Work from last year

Here it is. I've been wanting to get these up, but it's been a busy year. Not much of an excuse, I know, but I have two overload classes this semester and everything seems like it takes longer and my days go later and later. It looks like I didn't do much work last year and I guess it's less than the usual. I did do a lot of product design imagery and animation, but I can't really show that yet. I did some personal work that came out nicely, though.

This piece isn't really finished. At the moment, it's just a simple 3D model that I was working on for a larger project. It still needs to be textured and fit into the final setting. I'll do that someday, but the project stalled. That happens a lot, at least for the kinds of things I am on. It will probably start up and get done later this year. Hopefully, it will show up in my next end-of-year post.

Here's a drawing from my summer Life Drawing class. I try to have a long pose at the end of each drawing session. This is a great model I've been working with and we came up with a fun pose using some interesting props. The basket is hers. I was quite happy with it and the end result. Some drawings work out and some don't, particularly working from a live model. That's always a challenge, at least for me. As you might guess, it's easier to work from a photo for many reasons. I like the very classical look we got here. The basket was just a fun afterthought. I've been trying to come up with a clever name for this drawing, but I haven't thought of anything good yet.

Here's another drawing of that same model. This was during the same summer session and it's our long pose again. She always brings interesting props or clothing articles to use. Sometimes I like to work a little larger and do more of a portrait than the entire figure. I was pleased with this one as well and it's fun to throw in a bit of color with the charcoal. Some combinations of the pose with the lighting work out well.

A different model from the same summer session. This was the first time I had worked with this model and it was a good experience. I like to add as many models to my roster as I can and hope that they are all good and work out. For the most part, that has been pretty successful and I get models that I work with on a regular basis in my classes. I did this one with Nupastel, which is very similar to charcoal. It's fun to try and add some color in. She had some bright pink hair color that I tried to replicate, but I couldn't quite catch it. I emphasized the rimlighting on the left a bit more than was there, but I think it works. This image is a good example of how value can work no matter what the colors are.

Here's another commercial piece, but I don't think it was ever finished. It's really a weird idea; this company was doing something with a cornhole competition and wanted their own graphic for the cornhole board. That's what the dark circle in the middle is: the hole for the bag (?) to go in. I ended up doing several designs. I'm not sure which one is the best, but I kind of like this one. In the end, the company decided not to do this at all, after all the work I did. I suppose I just couldn't make a bad idea work well enough.

This is another personal drawing. I like to do these just to keep my drawing skills up. It's not from life, so I can take my time and get all the details I need to. I liked this image and felt it was a beautiful pose. There was also some interesting texture that I tried to capture. I made some changes to the flowers in her hair and felt it would be a nice place to add some color. It's not without its flaws, but overall, I do like this one.

Another of the same sort of thing. It's actually the same model. I liked this pose and enjoyed some of the challenges in the angles and cast shadows. As with a lot of these, I'm trying to add in some color in interesting ways. For this image, I chose the rustic wooden beam she's leaning on. The problem is that it's grey, so how do I make that stand out? I'm using grey Nupastel, but it has a lot of other colors in there as well. Nothing in life is purely without color. I'm pleased with this drawing. I spent a lot of time on it, but that's the luxury you have when you work with photos.

This is a personal piece. It's a digital painting. I had been working on it for a long time, mainly during my classes as a demonstration piece. I started on it long before last year, but it sat around on class computers without much progress happening. I finally finished it off to show my classes how I would paint a portrait digitally. In my Digital Illustration class, I have a portrait assignment that I give my students, so I like showing them one approach they can take. If this image looks familiar to anyone, I based it off of a couple of photos by the Bangladeshi photographer Mou Aysha, who has made some beautiful photos like this. I started with one that I found quite striking, but then added details from another. For me, painting children can be difficult, but I like how this one came out.

This was one I had in mind for a while. My plan was to do it as a Christmas present for my son. It's an F-35, his favorite plane, so I thought he would like it as a gift. The plane was not too hard, but painting the background took a while. I do like this one a lot. I had it printed out and mounted, but I had to do that a couple of times before they got it right. I've made some tutorials documenting the techniques I used to create this. You can start watching them here.