Craft of Illustration: Character Studies

I haven't been posting much of my work from The Lamp Post Guild class I've been working through, "Craft of Illustration" taught by Justin Gerard, primarily because it's mostly been rough sketches and thumbnails up to now. But these are some character studies I just finished up to share with the class that I thought I would post here. The scene I'm illustrating is from C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair in which Jill Pole leaves the castle of Cair Paravel sailing through the night sky on the back of an Owl. I'll be sure to post more as I start to finish up the illustration.

The Lamp Post Guild

 Just a quick post about some news: I'm thrilled to announce that I was recently asked to be a part of the Lamp Post Guild team! As a Community Manager, I'll be overseeing class forums, answering questions, and helping maintain various social media pages. It is a great honor and a privilege to work with such talented individuals, and I cannot wait to see where this amazing online art school will go next. I would encourage you to check out all of the classes that are available, and consider signing up. The Lamp Post Guild exists to provide an affordable online learning experience that teaches illustrators professional practices and how to be successful at doing what you love - and making a living doing that very thing!

Check out all The Lamp Post Guild has to offer here: http://lpg.pathwright.com/school/catalog/

Hope to see you in a class soon!

-Will

 

The Birdstaff Monk

Here's a quick sketch that I did last night. Sunday evenings are great for sketching. Anyway, the strange thing about this is how uncharacteristically well it came out. I wasn't really planning it, it just sort of flowed from my brain onto my sketchbook. I started drawing the girl. She turned out okay, but then it sort of felt like she needed a companion of some kind. So, I figured the Monk of the Birdstaff Order could keep her company. Now she can wander through goblin caves all she wants without having to worry about being eaten anymore. Because nobody messes with the Birdstaff and his hipster haircut. Nobody.
 
I guess that I'm improving somewhat, because I was able to draw the figures and faces directly from my head, without guessing too much. Hands, however, are another story. I need a lot more work to perfect my drawing of hands and faces. And this sketch signals a bit of a different direction for me. I think that I need to start developing more character sketches. I'll be doing a lot of that in the coming week - I have character studies to do for my Lamp Post Guild class. I'll post more about that soon.
 
Keep drawing!
 

Carrots!

Here's a little piece I put together over the July 4th holiday. After all the winter stuff I'd been doing, I thought something a little summery would be nice. Just pencil in the Moleskine and Photoshop. Mostly focusing on tight drawing and good color lately. Trying to expand my Children's Literature portfolio, but really I think I just drew a beardless dwarf growing carrots. I mean look at this guy's legs! Anyway, let me know what you think.

Morning Warmup: Crusader

Here's today's morning warmup sketch of a Crusader from the ol' Moleskine in all its sketchy, unedited glory! (Well, I did adjust the levels a bit. But that's only for the scan, mind you!). Sketching has really been good for me lately. It's just like exercise - when you do it every day, it strengthens your skills, and makes you feel invigorated and ready to tackle the day.

Also, I should note that the recent warmup sketches I've been doing are from photo reference. Just didn't want you to get the idea I'm coming up with this stuff out of my head!

A bit of other news: I'm still trying to finish up my Winter Dragon piece, and it's going good, but still needs a lot of work to pull it to the finish line. Also, today I am doing rough sketches on my Lamp Post Guild piece. I'm doing a scene from Narnia! Looking forward to sharing some preliminaries from that here soon.

And for future reference, I'm going to be shooting for a Mon/Wed/Fri blog post schedule. Not saying I won't miss a post, but that's just to keep me on track!

More art soon!
-Will

Border Patrol (or, What to Do in the Event of a Wooly Mammoth Stampede)

This morning I did a lot of warmup sketches. But suddenly I began to think of Wooly Mammoths. Yes, that's right, Mammuthus primigenius, those terrific beasts from the Ice Age. I worked on other things. I tried to shake the thought of them, but there they were, stampeding through my brain, with savage Nordic warriors riding on top of them! So it was draw or be trampled. My pencil began to fly, and a quick sketch was made (bottom). I liked it, and so did the Mammoth (who thought he looked quite handsome), so I tore out a piece of tracing paper, transferred it to the Bristol, and the finished product was born. Now these rowdy fellows are immortalized on paper, along with their wall which is, of course, modeled after Hadrian's wall which I hope to visit next Summer. Let's hope this wall is better at keeping out smilodon and herds of Megaloceros giganteus than Hadrian's was at keeping out the Celts.

Winter Dragon: Watercolor (Traditional Underpainting)

So in my last post in this series, I showed you the finished drawing. Since then I've plunged into the watercolor stage of my process. This piece actually marks a lot of progress for me, for several reasons. First, this is the first watercolor I've ever done that I've felt "good" about. I've managed to achieve some pretty good texture, keep the colors within a predetermined scheme, and get a fairly unified look to the whole thing. Secondly, it's the first painting I've done that stands alone as a finished watercolor painting, but still leaves room for some digital manipulation, which I will complete in the last stage.

The image I'm posting (above) was tweaked just slightly to bring up the levels from what the scan gave me, but otherwise, it is untouched by Photoshop. Over the course of the painting stage, I used these steps, which I will give you here in case you are interested:

 

Here's a very poor picture of what the underpainting looked like. 

Pretty rough, huh? 

1. Light underpainting - wash of warm brownish undertones to unify the colors.
2. First washes of local color. This was the stage where I added in my midtone colors, leaving my lightest areas untouched, and saving my shadows for a later stage.
3. Final washes of darker areas - adding in shadows, etc.
4. Final touches of local color, a little more fine tuning.

The final watercolor. Wrinkled, but still alive and kicking!

That being said, there were a lot of things I learned, and things that I will do differently next time:

1. Instead of doing a wash over the whole painting, do a light underpainting on individual elements of the image, such as the trees, the dwarves, the mountains, dragon, etc. This would eliminate some of the dramatic bleeds that I got.

2. Stretch the paper. I skipped this stage, but it was only because I forgot to do this before I drew on it, and didn't want to lose my drawing. Overall, the drawing held well.

And that's about it. I'm sure there were other things I noticed but can't recall at the moment. Anyway, I got through the whole ordeal without incident, and was pretty pleased with the result!
Now I will retreat into my digital laboratory and tweak the DNA of this thing with Photoshop. We shall see what madness shall ensue!

Character detail.

Up Next: Digital Process!

Morning Warmup

A little warmup sketch I did this morning to start the day. I did it from a reference photo I had in my files. It's great for me to do these to get the creative juices flowing before I dive into my bigger projects. I may try to post more of these as I do them in the future.
Also, I'm in the thick of the watercolor process for my Winter Dragon piece, so expect another progress update tomorrow!

Winter Dragon: Drawing & Color Comp

Yesterday I put the finishing touches on a drawing that I started back in January. It was in response to an ArtOrder Challenge entitled "Winter Dragon". The challenge was to come up with a Dragon and give it characteristics that displayed how he interacted with the world around him. Or something like that. Anyway. It was January. I got started on a much more serious, depressing, savage, dragon-killed-my-family-and-destroyed-my-homestead type piece, and had some great sketches (which I might finish at some point). But instead I opted for a much more light-hearted scene. Two dwarves and their dragon pal having a cookout. I was pretty pleased with how the drawing came out, but still trying to find that balance between being too sketchy and being a tight, finished drawing that isn't too detailed or over-cooked. So, there you have it! Tomorrow I'll be working on starting the watercolor stage (which I'm pretty nervous about). Hopefully we'll end up with a final image that will look something like the color comp above, but with much more detail.

See you then!

Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2: Post Trip Recap

Hi everyone! I bet you thought I had forgotten about this blog didn't you? Well, I haven't! In fact, I've been wanting to post for a long time, and things have really gotten in the way. But, for now I'll spare you the details and dump a few photos from my trip this past weekend to Kansas City for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live 2!

 

The amazingly talented Jean-Baptiste Monge. He and Paul Bonner shared a booth.

They were super friendly!

 Cory Godbey and Justin Gerard. 

It was so awesome to finally meet them! They are terrific fellows and they had an incredible 

booth with incredible drawings, paintings and prints.

The insanely talented brush-wielder, Jeremy Bastian, creator of Archaia's "Cursed Pirate Girl".

His ink work is mind-boggling. Definitely worth checking out.

 Jon Foster did a great demo on his method of working with oils, then later 

gave a brief overview of his digital post-production process on the same piece.

 The finished oil painting.

 Oil painter Annie Stegg and her splendid booth. Her artwork is absolutely gorgeous, and she sold nearly all of her original oils, which you can see in the background. She also gave me a free print in addition to the one I purchased, which was really too kind of her. Thanks so much Annie!

 The one and only Manchess doing a demo. He was painting a Spock portrait. Live long and prosper, Greg!

 Terryl Whitlatch doing a Q & A panel about her work on Star Wars: Episode 1. She designed

one of my least favorite characters of the whole series, Jar Jar Binks, but she's so nice and her other artwork is so great, I was able to forgive her. (Just kidding).

She drew me a beautiful horse picture in my sketchbook. Not... Jar Jar.

 I was able to meet David Petersen, the creator of the comic Mouse Guard and his wife Julia. I really enjoyed talking with them and to David about his inking, page layout process and just the comics world in general. His original inked pages from the Mouse Guard series were simply amazing. I picked up the first title in the series which I'm super excited about starting.

 Justin Sweet, a concept artist for many films, including Narnia. He was very engrossed in his painting he was working on.

 Some work from the Muddy Colors booth, including some Jesper Ejsing prints.

 On Saturday night the Spectrum Awards Ceremony was held, and it was a fantastic show. You just can't help but feel happy for all the hard working artists who were honored. 

 The Midland Theater in downtown KC was gorgeous. The photos do not do it justice.

 The highlight of the evening for me came when Cory Godbey won a Gold Award for his piece "The Fishmaster" in the Unpublished category. I was so happy for him, and so glad to see his work getting the recognition it deserves. It was a great to be able to spend the evening with such terrific folks.

A very happy Award winner,  with wife Erin Godbey,  

and friends Zach Franzen and Justin Gerard.

______________________________________________

So, to recap, I would say that SFAL was an incredible experience. It was not so much about learning art techniques or practices, but it was more about networking, and community. I think it made me think differently about what the illustration community really means to me, and it made me realize that we all are trying to do what we love, and we love sharing what we are creating. 

I was able to meet old friends and make many new ones. But I think most of all, it was a motivator. My creative batteries have been recharged, and I feel ready to take on new projects with increased enthusiasm. Because as Zach Franzen mused about some of the art at the show, there is so much art that "displays gratefulness". Gratefulness for beauty, storytelling, and the ability to share them both. That is something to be passionate about!

Please be sure and check out the artists' websites that I linked to above and spread the love!

Morning Warmup

Here's a quick morning warmup sketch from the other day. I've been trying to warm up with my sketchbook every day. Not easy, trust me, but it makes a big difference, because you don't really have to worry too much about the finished product. The point is to have fun and get the creativity flowing.

I've been pretty busy with a few things: I'm working on a book cover for a friend, trying to plan some new personal illustrations (slowly), and also preparing an application for a mentorship with a program called Motivarti. You can check out the program here if you like: motivarti.org

That's all for now, hope to have some more art to share with you all soon!

Winter Explorers

Winter Explorers

pencil & digital

Happy New Year everyone! I hope that you're all finding lots of time to make some great art in 2013. I've been off to a bit of a slow start, but I'm resolved to make 2013 the most productive art year I've ever had. I finished this little painting this afternoon - it was the last drawing I did in 2012 (finished in the final thirty minutes of the year!), and the first painting of 2013. I'm really trying to find my way

in the color world. Drawing is all well and good, but I'm working towards becoming a more 

solid painter as well this year. 

Well, I hope you're all ready to grab your walking stick and head out into the Great Unknown to see what adventures and art we can find. I know I'm ready!

Onward!

P. S. Also, very briefly, I notified the winners of the Hobbit Giveaway around Christmas - Aedan Peterson won first prize - "The Forest Goblin" drawing, and @bigjohnjeep on Twitter won "Riddles in the Dark". Congratulations to the winners, and thanks everyone for entering! I'd love to do a giveaway again soon. I mailed the drawings early this week, so they should arrive soon!

-Will