Parallel Parchment: In the Lab

So, my third and final image for my independent study dealing with environments within Parallel Parchment. This one features the Guardian and a bit of his backstory.

As quick as these paintings were, I did enjoy them. I may work on continuing the series later on, over the break, as I develop ideas for next semester's projects.

Winter Sneaks In

So, it's finally winter here-- we got our first snowfall today. Only a few inches, I'm afraid, and most of it melted during the day, but it's enough to signal "winter" in my mind. I just can't get into the spirit of winter while it's still green out.

So it's appropriate that today's update features another CG Society daily sketch, with the prompt "Winter."

Pretty rough, but enough to get the mood. I like to keep these sketches pretty loose in general, since it's a study, not a finished piece. I might go back and tidy this one up later, though. I rather like it.

Photoshop, 30 minutes.

Parallel Parchment: Productivity!

Well, I've managed to be productive the last few days, somewhat surprisingly. I picked up a freakishly addicting DS game (I won't say which) last week, and it has been vying for my attention for much of that time.

But no! It is finals time, and I am resisting. Sort of. At least, I'm getting things done anyway.

In fact I have not one but two-- two! new pieces of artwork to show off. These are a bit looser than I would normally paint, but I think that helps to nail the lighting effects.

Both are pieces from the Parallel Parchment project.

Just a view of the Great Tree, which is the heart and soul of the Library and still one of my favorite things to draw. Even if properly showing scale is rather tricky.

 

 

For this one I had a special request from a classmate to do something with Morwenna. Since Wenna's job is to monitor things that come in and out of the library, this includes when new sections are added to the library proper. For this I got to thinking of a culture that did not have books, specifically, but instead stored their knowledge by carving it into trees. (Don't ask me why they have trees but didn't invent paper, I don't know.) So Morwenna is checking up and making sure that everything is in its place.

Photoshop was kind of a pain about saving this, so I had to replace some of the glowy effects with a slightly different one, alas. I'm still pretty happy with it overall.

So that's two pictures done. I'm planning on drawing up one more, I think, and then possibly coloring a fourth if I can figure out what I want to do with the lighting. Otherwise we'll settle for three (and one half-finished traditional piece) and call it good.

Sketchdump!

So, I have come back from Thanksgiving and I've survived. I also finally had a little bit of time to work in Photoshop and get those sketches from Anime Crossroads cleaned up for display.

As you might expect at a convention, we had a lot of time sitting behind the table where we didn't do much else but sketch. The first day was mostly spent working on the Looking Glass pages, which I've already put up.

On the second day I started off with an idea I'd had for a little while...

And another idea I've been playing with, with the four seasons as children. Clockwise, they are Summer (pointing at the map), then Spring, Winter, and Fall.

Sunday it was even quieter, and I started off with a round-up of various characters I've written in the past. They're all labeled, but as some got cut off, we have Mink, ode, Meztli, Kite, Viridian, Izeli, and Victoria. Unfortunately I did not have room for Aulani or any of the Parallel Parchment characters.

Then I got bored of drawing made-up characters and just did scribbles of people who were walking around. Note the disproportionate number of people with glasses. There really only were a few people without them, though.

Through the Looking Glass

I haven't had time yet to process all the sketches I did at the convention, but I do have some work from the annual Herron illustration coloring book.

A bit of background: because Herron has no official illustration major, the school does not allot illustration any funds for scholarships. (Most illustration students are General Fine Arts majors, and guess what, that department doesn't get any scholarship funds either, because it's too broad.) So in order for there to be any scholarships at all, we have to raise our own money. The way we do this is by designing and selling a new coloring book every year. The book is based around a single theme.

This year's theme is Through the Looking Glass. I was asked to design the cover and a tailpiece, in addition to my own pages. Last night I was able to finish up most of my pages.

The cover:

The back cover (will have Herron logo and price on final):

My interior page:

 

 

And just for fun, an early sketch of a more contemporary Alice and a few thumbnails (none of which really got used, but that's ok):

Anime Crossroads Report

Another weekend, another convention.

This was the first year for Anime Crossroads, and I'd have to say overall it was pretty nice. It's hard for me to properly judge small conventions, since I have so little experience with them-- I'm much more accustomed to visiting conventions like GenCon, Anime Crossroads, and ComiCon, which are full of people and too many things to see. This convention was basically two rooms and two hallways, and I really only saw the two rooms-- the dealer's room and the artist alley.

Still, the AA was in a great location, there was pretty decent traffic, and the feel of the convention was very friendly. There were plenty of cosplayers-- unfortunately I missed out on capturing a video of 50+ people all doing the Caramelldansen at once, but there was a lot of creativity on display. Especially in the artist alley. I would say the majority of artists were offering craft-type products: cell phone charms, plushies, fleece hats, magnets, etc., although there were plenty of traditional artists there, too.

(There were a few questionable items, like the booth selling t-shirts. Yes they were clever, but isn't AA supposed to promote handmade items and not things which are manufactured or otherwise mass-produced?)

Anyway, we got there around noon on Friday and set up pretty quickly. Sales were a little slow to start off with, and Bekah and I spent much of our time working on coloring book pages. That really made the day go by quickly: it seemed that before I knew it I looked up and it was dark outside. I did manage to sell a few masks towards the end of the day. Saturday we came a bit earlier, around eleven. It was obvious right away that there were far more people there that day, and the AA was actually rather busy. Sales were brisk at first, but while I sold a few more things throughout the day (mostly prints, and I have never seen so many prints sold at a convention), things generally tapered off and we packed up at seven, mostly so we could go home and relax and play some Smash Bros. Brawl for a few hours. The day felt much longer than Friday had, and I was glad to just chill out, honestly.

Today we got there just after ten, and it was good that we got there early, as we both managed a few sales very soon after we set up... and then things went back to a crawl. And crawled. And crawled. Around two we gave up the ghost and left for the weekend.

So overall it was very nice; sales were generally successful, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the convention. Of course I didn't go to any of the panels and didn't see much of the evening activities; there was a sketch trade circle for the artists just as we were packing up on Friday, but by that point all I wanted was to go relax away from people for awhile. Besides, I'd promised the boy that we'd spend some time together. We did end up watching anime all evening, though, a strange series about yokai called Natsume Yojincho which was pretty entertaining.

I have quite a few sketches to upload (I filled almost twelve full pages in my newest sketchbook!) but I'll leave those for tomorrow, as there will be plenty of adjustments and resizing needed before I can put them up on the web.

All in all it was a fun, if slightly exhausting weekend, and a good con. I hope they run it again next year.

CGTalk Daily Sketch

Finally got around to doing one of CGSociety's daily sketch prompts. I prefer their prompts to conceptart's simply because they're much more open, whereas CA's are often frustratingly specific and, while probably great for concept artists, less helpful for me.

#1983 "Firewalker"

Illuxcon Picspam

And here's all the pictures from the convention. Me being me, I actually took more pictures of the cool churches around the area than the convention itself, so some of these pictures have been saved from other blogs and the posts on conceptart.org

The Heritage Discovery Center, where the art gallery was. Next door was the Altoona branch of Penn State (I think) where the panels were.

The main gallery.

And then I spent most of the afternoon taking pictures of awesome architecture:

 

 

 

 

Some of the scenery on the drive back: 

 

 

I don't really want to repost photos that aren't mine, but you can see some more cool pictures of the event over at ArtOrder and Christopher Burdett's Blog.

Illuxcon Report!

Well, I'm back from Illuxcon and finally (more or less) recovered. I managed to make it back to my own bed at around 11:30 on Sunday night, and pretty much promptly collapsed and fell asleep. Yesterday I still felt a bit like a zombie stumbling around, still exhausted even after eleven hours of sleep. The cold wind and grey skies didn't help, either. But today I'm back in business. I'm taking it pretty slowly so I can save my strength for Anime Crossroads this weekend, but for now, a few details on the con.

I traveled with my illustration teacher and my friend Bekah in our teacher's tiny stick shift Honda. The drive on Thursday was particularly terrible; by the time we were in Pennsylvania it was pitch dark and we were fumbling with the flashlight and a very small map, trying to find the right road. As it turned out we missed our exit but ended up on an alternate route. Still, I was feeling rather sick by the end of the evening.

Friday! We got our badges and went to a panel on self-promotion and marketing with several illustrators including Julie Bell, Ruth Sanderson, and Donato Giancola. Much of it was advice I had heard before, but it was still entertaining, especially when Giancola brought out a huge metal...thing that had all of his promotional materials in it. As soon as he got it out somebody called "is that from the future?!" and everyone laughed. There were some really good ideas and stories told, though. I ended up stopping by Giancola's booth later and buying four prints from him for the low low price of $20!, so clearly he's doing something right.


After a somewhat overpriced lunch I had my portfolio review with Lou Anders, from Pyr Books (a sci-fi company). He was really nice and had a lot of very positive things to say about my portfolio. I knew going in that my art wasn't what he would really use for his work, but thought his advice would be more appropriate than a concept artist or the art director from WotC. But he said my art was really beautiful and that he didn't see any reason it couldn't be published in children's books right now. He did suggest including some mock-up covers in my portfolio, which I don't have any of yet, and to not include sketches unless requested. He loved the parrot circus piece and space turtle, saying Space Turtle would definitely sell if I could get the story together. He even suggested that I could send him updates every now and then, and that while he couldn't use it, he might be able to recommend it to someone else. I was really excited to hear this, especially since I've been having some troubles recently with mental blocks and doubting myself.

The bronze pour was later that evening and it was a lot of fun, even though most of it was sitting out in the cold waiting while the bronze melted. The weather was honestly pretty nice all weekend: mild enough that I was able to walk around in only a long-sleeved shirt outside and still be comfortable, but definitely cooler in the mornings and at night.

There was meant to be some sort of cocktail party in the evening at the hotel, but by the time we got back from the pour everyone was pretty exhausted and we wanted only to relax. Probably for the best anyway, although I did wish I had gotten a chance to sketch with some of the other artists.

Saturday was, shockingly, even busier than Friday. The events didn't start until noon, and we grabbed a quick lunch at the local Sheetz (a sort of gas station/fast food place) before diving into that day's panels. We watched John Jude Palencar talk about his work, and then went to an art director FAQ which included Jon Schindehette, art director for Wizards of the Coast; Robh Ruppel, a concept artist; Ben Thompson and Jeremy Cranford from Blizzard; and Lou Anders from Pyr Books. The talk was very informative and also really entertaining; Jon and Lou probably talked the most and had some very interesting stories. Probably one of the most interesting questions centered around how each of them got to where they are today, and how their original jobs ranged from illustration to photography to acting. It was pretty awesome.

By the time that panel was over it was almost four and I was starving; I'd only nibbled on quick snacks for most of the day and hadn't had a solid meal. I looked for Kathy and Bekah to see if they had any ideas, but they were in panels that weren't due to end for another hour and a half. So, with some regret, I forked over the somewhat expensive price for the Bistro's dinner buffet, as it was the only restaurant anywhere nearby. Pricey as it was, though, it really did end up being worth it, with amazing food like roast duck, roast chicken, tasty salad and steamed snow crab legs. There was plenty that I didn't even get to eating, like lobster-stuffed haddock and a shrimp scampi mix. I stuffed my face until almost six, and only just managed to save room for dessert, which included chocolate mousse in a chocolate shot glass (!).

At six I went and found the others, and we headed back to the hotel. We had only a short time to clean up and rest before we had to go downstairs again and set up our wares for the artist showcase. Kathy and Bekah represented Herron and were selling prints and coloring books, as well as taking donations for our illustration scholarship fund. I was selling my masks.

It was a pretty good show; there was a lot of traffic, which almost made up for the fact that the room we were in was a sun/breakfast room and there were only a few fluorescent lights, which made everything very dim. I did manage to sell two of my masks (one of them to Julie Bell!) and the others picked up quite a respectable sum in donations. We also had several of the pros (including Jon Schindehette) buy a print or a coloring book.

The showcase didn't end until eleven, and it was almost midnight by the time we'd gotten everything hauled back up to the room. I think we managed to stay conscious through most of an episode of Mythbusters and then everyone collapsed into bed.

Sunday was very low-key; we really only stayed for Bekah's portfolio review around eleven. Of course, we nearly got ourselves killed on the way, first. We had packed up the back of the car with all our stuff, including the cooler perched on top. As we were about to pull into the Sheetz, the car ahead of us slammed on the brakes suddenly, and I barely had time to register the red lights and shout "STOP!" before Kathy hit the brakes too... and then all at once there was a cooler flying toward the front! Bekah said that she almost saw it in slow motion as it flew over the arm she'd flung out to stop it, but all I knew was that it was suddenly there. It dumped quite a bit of icy water in my lap and scraped my pinky, and Kathy got a bump on the head, but luckily we were all okay.

When we repacked the car later, the cooler was firmly on the bottom.

We got our breakfast from Sheetz again, managed to get to the convention without any further incidents, and went to hang out while Bekah did her thing. I chatted briefly with Dan Dos Santos at his booth, as I recognized the cover art from the Patricia Briggs Mercy books. He had another print there of what turned out to be the cover for the upcoming 5th book, although he seemed unsure as to whether or not she had actually written it yet. I didn't get a chance to get a picture, but it is up on his website, here.

Once Bekah was done, we stopped at a Denny's for a decent lunch and then headed out on the road. The trip back felt a bit more low-key and was more enjoyable, but it did take forever. And seriously, next time we are driving an automatic. Not only was it hard on everyone to have only one driver, but the stick shift was just incredibly jerky and not as comfortable.

I do have some pictures, but I'll put those up in a separate post, as this one seems quite long enough already.

Behind the Scenes

I was a huge fan of the old I Spy picture books when I was younger, and spent hours pouring over the pictures trying to find the secret objects. (Some of which I then ah, circled, ruining the magic a little bit. Such is childhood.) So I had a lot of fun this morning pouring over these features on the creator's website, showing some of the secrets behind the pictures: http://www.walterwick.com/features_main.htm

Not much else to report here. I'm busy preparing for the drive to Illuxcon tomorrow, and making sure everything is packed. I'll have my laptop with me, and hopefully I can get some updates in while I'm there-- if not, I'll be sure to report back once I'm home again.

Editorial Illustrations (4) and Illuxcon!

We were meant to have critique on our editorials yesterday, but the teacher was out sick with flu all week, so the crit got pushed back until tomorrow. Which is all well and good, but a bit disappointing, as I worked all weekend to finish the assignment on time, and then went running around school yesterday getting things printed-- my poor printer finally ran out of ink yesterday and I don't currently have funds to get refills.

So here's the last of the three editorials:

Because we all know that this is exactly the kind of thing technology would get used for.

In other news, Illuxcon is now only a week and a half away! I'm panicked and excited all at once. I'm not looking forward to an 8-10 hour drive each way, but on the other hand-- an evening party with artists and free food! The chance for lots of other people to see my work (I'm bringing my masks and some prints for the Saturday evening showcase)! Demonstrations and panels with famous and awesome people! All very promising.

Of course, it also means the beginning of three consecutive weekends where I am busy all the time: first there's Illuxcon, then Anime Crossroads, and then it's Thanksgiving weekends, where I'll be at my parents' and be too busy being mobbed by small children to do anything productive. Fortunately, the next assignment for illustration is the coloring book, which is nice and easy and not stressful at all-- giving me at least some time to work on my independent project. Woo.

Editorial Illustrations (3)

Second editorial done, and the third is about 70% complete. I'd hoped to finish it tonight, but my eyes ache from staring at the screen all day, so I think I'm going to call it a night and go watch Dexter with my roommates.

As a bonus, the full sketches of the two friends seen on the laptop:

 

 

 

Editorial Illustrations (2)

First of the finished versions of my editorial illustrations. I cropped the composition in a bit closer and changed the rays of digital information. I like parts of this, but I'm still not sure about the whole. However, all three pieces are due Monday, so at this point it's more important to finish rather than get things exactly perfect.

And another piece I'm working on for Parallel Parchment; this one a scene featuring the Great Tree. I think I finally captured the scale of the room.

More updates to come, as I frantically try to get things done before I rush off to Illuxcon in a few weeks.

The Future is Now!

Work continues apace. The last few days were largely spent working on the latest illustration project, which is an editorial piece on the topic of our choice. I picked "social networking" as a topical piece of our times, but as I worked on sketching, I found that the ideas became much more interesting if I moved from simply commenting on how social networking works now, to how we might use it in the future.

So I came up with these:

 

They're all pretty rough, as you can see, and I got a number of critiques on them so I'll be changing at least a few of the designs. I'm almost disappointed, too, as it seems that in discussing these topics I only came up with more ideas. I find the advent of technology truly fascinating-- the fact that we can look at sci-fi ideas like holograms and cybernetic limbs, and realize that these may only be a few decades away is amazing.

Now if only I had the math skills to get involved in a more mechanical way with computers, that would be great.

Still, it's an interesting sort of avenue, and I think I may try to come up with a few more independent pieces in a similar vein.

I also finished up the last of my commissions, a character piece for an old friend of mine from high school. The concept is a little over-the-top (Star Wars meets Doc Ock), but the lighting effects were fun to paint, and it's always nice to do something a little lighter every now and then.

 

 

Speaking of lighter, here's a sketch from Saturday, which I spent most of playing a tabletop superheroes game. My character was "Mongoose the Magnificent," who was something like what you'd get if you got Quicksilver's speed but the Scarlet Witch's costume and flair. (The game was based off an old DC format, but I really only read Marvel books, so that's where my comparisons lie.) Just for fun, I scribbled off a quick drawing of Mongoose, mostly because the one provided had really terrible 80's hair.

"We are all at the bottom of the river..."

I've been working on a few projects lately, but don't have scans of them just yet, so instead, here is a moody, haunting, fascinating video. "Bottom of the River" by the Tom Fun Orchestra:


Tom Fun Orchestra-Bottom of the River from trunk animation on Vimeo.

IFX October: Witches' Moon

Taking a break from the Parallel Parchment project, I sat down today and started a new piece, based off of Imagine FX's October challenge.

The prompt for this month is "Witches Moon", although I think the title of this is going to end up being "Moon Woman," unless I think of something else clever after I work more on the piece.

I can already tell I'm going to have a lot of fun with the colors on this one.  It's itching at me to do more work on it, but I've got some commissions and school work to tend to first.

In other news--

In other news, my piece "Matcha" ("Green Tea") is currently showing at the Indianapolis ArtsGarden as part of the ASA (Active Student Artists) Student Show. The show features Herron student and alumni work, and will be showing throughout the month of October. The ArtsGarden is a pretty well-known venue, a large glass greenhouse-esque space in the middle of downtown, very near the Monument Circle.

I didn't get a chance to see all the art in the show, as I dropped my piece off very early this morning, before everything was set up, but what I did see looked pretty nice. If you're in Indianapolis, do go and check it out.

Parallel Parchment Worldbuilding (2)

More sketches and scribbles from my Parallel Parchment project.

 

 

We're even moving into color a little bit! I do think I will do more of the quick watercolor paintings, as they really seem to help add some depth to the scene, even if they do warp the paper a bit.

Parallel Parchment Worldbuilding (1)

In the past few weeks I've been working on expanding and developing the setting of the Lost Library, which I originally created for my webcomic Parallel Parchment. It's been an interesting exercise, as I refine some of the older concepts and discover new ones.

Here are a few of the first pages. I've done quite a bit of work since these were scanned, which I will have up later.

There are plenty of notes, which is pretty typical of my brainstorming process, really; a mixture of writing and illustration.

The study started out as an attempt mostly at practicing environments and architecture, as I don't have much in those areas, mostly due to my dislike of complicated perspective. However, the more I've sketched the more obvious it has become that what I'm really enjoying are the character studies, and that doing architecture is a bit like pulling teeth. So for future studies I will be moving in a slightly different direction, doing more to draw scenes, rather than either architecture or characters separately.

"Celebration" process

In the last year or so, I've started a habit of keeping work-in-progress shots for most of the major paintings I do. It can be a very interesting way to look back on the process of painting, especially for someone like me whose sketches often start out very rough; in some cases being little more than a thumbnail with basic composition. The rest is in my head.

I'll provide as an example my most recent piece, a contest entry for ImagineFX magazine, which focuses on digital sci-fi and fantasy art. The winner gets their art showcased on the subscriber-only cover of the magazine. Pretty nice! Of course, I happened to find out about this less than a week before the deadline.

No problem, I thought. I can definitely paint something in a week. And I sat down to sketch.

I actually sketched this piece entirely in Photoshop; which is a rarity. Generally I work with pencil for the sketch phase, as I still find that it gives me greater control and precision. When I'm sketching digitally I always feel like I'm trying to draw in crayon-- unless you zoom in and lose sight of the piece, everything is very thick and ungainly. But for this piece I needed to be able to erase and rework quickly, so digital it was. At last I settled on something I was more or less happy with.

I knew I wanted the lanterns against the fireworks, that was key. The choice of Izeli as the character was a bit last-minute. But I thought she worked best, with her odd coloring, to signal the scene (which is otherwise fairly ordinary) as "fantasy."

With the sketch complete and a quick check to make sure the anatomy was okay, I sat down to paint.

When working fast, it's always best to knock out the easiest things first, so I did the fireworks (which were loads of fun) and established the three poles and the lines supporting the lanterns.

Work continues-- I started on the lanterns, and worked a bit more to establish Izeli's facial structure-- something I was especially concerned with as not only was it the focus of the piece, but also at a difficult angle I'm not familiar with painting. You can also see the ImagineFX template laid over the piece.

Hey, it's starting to look like a real piece! The lanterns and light are established, and the figure is largely blocked in.

The finished piece. I added another green firework to balance out the composition, and moved a few others around slightly. There are still little details I could tweak, but with a short deadline I was less than inclined to argue. Overall I'm still very pleased with it. I got the colors and the composition about where I wanted them, and I quite enjoyed painting it, especially the fireworks. I must do another piece with them sometime.

And that, in short, is the creative process-- at least for me. I generally don't do much more than this; like I said, I usually jump straight from thumbnail to painting. But I do sketch when I'm fishing for ideas, and I should have a few of those up, shortly.