yes, when I was younger and more fearless, I rigged up a mirror near the ceiling in my apartment, borrowed a suit from a friend, and just went for it.  I titled it "Corporate Fall", and I guess it shows how I imagined I would end up trying to lead the corporate life.  I kind of like the fact that we don't know if he was pushed off that building, or has jumped, but the expression says "regret".  Well, now it looks overly dramatic, and pretty amateur in technique to me, but at the time I was growing as an artist and young adult and I'm still fond of it.

The next two are drawings from recent life drawing sessions.