Knights Characters 1

Chieftain

Knight

As I was finishing the characters for the Crimson Daggers mentoring I thought I would play around with some other characters.  These were just trying some different approaches to getting  some starting points down.

Sketches 15

Another sketch of a screen capture from Avatar. Some character stuff to follow. 

After Arkhipov The Washer Women

After Arkhipov The Washer Women

 I started this masters study last November and am finally calling it done.  It was done in oil  on 90 x 45 cm MDF gesso primed. 

 I gridded the panel and the image in photoshop then drew the figures on the panel in pencil. Everything else was done in oils.  I see some folks doing the initial blocking or values in acrylics and I think I will try that next time.  

 I blocked things in pretty quickly then put in some details. Most of the rest of the work was done in a few glazes.  The glazing was not something I had tried before to any great extent but it helped pull it together.  I have not seen the original of this and there are a few copies of this painting on the Internet.  They vary a lot in saturation and hue. In the end I worked from the highest res image I could find.  I have no idea how ArKhipov worked but I really liked the light and colour treatment.   I also liked the subject matter (not many images like this out there).  I think I may have been empathising with the main figure.  I am stuck in a not so great job at the moment and when I am there I feel like this lady looks.  

This is the eighth masters study I have done.  I have a few other Arkhipov studies in Photoshop from last year here and here.

Baby Hippo speedpaint study

Baby Hippo speedpaint study

Another speedpaint study for the group on DA. A 2 hour effort for this cute little hippo.
The reference used from Drezdany-stocks.

Sketches 14

Some more sketches. Definitely getting some practice doing portraits with lots of lighting I would never dream up. 

The End

The End

I used the setup shown in a previous post  here  to create this by destroying that.  I used it to have some fun fooling around with the lighting. 

sketches 13

Two more sketches from Avatar. Trying to keep these fast 15-30 minutes  but portraits are taking about 1 hour.

Before the End

Before The End

After doing a couple of interior studies I wanted to try the little I learnt into practice.  This image started as something completely different.  I was going to do it as an abandoned space but before I reigned some destruction I thought I had better construct it first. This is the before image. 

Sketches12

Some more very quick sketches from screenshots.   

Interior 2 -abandoned church

Abandoned church interior

Wanted to practice doing some interiors.  Here is the first effort.  Battling edges all the way.  The reference for this study was found here.  The photographer is David Tribby, 

Self Critique

 When I am working on a piece I constantly try to take a step backward (literally and metaphorically)  and try to be as critical as possible.  Recently a blog I follow by George Perdue called A Painters Evolution had a great helpful list of questions to ask yourself when working.   Though the list is geared towards traditional methods the principals are the same.  Though most of the Blog is dealing with oil painting there are some great nuggets that can be applied to any medium. 

A Painter's Evolution: Self Critique

Sketches 11

Some more sketches.  First is from a screenshot and the second is a derivative of it.

Jump!

 

Jump!

This is an image I started towards the end of last year.  It was done just for practice.  Unfortunetly it was one of several images I started in quick sucession.  This left me struggling to complete any one.  Fortunethly Christmas holidays arrived and I was able to work to complete a number of them.

Sketches 10

Another screenshot sketch from Avatar.  To try and get the most from these I am going to try following them up with a sketch from imagination  using the same kind of image.  The lower image is the first effort at this.