After much procrastination with posting here it is my Frazetta tribute piece entitled Warrior Atop the Snow Covered Peak. I have had this done for awhile and already have new sketches to show, so expect those soon.
I think the painting turned out well I really liked where my color palette went, and of course that is all thanks to great Frazetta. I think I will try and play around with these more colorful palettes in the future.
The judging for the gallery that I submitted this to should occur sometime in December, I will make sure to let everyone knows if it gets in the show.
Hopefully i did proper in honor of the great Frazetta.
Illuxcon was the coolest event ever. I got so much stuff, met so many great artists, and saw lots of awesome presentations, had 34 magic cards signed and bought 10 art books.
I uploaded some pictures one is of myself, J. S Choi, Mike Burns, Brandon, and first ever Illie award winner Mark Zug. Who by the way can rock a guitar. They had a jam night there and it was awesome.
The next has me, J. S. Choi, Mark Nelson and Jon Schindehette. Apparently there was caution, for groping was occurring. But seriously though Mark was great I ended up doing an art book trade with him which was awesome. And Jon was a great guy he looked through my work and gave me some really positive feedback. Hopefully I will be working for him at some point (knocks on wood).
Another picture is of Greg Hildebrandt working on a painting of Smaug. A really cool thing had happened when I had the chance to talk to him. I asked him if he could sign some of my magic cards and he did cause he is a really cool guy. Then I gave him some of my postcards in return. And when he looked at my work he told me it was beautiful and asked ME if I would sign them for him. That was such a magnificent experience it was a huge highlight of the convention.
There are a million other stories of awesome that happened that weekend but I will not bore you with the details. I most definitely plan on going back next year. So on a final note.
Jeannie and Pat are amazing and I thank them and those who donated art to the scholarship so much. It is an experience I will treasure forever.
Currently I am sitting in my hotel room just waiting to head over to Illuxcon. It is going to be intense so much stuff to do. I am so excited.
I am sure I will have tons of new pictures and new stuff to share soon but until then I shall share my excitement.....
ILLUXCON WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!
I know I have been way past posting this but here it is the finished drawing to my Frazetta Tribute piece. The funny thing is I am already done with the painting so expect to see that posted soon. I have just been caught up by many things the past few weeks. In fact, I am currently posting this from the airport as I am waiting to head to Florida for my cousin's wedding.
As far as the drawing goes I reworked her anatomy a bit and played around with the gesture of the cats. I think it turned out well and the finish painting I am really proud of.
Expect to see the finish for this as well as some brand new stuff for my sci-fi/fantasy pin-up series, and some special new awesomeness.
That is all for now, as I am leaving on a jet plane.
P.S. a belated Happy Halloween I hope everyone had a good time.
About a month and a half ago I was informed that I am scheduled to be in issue 67 of Imagine FX, (however the specific issue is subject to change). Imagine FX is a fantasy digital art magazine based out of the UK. I am set to be featured in the FXpose section.
Some of the art you'll see will be pieces from my sci-fi/fantasy pin-up series as well as my Beowulf series.
This is the first time I will be in Imagine FX so I am extremely excited. The issue itself will be released in the UK on February 8th and then between 3 to 4 week later here in the states. It will be awhile before it's out but I will make sure to keep everyone informed between now and then. Make sure you go pick up a copy.
I am currently working on a Frank Fraztta tribute piece. It is my submission for a gallery that is putting together a full tribute exhibition. They already have uploaded some work in progress and finished work at there site here.
With this piece I wanted to get the essence of Frazetta's work, thus naked woman with big cats. At the same time I tried to pay special attention to the composition as well as the style of facial features.
I actually took a lot of influence from some Frazetta pieces that are not women with big cats. One such piece is Frazetta's snow giants. I used that as the basis for color as well as the environment. As well as his cover to Dark Crusade. I was greatly influenced by the symmetrical composition that is balanced on each side by cliff faces.
This piece while very much a pin up is not a part of my ongoing pin up series. That I will however be continuing very shortly so expect to see some new progress on those. I should have this finished soon so keep a look out for it.
So I have been meaning to give this update for awhile but I keep forgetting. Over the summer I was extremely fortunate to get work with Fantasy Flight Games. They had me illustrate for one of their trading card games. I just wanted to express how great of an experience it was. Zoe and Mike were great to work with, it was really a lot of fun. Hopefully I will work with them again soon.
The product I worked on should be released sometime in December so expect to see the art and everything around then. Be sure to keep a look out for it.
This is the final part in my Beowulf step by step series. The process for this one is the same as my previous pieces so first off I will re-quote myself; "I treat my digital work the same as I do a traditional painting. I start with a finished drawing then do a flat color wash as an underpainting. I also change the actual color of the linework as well, this I do in my traditional by tracing my drawing with colored pencils, or by printing out the drawing in a different color before mounting.
After that I roughly block in my colors and values, colorpicking from my original studies, it helps save lots of time.
Then I re-work and refine everything, make any appropriate changes until I finish. That is a very rough summation of my process but I figure it helps."
There are a few things that were unique to this piece. Mostly as you can see I had to pay particular attention to the edges of certain parts such as the wings of the crows. While I start off blocking them in roughly I then go in and create specific hard edges to them. Since in the end I do not want hard edges I go back in and repaint and soften them. This may seem like extra effort for no reason but I find that it helps me more specifically control my shapes.
So this is a run down of my process as always if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.
Man it has been a busy few weeks. Writing can really consume your time. I am sorry for the delay but here is part 2 of my step by step pieces.
My process here is pretty much the same as before, with some slight changes. Such as you can see between steps 6 and 7 I altered the colors from what I originally had. I used a colorize layer in Painter for this, I really really love the way it works. It allows me to change any color I want without altering the value. The only other significant difference that is seen is in the early steps where you can see I started off by planning out the highlight shapes. This helped me figure out how much contrast I would need in certain areas for focus.
Since the rest of the process is the same I will just quote myself for the rough explanation.
"I treat my digital work the same as I do a traditional painting. I start with a finished drawing then do a flat color wash as an underpainting. I also change the actual color of the linework as well, this I do in my traditional by tracing my drawing with colored pencils, or by printing out the drawing in a different color before mounting.
After that I roughly block in my colors and values, colorpicking from my original studies, it helps save lots of time.
Then I re-work and refine everything, make any appropriate changes until I finish. That is a very rough summation of my process but I figure it helps.
But if anyone has any questions about my process I will gladly answer them. I hope you find this informative."
I hope you enjoyed my process.
Hey.... I made a LinkedIn, so go check it out. If you happen to have one feel free to connect with me.
After much procrastination with posting here it is my Frazetta tribute piece entitled Warrior Atop the Snow Covered Peak. I have had this done for awhile and already have new sketches to show, so expect those soon.
