2013 bits and pieces

2013 has not been a very good year art-wise. I moved house in late December 2012; my new place was a dilapidated mess, previously uninhabited for some 10+ years. Between full-time work and trying to tackle said mess so that it resembles a habitable space, my art productivity dropped entirely.

The sum of what I managed to paint or sketch this year is this:

 

 

 

 

 

The last piece is a WIP and is going relatively well, so I suppose the next update won't be in another year from now, but much sooner. :}

Forest Road

Remember this piece (image #3) from nearly a year back? It was almost done then, but for some reason I had left it unfinished. Today I was thinking about a friend's story-in-the-works, and what I've read of it so far from it has created some pretty intense synaesthesia: the taste of wet ground and leaves in the air, somewhat musty, fragrant with things alive and dead. It reminded me of this scene, so I went back to it for those few final touches.

Meanwhile, I'm working on these. I think there's some promise there!

Watercolours

I have been struggling with an art block lately. I have little motivation to sit in front of the PC and paint. I do try to force myself into doing so, but that kind of defeats the object. Pencil drawing holds little appeal, too (I used to do most of it during transit, but now I tend to read instead).

Last Friday, however, I got hold of a decent set of watercolours, and I've been genuinely itching to try my hand at using them. I think that might deal with the block!

I am still very clumsy, and I need better brushes, but I'm liking them very much.

The fluffheap tree is from a rougher pencil drawing I made this summer. I used tracing paper to transfer it on my watercolour pad (by tracing it on both sides of the paper and using one side like carbon paper). The necessary cleaning up was done on the fly. Inking was done with very diluted India ink (and a pen with an annoyingly scratchy nib).

 The landscape is a variation of a somewhat failed oil painting I started and abandoned about a month ago. Since then I got some insight on what went wrong with it, though, so maybe I should pick it up again, or redo it from scratch. Problem with oils: long drying times and the fact that turpentine, which would speed them up, disagrees very badly with me. I also feel that using a hair dryer is not exactly the next best approach. I should probably get some Liquin.

Lastly, this is the unfinished digital study (referenced from this photo) I apparently don't want to paint. I tell myself it's useful, learning to paint forests, but I don't seem to believe me. Why, self?!

Aboard the Eliatras, in progress

The figure needs work. And he should look older.

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:

 

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: 

St. Never, in progress

Almost done... I think. Not too sure about the heavily textured background, though. It's supposed to be a highly stylized piece, but it looks kinda messy. The horse's legs need fixing, too; the hind ones are much thinner than the forelegs. I think in the next take I'll clean up the figure/horse VERY neat, with regular sharp outlines, and see how that will look against the busy background.

Going home, in progress

I'm not at all sure where this came from.

Turian, in progress

I was itching for a dynamic piece, and to try out a new technique I'm trying to get comfortable with. It involves switching between low and high opacity brushes, and use of the lasso tool to achieve stark outlines. I suppose I'm a little jealous of the strong bold style common among guys in concept art circles. :p

So far, there's this:



A few random colour blobs have turned into a turian (Mass Effect universe). I think I'm fangirling. -_-

Lack of time makes for a peculiar kind of 'speed' painting: only a few minutes spent on it a time, but over a span of several days. I think I've lost the pacing needed already. :(

Closeup:



Will post a steps sequence once it's finished, along with any tips I've learned. :)

Souls

Two WIPs:







Both originate from tiny mindless pencil doodles. I'm in the habit of doing those, especially when I'm talking on the phone (at work or otherwise) and I am never conscious of what I'm drawing until well after I've stopped.

For the first I have this odd idea of a soul (despite its grotesque appearance, I have positive, compassionate feelings about that figure) floating at the end of a string like a balloon, leashed, unable to find release. I even considered adding balloons around it, a tragic/cheerful/scary mix. But I think I won't. It doesn't fit.

In the second, this could well be Charon (from Greek mythology), ferrying a soul across the subterranean river Styx (or Acheron, in different sources).

I don't know why I have been coming up with these concepts lately. Like I said, it's not conscious. But they are very emotionally laden. I was worried about my father a lot lately, who was facing serious health problems. He is much much better now, but the notion of our mortality is still heavy on me.

At any rate; now, to find time to actually finish them. And I have many, many more unfinished paintings in my hard drives, gathering digital dust. They'll rise up and eat me one day. D:

Young A., work in progress

Working on Struggling with this these past few days.



It started as a study copying from this photo, randomly harvested from my old references folder. At some early point I wanted a drastic departure from it, and fell back into what I think is becoming a favourite practice, i.e. making various blends of features from different ethnicities. Why can't there be an imaginary ethnic group of people with asian bone structure and fair skin and hair? (--> And then I remembered that Uyghur people do look like that.

I'm a bit out of shape, though, and my whole approach is clumsy.