Crack that WIP

Coffee table book using Blurb

2012-01-18T16:32:00.001+11:00

Front cover

I can't remember where I first came across Blurb.com (I know it was in one of the thousands of blog posts I read about all things creative) and it is not the first site to try to tap into the growing market of people sinking in seas of digital files, but it was the first I have looked at in a while with a really simple web interface that made it easy for me to jump straight in and play. Essentially, it lets you create your own books and I thought it would be a great way to get all of my folio illustrations into one neat little package.

Back cover

Blurb provide three different ways to create your own books, ranging from simple, unsophisticated web based templates through to more professional-grade layout software that integrates with Adobe InDesign. I chose the easy route - mostly because I wanted a quick fix. While it is primarily aimed at people who wish to print off photo galleries it can certainly be used for creating folios as long as you have print-resolution scans of your artwork and can export as hi-res JPGs.

Internal pages

You have a lot of control over the layout, the number of pages and even the the type of cover (soft, hard, dust-jacket) and the paper quality (basic 80gsm through to heavier, matte-coated paper that has an egg-shell texture). I went with the full fit-out: dust-jacket, top of the list paper quality etc. As a result my book cost me around US$40 but I could get it for as little as US$25 if I went with the cheaper options. Not the cheapest offering of its kind out there but not too scary. You can also sell your books through the Blurb website and set the margin you wish to make on each sale. Nice touch.

The result? While the text and some of the finer-lined illustrations look choppy the overall quality is very good. Ultimately it comes down to the quality of your images/scans. For example, some of my scanned artwork looks less than impressive because my scanner is an el-cheapo Canon but my digitally coloured line-art looks vibrant and clean.

One thing to watch out for are artefacts at the very edges of your images. I have a faint line under my cover illustration that I had never noticed when looking at it on my computer but shows up like a sore thumb when printed. I'll be double-checking that sort of thing next time. I will also avoid putting any text in as images. I know it is a desktop-publishing no-no but I thought I might get away with it because the resolution of my files was quite high. Unfortunately, the text (saved in Photoshop) on my double-page spreads is pixelated and choppy. Next time I will either use the text options in the web templates or use the downloadable software version that gives me more control over layout, fonts etc. I expect setting up my book that way will export the text as vectors and will look super sharp. The printed images are also quite a bit darker than my screen images (not surprisingly) so it might be worth compensating a little for that.

Would I use Blurb again? Probably. I like the idea of printing off an annual compilation of family photos to have and to hold. I don't remember the last time I held a photo of my family - everything is digital now! I'll also print off another copy of this folio book (soft cover, lighter-stock paper) to see if I can get crisper text.

Good Morning - First Wash

2012-01-18T15:40:00.002+11:00

Re-reading Charles Vess' walkthru of his gorgeous illustration: Fairy Procession (which happens to be in his excellent book - Drawing Down the Moon... gorgeous, gorgeous illustrations!) I was happy to read he suffers from the same fears I do of that first step in the colouring process.
I have been summoning the courage to put some colour down on this for weeks now. I suppose I am worried I might stuff it up with my very first stroke.
So, partially to ease into it and mostly to help create a united base of colour to work from I have put down a light wash of burnt umber. Baby steps!

Jury is out on Mr Parrish

2012-01-18T15:27:00.004+11:00

I have to admit, I was very much just going through the motions adding the yellow layer today. I only mixed up three or four different value ranges and slapped them down pretty quickly just to see if an magic happened.

I wasn't expecting a lot. But I was pleasantly surprised with the result. Yes, it is a smudged mess and the colours are wrong in so many places... but there are some pockets of colour (autumn canopy behind the cottage, the green canopy in the top right and the orange pumpkins in the bottom left) that have a little bit of pop.

Obviously, I need to address the sealing step - one that doesn't cause my colours to run... and I need to be able to do this without a cheat sheet, which will mean achieving a James Gurney like understanding of colour and light (good thing I have his book!) but overall there is enough in this first experiment to make me want to keep going.

For the record I was using Lemon Yellow and Gamboge for this stage. Lemon Yellow is a poor choice as it is not very transparent but my washes were very light to start. Rooting around in one of many boxes of paints I found some Gamboge, which is at least semi-transparent.
Next step will be to look at other sealing options. I have already been pointed at a couple of options by some helpful readers so will wander off down that road soon.

More on Maxfield experiment

2012-01-15T10:50:00.000+11:00

ok... sealing my watercolour layers is not working. I probably should have expected problems given the matte medium I am using is water-based. Sure enough, my magenta layer is just running and smudging when I try to seal it. Where to from here? I am researching whether there are other sealers I can use that will still allow me to paint over the top of them. I am also going to try building the layers in a traditional watercolour glazing way, sans sealer and see how that goes...

In my original plan, if the watercolour experiments failed I was going to try gouache but given gouache is also water soluble there is probably little point going down that path. Acrylics and oil are next in line in that order. More soon!

Maxfield Parrish continued

2012-01-09T16:58:00.000+11:00

Finally found some time to get back to Maxfield. So far I have printed out the cyan plate on my el-cheapo Canon printer (using some nice thick watercolour stock). Unfortunately, when sealing it with the matte medium the ink ran a little but that's not too important at this stage. I'm not so fussed about details as I am about the colours.

In the photo here you can see the result of laying down the watercolour magenta values over the sealed cyan plate using my cheat-sheet as a guide.

It's all pretty rough at this stage. If this technique shows promise I will try to be a little more precise.

Once this has dried I will add another layer of matte medium to seal the magenta and then try laying in the yellows - again using a cheat sheet to help me work out the distribution of values.

For my birthday I convinced my lovely wife to let me purchase some books online. This Maxfield Parrish one was a must buy of course!

For the record I also purchased a beautiful hardback containing Norman Rockwell's magazine cover work, three Arthur Rackham books and another containing plates of Alphonse Mucha's work. Yummy!

Hobbit Colour Comps

2011-12-30T18:23:00.003+11:00

Quick colour comps in Photoshop. A very rough guide only. I have never been slavish to these things... :)

Inky Mirkwood

2011-12-29T21:59:00.001+11:00

Hot on the heels of the updates to 'Good Morning' I give you the inked and re-scanned update to 'Deep in Mirkwood'. The ink lines just help some of the details pop.
You may notice I have also fixed up the head of the hart that has been bothering me for some time.
Two piece scan stitched together in seconds thanks to Photoshop's 'Photomerge' feature.
Next step for this is to stretch it and throw some colours down. Stay tuned.

Back on the Hobbit horse

2011-12-27T22:14:00.001+11:00

Good Morning - Inks

Another New Year approaches and all these lovely Hobbit production diaries and the first trailer have my Hobbit creative juices flowing again. Here is a much more decent scan of my Good Morning illustration, which has progressed to the ink stage. In fact, it is now stretching on a piece of board as we speak - hopefully drying tight and flat - waiting for some colours. A few quick colour comps may be in order first, though - so stay tuned.
PS - Many thanks to my lovely Hower-friend, Sunila (otherwise known as dragonladych) who pointed me at the Photoshop "photomerge" function for painlessly stitching together illustrations scanned in multiple pieces. Gone are the days of micro-rotations of layers to try and get everything lined up (and ultimately failing).

A Maxfield Parrish Experiment

2011-12-14T21:34:00.000+11:00

Maxfield Parrish was an American illustrator who was known for a painting technique that mimics the traditional CMYK printing process we know today. Parrish would start with an under-painting in blue (Cyan) on white paper to establish the values of his subject matter. After varnishing the under-painting he would apply successive glazes of reds (Magenta) and yellows, with each glaze separated by a layer of varnish resulting in an effect similar to looking through a stained-glass window. The luminous quality of his illustrations was the result of light penetrating the layers of glaze and reflecting back off the white paper underneath, producing an effect starkly different from traditional colour mixing techniques.

In the partially completed illustration above you can see in the top right corner the first blue pass made on a tree before the other colour glazed have been applied.

My life-drawing teacher has challenged me to experiment with this technique given the subject matter of my illustrations is not light-years away from Parrish's. However, my understanding of colour is quite primitive so I will be starting by deconstructing a painting I have already completed - separating out the colour plates in Photoshop so I have a guide for how each layer should be laid down with respect to chroma. I will be cheating further by initially printing out the Cyan layer from my printer and sealing it before working in with the Magenta varnish.

Where Parrish worked with oil, I will be trying this with watercolour, using matte medium to seal each layer of colour.

My first experiment will involve my illustration of Bamfurlong.

You can see here how the individual colour plates will look thanks to the magic of Photoshop. These plates will guide each of my colour layers.

This could be a spectacular disaster but I have had fun so far researching the technique and getting to know Maxfield Parrish in the process - so it's already a success in my book!

Stay tuned for updates :)

Alice in Progressland

2011-12-11T09:50:00.005+11:00

Above are some progress shots I took as I was working on a submission for the Alice in Wonderland Art Jam - check out this URL for more information on this cool project: http://www.tinyurl.com/BookWithoutPictures2

And below is the finished piece.

I hope to do some variations on this to play with style. I am also going to attempt some Maxfield Parrish experiments on this too - painting cyan, magenta and yellow colour plates separately, one over the other (with each layer sealed) to recreate the vivid, luminous quality Parrish achieved with light passing through each of the transparent layers, and reflecting back off the white paper underneath. You'll be able to follow the trials and tribulations of that in another post.

Still further into Mirkwood

2011-07-06T18:13:00.002+10:00

Made some great progress today. It was a hard slog putting in all those tones but it is almost there now. I still think there is a bit more I can push on the values. Dropping some very dark greys into the far background (with a 4B) has helped things pop a bit more. Some finessing will hopefully bring the characters out a bit more and the enchanted stream still needs a fair bit of work but like my 'Good Morning' illustration it is probably time to step back from this one for a little while and come back to it down the road with fresh eyes.

Wandering further into Mirkwood

2011-06-29T21:02:00.002+10:00

Slowly, slowly...

Another Good Morning Update

2011-06-02T22:11:00.003+10:00

Time to let this one sit and percolate for a while why I move onto other ideas. I'm actually enjoying doing bits and pieces on the tones for this one but the Misty Mountains are calling :)

(sorry about the scan - two pieces stitched together in PS but not enough overlap between them for a smooth blend).

Misty Mountains - thumbs

2011-05-24T17:13:00.002+10:00

Roughs for an idea that wasn't even on my original list. I'm not sold on it after working up these thumbs but I wanted to capture the moment in the book when the traveling companions are in the Misty Mountains while the stone giants are out causing mischief. I've always wanted an excuse to draw giants but the composition I am planning only has them as distant shadows in the distance. Still, it is a scene that has always intrigued me as Tolkien gives us very little to go on when it comes to giants. Are they colossal like the statues of the Argonath or are they just twice the size of a man? I'm going the colossal route but a part of me thinks if they were really that big they might have played a more significant part in the history of Middle Earth.

If this one makes the cut it might have to be worked up in watercolour to maximise the stormy mood.

Good Morning Update

2011-05-24T17:11:00.002+10:00

Fiddling around the corners on a lot of things including some more work on the Good Morning illustration. Starting to put in the tones and I have reworked the area around the door. I would love to put in a couple of topiary trees in pots flanking the front door as a tip of the hat to JRR Tolkien's illustrations of bag-end but I am not sure it will work so I'll just have to make do with the other potted plants. I am hoping to put much more work into this over the coming months so stay tuned!

Stuck in Mirkwood

2011-04-23T14:55:00.003+10:00

But nearly out... I'm just following the flashes of light I see through the tress, one-step ahead of me each time...

Mirkwood update

2011-04-08T13:31:00.002+10:00

Arrgh! How did it get to April!!??

I'm an individual!

2011-03-11T10:12:00.003+11:00

Faced with the prospect of a number of illustrations featuring our favourite band of dwarf brothers and cousins I realised I was going to need to think about how I distinguish each from the other. I found variations in noses, beards, moustaches, harilines and even eyebrows makes it quite easy to develop a distinctive silhouette for each dwarf. Yes, there are only 10 here but that was all I could fit on the page! I'm not even sure who is who yet but I have to say this was a lot of fun :)

My definitive dwarf cheat sheet will come soon.

(Edit: added a bit more ink to these bad boys :))

What's on my Hobbit drawing board

2011-03-04T10:29:00.003+11:00

Good Morning pencils - stage 1

2011-03-04T10:27:00.003+11:00

Thought I would post a scanned version of the pencils (albeit a cropped one). I'm still undecided whether to work this up as a properly rendered pencil drawing, add some ink to it or (time permitting) add some colour to it. So I'm going to move onto the next illustration while I think about it :)

Underway!

2011-02-15T21:57:00.002+11:00

Enough stuffing around! Enough preliminary sketches and studies. Here are the pencils for illustration number 1 in this grand project. Inks to come :)

(excuse the quality of the image - it was a quick photo taken on a cheap camera but enough I hope to tantalize!)

Pushing values a little too far

2011-02-07T21:16:00.003+11:00

Inspired by this gorgeous Frazetta pen and ink LOTR illustration I decided to push my values in a couple of test sketches... a little too far as it happens. You know when you go past that point of no return and you keep on going hoping you might come back around again to something magical... well I went there but the magic didn't happen :)

Still - the illo of Gandalf and Bilbo out the front of Bag End is very close to my compositional idea for the final art... to come very soon as time is marching on!

Hobbit sketch dump

2011-01-30T13:45:00.002+11:00

Slow Hobbit progress is still progress!

2011-01-22T18:58:00.004+11:00

Apologies in advance for the poor quality of these images - you probably guessed they were not scanned. Photos taken in poor light :-)

I started a new job at the start of January and it is totally consuming me but I am still so jazzed about this project that I was able to squeeze out some preliminary sketches... I'm looking for my Hobbit voice. I want Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarves to look consistent. Seeing Ben's work just now has given me a huge shot in the arm. He's being really true to his style and I can't wait to see the finished results.

More soon - I promise :)

My Year of The Hobbit

2011-01-06T11:47:00.003+11:00

Today is my Birthday and I am declaring it my year of The Hobbit. Principal photography on Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit" starts soon and I am salivating at the updates, tidbits, rumours and more that accompany a film in production. With any luck PJ will be releasing regular production diaries - fingers crossed. Add to that the super massive and awesome Hobbit project that Ben and Tere and I are undertaking and it all points to a glorious glut of Tolkien's masterpiece.

In the photo above you can see "The History of the Hobbit" by John D. Ratliff, which includes a copy of the Hobbit - a present from my beautiful wife. I can't wait to get stuck into this as it includes some of the original chapters from the book before it was modified to make it consistent with the Lord of the Rings. For inspiration I have "Color and Light" and "Middle-Earth: Visions of a Modern Myth" - gifts from an incredibly generous Ben. They arrived in the post today! What perfect timing. A copy of The Hobbit illustrated by Alan Lee was given to me on my very first Father's Day and is a wonderful source of inspiration - and in the bottom corner are some of the thumbnails I am working on for our Hobbit project.

Today is a good day :)

The Hobbit Series - first thumbs

2011-01-03T16:16:00.003+11:00

Here are the first round of thumbnail sketches playing around with composition. I'm hoping these will help me get my number down to the desired 13... although after some research Ben has found a back cover image might be necessary, which will give us 14 to play with. More to come!!

The Hobbit Series

2010-12-30T16:25:00.002+11:00

My good friend, Ben has set Tere and me a challenge - 13 Hobbit illustrations; one every 3 weeks. The fun part is trying to decide which 13 scenes to depict. Did I say fun? I am really struggling to narrow it down. I decided to go through the book and mark pages containing scenes that I would like to illustrate. I was already up to 13 before Bilbo, Gandalf and the dwarves reached Rivendell!

So here is my short-list that I hope to get down to 13 very soon:

'Good morning!' he said at last. 'We don't want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.' By this he meant the conversation was at an end.
'Now for some music!' said Thorin. 'Bring out the instruments!'... the music began all at once, so sudden and sweet that Bilbo forgot everything else, and was swept away into dark lands under strange moon, far over The Water and very far from his hobbit-hole under The Hill.
To the end of his days Bilbo could never remember how he found himself outside, without a hat, a walking-stick or any money, or anything that he usually took when he went out; leaving his second breakfast half-finished and quite unwashed up, pushing his keys into Gandalf's hands, and running as fast as his furry feet could carry him down the lane, past the great Mill, across the Water, and then on for a mile or more.
Then there was a gorgeous row. Bilbo had enough wits left, when Bert dropped him on the ground, to scramble out of the way of their feet, before they were fighting like dogs, and calling one another all sorts of perfectly true and applicable names in very loud voices. Soon they were locked in one another's arms, and rolling nearly into the fire kicking and thumping, while Tom whacked at them both with a branch to bring them to their senses - and that of course only made them madder than ever.
He held up the map and the white light shone through it. 'What is this?' he said. 'There are moon-letters here, beside the plain runes which say "five feet high the door, and three may walk abreast".'
There in the shadows on a large flat stone sat a tremendous goblin with a huge head, and armed goblins were standing round him carrying the axes and the bent swords that they use.
All at once there came a blood-curdling shriek, filled with hatred and despair. Gollum was defeated. He dared go no further. He had lost: lost his prey, and lost, too, the only thing he had ever cared for, his precious. The cry brought Bilbo's heart to his mouth, but still he held on. Now faint as an echo, but menacing, the voice came behind: 'Thief, thief, thief! Baggins! We hates it, we hates it, we hates it for ever!'
Dori was really a decent fellow in spite of his grumbling. Poor Bilbo could not reach his hand even when he climbed down to the bottom branch and hung his arm down as far as he could. So Dori actually climbed out of the tree and let Bilbo scramble up and stand on his back. Just at that moment the wolves trotted howling into the clearing.
After a good while the eagles must have seen the point they were making for, even from their great height, for they began to go down circling round in great spirals... cropping right out of the ground, right in the path of the stream which looped itself about it, was a great rock, almost a hill of stone, like a last outpost of the distant mountains, or a huge piece cast miles into the plain by some giant among giants.
Soon they reached a courtyard, three walls of which were formed by the wooden house and its two long wings. In the middle there was lying a great oak trunk with many lopped branched beside it. Standing near was a huge man with a thick black beard and hair, and great bare arms and legs with knotted muscles. He was clothed in a tunic of wool down to his knees, and was leaning on a huge axe. The horses were standing by him with their noses at his shoulder.
In this way they were all soon on the far bank safe across the enchanted stream. Dwalin had just scrambled out with the coiled rope on his arm, and Bombur (still grumbling) was getting ready to follow, when something bad did happen. There was a flying sound of hooves on the path ahead. Out of the gloom came suddenly the shape of a flying deer. It charged into the dwarves and bowled them over, then gathered itself for a leap. High it sprang and cleared the water with a mighty jump.
Somehow the killing of the giant spider, all alone by himself in the dark without the help of the wizard or the dwarves or of anyone else, made a great difference to Mr Baggins. He felt a different person, and much fiercer and bolder in spite of an empty stomach, as he wiped his sword on the grass and put it back into its sheath. 'I will give you a name,' he said to it, 'and I shall call you Sting.'
Such day as there ever was in the forest was fading once more into the blackness of night, when suddenly out sprang the light of many torches all round them, like hundreds of red stars. Out leaped Wood-elves with their bows and spears and called the dwarves to halt.
Now they all pushed together, and slowly a part of the rock-wall gave way. Long straight cracks appeared and widened. A door five feet high and three abroad was outlined, and slowly without a sound swung inwards. It seemed as if darkness flowed out like a vapour from the hole in the mountain-side, and deep darkness in which nothing could be seen lay before their eyes, a yawning mouth leading in and down.
Above him the sleeping dragon lay, a dire menace even in his sleep. He grasped a great two-handed cup, as heavy as he could carry, and cast one fearful eye upwards. Smaug stirred a wing, opened a claw, the rumble of his snoring changed its note.
The dragon swooped once more lower than ever, and as he turned and dived down his belly glittered white with sparkling fires of gems in the moon - but not in one place. The great bow twanged. The black arrow sped straight from the string, straight for the hollow by the left breast where the foreleg was flung wide. In it smote and vanished, barb, shaft and feather, so fierce was its flight. With a shriek that deafened men, felled trees and split stone, Smaug shot spouting into the air, turned over and crashed down from on high in ruin.
Bilbo knelt on one knee filled with sorrow. 'Farewell, King under the Mountain!' he said. 'This is a bitter adventure, if it must end so; and not a mountain of gold can amend it. Yet I am glad that I have shared in your perils - that has been more than any Baggins deserves.'
The roar of his voice was like drums and guns; and he tossed wolves and goblins from his path like straws and feathers. He fell upon their rear, and broke like a clap of thunder through the ring. The dwarves were making a stand still about their lords upon a low rounded hill. Then Beorn stooped and lifted Thorin, who had fallen pierced with many spears, and bore him out of the fray.
One autumn evening some years afterwards Bilbo was sitting in his study writing his memoirs - he thought of calling them 'There and Back Again, a Hobbit's Holiday' - when there was a ring at the door. It was Gandalf and a dwarf; and the dwarf was actually Balin.

So... I'm close! I just have to cull 6... hmmm.... where to start!!

Dyrad redux

2010-09-15T09:08:00.002+10:00

After staring at this illustration for months I could not shake the feeling that it looked unfinished. I'm glad I went back in and re-worked the foreground trees. I also gave her a more wistful look by changing her gaze away from staring straight down the barrel. Adding the ink lines obviously makes a huge difference too. I'm very happy with this now.

No more fiddling now. Promise :)

A Sunday expedition -part 3 - colours

2010-08-22T09:13:00.003+10:00

(click for a larger image)

Over the hill the atmosphere is less oppressive and we can see now off to the distant hills. Down there on the floor of the valley is every kid's dream - an abandoned factory to explore! This series of 6 illustrations started with one photo of an abandoned factory I saw on Fail Blog of all places! What struck me about that photo was a broken road that ran around the corner of the factory. I wondered where on earth that road could possibly go given this factory was in the middle of nowhere. The more photos I looked up of abandoned factories the more it struck me how truly abandoned they were - it was not just the people who had long gone but all other buildings and infrastructure around them too. Some of these beautifully dilapidated places were quite literally alone, in the middle of nowhere.

Cue the sound of a mournful wind and the distant clank of a tin roof flapping in the breeze as our intrepid explorers descend into the valley...

(process work for this image here)

A Sunday expedition - part 2 - colours

2010-08-20T14:50:00.003+10:00

(click for a larger image)

Panel 2 colours completed hot on the heels of panel 1. When the story was first forming in my head I had the idea of them walking through deserted fields with the horizon obscured by a heavy fog or haze. I don't think I have managed to capture the fog idea at all but at least they are heading in the right direction according to popular belief: left to right :)

Again, water was painted down first, carefully outlining the foreground figures so when the wet washes were added to the background they didn't bleed over my protagonists. It's remarkable how obedient the colours are when you put the water borders down first. A little lifting with a wet brush and tissue created the streaky effects in the background - mostly because it was looking too much like a big, featureless, brown mass. I'm loving the way the inks at the end are really helping the characters pop.

Colours for panel 3 are under way already so stay tuned :)

(process work for this illustration here)

A Sunday expedition - part 1 - colours

2010-08-19T11:41:00.004+10:00

(click for a larger image)

Here's the final art for panel 1. I was inspired by some lovely, simple watercolour and pen & ink illustrations by Roland Harvey in a book my daughter was reading. I really wanted to capture his loose line-work and his atmospheric backgrounds. I also love how he inks the foreground elements but leaves the background in pencil to help push it back.

The painting process was relatively quick and simple. I used 300 gsm (140lb) Bockingford watercolour paper which was thick enough to allow me to tape the edges down instead of going to the fuss of stretching the paper. Yes, the paper did buckle when I added my wet washes but it settled down nicely once it had dried and the buckles helped contribute to some nice effects in the moody sky. My trick to control the position of my colours was to first paint in the background with water, careful to outline the foreground elements and not overlap them. Then I was able to dab in the colour and it stayed within the wet boundaries I had set.

On to the colours for panel 2 now :)

(process work for this illustration here)

A Sunday expedition - part 5

2010-08-17T19:28:00.005+10:00

Deep in the bowels of the abandoned factory the intrepid trio find a set of huge doors. Time to grab a torch from the trusty backpack...

A Sunday expedition - part 4

2010-08-17T19:24:00.004+10:00

Wandering around inside the slightly spooky factory...

There was no shortage of fabulous photo references for the interior of an abandoned factory on the web. I really love the new browsing feature of Google images in particular. The illustration here was an amalgam of a number of very cool photos.

The finished pencils:

I'm looking forward to adding the colours to this one as they will really set the mood.

A Sunday expedition - part 3

2010-08-17T18:27:00.005+10:00

I had a lot of fun looking up pictures of old, deserted factories on Google images. Some of these concepts came from those images, and the others came from my head while freezing my buns off on the steps of the Melbourne GPO (I have recently been introduced to a cool sketch group that meets at the GPO at 1pm every Sunday).

Here's the final pencil art (colours to come soon!)

A Sunday expedition - part 2

2010-08-17T18:24:00.003+10:00

Wandering across the fields our intrepid explorers discover a rusty old car - but what's over that hill?

A Sunday Expedition - part 1

2010-08-17T17:45:00.005+10:00

It is time for me to crack on and send out some new samples to my publishing contacts out there. I really would like to make a concerted push to revive the freelance illustrating career after a year or two of solid web work. Unfortunately, in that time, the publishing market has contracted and I am getting a lot of enthusiastic replies to my submissions but no work. It's been a good 3 or 4 months (possibly more) since I last sent something out so I have a mind to complete a 6 illustration set showcasing a particular style and hopefully telling a compelling story at the same time.

The idea is to show over 6 panels a brother and sister heading out with their dog and their backpacks to explore the country-side. Over the hills they wander until they stumble across a deserted and dilapidated old factory. While searching this great discovery they find to their enormous surprise a... well, now... that would be telling, wouldn't it :)

Following are some rough sketch ideas for the characters, the style of house and layout for the first panel.

And here is the final pencil art for panel 1

I will post the final art for this soon. In the meantime, look out for the process work on Part 2 coming shortly!

On the drawing board

2010-08-17T17:43:00.003+10:00

Character concepts for my book idea - part of the huge creative bender I am on at the moment.

Got to ride the wave when it comes :)

Returning to Bag End

2010-07-27T13:41:00.004+10:00

After a long time staring at a blank page I thought a trip back to Hobbiton might help free up the ol' creative spirit. Here are a couple of ideas on the drawing board.

The thumb of Gandalf and Bilbo (on the right) was the inspiration for a scene capturing their first meeting. I like the proportions of the two of them in the stand-alone image more than the one in the scene itself so I'll be sure to lend more towards it when I lay down the final pencils.

This one was going to be a revamp of "Reminiscing" giving me a chance to paint the outside of Bag End in more detail with Bilbo and Gandalf laughing together about some old story to the right. I envisage creating some nice, moody, late-afternoon light on this one which is why it appeals. But which one to go with?

Story time - part 2

2010-02-22T12:33:00.003+11:00

The first story time illustration has me thinking about a series now :)
Above are the rough thumbs that led to the illo below.

Story Time

2010-02-15T23:00:00.002+11:00

Now that I am dabbling in oils again I needed something to do while waiting for the damn things to dry.
So I took the rough sketch above, made on my birthday, and turned into this:

Ahh, it's nice to return to the comfort of pencil when you are stepping into unchartered territory. :)

Goblin Busts - Oil Studies

2010-02-08T11:31:00.002+11:00

Some practice before committing to the final art. I have a lot to learn it seems if I want to create the glossy oil effect I am after. What is the right medium to use in this case? Will varnishing create the effect I want? Any oil dabblers out there - I'd love to hear from you :)

Goblin Busts - watercolour backgrounds

2010-02-06T11:42:00.003+11:00

Blammo! Pretty intense, I know. I wanted an obviously watercolour background for this experiment to best contrast against the oils for the goblin heads. So, of course I added salt to get those unique watercolour bloom effects. Hope it works!!

Goblin Busts - Pencil Stage

2010-02-06T10:05:00.003+11:00

Next stage is the watercolour background...

On the drawing board

2010-02-05T11:08:00.003+11:00

I thought it might be nice to post some of the ideas currently floating around my drawing board. First off is the next experiment which will be a mixed media piece combining a water colour background and an oil figure. The thumbs below show some rough and simple ideas. I really want to see if I can create the popping effect I am craving but my extreme lack of experience in oils may be a severe limiting factor. Still I am keen to jump in at the deep end with this one.

But what might beat these thumbs to the canvas (or paper) are the goblin busts below. Again I was just wanting something simple to see how the two media look together and these guys have grown on me.

Waiting in the wings is an idea Tere suggested to me when she was commenting on my Hidden Dragons illustration. She thought the dragons hiding under the bridge looked like a "twister game gone crazy". The sketch below is the first exploration of this idea. Thanks Tere! (btw you can find Tere's blog here - do yourself a favour :))

Dryad - final art

2010-01-26T12:34:00.003+11:00

Enthusiastic work on this one yesterday and I think I am all done. I have managed to salvage the mess in the foreground by adding some more watercolour wet-in-wet over the top to create some interesting textures. My lovely wife quite rightly pointed out that the dark foreground now unbalanced the piece so I worked some more darks into the tree behind the dryad which seems to have done the trick.

Additions since the last stage include the Dryad's hair, the floating leaves, the tendrils of wood crawling up the dryads body and a few minor details to the trees in the background to make them look less like telephone poles (another keen-eyed suggestion from my wife).

While the gouache didn't quite give me the effect I was after (something, if I had stopped to think about I never would have been able to achieve with gouache) I am happy with the final result. Certainly happy enough to move onto the next project.

Dryad - colour progress

2010-01-25T14:34:00.002+11:00

Thought it was time for a progress update on my latest illustration. The trees have all been laid in with progressive watercolour washes. I'm not sure I have captured the ethereal distance I was hoping for but I am pleased with some of the happy textural "accidents" created by the wet-in-wet process. The dryad has been put down in gouache. Why I had it in my head that she would pop out I am not sure as the texture of gouache is, of course, identical to the texture of the watercolours behind her. It does mean I can paint over the top of the watercolours easily but I had hoped for the effect you see when an oil figure is added to an acrylic background. Maybe oils are the answer? Another experiment for another time though.

The brown, shapeless mass in the foreground is an attempt to cover a stupid composition error. I am still not sure what to do with it. Perhaps it will become a texturally-rich tree trunk.

As you can see, I have also decided to paint the dryad in hues of green and olive and will attempt to blend her into the tree which she is cuddling. Her hair still to come too.

Comments, critiques, suggestions welcome as always! :)

Dryad - colour test

2010-01-15T12:16:00.002+11:00

Trying to learn from my mistakes I thought I would do a couple of tests to see if my idea would work before committing to the final art. On the left is the pencil sketch that I have laid down on my already stretched paper. I printed out the sketch on a couple of scrap pieces of watercolour paper to experiment with acrylics and gouache.

The middle image is the acrylics experiment. I first laid down some quick watercolours so I could see how the acrylics would behave on top of them. All this served to do was smudge the printed ink lines which meant I had very little guide to paint to. I found the acrylics cumbersome but that was maybe because I had not added enough water to help them flow.

The right-hand image is the gouache experiment. I found the gouache so much easier to work with - it flowed and blended more easily. They were only cheap paints but they felt very nice on the brush. The final result was not perfect - it lost some of the charm of the original pencil sketch but I can work on that for the final image. It has served its purpose at least of informing me that gouache over watercolour will be the way to proceed.

More soon!

Dryad - initial pencil outlines

2010-01-15T12:02:00.003+11:00

In the wake of the frustration I felt over my Hidden Dragon illustration I decided to jump right back into the saddle. Here's my new idea - a simple composition this time of a Dryad or forest spirit. The plan for this one is to work up the background in watercolour and the Dryad and foreground leaves blowing through the scene in either acrylic or gouache. I was inspired by the cover of the latest Wheel of Time eBook by Sam Weber. He has the main figure rendered in acrylics against the softer, more ethereal watercolour background. It is a striking effect.

I should mention it was through Irene Gallo's excellent blog that I came across Sam's work.

Hidden Dragon - final colours

2010-01-15T11:48:00.003+11:00

Once again I finish an illustration with a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth. Each time I miss the mark with what I see in my mind's eye I get frustrated. Realistically, I know capturing the mind's eye is a futile endeavour but it still doesn't make it any less galling. But enough whining! I am happy enough now to move on.

You can see I have knocked back the reds on the knight's horse - achieved through an arduous process of lifting, and re-lifting, and scrubbing with a toothbrush... those saturated reds sure are hard to get out! I feel it brings the knight and his steed back in line with the colour balance of the whole.

Things I would do differently next time:

1. Plan out my colours more thoroughly before committing paint to paper

2. Either ink *before* adding colour or leave the inking out altogether. Adding the ink lines as an after-thought led to much thicker and clumsier lines that I would have liked.

3. Work with much paler washes to allow the values set by my pencil work to shine through.

4. Work on larger paper. I just don't have the finesse to do the details on the knight and his horse justice at this size. I was working on an A3 piece of 300gsm hot-pressed watercolour paper but after adding margins and allowing for the staples the working size is closer to A4.

On that point, my lovely wife bought me some larger paper for my birthday and I also splashed out and bought some poster sized Arches cold-pressed paper to play on.

Thanks again for the lovely feedback I have received along the way - and a special, big thank you to Tere who kept me going when I was ready to throw in the towel.

Hidden Dragon - colours

2010-01-13T16:12:00.003+11:00

Here is a progress shot of the colours. It's not going as planned but I am determined to soldier on. I was hoping the greyscale values would show through the colour more. And once again I chickened out and added ink outlines to the dragon, the knight and the sheep rather than let the pencil do the work. Adding ink after laying down colour has led to much fatter lines that I would have liked.

Right now I am turning to my fourth medium in a hope to salvage things. I started with pencil, moved to watercolour, added ink and now I am going in with coloured pencils to add some interest and save the dragon from it's current dull fate.

Stay tuned for more misadventures! :D

Hidden Dragon - values

2010-01-02T12:49:00.004+11:00

Tones have been added and now I'm ready to soak and stretch this baby.

Wish me luck!!

Hidden Dragon - fresh start

2009-12-23T14:55:00.003+11:00

Sooooo... as you can see a few things have changed. Now we have one dragon and he is pleading to some nearby, mildly interested sheep for quiet. I felt I didn't have enough room on my A3 paper to give multiple dragons justice and I thought the gag would still work with one dragon if he looked suitably scared of the dragon-slaying knight above him.

The bridge is now more front on as the perspective was bothering me a lot in the last version. I also have the knight entering the frame rather than smack, bang in the middle of the bridge which helps dilute the overbearing feeling of symmetry I had going there.

My next step will be to shade this up in grey-tones before adding paint. I thought I might stick with my strengths and handle the values in graphite.

Apologies for the dodgy scan. As you can probably tell it was done in two parts :)

More soon!

Hidden Dragons - pear shaped

2009-12-18T15:04:00.002+11:00

Yep! It's gone pear-shaped. There are too many ghastly things about this illustration to go on with it at the moment. But I'm not giving up on it. I'll just be starting from scratch. Stay tuned! :)

Hidden Dragons - the ugly stage

2009-12-16T10:49:00.003+11:00

You can see I have started blocking in the foreground and it's looking pretty ugly but I am hoping it will come through in the end. Progress has been a bit slow because I had to undo a textural technique which went wrong.

I scraped some white candle across the rock formations on the left and right to add a bit of texture but it didn't work out as planned. Very quickly, the candle wax sticks to the paper in places, and, like frisket acts as a mask. The plan is to end up with some rough, preserved white space that helps give the rocks a rough 'rocky' look. Unfortunately the streaks of wax were far too big and clumsy for the small rocks and turned a light blue hue when the paint dried over it. That is one of the drawbacks of using wax; it's very hard to see where it has been applied to the paper. I thought I might be stuck with this ugly effect but thankfully a hot iron came to the rescue. I put a dry tea towel over the dried, affected area and then pressed the hot iron over the top. This lifted enough of the wax to save the area and left just enough to create a bit of texture.

I have blocked in the water which will come to life when shadows and reflections are added.

The purple rocks in the foreground will also need a fair bit of work to help them blend in.

More to come!

Hidden Dragons - first washes

2009-12-14T17:47:00.002+11:00

So the wild ride is underway. I have tried a few colour comps in Photoshop but none have really blown me away so I will be feeling my way out with this one a bit. This image shows the first tentative steps today. I started by masking out the flag because that will be predominantly white and preserving some highlights on the knight's armour, some of the dragons scales and the waterfall beneath the dragons.

The sky has been laid in with "butterfly wing" blue, wet-on-wet.

The stonework is made up of two layers at the moment. I started with an underpainting of some neutral tones interspersed with some purples, yellows and greens just to give it some range. I have then knocked that range right back with a layer of dark, purplish grey made from ultramarine blue, crimson red, gamboge and a hint of olive green. I have preserved some of the underpainting on the right which I hope will appear as ray of sun catching the brick-work. My plan, when the brickwork has dried is to knock back some of the bricks by lifting off some of the darker layer where I can.

From here I will be laying the foreground in with some pretty dark, low-saturated values with the hope it will contrast nicely with the brightly coloured dragons.

Any comments and helpful suggestion are welcome at this (and any) stage!

Wish me luck!!!!

Hidden Dragons - inks

2009-12-09T17:27:00.002+11:00

Inks are done and here's a quick review of what's been done so far:

1. Thumbnails to get ideas for composition down on paper. See previous post to see how this process helped steer my ideas to a final scene.

2. Pencils drawn in 2H and HB on an A3 sheet of Arches 300 GSM Smooth watercolor paper.

3. Paper soaked for 7 minutes in a cold bath and then stapled to a thick bit of ply board. Some of you will know the troubles I have experienced in the past with gummed tape, specifically the tape not holding and the paper tearing free. Staples every few centimetres seems to solve the problem.

4. Lying the board in a flat area to dry

5. Adding ink with pen and nib. I use a cartographers nib to get nice fine lines and go over some lines with a slightly wider nib to vary the weight.

Next: base wash down to establish the temperature of the painting and then on to the final colours. I might even sneak a colour comp stage in before then if I feel motivated.

Hidden Dragons - a start

2009-12-07T10:44:00.004+11:00

Thanks in part to some lovely comments from LG Young I have woken from an extended slumber with an idea for a new painting. Below are the thumbs which show the idea beginning to grow and change.

Initially I had thought of a troll hiding under his bridge deciding, prudently, not to take on the army that is marching across his bridge. As I was thinking how to best to capture his expression of sudden timidity I decided perhaps the drama would be heightened if he had a friend who also desired to remain undetected. As soon as the dragon appeared the idea came of a bridge arch completely packed with dragons hiding from a dangerous foe. The army became a mounted knight with a clear history of dragon slaying. Below are the pencils with inks to come shortly. Comments and feedback welcome as always.

Zero 2 Illo profile

2009-11-14T08:10:00.004+11:00

Twitter is useful for some things it seems. Thanks to Twitter I caught Jonathon Woodward's call out for artists to talk about their style in an upcoming post he was planning. For those who don't know Jonathon, he is a graphic designer turned illustrator and author of the excellent Zero 2 Illo blog which I have been following for a while now. So you can imagine I was very excited when I got a reply from Jonathon asking me to submit some words about an illustration of mine which encapsulates my style.

To see the illustration I chose and what I had to say about it just follow this link!

I feel very privileged to have the chance to talk about my style on Jonathon's blog, especially after seeing the calibre of the other artists he is featuring. The task of trying to define one's style in just a few paragraphs is a wonderful challenge I encourage you all to try. It really made me stare down a dusty, dark corridor I had been ignoring for quite a while.

Naturally, when asked to write a few words I wrote far too many. So below is the unabridged version of my response to Jonathon's request to write about my style.

I have chosen my most recent finished illustration, Bamfurlong (right) to discuss for a few reasons. One, I am very happy with it, especially since it came back from the framers looking all lovely and shiny. Second, the more I look at it the more I see the influences that drove it to completion. It encapsulates my style faithfully.

I have always been drawn to line-art. From the very first day I picked up a comic I have had a love affair with the humble black line. So it is no coincidence that the majority of my work has been in pencil, or black and white. It has only been relatively recently that I have felt confident enough to explore colour, digitally and traditionally. For a long time it was the one thing guaranteed to mess up my otherwise perfectly satisfactory line work.

I grew up reading comics in all forms: from Asterisk and Tintin to Beano, Whizzer & Chips and Jackpot. The latter were all I could afford on my pocket money and I loved the fact you got a whole lot of different artists in the one comic. Most of the British comics were black and white, of course, which made copying them a breeze. Around that time I discovered my grandmother's collection of Peanut's books and I was in heaven. While I may not have appreciated it at the time, Schultz was a master at portraying emotion with a very limited range of lines. My 'style' didn't really emerge, though, until I discovered the likes of Jim Lee, Travis Charest, Walt Simonson and Arthur Adams and their work on The Uncanny X-men, Thor, WildCATs and more for Marvel and Image comics. It was these artists, Charest in particular, who had me scribbling furiously away at countless of my own comic book ideas. I had the good fortune to see some of Charest's work up close (and under glass) at a Sydney Comic Convention and I knew straight away I wanted to emulate his style. Charest brought more realistic proportions back to super-hero comics and did it through meticulously detailed panels: each one a masterpiece. His work on the Golden Age of X-Men uses colour sparingly. So magnificent is his line-work it stands on its own in black and white.

When I look at Bamfurlong I see the influence my love for cartoons and comics has had on my style. I can see the comic proportions of Farmer Maggot and the exaggerated posturing of the Black Rider. I can see the illustration leaking out of its borders in the same way a comic panel bleeds into the next. The foundation of my style is the detailed line-art that started as a homage to Travis Charest and then more recently borrowed strokes from Charles Vess. I want my line-art to stand on its own with the colour being the cherry on the top. Until Bamfurlong I had never rated a coloured version of my work above the original line-art. With this piece, though I felt the colours have finally taken the lines to the next level. Where previous work the colouring had been "by the numbers", filling in white space, Bamfurlong allowed me to explore mood in a way the line-art alone could not.

If I were forced to choose one word to describe my style I would choose 'stylised'. In the end, any attempts I make to draw in a realistic style are twisted and distorted by my comic heritage. It is a consequence of absorbing the styles of the artists who excited me in a medium that was accessible to me. My jaw drops at the work of Frank Frazetta and Boris Vallejo too but I know I don't have it in me to paint like that. To emulate my comic illustrator heroes, on the other hand, I only needed a pencil and some paper.

Chloe & Max

2009-10-13T23:04:00.005+11:00

I have not had much time for illustrating pursuits of late but I did manage to squeeze in some time to enter a competition hosted by Amazon called "Comic Strip Superstar". From that endeavour Chloe & Max were born and they now have a permanent home here:

chloeandmax.net

I have plenty of new gags floating round in my head looking for a spare minute to make it to paper but in the meantime here is a sample of their adventures. If you like what you see you know where to head! :)

Drow Challenge - Final Art

2009-07-29T09:56:00.003+10:00

Here is the final art for my submission to the ArtOrder drow challenge which is now up on Jon's blog along with 60+ other entries.

Briefly about the final steps - colours were added in a new layer in Photoshop set to the 'Colour' blending mode. Texture was added as a new layer set to 'Soft Light'.

Looking at the competition mine feels quite unfinished and probably more comic-book style than book-cover style. The line-work certainly contributes a lot to that feeling which is something I suspected would be the case along the way. And I clearly need a lot more practice adding colour over my values. My background is also quite flat. Some other entrants have done a wonderful job of creating a great sense of depth and space with their backgrounds. Still, I had a lot of fun with this one and enjoyed trying a few new techniques.

My thoughts are to work up the original artwork traditionally in acrylics for something new yet again. When I get another breathing space.

Drow Challenge - Values done

2009-07-25T12:47:00.002+10:00

The deadline is rapidly approaching and I'm feeling the pinch but I'm glad to say I have the values finished now. Working up the values in greyscale first is something I have wanted to try for a while now after seeing so many excellent examples of this method. Fellow ArtOrder combatant Michael Jaecks gave me the final nudge I needed to give it a go. I can really appreciate the advantages of it now, not being distracted by colour choices as I go. The brief stipulates that the female Drow should stand out as the hero of the scene. I'm happy that my composition and value ranges are working together to achieve this. The next stage will be the fun part: laying colours down over the top to see how they work against each other.

Drow Challenge - Going Digital

2009-07-23T09:57:00.003+10:00

I have decided to carry on digitally for this challenge as I don't think I have enough time left to do my watercolour justice. I will probably still end up doing a traditional version as I think it will make for an interesting comparison but it will have to be further down the road. I'm also keen to exercise my very rusty digital skills. The digital competition out there is fierce but it is definitely a weapon a freelance illustrator needs in their arsenal these days. The flexibility of working digitally with tight deadlines is hard to ignore. Certainly, my work on the covers for the Faraway Fairies had to be digital to accommodate the constant changes in palette (and sometimes content) that came through from sales and marketing in a very short space of time.

In this update I have started to render tighter values on the Drow and I have blocked in some colour to see how the shapes hold together. Lots more details to come!

Drow Challenge - Values

2009-07-22T09:51:00.003+10:00

Value study for Artorder Drow challenge thrown together in Photoshop last night - with a little bit of colour to show how I am planning on having my Drow shine out like a beacon between the rampaging mind flayers.

My question though: is it against the rules to have a Drow in shiny gold armour?

Drow Challenge - Inks

2009-07-21T09:55:00.002+10:00

Finished off the inking last night. Here you can see the raw results and how it looks within the cover template. Deciding to ink this piece was not an easy decision. The overwhelming majority of book cover artists do not have clear outlines like this. Perhaps it makes it look a little too comic-bookish? I'm trusting that once the colours are down the outlines will blend into the whole. Tonight I will try and throw together a quick value and colour study in Photoshop to make sure the idea I have in my head will translate to the paper.

Drow Challenge - Transferring rough

2009-07-20T10:21:00.004+10:00

Time is marching on and I am dangerously close to missing out on contributing to this latest Artorder challenge. But with Irene Gallo on-board (Art Director at Tor Books) as a judge I will kick myself if I miss the deadline. What a fabulous opportunity. Jon and Irene's blogs are my #1 and #2 read each day and it would be a thrill to get an opportunity to put something under their noses for consideration.

So last night I buckled down and *finally* came up with an action-packed composition I was happy with. I have sneakily snuck in two Mindflayers but my plans will be to have the foreground Mindflayer cast in shadow with the gold-amoured and ebony-skinned drow standing out like a beacon in the middle-ground. I was really struggling with a composition that showed the Mindflayer and the drow front-on without it looking like a terribly staged soap-opera scene. You know the scenes were the two protagonists are talking and BOTH are facing the camera: one talking over the other's shoulder? By having the second Mindflayer in there falling to the ground I could justify the drow having her back to the other Mindflayer.

My challenge, with this busy composition will be to light this scene in a way that draws attention directly to the drow. I have included my rough sketch here and a photo of the transfer process. The yellow sheet is like a piece of old-fashioned carbon paper but it leaves a faint yellow mark on my stretched water-colour paper.

And, yes, I am thinking of doing this traditionally! I'll be up against it for time but I just don't have the right tools to do it digitally and do it justice. Damn my postage-stamp-sized wacom tablet! I'll scan the inked lines in first though, in case my watercolour goes pair-shaped. Wish me luck!!

Drow Challenge - Thumbnails

2009-07-13T10:55:00.004+10:00

Jon Schindehette over at ArtOrder has posted another irresistible challenge on his blog - this one a book cover featuring a female drow fighting a Mindflayer. For those of you not familiar with the D&D universe a drow is an ebony skinned elf and a Mindflayer is a 9ft monster/sorceror with a squid-like head. Jon has posted up a book cover template for us to use as this challenge is all about coming up with a dynamic composition that also fits in around the typical book cover elements like the title, author's name, back-cover blurb etc.

Above you can see my first thumbnails for this one using the template provided. I have also included the un-templated thumbs for comparison. One idea has the drow in a dynamic defensive posture with the Mindflayer wrapping its tentacles around her shield. The other has more action in it with the drow leaping at the Mindflayer, sword drawn.

Which do you think I should go with?

Oh, and if you are wondering about the biker dwarf I have put him in there for Jon, just in case he wanders by here. Jon ran an earlier challenge that I did not have time to enter but it was such a cool challenge I had to sketch something up quickly for it last night: a biker version of one of the D&D races. For me, it had to be a dwarf :)

Vampire Challenge - final

2009-07-13T10:49:00.003+10:00

Just realised I didn't get around to posting up the final artwork here. Actually, I'm cheating a little bit by showing the uncropped result. The final illustration had to fit into a narrow box which meant cropping the front vampire's shield: an unfortunate sacrifice and one not missed by the Art Director judging the challenge. Overall I found this to be an immensely rewarding endeavour. I was even lucky enough to receive some direct feedback on my piece which was fabulous. There were over 70 entries for this challenge so I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones.

Despite having mountains of work on a the moment I feel compelled to compete in another ArtOrder challenge. I strongly encourage some of you out there to do so too! Yes, Ben - I am looking at you :)

Vampire Challenge - building blocks

2009-06-27T17:02:00.002+10:00

Here are the building blocks for my submission to the ArtOrder vampire challenge. It's been a while since I have worked in purely black and white and I miss some of the subtle gradations I get working in pencil. Nevertheless, I am happy with the way this one has developed.

I will post the finished piece here as soon as it is accepted over at Artorder.

Stay tuned!

Vampire Challenge - layout ideas

2009-06-26T15:47:00.003+10:00

Here are a few layout ideas I have been working on in Photoshop. Just ran a hard 4B pencil line around the outside of each individual character before scanning them to make it easy for me to isolate them from their backgrounds in Photoshop and put them on another layer.

The brief asks for the female character to be in shadow. It also asks for the male character to be standing in front of the female in a protective manner. While I like the visual arrangement of the middle composition I am leaning towards the right one because I think it is truer to the brief. I hope the blood patterns in the background don't appear too distracting in the finished illustration but as I am adding them in Photoshop I will have the luxury of removing them if need be.

More soon!

Vampire Challenge - preliminary sketches

2009-06-24T14:08:00.001+10:00

Jon Schindehette, senior Art Director at Wizards of the Coast maintains a blog (http://artorder.blogspot.com) which is a fabulous source for aspiring fantasy illustrators. As well as a wealth of tips and information and a regular spotlight on up and coming talent he runs weekly challenges that allow aspirants to go toe-to-toe with their best fantasy chops.

He is currently running a challenge in the form of a typical illustrator's brief: two vampire characters (one male, one female) to be completed in B&W lineart. Details of the challenge can be found on his blog.

Having watched from the sidelines for so long now this is my first attempt to join in the fun. Here are some of my preliminary sketches to get the ball rolling. Now the challenge of composing something in the tight 3" x 6.75" space he has set!! More to come :)

Bamfurlong - finished

2009-06-11T18:31:00.002+10:00

I think this is a good place to stop. I can see I will be in danger of over-working it if I go much further. Added some more volume to the clouds in the background and pushed some of the darks around Farmer Maggot to help him stand out. Also pushed back the highlights on the black rider and his horse and am really happy with the immediate improvement that has made.

I am also happy with the scan I managed to piece together in photoshop. A significant improvement on the photos up to this point.

Back to the book now to find the next scene!

Bamfurlong - final steps

2009-06-11T15:35:00.003+10:00

After letting it rest for a bit and getting some valuable feedback from my wife and my neighbour, Jamie (who is a very talented painter) I have just a few things to attend to and I will be done. I have gone over the ink outlines of the the rider and Farmer Maggot again and it feels a little heavy-handed so I am going to try and knock those outlines back a little. I am also going to put a bit more work into the grey sky which is looking very flat.

Details of other changes to come. I look forward to scanning this in as I feel the photos are a poor reflection of the colours and the detail in the illustration at the moment. Stay tuned!

Bamfurlong - almost there

2009-06-08T20:53:00.002+10:00

Very happy with the progress on this one now. Loving the palette and the way the rider is standing out like a sore thumb (as was intended). This is a terrible photo taken with FLASH in my dining room after dinner so you'll just have to take my word that it looks much better than this.

Farmer Maggot still to do as well as the sign and the hen and her chicks - but that all might have to wait as I just can't paint another stroke today. I have been adding a few highlights and shadows as I go even though I promised myself I would do that at the end :)

Will also need to go over the transparent pumpkins in the bottom right one more time...

Stay tuned!

Bamfurlong - even more colours

2009-06-08T11:29:00.004+10:00

I'm not sure why I thought it was going to be so difficult getting some decent darks for my horse and rider. Pthalo Blue, Permanent Rose and Burnt Umber in almost equal portions is doing the trick with perhaps just a bit more blue to cool it down.

Bamfurlong - more colours

2009-06-07T16:36:00.003+10:00

Another quick update. Managed to find some dark greys that might save me having to resort to ink washes. I also have plans for some last patches of sunlight to be hitting the roof of the farm house. Started this effect by putting down a wash of yellow-brown and then lifting off a patch with some paper towel.

More soon (I hope).

Bamfurlong - first colours

2009-06-07T11:54:00.003+10:00

It feels good to bust out the paints after such a long break. I have been enjoying working on some pencil character designs in the interim but nothing quite beats a splash of colour.

First step was to lay down a sepia wash. I want this illustration to be brooding to reflect the building storm behind the black rider so it was important to knock back all that lovely white paper. I dropped a bit of salt in there to try and create some gritty texture and also wiped a bit of paper towel from the top left to the bottom right to create the first stages of some wind and rain effects. I have taped off part of the painting to create my hard borders which I will remove so I can get to those overlapping elements.

Second step was to block in colours from the background coming forward. Most of those layers will get further attention later down the path. More salt added to the autumn foliage behind the cottage for some very subtle texture.

More to come but I am currently trying to work out how to get the darks I need in the rider and his horse. I don't want to use black paint if I can avoid it but I am not confident I can a dark enough mix with my current palette.

My current idea is to put down some greys first and then build up some ink washes over the top. I might experiment on another bit of paper for that first though :)

Bamfurlong - values

2009-06-07T11:43:00.003+10:00

Sometimes you hit a block on a particular piece and this happened to me on this illustration. I lost momentum and it has sat neglected for a while but, thankfully, I still kept myself busy with other creative work.

And now, with a long weekend stretching before me with no other family commitments I can return to Bamfurlong.

Here is a quick value study worked up in Photoshop. Well, I say quick - it actually went through many refinements which was part of the reason I lost momentum on this one I think. I finally got to the point of being happy to just leave well enough alone and move onto adding some paint! More on that stage coming soon.

Bamfurlong - inks

2009-04-28T21:31:00.004+10:00

I am enjoying going back to some fiddly and fine line work again after holding back on the last few illustrations. It felt right for this one and I am happy with the way this is shaping up. Sepia ink on stretched 300gsm Aqua watercolour paper. 50cm x 35cm.

Next some values added in Photoshop and then some colour studies.

Bamfurlong

2009-04-20T11:47:00.004+10:00

A new image has crept in a head of the Hunt for Gollum - one that has come about from re-reading the Fellowship of the Ring for the umpteenth time.

'Ah yes, I recognized the name. I recollect the time when young Frodo Baggins was one of the worst young rascals of Buckland. But it wasn't mushrooms I was thinking of. I had just heard the name Baggins before you turned up. What you think that funny customer asked me?'
They waited anxiously for him to go on. 'Well,' the farmer continued, approaching his point with slow relish, 'he came riding on a big black horse in at the gate, which happened to be open, and right up to my door. All black he was himself, too, and cloaked and hooded up, as if he did not want to be known. "Now what in the Shire can he want?" I thought to myself. We don't see many of the Big Folk over the border; and anyway I had never heard of any like this black fellow.
' "Good-day to you!" I says going out to him. "This lane don't lead anywhere, and you wherever you might be going, your quickest way will be back down to the road." I didn't like the looks of him; and when Grip came out, he took one sniff and let out a yelp as if he had been stung: he put down his tail and bolted off howling. The black fellow sat quite still.
' "I come from yonder," he said, slow and stiff-like, pointing back west, over my fields, if you please. "Have you seen Baggins?" he asked in a queer voice, and bent down towards me. I could not see any face, for his hood fell down so low; and I felt a sort of shiver down my back. But I did not see why he should come riding over my land so bold.
' "Be off!" I said. "There are no Bagginses here. You're in the wrong part of the Shire. You had better go back west to Hobbiton - you can go by road this time."
' "Baggins has left," he answered in a whisper. "He is coming. He is not far away. I wish to find him. If he passes will you tell me? I will come back with gold."
' "No you won't," I said. "You'll go back the where belong, double quick. I give you one minute before I call all my dogs."
'He gave a sort of a hiss. It might have been laughing, and it might not. Then he spurred his great horse right at me and I jumped out of the way only just in time. I called the dogs, but he swung off, and rode through the gate and up the lane towards the causeway like a bolt of thunder. What you do you think of that?"

A great passage in the book and one with plenty of potential. As you can see from my thumbnails I am not sure yet which way to go (and that I didn't use any horse references in the bottom thumbs :)). I could have the painting depict the conversation: in which case I need to decide what angle would suit - something flat or play up the angle to depict the rider towering (and menacing) over Farmer Maggot. Or do I go for the action in the scene: Farmer Maggot diving for cover as the rider charges at him? Or even a shot of the rider exploding out of the gates at full gallop with Farmer Maggot shaking his pitchfork in the background surrounded by his cowering dogs.

Now that I write this I wonder why I need to limit myself to just one take. At the moment my heart is leaning towards the larger thumbnail at the top: a simple, idyllic farm scene with the ominous rider standing out in stark contrast on a restless horse which gives me some small form of action.

Ahh, choices, choices, choices...

The Hunt for Gollum

2009-04-20T11:42:00.002+10:00

I have had this image in my head for a long time now and it's almost ready to come out as a painting. I have recently been absorbing some new watercolour landscape techniques and I thought this image might be the appropriate one to test them out. I want to create a moody, heavy sky sitting on the distant hills and the wind carrying the first drops of rain as Aragorn bends down to examine some tracks in his hunt for Gollum at the feet of the Misty Mountains.

Having done a few test paintings to gauge my watercolour landscape skills I think this painting might have to wait a little longer until I am happy I can do it justice.

Aragorn and Arwen - Digital Grade

2009-04-16T11:01:00.003+10:00

Inspired by Justin Gerrard's blending of traditional and digital techniques I thought I would try my hand at a digital grade of this illustration. By separating the foreground and background elements to different layers I was able to blur the background and drop its opacity to bring the foreground figures into sharper relief. I also dropped in some god rays and a bit of foam at the bottom of the nondescript waterfalls.

For the foreground elements I pushed the shadows and highlights and added a subtle spotlight effect coming down from the top-right which darkens the left-hand side. I also dropped the saturation a fraction to balance the greater contrast between the foreground and background. Finally, I added a thin stroke to the faces of Aragorn and Arwen as the ink lines had faded inconsistently after the addition of the watercolours.

Was it worth it? I don't feel I have created anywhere as eye-catching a change as Justin manages with his digital grade but I think it makes a difference. Would love to know what other people think.

Aragorn and Arwen - Finished

2009-04-13T17:08:00.002+10:00

Done! Finished, matted and framed all in time for our 11 year Anniversary yesterday. I am happy to say it was received very well and looks fantastic under glass (even if I do say so myself). Thank you to everyone who has helped with this one along the way. Thumbnails of the next piece to be done tonight :)

Aragorn and Arwen - More Progress

2009-04-09T09:37:00.002+10:00

Started on some of the foreground elements. Departing a little from my colour study, particularly in the colour of the foliage but that's fine. The tree trunk is made up of many washes and the foliage was created with a nice bit of sea sponge. Quite a few layers there too with some nice big wet drops, which when dried leave some interesting hard edges.

Aragorn's clothes to come next and then the deep purples of the foreground branches and leaves.
I'll then have a chance to look pushing the shadows and highlights a bit more and work on making Aragorn and Arwen pop-out some more from the similarly coloured background.

Aragorn and Arwen - First washes

2009-04-07T19:19:00.003+10:00

Finally! First paints are down after a hectic few weeks of work. Two updates for the price of one here. Started with a pale wash of lemon yellow and yellow ochre over the entire illustration and then built up washes on the mountains and cliffs in the background, adding more saturation as we come closer to the figures. The sky is "butterfly wing blue" which I hope to tie in with Arwen's dress. It won't be so prominent once the foliage of the tree in the foreground has been added.
Added burnt umber and burnt sienna to the lemon/ochre wash for the buildings of Rivendell. A little sap green also added to the mix for the trees behind the buildings.

More to come over the next few days.

Aragorn and Arwen - Reframed

2009-03-28T16:50:00.004+11:00

After getting some very useful feedback from my Deviant Art friends I have decided to forego the triptych idea this time. It just wasn't quite working for this particular illustration. Ben and Tere made a very good point that it was paramount I centred the image given the symmetry I had created with the characters and the main building in the background. And Travis suggested adding some interest to the border. Because I had already inked the foreground elements I could not completely crop the image to centre the characters. But by bringing in the right-hand border and then expanding on the overlapping elements to have them 'leaking' out of the illustration I hope I have managed to do justice to the symmetry.

I still very much want to do a triptych now - I can't get it out of my head - but that will have to be next time :)

Thanks to everyone who posted their suggestions for solving my dilemma.
Colours to come!

Aragorn and Arwen - colours and framing

2009-03-24T21:40:00.003+11:00

In putting together my colour study for Aragorn and Arwen I came to question whether my plan to split the illustration into three panels was still the right decision. After finishing my Galadriel illustration I felt a slight disappointment that I didn't play with the format a bit more. I had automatically tried to fill the paper with as much illustration as possible and thought, in retrospect, a little more white paper would have suited the movie still format that had inspired it in the first place.

So, I was predisposed to trying something different with this one but now I am not so sure...
In creating the colour study I set up the white mask on a separate layer so I could see how it would look (first illo in the image above) but it struck me that it was cramping Aragorn's space. When switching the mask layer off it seemed to me that the composition of the illustration was improved as a result (second illo in the image above).

And then to add further doubt to my mind, with no frame at all (third illo in the image above) I was taken by the uneven/unfinished borders and wondered if that didn't suit it even better!

I will cogitate on this for a bit before committing paint to paper but I would love to know what other people think about these three options. Do any of them stand out?

Aragorn and Arwen - Inks

2009-03-24T16:29:00.003+11:00

The foreground including characters have been inked now and I have sharpened up the pencils in the background. Colour study to come next :)

Aragorn and Arwen transferred

2009-03-22T17:35:00.003+11:00

Thank you to all those who offered advice on the best way to transfer my drawing of Aragorn and Arwen to my stretched watercolour paper. I went in to my local art supply store, here in Eltham and asked for some graphite powder but was told they had none. When they inquired as to its use they suggested I try transfer sheets, which, as it turns out are like old fashioned carbon paper except they leave a yellow imprint which can be then gone over in pencil and/or ink. You can see in this shot that I have gone over some of the lines around their faces with a razor sharp 2H pencil.

The rest of the background is in now and you can see I am trying to use a lot of layers here to give this illustration a sense of depth. In the extreme foreground will be some dark, shadowy tree roots and bushes, slightly overlapping the figures to help push them back a fraction. I plan to ink everything in the foreground but leave the building of Rivendell and the surrounding mountains in pencil to help them fade right back. The foreground elements will be darker and more saturated. The background elements will be bathed in dreamy afternoon sun. Not sure I will have this finished by end of this month but should be in time for my wedding anniversary on April 12 :)

More soon!

Aragorn and Arwen - Character Study

2009-03-15T13:59:00.003+11:00

Well I have finally addressed the issue of the pose Aragorn and Arwen should strike in this next illustration - as well as their clothing. I wanted to work this one up with the aim of transferring it as accurately as possible to the stretched paper. This step is the next leap into the unknown but it will be worthwhile finding a reliable method for transferring sketches to the final paper. So many times I have worked up a sketch to the point where I am really happy - but then lose some of it in translating it to the painting.

If anyone has any tried and true methods here I am all ears :)

Aragorn and Arwen - Composition

2009-03-12T12:42:00.002+11:00

Here is a more refined thumbnail for my Aragorn and Arwen illustration. I haven't settled on their clothing or even the way they will be standing just yet. At this point I just wanted to play with composition and, in particular, this triptych format idea. The architecture of Rivendell is also very loose at the moment. I expect I will work up some more ideas there before I commit them to my freshly stretched watercolour paper.

I plan to draw up Aragorn and Arwen in more detail and then transfer that drawing to the painting surface - how exactly I am not sure - perhaps with some carbon paper or graphite powder? The way they are standing at the moment is very pure but maybe a little stand-offish. I might play with them in more of an embrace (still G-rated of course).

I think I will also put some dark shapes in the corners of the extreme foreground to push the figures back a fraction and give it more of a feeling that we are spying on them.

More to come soon I hope!

Aragorn

2009-03-04T23:01:00.003+11:00

More building blocks for my Aragorn and Arwen illustration. The Aragorn on the left was my first attempt at drawing Viggo from reference which goes to show just how much work I need to do on my ability to draw from reference. The Viggo on the right was my second attempt after identifying where I had gone wrong in my proportions.

Yes, I know I should be able to separate the movies from the text. I know I should be drawing Aragorn from my mind's eye... but I have been on a LOTR movie bender lately, including watching the appendices numerous times and my man crush on Viggo has never been higher.

I consider this a form of catharsis :)

Arargorn and Arwen - building blocks

2009-02-25T23:06:00.002+11:00

I have always consciously steered away from "re-doing" previous illustrations. I've always thought there is plenty of new ground to explore. But I am going to make an exception for Aragorn and Arwen. My first attempt, almost 4 years old now has never sat comfortably with me. The background was very much an after thought and looks horribly contrived. At the time I was happy with the figures but I really screwed the illustration up with the lame background.

I think the time is right to revisit Aragorn and Arwen in the gardens of Rivendell. Above are some of the building blocks and I will post more here as I go.

The original illustration can be found here. Don't say I didn't warn you.
Although, now that I look at it again, I am really happy with Aragorn's boots! :)

Galadriel - final colours

2009-02-25T18:33:00.002+11:00

Here is the finished piece although I may update it with a better photo. The light is failing here but I was keen to get this up as soon as possible! :)

As you can see in this final version I have increased the contrasts on the mirror and its stand. Laid down some very dark purples behind the ivy leaves and around the circular stone work through the middle of the stand. I also lifted a bit of colour to add some highlights. The paper I have is not great quality it seems and did not cope well with the lifting. Time to splash out on some nice Arches paper and see what sort of difference I get.

The cuffs are not nearly as saturated on the painting as they are in this photo and the whites are a little whiter in real life too. I added a little black pencil in place for definition on her face but I think I went too far in the shadows. Oh, well. Each painting is part of the learning process.

Already looking forward to the next one!

Galadriel - first colours

2009-02-24T17:23:00.002+11:00

Finally! First washes are down. Haven't touched Galadriel herself though - will try to summon the will tonight. More washes to come to work in some more contrast and some details to go in as well. Used some masking fluid around Galadriel so I could build up some gradations around her. Also used some masking fluid for highlights on the mirror, pitcher and trees... they may need some softening.

One thing I also have to decide on is whether I ink this one "after" the painting. My lines are not showing through as much as I had expected but I'm not sure I mind that. We'll see!

Galadriel - colour study - revised

2009-02-24T10:30:00.003+11:00

Still summoning up the nerve to put down my first stroke of paint :)
In the meantime, in response to some feedback I have pushed the values a bit further to create a bit more depth. I have also added a halo of light behind Galadriel's head to resemble a rising moon. I will also be making her waist a little less slim in the final piece. Thanks for the comments so far!

Galadriel - colour study

2009-02-20T13:28:00.002+11:00

This is the palette I am thinking of playing in - mocked up in Photoshop.
Comments welcome!

Galadriel Painting - first pencils

2009-02-20T11:23:00.002+11:00

Well - the paper is stretched and stapled to within an inch of its life and the first pencils are down. I'm happy with the objects in the foreground. I found a great reference for the water pitcher on Google and the ivy is a homage to the front cover of the The Secret Staircase by Jill Barklem.

As you can see, Galadriel has changed again from my last sketch. Put that down to my inability to copy faithfully my original drawing. But I am kind of glad it came out this way, actually. I think she is an improvement on her last incarnation.

A little more pencil work to do and then the first washes will come.

The Mirror of Galadriel

2009-02-15T21:13:00.002+11:00

A rough idea for Galdriel's mirror. In the final illustration you will only see the top 1/4 but I wanted to keep going. This is a little blockier that I like - another sketch should get me there.

Galadriel

2009-02-13T16:47:00.003+11:00

Almost there now. I decided to stop sketching directly from my photo references and to just go from my head again, taking on board what I have gleaned from the refs so far. The result is typically more comicbook-like which I suppose is my style. I think I will use this one as the model for the final illustration.

Almost Galadriel

2009-02-13T11:38:00.006+11:00

Finding Galadriel hasn't been as easy as I had thought. She is such an iconic character with the most amazing weight of history -and, if I am not careful I will be in danger of being too intimidated to take her on!

The latest attempt (on the right) was inspired by Olivia Wilde who plays Thirteen in the tv show 'House'. I have always thought she had elven qualities about her. I think, now that I have sketched her that she is a little too young for this part. And the more I look at her the more I realise how I struggle to faithfully capture a person's likeness. I have always drawn from my head and find it difficult keeping things in proportion when sketching from a reference.

In one respect this is not such a bad thing as my reference material will not be so easily divined from the end result - but it does frustrate me no end all the same!

More attempts at Galadriel to come soon.