Adventures in Digital Painting

For a number of years I have tried to teach myself how to digitally paint.  I've read quite a few number of blogs and watched countless process and how to videos put up by established artists.  It certainly helped my photography in post production but my digital painting and coloring was just too pedestrian to help self inspire.  So I took the plunge last month and signed up for Chris Oatley's Magic Box... and its been wonderful.  Of course I'm on the first assignment of 18 but I've already learned more in this exercise than in the last handful of years combined.  Its going to be tough finding the time to execute the assignments but if feels good to be exploring drawing and painting again.  This is the first assignment.  Choose a classical painting with atmospheric lighting rip off the head and place it with an animal of your liking.  I choose a bat (Vampire bat to be exact).  We draw studies and then apply the study to line art then put together color comps.  Next assignment deals with brush techniques so these are rough and more of a map to help find the direction of the piece.

Dusting things off...

It has been a while since posting here.  Photography and a move from Albuquerque to DC has taken up much of my time.  But things are starting to settle and I've started coming up for air.  I've begun embarking on volume 2 of Captain V Space Dog.  This time I'm taking a more traditional approach and writing a script, thumb nailing my pages and panels and possibly coloring (Gray shading at least).  I've been posting pages from Volume 1: The Heist on a seperate site - Captain V Web Series - Its a free webcomic site hosted my Comic Fury.  Its very functional but my lack of coding skills keeps my web presence from being a little more polished.  Volume 1 was meant to be a coloring book for my nephews and at the same time an executable story that I could see to the end.  Its very simple but my nephews loved it.  Now they are a few years older and I feel I can draw better and tell a little more complex story.  Volume 2 will explore Captain V's roots and relationship with Drogo Blekk when they met on Mars during the second Terraforming War.  I've been working on retooling Captain V so she is more feminine and younger.  Those drawing are more exercises for consistency once I'm ready to draw but I can't help but get pulled into drawing a little more complete pictures.  First is my cast of Martian Marauders and the following two are some ideas from a mining sequence outside of Junction City on Mars.  They are both works in progress but I'm exploring different ideas as I go.

Re-Organizing

For sake of clarity, I have created another blog for just illustration.  I have a few year end projects coming to completion soon so there should be more entries.  I'm focusing heavily on Photography over the next month and I'm not sure how much will get posted here over that time period.  But hang in there, this venue is not forgotten.

A small sample of a larger piece...

Captain V and Pufflings...

It has certainly been a while since I posted.  Mostly due to work load and the fact that some projects you just can't disclose any information till the client says so.  But I did manage to finish one personal project and ran it through the paces of self publication. 

 

 Captain V Space Dog has been a work in progress for the better part of a year but in July, I was able to find the time to finish it and have it printed through lulu.com.  I received my proofing copy in mid August and was delighted by what I saw.  I changed up a few illustrations and Bridget helped me tighten up some of the dialogue before sending it in for a small print run.  It was mostly an exercise in figuring out all the steps and actually finishing one of the myriad of projects I have going (started and still in my head!).

The story was originally to be more educational and have Captain V Spacedog stop at each planet of the solar system on her way back from a deep space exploratory mission and disclose obscure but interesting facts, but my audience was more into space police and action so I altered my storyline.  Thus "The Space Heist" was born.  I didn't waste to much time on exposition or actual reasons for the crime and dove right into the action.  

Originally it was to be coloring book in a comic book style but that aspect changed as well.  Although I think at some point I may go back and color the entire story just to run it through the press and see what kind of quality color they can produce. 

Unfinished color page. 

Here's the grayscale version.

Thumbnail

The image above of Saturn's rings was the last image completed for the book.  What I had originally drawn was far from as exciting as this and was, in my opinion, the perfect example of me choosing the easy way out.  Here is the original...

The final run of prints came out amazing.  The paper quality and the richness of the blacks is perfect.  I couldn't have asked for a better first experience with Self Publication.

And now Pufflings...

I do not have many images I can disclose from the project, but these are a new line of breed-able pets at Ozimals Inc.  They asked me one day if I'd be interested in designing a cute rotund bird for possible consideration as a new product line and how could I say no.  My parents were fairly avid bird watchers and we often went on outings just to bird watch while I was a kid, so I have an above average understanding and fondness for all things avian.

Ozimals also had me design different attributes for the Pufflings, like different tails and crests (or tufts).  You can see a few below but as these different aspects are to be announced as they are released I can only disclose "official" imagery.

Second Life has been a fairly interesting beast to me.  When I first was hired to design for Ozimals I had no idea what Second Life (SL) was.  In fact,  Ozimals kept referring to SL in our initial conversations and I made the assumption it was their gaming engine.  They finally set me straight and since then I have no problem playing the "I'm new to this" card, because I am.  I'm still no expert in all things SL, but I am more and more amazed at what people are creating and doing in this virtual world.  The following images are considered "Photography" in SL.  Obviously captured in world and manipulated in Photoshop or some other imaging software, these are great representations of Ozimals product.


 

These images were captured by Strawberry Singh

 I do not know this individual but if you check out her blog you can get a grasp of what is possible in SL.  I was also hired to create another line for Ozimals called "Stranglings."  This project is still in the working stages but has had some officially released images.  I did a couple of teasers for the product earlier this year.  I hope to have an entry with more specifics on this outing in the future.

Ozimals...

While I write this blog for myself, I always want someone to read it or at least look at the pictures.  I've always had the "build it and they will come" attitude but that does not always pan out.  In the case of Ozimals Inc. it panned out and in a big way.  After my departure from my last photography position I needed time to get my head screwed on straight and pursue some art other than photography (I know that sounds all wishy-washy and so artsy of me but if you've ever been there you'd understand).  I began drawing monthly "packages" of images for my nephews in New York to color.  Some were just excuses to draw things like spaceships and dinosaurs others I attempted to have actual story lines and minor character development as each installment progressed.  Alas you can only go on unemployed so long but I did post the pictures on this blog and Someone stumbled upon them.

Ozimals gave me an opportunity I've never had - to design a character for an upcoming product.  While I cannot release any of the character sketches at this time, I had a blast just sitting down and creating for creations sake.   On top of the character design, they also asked me to create a teaser for them.  They gave me a rough concept and I took their direction and I drew a mock up on bristol board.  They said go with it.

While I have played around with digital painting, I've never completed anything to this kind of detail or scale (But I'll get to that in a moment.)  I always believed being able to paint would help my post-production skills especially when compositing different photographs.  To be honest I knew I could do it, I just didn't know how, exactly.  And  that was exciting.  Its been a while since I've had an honest challenge and had the confidence to pull it off.

With this particular image I rendered it on a 12 by 12 inch canvas 16 bit color depth at 300 dpi.  In hindsight, I'd consider that a mistake.  Photoshop only crashed on me a couple of times but the time it took to save the main file was stupidly long.  I ended up keeping a master file with all my layers and working separate group elements (Mushrooms, Sky, Creature) as different files.   16 bit color was important to me because I was working with lots of gradients.  I've found over the years that especially when working with skies and burning them down on a digital file, 16 bit is the only way to keep from getting banding.  As for 300 dpi, I'm a photographer and it was important to have a large enough file to print from, although this image was rendered primarily for web use... I can't help myself.

So whats the compromise?  I was asked to create a second teaser and I went with a smaller canvas size 8 x 8 at 300 dpi and kept the master file at 8 bit.  I created my parts separate on 16 bit canvases and then converted them to 8 bit for the master.   This kept eveything moving very fast.  In fact I finished the second teaser in half the time (I also new what the hell I was doing better.)

On a completely different plane of creation, Ozimals asked me to create textures for their breedable bunny line.  I was designing textures for their "elite" releases that only occur at special times of the year.  This year being the year of the rabbit in China they asked if I had any ideas for a Chinese New Year Style Rabbit.  I quickly drew up a couple of bunnies.  The top set reminded them of Mexican wrestling masks...  While not my intention, that's all I can see now.

So we went forward with the dragon style at the bottom.  And this is where I realized I was in way over my head.  The textures I were to create were to be rendered on a flat canvas then wrapped around certain parts of the rabbit's 3D model.  To anyone who has worked in gaming or in this 3D execution, I commend you.  Because this was next to impossible.

It required a lot of trial and error and I couldn't have chosen a more ornate texture to wrap the bunny's head with.  We ended up creating four different color sets for the rabbits.

The next texturing project was a Tin man Bunny for Valentines day.  This one required some assistance from the Ozimal guys.  My first rendition is very similar to the final product but it was flat and unexciting.  It resembled more of a dull brushed aluminum coating as opposed to a more sleek stainless steel look.  After some assistance and tweaking they were happy.  My favorite part is the inner ear.  I designed a speaker for the inside and a series of air brakes to act as the fur that would be present at the base of the ear opening.

Wanted!

This post is long over due... so I'll get with it.

Coloring Book:  This month proved exciting and frustrating.  Frank and Charlie's journey has become exciting for me.  Truthfully the initial venture was just to see if I could make each month feel as though the same two characters were present and move the journey geographically.  I feel confident now in accomplishing this feat and have actually let myself relax.  I laid out their journey early on in the initial concept process.  No real preconceived imagery but notes on where they were each month and what other birds or animals they might run into.  They are about to hang a right and head west at Florida next month and things are going to get a little crazy.   I hope to loosen my grip on the same punch line each month.  Frank can only get mad at Charlie so many times before even a five year old gets bored.

The real frustration this month was Captain V Space Dog.  I've never really known what story I was going to tell.  Each month I just came up with something to keep things moving.  This month I kinda drop the ball.  While the Image of Officer Biernat is fine the second entry this month is a wanted poster for Drogo Blekk.  Not very creative.  But because of this lack of story I finally outlined the rest of the year and have a story to tell.  I know some authors actually work this way all the time but I cannot.  I will admit it created given circumstances I had to work within and therefore limited my possibilities for outcomes.

My Dino Story continues on not much to report their minus my editor.  The image below was the first created to help show my T-rex's ferocity.  My editor (Bridget) said it was too scary for a 5 and 3 year old...  she might have a point.  I still needed to show my T-rex victorious over the Deinonychus so I went with the image below that.  Not as dynamic but a lot less scary.  I'm learning.

Station 13 and the Dragons continue in their own way.

First female character:  Bridget - Queen of the Dragon Chickens!

Last but not least one of my favorite beasts from growing up, the Hammerhead Shark, was our courier.  See last months courier for dialogue references.

Bridget and I wrote a children's story last September.  We had it laid out and formatted and I was to finish it by Halloween and maybe have it self published for friends and family...  here it is almost June and its not done.  While the story has not changed the character and set designs have gotten better.  I am a lot better at illustrating the story now than 9 months ago (exponentially).   My initial run was more about producing a product and seeing the process through to the end.  Well technically we did, and looking back I'm glad I did not rush to completion.  The art would have been sacrificed just for speed.  While I do hope to have a black and white version self published for Halloween 2010, I am currently spending a lot of time with my characters and evolving them to a less static state.  Here is recent character reference sheet to help continue my evolution.

As this progresses I'll continue to update.  Here it is the last week of May and I'll be diving back into these worlds for another round of imagery.

A Few Additions

This last round has already been received and colored so I'm a little slow to post.  I'm currently in the early stages of organizing the next round.  I have loose outlines as to where the story pieces go (Except for Captain V Space Dog but I'll get to that in a moment).  The dragons and even Station 13 are more exploratory for me.  Since I have no real direction I can create what I'm interested in at that moment.

 
Frank and Charlie's journey has been outlined with major plot points or turns and even the dinosaur story has started to round itself out.  Of course I'm stretching Dino history to draw dinosaurs I want to draw.  Soon the Triceratops and the Stegosaurus families will meet and this would have never happened because they did not live at the same time.

As for Captain V, I've decided to add a nemesis and shift gears from an exploratory mission traveling to each planet to a "high-speed" space chase traveling to each planet.  This story has not been thought out except to where and how it might end.  The chase will definitely take Captain V and 7 to all the planets but how and why are a mystery even to me.

Here we have a few color editions I've been working on.  The first is an initial concept piece for the bad guy Drogo Blekk (I will not lie, I wanted a Cthulhu-esque character) and his ship the Cuttlefish.  The next is a Helicopter Rescue Team modeled after the Coast Guard.  The crew though is what was always important.  My brother Steve and of course our Dog "V" and rounding out the crew on either side is James and Joseph my nephews.  I had a blast drawing it and they just loved it.  I tend to steer away from people due to lack of confidence so this was a great project to begin my therapy.

Last but certainly not least is Venus.  After months (if not years) I've finally dusted off the camera and attempted some more photography.  Venus is easy subject matter and I don't think I could ever take enough photos...