28 January 2022

My work from 2021

It's a bit late, but I thought I should put up work from last year. I don't know that there's much good work, but here's what I have. As always, I did additional work that isn't ready to show in a public forum for one reason or another.

Is this an illustration? Maybe not, as it's mainly a photo. It might not be very exciting, but you do what you have to do. My job was really to create text that looked like it was in the ground, more or less. It had to match the perspective of the photo and I tried different versions to see what would work. I don't know if this does, but it's what eventually got chosen.

This one probably isn't exciting, either. It's a 3D model I had to build for an animation I was working on. I say 'was working,' because I still haven't finished it. It's not for my lack of effort, but it's still being reviewed by the end client. Sometimes, projects can take a long time, depending on how much red tape companies have to go through. For what it is, I guess this little model came out okay.

Here's a shot from that same animation. These little items are geophones that are strung together and planted in the ground. You may notice a similar ground cutaway to other work I posted from the previous year. They are sort of part of a series. I like how this one was turning out, so I hope to finish it someday.

I've been doing a little work for OUR, Operation Underground Railroad that is an organization seeking to free sex slaves in a crime commonly called 'human trafficking.' This was for a digital billboard. It's nothing much, just a bit of image editing with some typography. It's what they were looking for, so I do what I can. Hopefully, I'll get the chance to create more promotional materials for them in the future.

Here's an actual illustration, finally. It's pretty good and I've done something like this before. It won't win any awards, but I tried to do something cool with it. The important part is just the little patches along the runway. As long the client is happy, that's what counts, right? 


Here's another frame from a 3D animation. This one also is still in progress and I'm waiting for approval so I can continue. I didn't build this bit seen here in the upper left; I just organized it for animation and textured it to fit along with the rest of the scene. Yes, it's another ground cutaway.

I taught Life Drawing again this summer, which was nice to do again, since I didn't have it last summer. I hadn't done this kind of drawing for a while, so I wanted to give it a try and make sure I could still do it. I did some practice charcoal drawings before I returned to the classroom. Here is one of the first ones I did. Sorry if this might be NSFW, but it's art. I ended up doing quite a few, as it was fun to do some traditional drawing again. I still try to be classy. This one is currently in our faculty show we are having at UNG.


After a few black and white drawings, I wanted to try and add some color, but in a fun way. I didn't want to do full-on color, but I liked the idea of looking for source material that had an interesting splash of color where I could work with pastels. These are all just on newsprint, so they aren't great works of art that will last for posterity. They are just fun little exercises. After drawing the the red coat, I hesitated for a while on the idea of adding some red as reflected light on the figure. Unlike with digital art, there's no going back once a decision like this is made. Luckily, I liked how it turned out and looked for more ways I could implement this technique in future drawings.

Here's another one. I did this drawing with the idea of recording my work so I could turn it into a tutorial. I've done a lot of digital art tutorials, so I thought I should try some traditional art. Unfortunately, I didn't realize how much video my camera would record in one take, so I lost a bit, but I did realize how to do this and pulled it together in the end. In addition to the tutorial videos, I made a time-lapse one so you could see the drawing come together (except the part I didn't record) in just a few minutes. You can see it here. Sorry if the music isn't great. I had something cooler that was a good duration. It was an instrumental piece and the music publisher is in Germany. But a day or two after I uploaded it to YouTube, I got a copyright infringement notice from them. Weird. 

Yet another one. I did say that I ended up doing quite a few this year; this is just a small selection. You can see a lot more of them in my gallery on Deviant Art. This one is a bit different. I kind of like it, especially the contrast between the natural curves of the figure and the hard, artificial edges of the chair. After the other tutorials, I had a request to do one based on drawing the face, so I recorded that while I was working on this drawing. A figure drawing isn't the same thing as a portrait, so getting the likeness right isn't the prime concern. The face looks good here, but it doesn't exactly look like the model. I'm only a little bit disappointed.


This is the last one. I was quite pleased with this drawing as I went back to my idea of adding a shot of color. The thin, diaphanous fabric was a challenge, but in the end I was able to pull it off. I spent a lot of time on this one, trying to get all the anatomy correct. I do like the hints of orange reflecting back on the skin and think it works well to pull everything together. As it was not the full figure, I worked a bit larger and could put a good bit of detail in the face; this one is pretty much a portrait.



My last professional illustration of the year. This one isn't much to look at and it changed quite a bit from the process of going from comp to final. For what it is, it looks pretty good, but I was disappointed in what I ended up with based on the client's request. Earlier versions were more interesting visually, but with commercial work, that's not the most important point.