Who needs a Radio!?

How's going everyone? I've been really good! I just finished another Salt Lake Comic Con  and have been super busy working with amazing clients and creating a ton of artwork! 

The new school year has started and I am finally in my last semester! For this final semester I needed one upper division art class so that I finally graduate. The opportunity arose to take an independent study digital painting class with Jim Madsen. If you don't know Jim's work follow the link and prepare to have your mind blown! He is an amazing artist and in the two short weeks I have been in his class I have learned a ton! 

For Jim's class, using the Illustration Friday topic, we are going to be producing one painting per week. This weeks topic was radio. I know some of you are thinking how does this painting relate to the topic. Well, I didn't want to simply illustrate a radio in the truest sense so I thought hey why not paint a singing mariachi riding a donkey on a road trip to San Diego. You know, using his "old school" radio.

As with most of my work it starts with the exploratory phase of drawing and sketching.  This is my favorite part of the process because it allows me to try out a bunch of ideas quickly with out any real consequences. Some ideas work and others don't. This was the ruff thumbnail sketch that I settled on.

Now that I have my Idea I tighten up my character sketch. I should note that I'm working 100% digital on this painting sketch and all. I use Adobe Photoshop and a Wacom Cintiq 24HD. I try to use the stock photoshop brushes as much as possible but, I love these pencil brushes from Frenden for sketching. They have a great texture and natural feel to them.

Next I quickly block in the background. I'm working in black and white first so I can get the values correct. I'll add color later. 

Now that the background is roughed in I turn that layer off and block in my two main characters. For this phase I take the value painting almost to a finished state. I want this value painting be pretty tight so I spend quite a bit of time working on the values and textures. This helps late on with the color glazing part of the painting. 

So the main characters and the backgrounds are ruffed in now comes the color part. If you spend your time getting the values right you can almost use any color pallet and it will work fine. I usually never work this saturated with my colors but, seeing as this is a desert scene I thought it would be a excellent opportunity to pay tribute to one of my favorite cartoons The Roadrunner and  Wile E.. Coyote! I decided that some intensive research is in order. So I watched a few episodes and looked up some reference and decided to go with a pastel color pallet for the background. Using new layer I set it to color and glaze over my value painting. I'm working pretty loose on the background leaving the edges soft. I also let the colors overlap to allow some blending. Once I'm happy with the colors I move on to painting the main characters. 

Using a method similar to the background, I use color, multiply and normal layers to glaze in the color and refine the illustration. This part takes a little longer but this is where the painting really comes together. Most artists will tell you that the most fun part of painting is the little details. I'm am no different. A lot of time has been wasted zoomed in painting stuff that no one but me will ever see, but hey thats the fun part. Right?

After the color is all done I add some subtle texture overlays and do a little color correction to help harmonize the painting. Overall I was happy with the illustration but, I thought something was missing from the painting so I decided to add a little desert bird to the scene to fill up some of the negative space and add a little more humor to the scene. As you can see the donkey is really happy to be on the long trip with his companions. 

Thanks for making through my last painting with me. Have a great weekend!

Master Splinter Digital Sketch/ Painting Process...

For this week's blog post I thought I'd share another process demo/ tutorial. Instead of using traditional mediums I am going to focus on digital painting/ sketching. For those of you that know me personally know that I love digital painting! Like all mediums it has unique qualities and attributes that are specific to it's self. It can do things that other mediums can't. There is a huge down side to digital painting, unless you draw it out on paper first, you don't have an original art piece when you are all finished. Sure you can make prints but it's not the same thing, trust me. 

The subject for this demo is none other than everyone's favorite ninja rat... Master Splinter! I've been wanting to do a painting of this guy for some time now and Sketch Dailies topic yesterday happened to be Splinter so I decided it was finally  time.

As far as tools go I am using a Wacom Cintiq 24 HD and Photoshop CS6.  

A while back a friend of mine recommended some awesome digital pencil brushes from FRENDEN.  They have a natural pencil feel and add a nice texture to the digital drawing. As with most of my artwork I start out with a few rough thumbnail sketches to get a feel for the character. Once I get one that has the right look I start to refine it. 

Now that the rough sketch is done I lower the opacity of that layer pull up a new layer and tighten up the line work. This process is similar to how a comic book artist would use a light table to refine their pencils or inks. 

 I start the color process by first putting to getter my color pallet. Then I block in the ruff flat colors. after the flats are done I establish a light source and block in my values. I want to note that I am zoomed out and I am using a large brush for this step. Also, I am painting loosely often going outside the lines of my initial sketch. 

 I take my time and build up the layers of pixel paint. I should note that I am only working on one or to layers in Photoshop. I have some really talented friends that can paint on dozens and dozens of layers and manage them, but I have found that for me, personally, it is easier to keep the layers to a minimum. At his stage I start to zoom in for the tighter details like the hair and whiskers.

After I am happy with Splinter I rough in  a loose background. I check a few things and add a slight texture to his robe, add the old signature, and BAM this one done! 

If you have any questions or comments please sound off below. Have a great week everyone!  

Tony's Secret Ingredient Spaghetti and Meatballs!

Back in the early 1920's Tony Andolini had one of the premier italian dining locations in New York City. His restaurant, Tony's, was subsequently shut down when a reporter/ food critique by the name of Rodney "Scoops" Peabody discovered the secret ingredient in his world famous spaghetti and meat balls! Scoops' discovery made national headlines! Ruined and humiliated Andolini never opened another restaurant. He denied the allegations of using "questionable products" to his deathbed in 1943. However, recently discovered was this old family photo of Tony out back in the alleyway cooking up an "old family recipe".

This was a really fun Illustration for me. I'd been sitting on this ruff sketch of a chef for a few months and really wanted to paint it. While trying to figure out a creative direction to take the image I the thought came to me "What is the secret ingredient in a secret ingredient recipe?" and this is what came from that idea.

I painted a full color version of this but it wasn't working for me so I decided to give it a sepia tone and a little ware and tear. This painting is 100% digital and was created in Photoshop CS6. I included a little gif so you can see the steps it took to create this image.

Eastwood

 This is one of my all time favorite movie scenes! I know this clip has nothing to do with Clint Eastwood himself,  but hey it's hilarious!

This painting originally started out as a a quick warm up sketch yesterday morning. I was liking where it was going so I decided to take it a little further. I've included some progress steps so you can see a little of how I work.

Pie-Rat!

Avast, me hardys! Thar be Pie-Rats!

For this blog post I thought that I would share with you my first ever animated GIF! This is a nice way to show all of you a quick version of my digital painting process. Like the Harry Potter tutorial, I'm following the same basic steps of line art, flat colors, shadow pass, lighting pass, and an overpaint. Only for this painting I skip the grayscale process and go straight to color.

As far as the subject goes I was laying in bed the other night and thought that it would be funny to paint a "pie-rat"! So I when I woke up the next morning I thumbnailed some possible ideas and compositions. Once I found what I was looking for I sketched our little friend out. After a little bit of painting we have our master of the seven cheese!

Oh and on a side note I recently purchased CS6! This was my first painting using the new software. Overall I'm pretty happy with the new version of Photoshop!

Have a fantastic day everyone!