International Self Portrait Day

Self Portrait

International self portrait Day November 1.  Did this self portrait.  There are a whole bunch of them over on  Concept.org.  I was really tired when I did it so I worked a bit more on it this evening. 

Mud Study

Mud Study

My homage to this years Summer.  Actually a photo study for a personal piece I am working on. There will be mud.  I liked the globby look of this mud.  The personal piece its self seems to be going on forever but I am doing a lot of other work as well. 

Autumn Tree Study

Autumn Tree Study

I did this speed study of trees. The photo is of some trees in a Belleek wood which is very close to where I live.  This time of year the landscape changes very rapidly.  I try and grab as many photos as I can this time of year.  

Basilisk lizard study

basilisk lizard study

A study of the basilisk lizard.  This lizard is able to run across water earning it the nickname the Jesus lizard.  I did this as a study to help with my next personal piece.  What I was looking for here was mostly colour information. 

Cuirass Study

Cuirass Study

A study I did of a cuirass mostly for materials.  It was large and I ended up just working the top left corner to any level of finish.  I was going to use this information in the next personal piece I am working on..

Ready to go

Ready To Go

Here is the personal piece I was working on.  I used all the studies and some.  Took quite a while definitely more than 20 hours but I took the time to do the studies.  I also have been trying to get some sketching in each day as well.

Behind the Iron Curtain 2

About a month ago I took my holidays.  The past few years I have not travelled but with another summer of rain I thought it would be good to go somewhere warm.  It happened that the Behind the Iron Curtain workshop was happening around that time.  I had not been to any workshop before and I had no idea what to expect but off to Bucharest I went.  

I was so glad I took the trip.  It was educational and inspirational. The workshop was covering 2d and 3d work but I went just to focus on the 2d.  

The demos were good but what was most useful for me was finding out how the industry worked and what to consider when putting images together.  

Daniel Simon

 A designer  Daniel talked through his career and design philosophy.  He worked on the bugatti.  I had to take this photo as I painted one last year.




  Iain McCaig
Was all about the story.  After giving an overview of his work his sessions focused on storyboarding.  They were great - lots of interaction.   

 Raphael Lacoste

Raphael went over some of the projects he worked on and some general pointers about design.  I went to a few of his sessions which included a speed paint and a matte painting.  I have not tried any matte painting so was really interested to see the workflow.  

Neville Page 
Neville modeled the fine fellow below over the weekend.  I started out working in Maya and played with Zbrush but have not gone back to them since. Seems like Zbrush has moved on since I used it.  
The sessions were really informative - once again a focus on good design. 

Overall met some great people learned alot and had alot of fun.  
One of the re-occurring comments was to have a story behind the image or design.    The other one I heard alot was for those wishing to work in concept art was to think about if it would suit you - can you work in a team? Are you OK with the possibility no one may ever see some of the work you produce or worse it may even be destroyed due to contractual restrictions?


For a more photos and a look at the more informal parts of the workshop look here.

Polar Bears Study

Polar Bears Study

I am still working on the personal piece.  This is another study I did to help with it.  This was a study of a photo.  The colours were striking but mainly I was interested in the anatomy in this image. 

Dog Sled Study

Dog Sled Study

Following on from the previous landscape study here is a sled study done from a photo.  Wanted to practice the snow and get a feel for what makes up a sled.  By now I have worked out the composition for the personal piece but still need to do a few more studies. 

Snow Scape Study

Snow Scape Study

I started a personal piece and I need to do a number of studies to help.  This is the first of them a photo study so no prizes for guessing that the piece will be set  in a snowy landscape.  I just wanted to get the feeling for shadows and a little bit of rendering snow. 

Roman Soldier Study

Roman Soldier Study

Following hot on the heels of the armour study did this photo study.  A Roman Soldier.  This was a bit  faster and looser.  
Cant believe it is almost a year since I did this study of a Roman helmet. 

Armour study 1

Armour Study

Over on Deviant Art is a relatively new speedpaint group run by Wolkenfels .  This was one of study images this month.  I did not end up doing as a speedpaint however.  I started it that way but ended up detailing it out took close to 4 hours I think.  

 

Pup Portrait

Pup Portrait

This pup portrait is a rendering of a dog I have shown work of before.  This is a photo.  I also did a more recent quick sketch .
In the latter she had a grooming not strictly for cosmetic reasons.  As she is part Bichon she suffers from allergies and the vet recommended the crew cut.  Anyway this was using a photo taken before she lost her locks.   Took about 2 hours.  Definitely getting faster at these photo studies. 

Snow monkey study

Snow Monkey Study

A study of a snow monkey from a photo.  The source is from a photographer

Kiyoshi Ookawa who's work can be found here  Kiyo Photography [busy]'s photostream.

 

Maintenance Man

Maintenance  Man

Woman

This is a quick effort at portraying a maintenance man. The spanner may be a bit of overkill.  The other is a really quick study of a woman. 

After -Street Scene

After- Street Scene

Following the last environment effort I wanted to have another go putting some of what I learned into practice.  This is based on O'Connell Street Dublin.  It did not take as long as the last one so that was a plus.  Built on a one point perspective I did a value study then painted over that.  The hardest thing with this was not to let it get too muddy. 

Utilities Sunset

Utilities Sunset

This is a landscape that I worked on for a while.  It started as a value study and then drifted from that into the final image.  I spent way longer on this than the final image might suggest.  I did try a lot of different things and at least identified alot of things that I need way more practice on. Will try another piece. 

After Repin A shy peasant

After Repin A Shy Peasant

This portrait by Repin appears with all sorts of hues on the web.  I don't know which version is closest to the true work as I have never seen it.  I copied one of the more vibrant copies.  I took about 6 h over this.  Most of that at lunch time.  The problem with the lunch time sessions is I work on a laptop in daylight so I still have to adjust value and hue at the end. 

Emu-Study

EMU-Study

A lunchtime sketch of an emu.  For practice took about 30 minutes.  The colour was deliberately muted.

Horseman Attacked - Final

Horseman attacked - Final

This is the continuation of the work started here. I added some more detail and refined the horseman.  All in all this took a while to do. The thing I liked most of this are the colours. I set out to limit those from the start. 

Horseman Attacked - draft

Horseman attacked draft

Horseman attacked draft 2

I decided to keep going with the personal work.  This one was a challenge as I wanted to get some decent poses.  I started with the the black and white draft then added colour.  I had a reference for the horses pose but the tigers I had to wing it. 

Spanner - Study

Spanner - Study

Here is a quick lunchtime study of a spanner.  About 30 minutes.  Just wanted to get some still life practice in. 

Lets Play - Final

Lets Play-Final

This is the final steps for the image started here.  There was some movement of the figures and addition of some environment.  I did a few different colour schemes but this one was the most interesting and the one that got worked to a finish,  I suppose it is kind of fitting that this is completed just as the Olympic games ends.  The phrase that was repeated most from the interviewed athletes was hard work pays off.  I hope so!