It was fun to do. The left page was done in black ink and the right page was done in a mixed ink of brown and red. In retrospect, I wish I would have done the drawing on the left in a dark blue ink…perhaps it would have faded back a little bit better. Just playing with oil and medium to see what kind of textures I can get. Definitely did more with paint on the right, and I prefer the way the drawing fades away almost completely. I didn’t have a plan when doing this, but if I were to spend more time on it, I would push the drawing on the left back significantly more with paint.

I’ve got some things I have to work on so I may not have a good post for a little bit, but when I get somewhere, hopefully I’ll have a really good one! Otherwise, prepare to see me ramble on about more silly sketch stuff like this!

O

I started to realize that the books are often filling up with new images from the same groups of artists…not completely, but I am definitely starting to see a trend. I thought it might be fun to print out some images of some of these artists and hang them all up together randomly. That way I can see the whole lot together next to each other and start to analyze what exactly it is about this work that I’m drawn to, and how can I incorporate what they’re doing into my own approach.

I couldn’t possibly include all of the artists that I like or that influence me, and I certainly couldn’t print 35 images from each artist. It’s a simple exercise, so I just picked some random images from a handful of artists I love and didn’t worry too much about which ones I picked, so long as I liked them. I also didn’t dive into art history. I wanted to pick from the artists I see most often today and not try to accomplish TOO much with this simple test. Opening the doors to the past would just make it too complicated. I didn’t want to just include every artist that I loved or else the wall would be covered with Cornwells, Rockwells, Leyendeckers, etc. I wanted to look at artists who are creating work that strikes a chord with me and the kind of work I want to make.

The list of main contributors to my wall were:

Kekai Kotaki, Jon Foster, Ashley Wood, Kent Williams, James Jean, Skottie Young, Mike Mignola, Sergio Toppi, and Joao Ruas.

I’ve been such a nut for Ashley Wood and Mignola for so long, that I didn’t let them have too overwhelming a presence on the wall. I feel so comfortable with their work and what I love about it, that I didn’t feel like I really needed to analyze them. But I wanted them present next to the other art, so they’re definitely still there.

So here’s the wall. And here are some of my brief notes on what I think.

• Simple Palettes – lots of limited palettes. If you look at the palette of the whole wall, there’s a warmth to it.  A red-orange-brown with some accents of blue or purple.

• Texture — Lots of texture in almost everything. Textural application of media. Added textures and patterns that vary from halftone, to linearly created, to chunky paint. Texture texture texture.

• Line art -- 2D elements, and the inclusion of lineart throughout a lot of the pieces. Interestingly it varies from loose brushwork like Skottie Young and Ash Wood, to very controlled, delicate linework from James Jean and Joao Ruas.  Interesting that most of these have some elements of strong line, and are not 100% rendered paintings.

• Ambiguous space -- Almost none of these are rendered in “real space.” Practically everything exists either abstractly, or against a background that interprets the space. The tightest ones are Jon Fosters, but even most of those aren’t necessarily “real space” and are more interpretive of the perspective I love Sterling’s interpretation of mixing depth with flattened table tops, etc. I’m definitely going to try using this sometime. Plenty are illustrated against texture/color backgrounds as well.

• Otherworldly -- Again, this isn’t a end-all representation of artwork I like or strive to create, but it’s a nice sampling, and it’s interesting to find that nothing is rendered acutely photo-real. Nothing even feels too reliant on photo reference. There is no stiffness, no deadness to the figures. There’s also an enormous stylization of almost every piece up there. You can definitely see that each of these artists create their own world through not only their thought process, but with their drawing/rendering styles as well.

• Abstraction of forms -- Lots of gestural treatment of anatomy, clothing, backgrounds, fire, smoke. Nothing feels too anchored in the real world.

• Design/Layout -- There is plenty of action and movement in these pieces, but they generally aren’t just illustrations of people doing something specific in a specific environment. A large majority are much more designed and include line art, pattern, ambiguous locations/backgrounds. More about a composition or mood than a direct story of a person, place and thing. They’re still telling a story, but often less literally.

• Light-- Also interesting is the lack of lighting “tricks” in these images. I call them “tricks” since I don’t really know what to label them. I guess “flare” could work too.  By no means do I intend to simplify the complexity of the work up there. But I’m starting to see the kind of light treatment I like in these works. It’s not too ridiculous, fancy or complicated. It seems that in a lot of fantasy art (and perhaps mostly amateur fantasy art) people rely on fancy lighting to polish a piece. I’ve done it. Adding bright saturated rim lights all of the place just to give the piece more “pop.” The images I pulled for this have much more restrained lighting. There are still saturated lights and rim lighting, etc, but it seems intentionally done only when necessary to describe a form  under certain conditions. They don’t exist solely as “flare” to make an image more exciting or bold.

• Focused refinement -- Practically every image up there exhibits a wonderful restraint in refinement, leaving only the areas of focus for extra contrast and detail. This is definitely something I’m going to invest some time into practicing.

It was nice to complete this and come to a lot of the same realizations I did a week ago after GenCon. It helps give me an idea of the things I’m naturally drawn to and the concepts and elements I want to explore using more of myself. I’m setting myself up for a year of practice and development, so hopefully these ideas help me cover some ground.

Here are a couple of recent lunchbreak ink sketches from random photos I’ve found.

I also got some craft paper envelopes, sealed them, sliced em back open, and punch a half-circle finger opening for accessibility to the prints. It turned out nicely I think, and people seemed to really get a kick out of them. Casey brought up a good point, and reminded me that the prints would likely get separated from their little sleeve, so I printed out some small mailing labels with my info for the back of each print.

Little effort really, but they turn out nicely and seem to leave an impression.

Also below is an image that’s technically still in-progress. I rushed it for the convention and I need to work some things out still. I also might go back and make some adjustments to other work now that I’ve lived with them for a while. I see things I need to change, but we’ll see if I dig up the time.

I should have some other sketches up soon too.

So here it is in bulletpoints!

-Children’s museum with Casey, Ada, Jasmine, Finn and Penny was great. had a wonderful time with the wives and kids before diving into the con. nice way to start the weekend.

-Time with Chris was great, and it was awesome seeing Joe do another knockout job at the booth. Got to see Woodrow today which is always good ‘cuz he pushes me to talk to people when I might not on my own. Chris is great at that too. awww, such support!

-Good response from Crafty games and PKCards. We’ll see this year if it leads to anything but it was nice to get a good response to the book.

-Art level in the art alley went UP! I got to see some great originals up close and personal which is a fantastic learning experience. Introduced to Chris Rahn’s art which is really phenomenal, along with that of Matthew Stewart. Really  great inspiration.

-Got really great critiques from Kekai Kotaki (a nice surprise!) and Jeremy Jarvis. Oddly enough, I ended up getting  a sketch from Jeremy in my critique too which is an outstanding little extra. Really excellent information from both of them that I plan on using this year.I really felt like Jeremy keyed into what I am trying to do and what I like to do. He read me pretty quickly and he gave me great input on my art overall, not just from a DnD perspective. It was a refreshing critique.

-Purchased 3 amazing prints from Omar Rayyan. Most likely all for Violet’s room. He does the best watercolors and the story in each illustration is great. I could have bought the whole booth if I had the funds!

-Again, it was nice escaping for a bit each day to grab lunch with Chris, Casey and Vi. Good to have some downtime away from the chaos. Violet was a little superstar too!

I think that’s it….I’m sure I forgot some stuff, but in a quick overview, that’s the weekend. Had some fun, but looking forward to getting home. Here are some things I’m hoping to work on in the next year.

• Work I WANT to do.I’m not sure what that means, but that’s what I’m hoping to figure out. The fantasy genre is near and dear to me but I need to figure out how I want to do it.
• Composition. tons of thumbnails. simple values and shapes. THINKING IN SHAPES. I need to design my work a lot better.
• Keep my love of line and 2D elements. Let them in somewhere if that’s what I’m feeling I need to do.
• Practice drawing and painting more. I need to spend more time life drawing. My faked anatomy isn’t cutting it.
• Shooting reference. I need to start making this part of my process. I need to do it every time.
• Stop painting so transparently. I’m going to try to stop working so hesitantly and start making myself make decisions.

I realize this is a hefty list. It may not be very long but saying “I need to create better compositions” as one bullet in a list is giving myself a lot to work on. If I can actually tackle 3 or so of these, I think I’ll be content.

Hopefully I’ll have some drawings to post soon after I get home!

So, do yourself a favor and check out Anton’s page. He’s got some fantastic work!

Here’s my first sketch with it. I did it initially with the pen and then went back and did my regular brush/wash/white-out stuff. Definitely something I plan to continue using

- Think in big shapes first. This one is hard for me. I need to start developing thumbnails that reflect this idea. Design with shapes. Gary Kelley is GREAT at shape. Tagged along with this sorta goes the idea of strong silhouette. for instant, powerful reads, the image will be most effectively designed if i consider my large groups of values.
-not every image needs a full value range. and not everything in an image needs dramatic value range. applying a simpler value structure to my big shapes will better help me design and image and create better focal points. Again, another difficult one for me.
-detail can kill you. guys like mignola and Al Hirschfeld and alex toth got this nailed. describing things in as few marks as necessary (again, silhouette comes in here). ? put detail where you need it to reinforce focal points, but leave it out where it doesnt matter.
-use saturation wisely. im’ a sucker for super-saturated images, so this one is tricky for me.
-make a confident mark and LEAVE IT ALONE. it’s better to be slightly wrong, but made confidently than to have meticulously slaved over, indecisive lines that try to be perfect.
-embrace the medium. let digital look digital. dont try to make digital look like watercolor. just use watercolor. dont try to make inks look like vector art. let them be inks.
-trust your instincts and embrace failure. there isn’t necessarily a “right’ way to do things. you can’t please everyone. George Pratt often says something along the lines of: if you aren’t screwing up, you aren’t doing it right.
-every part of an illustration matters. think about how every piece is impacting the drawing. pay attention to every part and resolve it appropriately.
-you can’t save a shitty drawing. you can polish a good drawing in a billion different ways. but if the foundation stinks, style can’t save it.

There are more and hopefully I’ll add to the list soon. It’s a lot to keep in mind at the start of a drawing, but really, if I can get these ideas to just be part of my thought process, it will hopefully be more intuition than a checklist. I’ve been getting great feedback on the Visual Literacy Program forums, particularly from Sterling Hundley and John English.  I recently uploaded my “Unravel” image, and John encouraged me to do more thumbnail exploration with less literal ideas. He also thought playing with scale would be a good evolution of the image. I found it a good excuse to do some more shape-oriented thumbnails with limited values. I think they read much better and are definitely more dynamic. Although I likely won’t be redoing this particular concept, I may keep thumbnailing and use one of the layouts for another idea. Or maybe I’ll just redo it :)

I wanted to just kinda go nuts with some linework and texture and saturation. Layering of subtle lines and texture and really letting the color just go loose.

Ink, acrylic, colored pencil, digital

I’ve also spent a fair amount of time wishing I was at the Illustration Academy this year, but that’s just because I need something to bitch and moan about.