Portrait Practice 3

With some time available I completed another portrait.  The aim of this was to push to the piece to finish it as much as possible.  I started fooling around with textures and brushes. 

The reference was from Tim Remick photography.     A study of climbers immediately after their decent.

Puppy - Photoshop Study

Poppy -Photoshop Study

My sister got another puppy.  This is Poppy a King Charles/ Shitzu cross.  I had to puppy sit.  She was only about 7 weeks old when I snapped the photo.  The study was about 8 hours.  I wanted to work on putting in hues particularly in the white areas.  after the cahllenge work it was good to return to a straight forward long study.
 Process below.  If anyone wants I can go into more detail on this. 

Bloodsports Hiatus

Following the Zelda work Dan announced there would be a postponement of Bloodsports 8.  The reason was the drop off in numbers completing.   I was not to surprised this whole study group exploded in the space of 2-3 months it expanded from what was a small steady core group to a mass of participants.  Along with that was an increase in the numbers of activities. All requiring a massive time commitment from Dan who himself was on a mission to cut it as a pro and amazingly  and Dave who's own career seems to be growing.  All done with no monitory compensation. Thanks Dan and Dave. 

Though understandable it is nonetheless a blow. For myself the Deathline Challenge has been a great way of focusing on achieving things and keeping the momentum up.  The challenges were great for me.  I had not put together any imaginative work.  At a minimum it was practice at getting a work flow sorted. At its best it pushed me to finish pieces that if I were working alone would most likely have stalled and languished.  

 I am sure that the group will go on.  for now I am taking a little breather.  Doing some gentler paced personal work.

Swamp ancient

Hunter and Pet

Gauntlet

Crimson Guardians

Miazaki Re-marketed

Hunter and

Creature

Windwaker Reworked

Bloodsports 7 - Windwaker Reworked! Zelda Final Image

Bloodsports 7 - Windwaker Reworked! Zelda Final Image

Bloodsports 7 - Windwaker Reworked! Zelda Final Image

With the extra time I went on refining the image as much as possible.  The images that made it on to Kotaku are here. 

Zelda Redesign -Image 2

Zelda Redesign -First submission

When it got to submission time this was as far as I had got.  Still lots and lots left to do but this was where I was at and though not thrilled with it I went ahead and submitted. By that time Dan had announced that the final deadline for submissions which would go to Kotaku was the following Wednesday so still time to work some more.   

Zelda Redesign -image1

Errol 'in like' Flynn

I decided to modify the pose, put the character in water and eventually dropped the boat.  For charcters I kept very close to the depiction of charcters in Windwaker just moved them closer to relaistic.  I probably should have done more design after all that was the brief but with the time constraints and my meagre ablilities I did probably about as much as I could. 

Zelda Redesign -Study 3

after ivan_aivazovskii

ivan aivazovskii_1817_1900

To build an environment for this image I went to ivan aivazovskii.  a master of moody atmospheric ocean scenes.  I had previously made a study of one of his paintings.  I went about doing a very quick lunchtime study. This is as far as I got.    

Zelda Redesign -Study 2

Master and Commander Film Still Study

I did this study because the pose was pretty close to the comp and seafaring vibe.  The braiding was useful.  The pose was modified.  I had to keep all these studies short or I would not have time to finish the main image.  So no more than 2 hours.

Zelda Redesign -Study

Needed to pick a style and I choose more realistic than cartoon.  The reason for this was just that this is what I tend to produce more readily and I thought it would be good overall practice.  I needed some portrait and pose studies this was the first.

Composition-Windwaker Reworked

After some research did some compositional work.  The brief was not to use previous Zelda designs but keep the nautical theme plus include at least the main 3 characters.  I decided at the outset to depict just Link, Gannon and Zelda. I also wanted to keep it to one wrap around image.  

I started with some thumbs then picked one and did some comps.  I took the one at the top and started doing some studies to bring to the image.

Bloodsports 7 - Windwaker Reworked!

Bloodsports 7 - Zelda Windwaker Reworked.  Never played or even saw played a Zelda game.  That was not going to be an excuse not to complete this challenge, so first up a little research and then some compositional work.  

Roses - Oil Painting

Roses Oil Painting

Had not done any oil painting in a while.  Valentines day rolled around and there were a lot of roses on sale so I took the opportunity.  This was going to be a very conventional still life but it drifted away form it pretty fast.  Drew the roses in pencil - it was really nice sketch.  Went over it with acrylic and it got obliterated so I just dove in with the paint.  I completed the background in the next sitting.  Sorry about light - energy saving bulbs- not so great some times.  

After Arkhipov Along the River Oka Masters study 2

After Arkhipov Along the River Oka

Arkhipov Along the River Oka

Following the last masters study,completed at Christmas, I made another one by the same artist.   This one was completed in a much shorter time frame maybe 6 hours over a few evenings.  All done in Photoshop and about 95 % of it was made with one brush.  These are a blast to do and not as demanding as the challenge work I have being doing.  I think I need to put what I have learned from these into practice.

Bloodsports 6 Challenge hunter design

Hunter Design Bloodsports 6 Challenge

This was the  submitted design for the Bloodsports 6 hunter creature design challenge.  Design a hunter - before hunt.  Then the creature which was the subject of the hunt and finally the hunter sporting the hunting trophy.  I didnt go for the obvious armour and instead went for something a little more internal. Anyway the creature which went along with this design is posted here.
The hunter is somewhat unfinished and I will return and polish it. 

Creature -Bloodsports 6

Creature -Bloodsports 6

Here is the submitted creature design for the bloodsports 6 challenge.  First off I put it in environment - don't think I should have for challenge but it sold idea creature lived in deep water.  Shell is a soft membrane - semi transparent.  Visible are organs - parts of the digestive and respiratory system.  Armour only on the underside.  I should have illustrated underside but time ran out.

Bloodsports 6 Studies Summary

Bloodsports 6 Studies Summary

Here is a summary of studies for the Bloodsports 6 Challenge. I did do a few pencil studies for the creature and channeled the water flea and the microscope image of the louse. I backed away from the pencil creature as it began to look too much like a turtle!