Elemental Concepts

Way back when I created quite a bit of character art for a game that may or may not see the light of day. It was going to be an iOS/ Android game with "elementals" as the characters. These are the initial designs. Each character, instead of being animated, had poses to alert what state they were in: damaged, using magic, using a utility, won the round, etc.

Hopefully it's something I can go back to in the future.

Angus

Another quick present I did for Christmas. Acrylic on canvas and admittedly not my best work. Still, they appreciated it :)

Awkward Portraits

Two more 6x6 paintings I did for some friends. Forgot to scan them so I took a quick photo after they opened them! I think I pulled off the awkward look pretty well. Acrylic on canvas.

Early Christmas presents...

Two 6x6 paintings that I finished today! They're for a Ameri/Aussie couple that are both a little obsessed with their vehicles. I really stuck to not zooming in when painting these which, while frustrating when doing the headlights, allowed me to not get lost in detail (like I usually do).

Now I just need to finish the rest of the presents I have planned!

And then I was a refugee...

On November 29th the Australian Red Cross app "And then I was a refugee..." launched...an app I directed! It's an interactive narrative that puts the user in the shoes of a Somali refugee. It was a fantastic experience over the past 5 months, but it came with many challenges. 1 day a week to work on it, planning the entire look, feel, and information in the app, and giving directions to a writer, sound designer, programmer, and artist - a lot of complications came up.

Given we were all working in an untouched field, and really, quite a unique subject matter to the Apple and Google stores, I'm very pleased with the final result. There's always things you want to change and add, but given our extreme budget and timeline we really nailed it.

The app is only available in Australia for now, but will very soon go world wide. You can check it out here: For Android devices the app is available at Google Play. For Apple devices the app is available at the iTunes Store. The app is free and is recommended for people aged nine and over.

Colored pencil exercises last night. Pretty rusty with those too! It was fun to mess around though.

Two minute exercises for facial expressions. After doing a few hundred it really burns into your mind - working off a Massive Black tutorial.

Charcoal pencil study from Monday night. Really great model!

Had some time yesterday to do an extended figure drawing session. To say I'm rusty is an understatement. I'm also going to create a few digital sketchbooks here but I need to learn jquery first.

Figure Drawings!

So I've been slacking on figure drawing lately and when I did it last night it definitely shows. I did a 3 hour session at a gallery in the city and it was soooo refreshing. I want to do it at least once a week (maybe twice) depending on how much cash I have.

At first I used my usual techniques for going for proportions and correct shadowing but after a great conversation with another artist there I worked on blind contour lines and emphasizing only certain parts of the form. I'm going out to buy some figure drawing books so I can improve as quickly as possible.

Present Colored WIP

Hmmm...so I think I'm satisfied with the front figure but I'm still not sure how I feel about the back. I want to keep it muted but I keep changing my mind. I'll just come back to it later when I have time so my mind is fresh.

Birthday Present WIP

So I'm doing a painting as a present for a friend of mine. It shows her in the foreground with her partner in the background. They're both pretty into Star Wars so I figured it was appropriate. I'll hopefully have time tomorrow to get the color in and then have it printed.

Yaaawn!

Another kitty! A quick paint job for a new friend in Brisbane. I used a cobbled together photo montage of his cat as reference.

"Host" page for Decay Comics

Demons! So I've been doing a little work for Decay Comics in Melbourne. This is a "host" page where the host, my demon, introduces the reader to the next story in the comic. I really enjoyed working on this so hopefully I'll be able to continue on similar projects. And it gives me an excuse to draw intestines and hey...everybody loves intestines!

Portrait Process

Man, I haven't updated in so long! I've been super busy with contract work lately but as soon as I'm allowed I'll be able to post everything I'm actually getting paid for. Fortunately, I've had time for personal painting as well so I've focused on portraits.

Besides quick exercises to express emotion in faces I've been experimenting in different ways of painting in PS. This portrait was done entirely in grays at first and then overlaid with color. I used a variety of layer filters to achieve the color I needed as well as just layering detail upon the original image.

Mini-Paint

So I decided to go ahead and paint my zombie. Kept it pretty simple. I'm still not sure what kind of style I enjoy while painting digitally. This falls under the "make as many small dashes as possible" category. At first I tried copying Leyendecker's style but failed miserably. Maybe next time.

Quick Sketch

So I've been wanting to do a zombie lately but I keep getting distracted by other projects. Did a quick sketch to fill my need temporarily.

A figure...again.

So I wanted to paint a plain portrait just onnnne more time. Did the figure without a background at first and then quickly added in a cave...for some reason. I would like to explore a cave location more...with tons of different light sources, reflective light, water, everything. I would be a good challenge for me. Why do I always paint massive hands?

Kitty!

Just a quick warm up before I get into a long piece. Based it on a photo of a kitten playing in a field. It's funny that something that took less than 45 minutes is better than most of my portfolio right now. :( This must change. Quickly.

Redo!

So in my daily quest to overhaul my portfolio as quickly as possible I decided to redo one of my old pieces. It originally was a mock book cover and while it makes me cringe looking at the original, I like the composition. So! Below is the touched up version. Underneath is the original to give you an idea of where I came from. On to more stuff!