WATERCOLOURS .......part three

In part two I sort of left off at inking in the hair. As I said in that post, I really do not care to use ink straight out of the bottle/well. There are some cases where I do use it, but for the most part I really prefer to water it down, and build my blacks up in layers.

Layering.............. that is THE key to the way I work. Whether it is pencil, ink or paint, layering is the way to go.

In this photo you will see that I have laid down a basic colour for the tree, it is a bit of the yellow ochre and the sienna as well as the umber.....just sort of woody colours. From here I will continue to build up the colours with layers using the same earthy tones, adding some reds or blues to add warmth and depth to the piece as I continue to work and round it off.

I will also start to add in the greens for the mossy areas of the tree. In these areas I will also be starting to layer in the glow from the fire ball thing in her hand to the tree as well as her hair. In this phase of the painting I will tend to jump around from one area to the another,  allowing  some drying time in between layers of paint. I am using a sort of wet on wet thing and letting colours blend as I paint into an area, but also a more dry technique leaving more of a pure colour as well. Still only having a general over all  mid grad tone to the piece, no real lights or darks.

 

From here on out I pick mix and choose my colours, layering them onto the page until I get to the final image.

Finally on her I added a bit of white acrylics to the fireball thing in her hand to help"brighten" up the area, and a little bit on her waist and shoulder as highlights.

Going back in with the white acrylics, is something that doesn't happen often for me, but actually liked the way the application worked, and will try it again in another piece

WATERCOLOURS ...... part two

A young female human wizard with black hair who always wears white trimmed in gold.

The above sentence is the description that was given over on ArtOrder for the latest challenge that has been given. It is an extremely open description and leaves everyone plenty of room to play. the sort of description I really kind of like, and when I read it an image immediately popped into my brain and I quickly jotted it down  in the ol' sketchbook.

After I got the pencil down in the book, I went over it with my brush pen establishing some basic darks and such, then with my cheapo watercolour set, hit it up with some colour and with that all done I played with the figure and head a bit before I went on to the real paper and laid it all out.


The next step was the pencil....

.... here in the pencil of the piece you can see where I added a sword coming out from behind her back held in her right hand. After getting it all down in the lead I went in with a sepia toned ink to sort of out line certain areas. I use the sepia instead of a black ink because it is a softer line and does not leave you with the colouring book image...........this is something I learned from looking at Frank Frazetta's watercolours and cartoons. It truly was a brilliant idea and yes I did borrow it from him.

Now that I have all that down I wanted to get started with the colour, but first I needed to do her hair. As the above description said BLACK HAIR, and with that in mind I proceeded to lay in the hair with a black ink. I chose to use ink for her hair because I ultimately want to go back into it with the watercolours and add the glow of the fireball thing in her hand. 


With the ink, I can retain a black as well as dilute it and get some greys out of it. Personally I do not believe in ever using ink straight out of the well, not even on with my dip pen. I will almost always go into my water glass first on either one. I can always make the greys darker by going over them again with the ink, but I cannot make the blacks greyer after putting them on the paper.


Here is a real time video of the hair process being done.

.... and here is a look at the hair after it has been inked

I do know and realize that all this is pretty basic stuff, but it IS the fundamentals that we all seem to fall away from, and basic drawing skills are the true foundation of what we all do. Whether it be in a traditional medium or digital...........you have to have the basics.


Up next will be the colour .......... see y'all then.

REVELATION .... EOWYN AND THE NAZGUL, part II

In the previous post of  REVELATION .... EOWYN AND THE NAZGUL I had touched on the concepts of the piece and how I arrived at the composition of the painting. Here in this post I will go over a bit of the painting process........if you have been here before, you will have probably seen the 2 part  step-by of how I painted the Zombie Moon painting, if not here are the links Z 1 and Z 2.

Here in this photo is the image drawn/transfered onto the Tracy-nite. At this point I was still playing with the Nazguls arm position. You will also see that the Fell Beast has some really thick hair-like things drooping about its neck, as well as a poorly drawn hand in the foreground. The neck is also leading out of the picture.

After conferring with a good friend and asking for a bit of advice on it, he had said to loose the hand and turn the neck back in to the painting..........which I ended up doing.

In the image to the right you can see I had resolved my arm issue and turned the beasites neck inward helping to keep your attention more focoused towards the center of the painting where the action is. The hand has been painted over in the under painting....although still visible, it is green and reminds me grass goes here.

I have started to paint in the sky as well, but after sending the image on to another friend of mine, he reminded me that there had been a gloom sort of cast over the area making it foggy and what not, so I had to rethink my sky. ............. I personally love doing calm clear skies for battles just as a contrast, all this nastiness going on and its a beautiful day sort of thing.

Here we have the sky taken care of with a bit of gloomy clouds and sort of mimicking the V of the beasts wings as well. The really bright  area in the top of the painting is glare from either the light of my easel or the flash of the camera........not sure anymore which, but not paint.

I have also started to define the grassy area in the foreground, and put in some bits of battle in the distance. The hand at this point is for the most part gone and forgotten. Eowyns pants are starting to emerge as well as more definition of the beast and the lighting of the wing.

Now we have the beast emerging as well as the colours of Eowyns garments. A spear has been added on the ground....there is a battle going on..........you can see young Merry's shield laying about a little better, the wing is getting a wee bit of glow to it and the hairy things on the beasts neck are blocked in.

Eowyns hair is basically in, her shield and sword is blocked in as well, along with the other wing of the beast getting set in and back.

Now the Nagul is being worked on more, the cape has been established along with a lay in of his body, some detail work on the Fell Beast's right ( our left ) wing. A helmet has been added to the mix, some detail to Miss Eowyn, the saddle and some more work on the other wing.

I was COMPLETELY  unhappy with the hairy things on the neck of the beast and decided to paint them out!!! So, here we have the revised neck and the start of the Nazguls mace, but alas the shaft was too short and I wiped it out after this picture was taken.

There has also been a few shadows and highlights added about the piece as I was waiting for paint to dry enough for me to continue on with things.

 Now we have a mace with a longer shaft for better swinging and balance, as well as a more effective reach.

I have added a little black horse like thing to Merry's shield, a sword scabbard to Eowyn, more detaily bits and piece about the place...........more shadows and highlights  popping up here and there, pushing stuff back bringing others out ............

Lots more work to the Nazgul has been done now. I have painted the eyes in and out a couple of times trying to get them to look right for me, a harness like thing is now about the neck of the beast, lots of detaily bits and pieces have gone on in the beasts neck and wing............the arms are now thicker than in the original drawing, some reigns are lying around in the grass, Merry has been worked on as well, his sword is now in the picture, lights and darks have been added again and again, to push and pull things forewards and back.

.......and here we have the final image...........


a little detail brass plate has been added to the collar
of  the beast, the saddle is now complete.........as I looked at the shape of the thing, having horns and all I thought hey, that looks like it can hold the "eye" and decided to put it in there, and a bit of reflection on the neck. As I came up with this, the design was repeated on the brass plate, and the hasp holding his cloak shut as well.

A ring was placed on the hand of the Nazgul......Ring Wraith, .........Lord of the Rings.......etc, Eowyns hair has been finally done, mainly some highlights about the edges, I am sure I have done a few more things to it, but I really can't remember at this point.



Well there you have it the porgression and thoughts behind the image of Eowyn VS the Nazgul.

The painting wass done on 16" X 20" Tracy-nite.

REVELATION .... EOWYN AND THE NAZGUL

Recently Jon over at the ArtOrder posted a challenge for the image of Eowyn fighting the Lord of the Nazgul............great subject and lots of ideas floating about and just an all around really good challenge. So I decided to hop on this and get busy with the idea and come up with an image.

Now that the idea .....the challenge ............was out there the problem was to come up with a composition  for said idea/challenge.  As I kept thinking about it, and going thru the several possibilities of what to paint, cutting the beasts head off, going with Theodin lying there on the ground dying , and so on, it really for me came down to the moment of the reveal..........the Scooby Do moment of the mask or in this case the helmet coming off ....the " I am not a man" moment.

In this challenge the wonderful folks over at Muddy Colors are heavily involved with crits and the judging......this is truly an amazing opportunity to learn something!!

In the sketches you will see that I played around with the fight scene of her and the Nazty fellow, but hit upon the helmet coming off and them about to get it on. 

In this photo, of the first sketch pages in my doodle book for this image, we see several stabs at establishing the fight sequence or moment of battle. The area of the red circle with the # 1 next to it is the initial idea the beginning point of where I started to play. The area with the # 2 is when I hit on the position I wanted for Eowyn.

 

Here is a closer view of our heroine.

Now that I had my girl, I needed to still find a way to get her and the Nazgul going at it.................

It then came to me to have him coming off the Fell Beast and jumping down on her, and here we can see that sort of happening in the top, and a refinement of the pose for him. Even tho in the text of the story, I believe it says the crown floats above him and that he has no head, I still sort of wanted to indicate him having a cranial region so I used the cape to sort of give that impression.

So now that I have my idea and my composition starting to come together........there is still something not quite right........and it turned out to be the way Eowyn is facing, so I flipped her around and then it was there.......

here is a close up of the little bitty sketch at the bottom right of the page.

Now I have my sketch and my idea I can begin to get it on the board and begin with the painting. I drew Eowyn directly onto the board from a more refined sketch of her that I hit upon while I was doodling away at his weaponry

.....for the Nazgul I then laid a piece tracing paper on the board to work him out after I drew the beast directly on the board as well.

In the next post I will show some of the in progress shots of the painting, but I am going to end here with just the shot of the image drawn onto my board .....

THE EYES OF THE BEHOLDER

Here is a quick pencil I just finished this morning, for a contest over on the ArtOrder forum.

The Beholder.

I had started this one around 8:30 in the morning, and completed it by roughly 11 a.m. It was honestly a good time, I had not sat and just drawn like that in a long time, and just had a blast with it. Might have to make it a regular thing.

A LITTLE UPDATE AND IN THE WORKS

This is just a little heads up for what is coming up in the near future.

There will be a new Conan piece coming out shortly, it will be the best one I have done so far, and is based on Beyond the Black River.

I am currently working on a comission for a bookcover that will be released later this year.

I am also currently working on the next ArtOrder challenge.....MUTATION NATION.

We are still waiting on the dates and location for the BEAUTIFUL GRIM artshow and auction, as soon as that is available I will be posting it here as well.

Well that is about it for now.

BEGINNINGS

Seeing as this is my first blog for the year, I thought I would talk about ......Beginnings. Every picture has to start or come from somewhere.

As an illustrator, the images that I create do not come from some divine inspiration or muse, but 98% of the time come from some kind of text giving me a description of what is wanted, some of it very specific :

Art Description:

Assassin Devil
— 6 feet tall
— Devilish humanoid
— Female
— Indigo skin
— Unappealing devil face with the left half covered by frightening iron mask that looks like a demonic face
— Two horns
— Lithe but muscular
— Wears dark leather armor with iron parts that resemble demonic body parts (iron pauldrom with iron horns sprouting from it)
— Wears a cloak made of shadows and darkness
— Wields a black longsword made of shadowstuff
— Has devil feet.
— Looks at us dourly with her sword held at the ready
— Vignette image on white background

............ sometimes something as vague as "I need a warrior with a pruple sword".

Once givin the description........the divine inspriation comes in handy in putting the words into a picture.

The longer more specific description above comes from over at Jon Schindehette's blog ArtOrder. It is the first of the challenges I worked on this year........anothe beginning.....and is what gave me the idea for this blogs subject.

Since I have my first step ....... a discription of what is needed for the illustration, the next step is to turn that need into an image, so I start to scribble.....and that is litteral. My first initial roughs are nothing more than little gestural scribbles:

these little scribbles are on the back of the piece of paper where I took and printed out the description for the image. I had folded it up and kept it in my pocket for reference and it also gave me little sections to do my doodles in while playing with the image. The one on the bottom right is the one that I liked best and started there to develope the concept further.

Once I had my visual concept, it was time to take it further and get a little more detailed:

In the top left of this you can see the refined scribble. That was the first thing drawn on this page, the others are me still playing with the concept and looking for the best positioning to make it a non-static pose.

These two sketches are a continuation of the process, and they really weren't working for me, but the sketch in the center.......

....that one said work with me. I liked the positioning and the movement of the figure. The attitude of the head. It all worked better for me than the original concept, so I went here and fleshed this one out more:

....and this is the finished sketch I went with for the painting:

So, there is the process from beginning to end, description, concept to completion, and its like the Dave Edmund's song says " From Small Things Mama, Good Things One Day Come". From the humble little scribble to the finished painted image.

KRAMPUS CHALLENGE

According to Wikipedia entry, Krampus is a mythical creature who accompanies Saint Nicholas in various regions of the world during the Christmas season. The word Krampus originates from the Old High German word for claw (Krampen). In the Alpine regions, Krampus is represented by a demon-like creature. While Saint Nicholas gives gifts to good children, the Krampus warns and punishes bad children. Traditionally, young men dress up as the Krampus in the first two weeks of December, particularly in the evening of December 5, and roam the streets frightening children and women with rusty chains and bells. In some rural areas the tradition also includes birching by Krampus, especially of young girls.

I had started out to do this challeng over on Art Order, and even got the drawing done, but sadly enough I got busy with a few things and did not get home in time to send in the drawing, such is life, but I do not regret it since the time was well spent with my family, and they do come first.

Anyways here is the little ( 11 X 14 ) ink I did for the challenge. It is on a heavy Bristol and available for  $45.00 .

This will most likely be the last post for the year, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Years, and that all will be safe.

Tracy

Drow VS Mindflayer

Done for the Art Order cover challenge.

14 X 18 oils on Tracy-nite, if you are interested in purchasing this image please feel free to contact me. Would love to see it get a nice home.

Thunderfoot Part II

Ok, just for fun here are some of the thoughts I went thru in creating the Thunderfoot dragon.


The first sketch is the basic idea and position I had for the image, a note to myself on his feet to help add to the concept. As I was sketching and coming up with all of this, I was making some mental notes as well, those didn't make it to the sketchbook, but were used in the image none the less.

After the initial concept, I continued to dwell on the subject and honestly to some degree obsessed over it, making notes and refining sketches and the concept..........

At one point I took the time to work out the bone structure for his wing and shoulder mechanics...........I am actually still playing with this structure, just because I am not satisfied with the anatomy and I feel I can do better..........

.....the image as I posted it .....................

...............and the whole thing put together with text and completed.

Thunderfoot

A little dragon piece I was working on for a contest over on ArtOrder. I'll post more about it coming soon, or you can go over there to Jons site and read about the contest for yourself now if you would like. I will be posting some of the skeletal structure doodles and stuff I played with while I was coming up with this little fella.