haven't been painting as much and been posting even less. worked on this on/off over the past week or two. Didn't have any real direction...was using this more for fun and to get back into the swing of things.

more stabby stabs. still having fun with these, and learning to be more liberal with my colors. Still, i couldn't make a proper decision with the skull like thing on the right most sword, which definitely shows...something about the colors just doesn't work... :/ 

more blades. not so much to scale

...the good and the bad. I've been working, but not posting. Rendering, and in some cases redesigning the swords. There's a lot more to show than this, but this is all I want to show for now.

Refined and painted one of the swords. Initial sketch --> Refined Sketch --> Flats --> Paints --> Final. I plan to do more of these. Keeping the designs somewhat straightforward and placing more emphasis on the painting/rendering in order to produce a more finished product. 

Been working, but not posting, so this is a bit of a dump.

Fish+Ships 3/4 concept. Took this one further than the last, which I still hope to revisit.

After painting and repainting, I finally ended up with a result I'm fairly pleased with. Doesn't match the thumbnail exactly, but I think the translation is still passable.

On a side note, I couldn't attach an image as usual, and had to copy/paste a url of the artwork as it exist on another site (artstation). weird

Sea life inspired space ships. Happy with most of these. May do a couple more. Planning to develop a couple/few of these further

Colored the trees from previous concepts. 

Still not entirely satisfied, but I'm tired of looking at it. Learned a thing or two about color more than anything. May or may not return to it. Still, I think it's a pretty good representation of where I currently stand as a digital artist, and that I'm able to take a quick sketch to full color concept...even if the concept did change a little in the process.

some environment sketches between last night and tonight.

Some trees tonight. sketched an environment as well, but left me very displeased so not posting it.

random steampunk portraits...although could use more steampunk emphasis as it's not quite clear that's what it's supposed to be. Still, it was fun and didn't take too long

more sci-fi...this time a piece of an environment. nothing special

some sci-fi console sketches. trying to make my presentation more clean and professional

cellar sketching

some gateway sketches tonight.

Little more work on this shield after getting some advice. Turned into this. Still doesn't remind me of a shield per se, but perhaps I should create the back side...? If nothing else, it would show a greater understanding of the subject matter...guess we will see

thinking about calling this one done

wanted to finish this tonight...no dice

more work on some shields

something a little different...some shield concepts. still WIP.

more work on this. I could, and maybe should take it further, but I'm currently tired of looking at it.

gorgon princess. attempting to integrate homosapien & serpent. difficult to do because the drastic differences in head shape and feature placement. did multiple designs; some of which I deleted and are not shown, but settled on this one because I liked the overall shape. Much more snake like than anticipated, but I'm running with it. decided to make her royalty. not done. plan to work on it more

little more work on this.

sketch i began over the weekend that evolved into this. Reference used. untimed

more on the sax player study. Started doing material studies...didn't finish...maybe tomorrow night

another study. untimed. plan to do some material studies on this one

spent another couple hours on this & calling it done. 

fruits of the weekend. more pose studies. untimed as usual.

more pose studies. untimed. the one on the right took about half the time as the one on the left. probably spend 1/3 of the time on just the head and hands for the one on the left. at some point, I'm going to have to start mixing in some hand studies. I anticipate I could be doing these pose studies for months and months and still need practice, so integrating other studies with them probably not a bad idea. on the other hand, I'm also working on my rendering ability while doing these as well. on that note, I'm happy with the way the one on the right came out. still can't really read what materials are what, but the method of rendering was quick, and efficient, and doesn't look nearly as muddy as my past studies. will attempt to replicate the process tomorrow, and if I can do it time after time, maybe should spend more time with materials...maybe just render out a jacket or pants, or jewelry, or hair, or whatever and keep moving from there.

Moar pose studies. untimed.

more pose studies. untimed.

more pose/figure studies. untimed

some pose studies. untimed

more work on that same sketch.

just some sketching. working more on actual concepts lately rather than just study after study.

piece I've been working on over the past few days. Going slow, but making progress. The idea is changing slightly as I go, but I'm just going with it. Watching a lot of horror at recently, so the piece is horror themed. At this point, I just want to finish it; although who knows how long out that will be. Would be nice to finish by Fri and start something.

Another photo study. This time working on more body, rather than the face. Also messing around with depth of field. I still don't quite have the hang of it, but I get the gist. It adds a nice; although in this case not very subtle, photographic effect. Also messing around with glows, so the study doesn't look so much like a study, but more like a work of art. Again, it's a little cheesy, but whatevs. The scene isn't anything like the one in the study, so that was my own doing.

puke! posting because I told myself I would. Messing around with the digital water color brushes. Mainly working with blending and attempting to get some very smooth, gradiated blends going on. Let's see......fail! Could not achieve the results I wanted despite trying to hours. There are areas that are blended well, but mostly that was incidental while trying to blend another area. puke! Also, working with water color tends to wash out color, which I makes sense thinking about the media...water...color, but it's a pain trying to blend, while also maintaining color saturation. New rule, when working with water color don't hesitate to amp up the saturation as much as possible, because while blending it's only going to desaturate. Although, honestly, I'm about fed up with using water color. Tonight was supposed to be fun. puke. IT WAS NOT!!! PUKE!

another one, happier with this one, but still not sure how to consistently get smooth blending with the simple water brush in corel painter x3. I still other people that can do it, but I'm not able to achieve the same results. The blender brushes seem like an obvious solution, except with the digital water color media they do NOT seem to work. I even tried a couple of blur filters and those didn't seem to do anything either. Maybe it's all in the wrist?!?!?!? or maybe I should create a new layer after I do the basic stuff and use somethign like charcoal or chalk (somethign I know I can blur)....Regardless,

Worked on this for waaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long. Still not happy with it, and I'm somewhat aggravated by the whole ordeal, so here's the post.

Been working, but not posting. Finally listened to my better judgement and work on this more as a whole, rather than individual characters. Characters were already mostly laid out, but I sketched in the background along with some elements from the movie and I'm still thinking about how it's all going to fit together. Although I sketched based off reference for the characters and the car, in the end I'd like to have some sort of cohesive lighting, instead of every character having their own local lighting. Although it will be a struggle I suspect, I also think it will be good practice instead of just ripping straight from a photo.