Watercolour and ink stuff

Snowfield 

 This week all traditional.  Broke out the watercolours which I have not used before this.  The landscapes were done from photos.  I think it would take a while to master this medium - a lot of it is planning and knowing a how the paint will move.  The sheep was the first one and was way too fussy.  

Misty mountain 

Sheep

 The rest of these are just fooling around with ink and watercolour mostly thinking about technique.  The ones from imagination are overworked.  Definitely need the design nailed before heading into ink or be prepared to redraw - a lot.   

Doodle

Little gunfighter

Ink tree

gunfighter

doodle2

photo study

Photo study

Dropping

Dropping 

Did this for the Bjornament  challenge even though I got knocked out of the winners bracket there is a best losers spot up for grabs.  Still useful to focus and produce a finished piece. Because it was not a so important spot I took some liberties interpreting the brief.  Used an online tutorial at Design Cuts to help with the ageing and grain effects.  

Two seasons

After--Alfred-Wierusz-Kowalski-Lone-Wolf

Frosty Morning 

Went back to the oils and finished off a copy I started back in November .  The other piece is me starting to practice some landscapes. Still a  long way to go.  Most of the oils you have seen in the past year or so are up for sale on Etsy

Alfreds

After  Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski Lone Wolf 

After Alfred Munnings STEPS FARM

As trailed I moved over to a flurry of oil painting.  I finished off a copy from the last stint of oils.  This one by  Alfred Wierusz-Kowalski .

The second one is a landscape by Alfred Munnings. Better known for his paintings of horses.  
Just noticed 2 Alfreds here - dont think that name is so common anymore. 

Lost out in the second round of  Bjornament .  Disappointed but there is a losers competition which I complete.  Theme is a creature of the sky.  

A walk in the woods

A walk in the woods 

Finished the entry of round 2 of Bjornament just in time.  Theme was a musical prompt from Justin Lassen .

I actually prefer the beast in the early WIP but It got away from me.  Next time....
  So there is a week to wait for judging and up against an accomplished adversary Sehf.
In the meantime I am switching back to mostly oil painting for the next few weeks with the hopes of producing a few decent pieces. 

Jumping

Jumping

Finally finished this one.  Was a real struggle as I tried to push the rendering.  This is Valeros from Pathfinder.  
Working on the 2nd round of Bjornament.  Because I wanted to finish the image above I had to delay until this week so just a few days to complete.  Had an idea of what I wanted to do so after afew thumbs I settled on this.  Most of what I want is there so hopefully it wont be quite the struggle the first entry was.  
I have done a few studies to help.  

Bjornament round 2 

Landscape study 15 

Lost balloons

After William Holbrook Beard - The Lost Balloon

Portrait Study - Brendan Fraser 

Well got through to 2nd round of Bjornament- squeaked through I think.  
Next round has a music cue.    This will all be about mood so thinking about how to evoke it.  I am still finishing off a piece for my portfolio which is nearly done and I want to leave more time to complete this round.  
So for now her are some studies 
William Holbrook Beard - The Lost Balloon has a dramatic feel to it.  I did another photo study - the lighting and skin tones were the challenge.  Martin Scholeller photo is here.

Arrival of the one

Arrival of the one -submitted

As mentioned last week I was getting an entry for Bjornathon.  This is the submitted entry.  I did not leave enough time to get it completed and polished as I think I could have got it.  Even though now I am not thrilled with the composition I decided to go over it again refining details.  This version is closer to the planned final.   Anyway lots learned from this and will carry the learning forward.  Results are announced next Sunday.

Arrival of the one

A Field

Field

 Not much in the way of finished work for the moment.  

I entered the challenge run by Bjorn Hurri Unreal Bjornament   .  The info is here.  Event though it is a 2 week challenge I am only working on it this week.  I did some very rough thumbnails and then went with one to explore it.  The images below are rifts on a theme and these are not the end of the exploration.  I have given until Wednesday to play then I have to commit and paint.  

Challenge thumbs 

Challenge thumbs 2

Challenge - iter 1

Challenge - iter 2

Challenge - iter 3

Challenge - iter 4

Challenge - iter 5

Last Stand

 Last Stand

I have not attempted too many dragons but I felt the time was right.  Went with some stylised fire to go along side.  This one took a while to do.  That was in part because I started with a different idea for this and took awhile to figure it was not working an switch it up.  Still ended up putting a lot of work on this as it evolved.  The main planning steps are below.  

 Last Stand Lines

 Last Stand value

Last Stand colour 

The other thing I would like to mention is the revamp of this site.  I have set up as a business and wrestled with branding.  In the end I decided to go with what I have operated under for the last eight years.  

I have launched a portfolio site to showcase and of course I am at artstation.  

So this is a new chapter.  
I will continue this blog.  I know blogs have fallen out of favour but for me it is a diary of my work, change and progress so even if it is a considered a backwater of the social media scene, for me, it is still valuable.  


 "In history, a great volume is unrolled for our instruction, drawing the materials of future wisdom from the past errors and infirmities of mankind." 
Edmund Burke 

Rengar- Riot contest

Rengar- Riot contest 

Finally got around to finishing this image in time for submission.  It may seem trite to say I learned alot from doing this but it is very true.  This is a style of image I have not done a lot of.  I know the riot art style is a rendered to a smoother finish but this was as far as I could go.  I think I would modify the workflow to be more efficient and get to a higher finish. Anyway I feel its another mountain climbed. 

Plane n clouds

Plane n clouds

Above is a cloud study with an added plane. 
 I am still working on the Rengar image.  Here is the grayscale render.  I worked out most of the details in this phase but left some things to resolve after the colour is added.  

Rengar - value

Little dudes

Little dudes

Having a bit of fun with these guys.  It was a welcome relief form a lot of administrative work I had to get through this week.  I did start an entry to the riot competition which finishes at the end of the month.  I have some decent progress on it beyond what has been posted there.   It is a departure in style and approach for me so I did not add a redesign challenge on top of it - which was allowed.  

Riot Contest - progress

Into 2018

Portrait study   Neymar

Portrait study Ridley Scott

Happy new year.  

Took a break over the festive season hence the lack of posting here.  I had hoped to keep posting but it was not to be.  I have been busy working on other art related activities which I will share in the coming weeks.  In the meantime here are some portrait studies.  The Neymar one is a still from a beats advert.  The Scott one is from a Guardian interview about his new film.  

Snowy Siege

Snowy Siege 

With Christmas holidays coming I have one snowy themed image. The other one is a  study from a photo.  

Study of  MELVYN GOLDSTEIN / National Geographic Creative

Beneath the Waves

Frame 1

 This week was all about the Artstation challenge beneath the waves.  I sat on the fence about jumping into this one and to be honest I left it  too late to give it a good go.  However I did pull together the requisite 4 images for the keyframe challenge.  If nothing else it was a good exercise in crunching a lot of work into about 5 days.  

Frame 2

Frame 3 

Frame 4

Thumbnails

Ant -Spider

Ant -Spider

The first 2 sketches in ink were following along with Bjorn Hurris stream on Twitch.  He streams early in the morning so its a good way for me to stay punctual with my day.  Besides that they are very informative.  The spider one I decided to work on in Photoshop just to play around.  

Troll -Dinosaur

The portrait is practice using a reference from  Grigoriy Peppo on Twitch.  He usually works traditionally but this one he also did digitally.  He has a lot of knowledge around traditional media and portraiture with a bit of philosophy thrown in and always entertaining.

Portrait study 33

 The others are just random figure sketches to practice poses.  

Sketches 38

Sketches 39