The Blind Tree

I had started this piece back in 2004, worked on it sporadically in 2006 and 2008, and came across it again today. I said to myself I would not let it go until I could call it finished. :)

Photoshop, Artrage, Painter. Originating from a small pencil sketch.
Available as a print from deviantART.

Some early (2004-2006) progress can be found at this CGSociety thread.

Details (there's a ton of them):

Look back

Semi-quick portrait practice; Photoshop, about 3 hours altogether.

Reference from 0:42 in this video.

Not too happy about it, though. I wanted a starker, sharper look. I am also torn about the reds in the upper background.

Steps here:

Passage North

My first painting of the year. :)

Looks like I'm still sticking to watercolour-like effects. A definite nod goes to Stephanie Pui-Mun Law in this case: the patterns remind me a lot of her work. Another recent influence, I think, was the art of The Secret of Kells: again, gorgeous watercolour work. It's a medium I like very much but am intimidated to try out due to the messy, randomised approach I have in my paintings.

Photoshop, about 2h. Reference from a photo I took in Ioannina in November 2010.

Progress shots follow: I started with a radial gradient (yellow-to purple greys). Then I blocked in the mountains, put in a textured layer, drew some weeds and the boat, added some more mist-like patterns, defined the weeds; some curves adjustments, extra subtle texture layers and noise came in between.

Lily

Just a photo study from last Friday, from a photo by Jack Davison. Used with kind permission. (thanks! :))

Photoshop, about 2 hours. I used a technique similar to the one I used in Spaceborn, i.e. low opacity brushes with no pressure sensitivity. This involved a lot of colour-picking within the sketch (not from the photo!) from an initial limited palette of blue, brown, cream, green and red, and multiple brush strokes to get smoother blending for some areas, but overall speeds things up and helps me paint more deliberately. I varied opacity manually, at around 70% for defining features, 40% for most detailing, and 15% or less for larger areas of the skin. Looking at it again now, it's still a much sloppier job than Spaceborn, but I wanted to keep a messy look anyway; my main focus was colour to begin with. As a note, colour-picking WILL muddle your colours. A good way of countering that in Photoshop is to use a Vibrance adjustment layer at the end to make the colours pop a bit more, and a Curves layer to fix contrasts.

Progress shots:

Also, Happy New Year, everyone. :)

Saint Basil

This should probably wait until 1st January; but I suppose it sprang from my annoyance at the Americanised figure of Santa Claus, red and fat and jolly, and all the ho-ho-ho's and rampant consumerism that goes along with it.

In Greece gifts were traditionally exchanged on New Year, which is Saint Basil's day. There's a carol for New Year's Eve that describes him as 'coming from Cesaria, holding a picture and paper and inkwell' and a young boy trying to draw his attention. So I guess it could be an illustration for this carol.

My mother (who is an iconographer) has painted St. Basil numerous times in the traditional byzantine style, which I think shows here as an influence too.

Anyhow: couple of minutes at Photoshop, no reference. I'm quite fond of this clumsy little sketch. :)

RPG

I never got round to posting this!

Ithaka, sketches

Back from Italy!

Painted this on the ferry on the way back to Patra. The view is of the Ionian sea, or a collage thereof, since the clouds and light kept changing. :)

 

Also, some sketches: 

(My dad ended up looking like Lenin in the top left one. :p He also handed me a new sketchbook, identical to my old one, which was probably the handiest sketchbook I've had!)

First Snow, Heather Elizabeth

I'm seriously addicted to painting these days. So much that I dread my upcoming, 10-day or so trip. I need a new sketchbook.

From this morning (and for the Daily Sketch Forum at CGSociety, topic First Snow):

Photoshop, about half an hour.

And also, a tiny pencil drawing of Heather Elizabeth Sumpter I did yesterday. She's pretty! :D Also, make sure to check out her lovely photography at heatherelizabethphotography.net.

Whiteout, in progress

Where did she come from? I'm not sure. :) I do, however, know she's a character in an old story that was discarded (and then worked into a different one). In that story, she was bound by an infernal influence – or artifact – to an icy hell, eventually absorbing its essence and becoming its warden.


Latest update, 9/12

Previous steps:

Couple of hours on and off. No reference so far, but I'm probably going to need some for the hand. :}

I like the face.

Dreamscape Challenge: early concepts

I've entered this year's CGSociety Challenge, Dreamscape. I've no clear idea of what I want to do, but probably an assemblage of strange but intensely scenic dreams I had.

Putting some draft concepts together:

 

More pose sketches

These should come in larger quantities, but I'm only stealing some time from work to do them.

I did a couple more from Posemaniacs, but I'm not quite pleased with them. Most poses look stiff, and joints are often downright off. So today I started working from photos. These are from M.J. Ranum's deviantART stock account.

I've got more stuff in the works, will show some later in the week, I hope. :)

November 2010 sketchbook pages

Scanned in the last few pages of my sketchbook. Gotta get a new one! :)

 

I also need to practice more on anatomy and poses. These are from posemaniacs.com:

Cats like magic

Or whatever. I like cats, anyway. :)

Painter + Photoshop, but lost track of time with this one. I assume a little more than an hour.

I was thinking about this scene yesterday evening at the metro. I thought first of a fiddler on a roof (probably because I was listening to Gogol Bordello), and then of a cat on an opposite roof listening. But when I sat down to sketch it today, I couldn't get the composition right, so I cropped the cat side of the picture.

Painter is wonderful for such quick colour sketches, but on this computer it's misbehaving a bit. I particularly couldn't get Pepper Spray (one of my favourite tools for textured washes) to tilt properly. So I took the image back to Photoshop and fiddled (heh!) with it some more there.

Weard

For the CGSociety Daily Sketch Forum, again (topic: fog)

Photoshop, ca. 45-50min. I looked at this stock photo for (loose) reference.

(Old English weard (ƿeard): guardian, watchman)

The girl with pink hair

For CGSociety's Daily Sketch Forum, DSF 2340 60 MN - "The Girl with the Pink Hair".

Photoshop, a bit more than an hour. Not quite the effect I had in mind, but I'm not unhappy about the watercolour-like feel.

The Water Wall

Environment practice; something more cheerful, for a change. ;)

Reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huangguoshu_Waterfall

The Black Wall

From CGSociety's Daily Sketch Forum: CGS_DSF 2335 60mn "The Black Wall".

 (click for larger view)

PS, 45min. Reference from the Gaza Strip barrier.

Rain

Quick wake-up sketch from this morning. Might work more on it later.

Need to find a better way to simulate rain, though. This was an experiment gone awry. :}

Eventide

I missed my old quick works, so I decided to do more of them. It's a nice excuse to go wild with colours and textures. :)

I think this may have been triggered by viewing a J.M.W Turner painting last night. I've always admired the intense and slightly chaotic feel of his landscapes.

Photoshop, ca. 2h, on and off. 

Saved some progress shots, too:

St. Never

I thought I'd never finish this... :)

Photoshop and Painter for this one. I used a few textures for the background (which was done mostly in Painter): crumbled tinfoil, painted surfaces, and a texture by Aegean-Prince and one by DianePhotos (many thanks for sharing!).

Fall from Grace

sketchbook page + fluffheaps

I liked these two pages from my sketchbook. From Monday evening, some during transit. I was unspeakably tired.

Also, a bad case of unthinkies:

Passage

 

Touched up an older quick environment posted in March: I think the water looks decent now, if a little frosted (which would be fitting for a Stygian-like river like this).

Soulrip

From a mindless tiny pencil doodle drawn in February 2010, coloured in Painter and Photoshop. An earlier colour version can be seen in the March 2010 'Souls' post.

Original sketch:

Close-ups, at 25%:

Fall-From-Grace, in progress

She crept up on me out of the blue yesterday afternoon. Succubi are like that, I understand. :p

For the uninitiated, this is Fall-From-Grace from Planescape: Torment (if you haven't played it, do: that game takes most fantasy clichés and trounces them, hard). She's a strange succubus, in that she's lawful neutral, runs a Brothel for Sating Intellectual Lusts, and is a priest who doesn't believe in any god.

Some 45-60 min for this one as yet. She's slightly referenced after a photo of Ingrid Bergman.

 

Finished version here: