Big Hug Mug

From HBO's new series True Detective starring Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson.
A warm up painting before beginning a poster design - and posted before tonight's episode airs in the States!

It's a really great show; very eerie and feels oddly real.  Hyper-real.  But maybe that says more about my head than anything else.  You can tell everyone involved is in on the project together without any real outside influences meddling with their vision.  Watch it!
J.x

Découpage

The second of my BBC Luther posters
'Découpage'
[Pencil and Photoshop]

Self Portrait

It feels like it's been ages since I've posted anything online anywhere.  I suppose it has!  I'm not feeling bad about it, as there's a lot going on at the moment without the Internet being in my life too much.  It's also necessary for me to focus more inwardly on my work at times rather than putting it out online for all to see, as my way of approaching ideas can tend to turn towards crowd-pleasing, which isn't ever my aim.

For the past couple of weeks I've been in the process of designing a video game poster, and after a lot of pencil sketches, research and messing around I got into a rut.  Final layout is sorted, final character design is decided, but then the style...  My line work wasn't clicking with weak and wonky geometry and blah blah blah, so I took a step back to focus my artistic energy in another aspect towards the poster: skin tones.

I've never really stretched myself in varying light sources in my work or defined them strongly.  I knew that this would be fun but also important.  I took a few reference photos of myself with a strong upward light and set about a quick-ish painting practise.  

Completed entirely in Photoshop, my image was A5 page size at 300dpi.  I started of with a layer of the base skin tone with a layer on top of that for the background and began to carve out the figure out of the dark tones to reveal the skin tone. I slowly built layers of details and tonal values on individual layers from there.  I was pleasantly surprised with my translation of the photo to painting; despite using very different techniques and mediums it turned into a similar style to my pencil sketches for the poster.

The more I've practised and researched and practised some more I have begun to get to know myself and find my own style rather than attempting to imitate someone else's - which I enjoy doing!  And I never outright copy a style, but pick up bits here and there.  However, this time I've been relying solely on my own judgements when I get stuck for a moment.  I'm looking forward to applying all that I'm learning into one large piece of work.

J.x

Andi Expressions

People of Paris #1

Seen around the Marais.

A fuzzy coated kid punching her dad.

He didn't react.

J.x

Mr Little

In case you didn't see me post this on every other online thing possible...
A portrait of Omar Little from HBO's The Wire - if you've never seen the show before what have you been watching all your life?!

It wasn't quite what I'd had in mind, but I think it actually ended up better than I'd planned.  The picture I had in my head was mainly the multicoloured scratches, which I've got, so I'm happy!

I've been neglecting my blog quite a bit this year.  It's been my own fault for keeping things secret; I've not been sharing progress and processes so as to not spoil any surprises for people.
I can tell you what I'm working on though:

- 2 costume design mini-projects
- a comic strip for my other gentleman half
- pin-up style portraits of my girl friends
- quick designs of my character Andi from my Andona project
- ideas and scripting for a graphic novel (check back with me in 10 years)
- sketching and painting for fun in between
- and then there's the next TV portrait! I've not done a film portrait yet - any suggestions?!

All that on top of working full time and trying to keep up learning languages.  It is tough and slow!
I do love personal challenges though, so I'm enjoying the struggle in a twisted kinda way.
What are all you guys working on?
Do any of you keep things secret until a certain point of completion?

J.x

P.S.  I'm now on Tumblr and Society6

Vote Delgado

ABC Comedy's Modern Family - Manny Delgado
Photoshop CS6, Genius Graphics Tablet

If there's a TV character you're fond of and would like to see me paint, go ahead and let me know!  Suggested so far are characters from these shows:

The Wire
Due South
Buffy
Justified

It's been a great way for me to learn portraiture and I change my approach with each painting to get the most effective appearance and try new things!
J.x

Andi Again

I looked over my graduating project from last year to remind myself of how I can and have improved.

 
Andi, the young one-handed miner of my Pied-Piper-in-space Andona story acted as a sort of psychological mascot throughout the whole process, keeping me amused and affection for the project high.  So, one night, I started to redraw her to solidify her in my mind:

I'd like to practise more gesture drawings of her.
I'll probably continue to draw her for years!  She's pure fun and sweetness.

J. x

Practise, Not Perfect

I had a go at digital painting to practise more realistic colour and lighting.  I think I got that right, but I started working the picture over and over so much that I realised it wasn't getting any better as it had become too familiar.  For that reason I might go back to it and adjust it (hands and face).

I've learnt a lot to do with colour/tone and have a little more confidence within myself - I didn't use any visual references so I was surprised at how well it turned out overall.
Next time: work quicker, better results, use anatomical references...

J. x

One Hour Drawing

I kept it simple - just sketching, monotone.

I'm really trying to get in practise with digitally drawing portraits and keeping up my speed.

I used a brush I wasn't familiar with, which took some adjusting (and some of my sweet time!)

But the mistakes I make now are the lessons I apply later.

I'll do a portrait next, for however long it takes until I can roughly say it's finished.

It's important I start building up my confidence and skills now before I begin my third year project which my degree is really riding on.(that and my glorious dissertation).

J. x

Swear Engine

Continuing my one hour challenges, here he is.
Ian McShane as Al Swearengen from HBO's Deadwood.

Let me know what you think!
I drew him a bit differently to how I usually-- wait, I don't have a usual way.
Give it ten more years, then maybe I'll have figured out how I do things...
J. x

Sneaky Peek

No one outside of class has seen any of my exhibition work - and not everyone in the class has seen it.
So, as the exhibition is looming, I've decided to give you all a glimpse as to what my work is looking like.
To jog your memory: 'The Pied Piper of Hamlin'.  I adapted the story so it's set on another planet and in space to be developed as a feature animation film.  I selected four scenes from my story to digitally paint mock animation cels.

Click image to see it in glorious full resolution!

Let me know what you think!  What vibes do you get?  What does it remind you of?  What can be improved?   Though from this small crop it's hard to get a good idea - the original images are A2 sized and look like widescreen film stills.

When it's all over and done with I'll most probably put up all four of my images.  Until then!

Hello, caffeine, my old friend...

J. x

1 Hour Week 2

A very delayed post...
My challenge last week was to do a self-portrait in which I exaggerated the colours and characteristics:

15 Minutes

30 Minutes

45 Minutes

There are still a lot of areas that are left undefined/-refined since I have such little time...  I think I should have gone for a better angle of myself too.  It's hard to look down, keeping the same pose each time, then look up at the screen to replicate it, so I don't think it looks too much like me.  Also, as I'm not particularly haggard for an ancient 21-year-old, or have any especially odd features, I found it really hard to make myself into a caricature.  Honestly, though I sound like I berate myself all the time, I'm really pleased with what I came out with in the time I had, especially as I've never done a portrait digitally, only cartoons.
I do love the colour tones that I chose!

My next one is tomorrow.

J. x