TLC Workshop Recap: Monsters & Maidens

  

This past weekend I had the privilege of attending the TLC Workshop with Justin Gerard and Cory Godbey. It was a terrific weekend full of good friends, great artwork, and lots and lots of knowledge passed around! These are just a few photos from a very full weekend.

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(Above) Justin Gerard demonstrated some methods of picture-making that he uses frequently, including techniques blending ink and watercolor that were used by Arthur Rackham (if you're interested in this method, a detailed description of it can be found here.)

Iain McCaig, who has worked as a concept artist for Star Wars and many other feature films, stopped by on Saturday to give us an energetic and inspiring talk on telling stories with our art and character design.

The "digital room" where I worked. The Arts Umbrella where the workshop was held was a terrific space. Small, but just right for a workshop this size.

This was the state of my Beauty & the Beast piece on Saturday night. Lots of reference lying around, and I had Just got the drawing transferred to watercolor paper and refining it. I had a pretty rough time deciding on a composition that worked for me,  so by this time I was ready to commit to a drawing just so I could try out some new watercolor methods.

Justin worked on a Beauty & the Beast illustration that was absolute dynamite. It was really nice to be able to see him work in watercolor over the course of the weekend, and I learned a great deal about the actual application of it, which has been something I've been pushing to learn recently. Justin was eager to share all kinds of knowledge about illustration and his working methods.

And here's a sneak peek photo of my drawing. It has lots of issues, but I pressed on. I told myself I couldn't go home until I had gotten watercolor on the page, which I did! I still need to finish that aspect of it, and I'll post the final when it's done.

And lastly, here's Mr. Cory demoing his digital workflow in Photoshop which he uses mainly for client work. Cory is a fine fellow, and it was great to hang out with him for the weekend. His drawings are mind-blowing works of art and I enjoy his approach to character and composition.

At the end of the class on Sunday, Justin & Cory did a Q&A with us on the business of art, how they got their start in illustration, and things that we as new artists can do to gain exposure and attention for our own artwork. It was a great session, and it really answered a lot of questions that I've had in the recent months about "where do I go from here?"

After it was over, we all took a look at each other's pieces. There was some terrific art being made over the course of the weekend. That evening we attended a farewell dinner at Vivendo's Italian Restaurant in the Country Village and it was so nice to just spend time with good friends who love art. We're all in this together! 

If you ever get the chance to attend one of Tara Larsen Chang's TLC Workshops, I would highly recommend it, especially if the guest illustrator is someone who has influenced you in your art pursuits. For me, Justin and Cory's work was a huge factor in my decision to become an illustrator, so it was a great opportunity to meet with them and learn from their work and experience. I hope that you will be able to do the same if you attend.

And with that, it's back to work for me! I have a painting to finish!

Buried Treasure - Illustration Process

Here's a quick piece I did. I've been really inspired lately by children's book illustrators like Jon Klassen and Isabelle Arsenault. Their work has such amazing texture and simplicity. I love it. I'd like to explore this type of work more fully.

I took a different approach. This guy was doodled in my sketchbook. I took a piece of watercolor paper, and painted all the different pieces I knew it would take to create him. Here's that page:

I then scanned all of this into Photoshop, and put every piece on its own layer. By doing this, it allowed me to maneuver all the pieces into place, re-size them and get it how I wanted it. A few color adjustment layers, and I was done! Below is a little .gif animation that shows the process:

What do you think of this style? I'm eager to explore this technique further for use in children's books, etc. Hope you like it!

Winter Dragon: Digital Finish

Winter Dragon - (watercolor & digital, 2013)

At long last, I have finished the Winter Dragon. 

What you see above is the result of close to 120 Photoshop layers, and much wrestling with color, lighting, pixels, adjustments, gremlins, and other adverse entities bent on making the life of a picture-maker total chaos.

It finally came to the point where enough was enough. There is only so much I can do to this image to make it successful. Ultimately, I felt like I was working very hard to offset the effects of a lack of planning in the early stages. This was a very uncomfortable feeling. 

Also, as layer upon layer began to accumulate in my palette, I began to ask myself: "why so many layers? Why is it taking this many layers to get this point across? Why wasn't there more color in the watercolor stage?" and on and on. A simple idea was requiring 20x the effort, layers, thought, and tweaking than it ever should have.

So to sum it up, I feel like in this painting, I won some and I lost some. In some ways it feels like it is succeeding, but in other ways it feels like it falls short of my original idea. But I'm ready to put this one behind me, and move on to bigger, better things.

Or maybe simpler things. If there's one thing this painting has taught me, it's this: Less is, more often than not, more.

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!