Sunday Sketchin'

As you know I am switching focus to animation, so I'm no longer doing digital painting but instead try to improve on my quicksketches. Here's a few doodles in Photoshop:

Color concept

Since I am still doing the Schoolism course I wanted to do a color concept. I created a fairly broad colorpalette before laying in the colors based on the drawing I did yesterday. The drawing didn't make much sense to start off with so I basically changed everything apart from the 2 center characters. I think the color palette works, so I'll call it a succes on that. In terms of painting I hate that I started painting mushrooms. they are like the most cliche piece of scenery in fantasy. At least I didn't draw an elf on it :P

Oh yeah, and then I saved it in small size so all I have to work from is this thumbnail should I decide to paint in the details! haha way to go Dave! :P

Working on a story

It's the first piece of rough concept art for a story project, The artstyle will most likely be very different, the creatures will definitely be different. But the idea of the 2 main characters will stay intact.

Here are some thumbnails:

More detailed thumbnails:

Kabang: totally random sketch

Here is the construction of this random drawing. I really really need to be more conscious about story and perspective. Two areas that I really need to improve in this year.

Mass Effect: I'll be home for Christmas

I offered to do some drawings based on existing fanfiction, the first person who came to me was LyingOwl-Aria with her fanfic : I'll be home for Christmas. I wanted to keep this quick so I chose for a simple coloring style. You can see my lineart is very rough because I rushed this one. I think something needs to go on the pink apron, but I can't think of something clever.

Featuring Garrus and commander Shepard (FemShep).

2012 in review & plans this year

This is a good time to have a look at the achievements (artistically) in 2012 and make some plans for 2013.

So let's start of with my achievements in 2012:

1. Since June I have been drawing consistently:
Before I always had a month of hard work and then a few months of doing nothing.
To get good as an artist I really think you need to be able to put in some hours almost every day of drawing. I didn't think I would be able to keep it up, but now it has become something that is as normal as eating breakfast in the morning. If I don't draw, I feel something is missing. It's become a necessity and so this is my proudest achievement this year.

2. Weekly life drawing
This is the main reason why I have found consistency in drawing, I committed to go life drawing at least once a week. And no matter if I was tired, had a migraine, didn't have time to eat. I WENT!
And every single time I have returned home motivated to draw, it's the mid week spark that ignites the inspiration and drive for the coming days. In big part to do because there are a talented bunch of artists there who I can bounce of ideas, and get new ideas in my approach to life drawing.

3. Commissions
The world as I knew it, my plans, my ambitions and goals were blown to bits in June by something that happened in my personal life. I really had to rethink my life and my priorities and the only thing I could find was..art. So I set myself a goal to start earning money with my artwork, 2 weeks later I was doing commissions and that was it. All it took was the motivation to go out and offer my services. I was really enjoying commissions but I signed up for a Schoolism course in October, and since I've been enrolled in that, I just didn't have any more time to work on commissions. I don't think commission is the way I see my career advance either, I see myself more as an artist who works as part of a team in a studio. This will covered in my goals for 2013.

4. Long poses / accuracy
In my year at Ballyfermot art college we mainly only did gesture drawing. Quick 2-5 minutes drawings. It was all about capturing the weight, the pose, the energy and it's the class I enjoyed most during my year in college there. One thing I noticed this year when I returned to life drawing after 2 years of not drawing, was that my long pose studies sucked. My 1 minute drawings outclassed all my 20 or 30 minute drawings. The proportions weren't great, the anatomy was incorrect, my line was ugly. So my mission was to get better at long poses this year, which I have achieved by constantly rethinking my approach and trying new ways of building up my drawing.

So now that we have 2012 out of the way, what are the plans for 2013?

- Continue to go life drawing at least once a week
- Build an animation portfolio using Flash by September
- Find a full time creative job in September
- Work on my book "How not to draw"
- Finish 2 story treatments I have been working on.

That's it in a nutshell! Wish me good luck and I hope everyone has a great 2013!!

Let's get the ball rolling

I can't say I had an artist block..I was suffering (am still suffering) from laziness, something I picked up during the Christmas period. I allowed myself to take a backseat, and I started playing through the Mass Effect trilogy for the second time. That's about a 90 hour gaming assignment :P

So far I managed to complete the first one and on my way through the second one, what can I say. For me it's the only game series worth playing, every other game I just get bored of. But Mass effect is a fantastic fleshed out world, with great characters, great dialogue, great story, great visuals. But yeah, I've gotta go back to drawing so after a night of drinking I came home and did some quick gestures (from imagination).

First post of the New Year, it can only get better form here on :P