Queen Titania: Bits and Pieces

Here are a few sketches of my "Queen Titania" illustration in progress for CHOW 146. I just read that there has been a one day extension -- yay! I might actually have something to post for the CHOW Final Burning rather than holding off and posting in the CA Finally Finished section.

The rough layout posted below was finally sketched on paper after much internal sketching in my head. I just quickly put it all on paper in a rather rough layout sketch so I wouldn't forget the various groupings and characters I wanted to include to tell my story of Queen Titania since I was also working on a few other things this past week. The top drawing and the "fox and hounds" at the bottom are some of the final bits I'm still wrapping up before pulling all of the elements together and coloring them in Photoshop...

For the final drawings I'm working with a 2H pencil to do a quick overall layout, then go to an HB pencil for detail, and finishing up with a 4B pencil for outlining.

Extra-curricular for the Week

Here are a couple of preliminary sketch explorations for this week's creative extra-curricular activity: CHOW 146 -- Queen Titania.

Having a bit of buggy-ness with the revised code in my website update...hope to have that fixed in the next few days while I continue to work on a few other items on my studio "to-do" list.

Illustration Friday: Climbing

This past week's Illustration Friday word was "climbing".

At first I thought about sketching one of the many kinds of climbing that I've done when I was a kid (mostly trees). But likely because I did some concepts based on McCaffrey's Pern last month, I was inspired to do a quick illustration of Menolly (from the book Dragonsong) climbing up the cliffs in order to rescue the fire lizard clutch from the sudden high tides covering the small beach below.

And here's the original sketch I did before coloring in Photoshop 7:
(sketching - about 1/2 hr.; painting - 1 hr)

Random sketchings for the New Year

I've posted a few rough sketches from my sketchbook done in the past month.

I've been in the middle of artwork for an upcoming SCBWI local meeting to pull together a promotional dummy book for critique and review. It's been awhile since I've gone so I'm looking forward to checking it all out again and meeting some of the local childrens book writers (and hopefully, illustrators!). I've also been rather busy creating some new administrative forms for my "illustration studio" using the Art Office book as a guideline, as I've been recreating the forms in Illustrator, with much customizing targeted to my own use and the type of projects that I currently do rather than focusing on gallery work: book illustration, product design concept art (specializing in Christmas) and so on.


Of course, I have various other creative projects going on as usual...and, once again, it's past time to update that online portfolio/website of mine -- the deadline is January 31! :)

Concept Art and Massive Black 2009 Workshop: Dallas!

I just posted this over on the Dallas Sketchgroup blog, but it's totally worth posting about twice! :) Four days of art and creativity immersion -- can't wait!! Here's the announcement that was posted yesterday over on the CA website:

ConceptArt.Org International Art and Design Workshop:
DALLAS TEXAS - March 28-31 2009

The next workshop is coming hard and fast. Are you ready? We are.

Conceptart.org and Massive Black have put together a stellar list of instructors, great sponsors, and a fresh program covering aspects from the games, toy, film, and fine art industries. The venue is beautiful. We are right next door to a gorgeous museum full of world class art, and have more planned than ever before. When I say we have more planned, I am saying we are pulling out all the stops. Art, jobs, culture, music, performers, training, and even more will be happening. We have a great list of sponsors including Google, SMU, the Guildhall, ReelFX, the prestigious AFI film festival, Corel and many others. This is going to be a big show with more art than ever before.

Time is short. Much to do. The official announcement will come this week and all info will be released then.

Tuition is 600 bucks and we will have an early bird offer which includes free downloads, cheaper tuition, and more. All the info will come this next week. Start getting ready folks...we are going to Dallas and will be shaking the art world from the top to bottom.

We chose Dallas as it is central to everyone here in the US and is a very affordable city to travel to. Of course, the local sponsors are world class too. This is going to be a great show.

The Shanghai show is still in the works but has been moved to late 2009 in order for us to find addtional sponsors. Dallas will be the only workshop we do in North America in 2009.

See you all soon!!

Figure Drawing: January Dallas Dr. Sketchy

More people showed up at the January Dallas Dr. Sketchy meeting. Yay! And, oh well, that's what I was afraid of -- I'm glad I got there early to pick my table as it was much more crowded than the last meeting I attended. It may mean a change of venue if it gets even more popular. Parking is easy to find at the current location since there's a public garage just across the street. And, it gives me the random opportunity to get to know the downtown Dallas Arts district a bit better I suppose, heh.




We had two great models again this session. "Hansel" was a particularly awesome model since he showed up costumed as "town crier" and then kept up that character the entire time with some rather hilarious poses. There were multiple requests for Hansel to come back and model again for us, too. The other model, Ginger, a burlesque dancer, complimented Hansel's character when they shared poses for the drawing group. My only slight unhappiness with her was that she kept changing her upper body poses (tilting her head differently, repositioning her shoulders, and so on) and expression in the longer poses. Hard not to do, I know! I've posted a few of my sketches from this and a previous session. I mostly used a combination of Conte crayons and charcoal for the gestures and 10 minute sketches, adding Sharpie markers for the longer 20 minute drawings. I also took a few photos this session for my image morgue.



It was good to meet other people involved in the DFW art community, too; it was a nice mix of gallery, hobby and professional artists. Hard at times to make myself talk without stuttering since I'm rather shy, definitely introverted, and get extremely nervous in large groups. Yeah, I hate giving presentations, too; but have managed to force myself as needed. One of my ongoing resolutions, ha. In any case, I'm looking forward to attending the next sessions as my work schedule allows. Drawing from live models rather than from my own imagination or photo images is a really nice change of pace, and I can definitely see that I could use the practice!

Happy New Year -- 2009!

For some reason, this new year resonates to me as being the year of The Fool...which is why I came up with the above quick illustration (original pencil sketch posted below) based on the following fortune-telling tarot card description:

"The Fool is considered to be a card of infinite possibilities. The bag on the staff has all that is needed to do or become anything, one only has to stop and unpack. While the Fool is on the path to a brand new beginning, it also comes with a little bark of warning: stop daydreaming and watch your step, lest you fall and end up looking like a fool."

Sounds like good advice, eh? Well, we'll see how it goes...

'Tis the Season

Took a picture of the Clementines I like to get this time of year. They just happened to be delivered the day I finally checked with the produce guy about them at my local grocery store. Hilarious! He even took me out back to get a box from the unopened crate flats cause I didn't believe him at first, heh. The white bowl is one that I picked up a few years ago just for holding the Clementines. Delicious!

Had a rather nice and quiet Christmas with my family this past week. The weather when I left home had highs in the mid-twenties along with a bit of ice and snow which mid-week turned into foggy mornings; however, my return home ended with highs in the mid-eighties. That's Texas weather for ya! Thank goodness, I didn't have all the travel problems that too many other people did travelling during Christmas vacation.

Even with the economy tanking as much as it has, I have to say I'm looking forward to the coming New Year. I've been gathering together my list of creative goals for next year as a 100% freelance artist since I'm no longer working as an in-house staff artist, too. I've got all kinds of enterprising professional strategies! Wish me luck!

EOW Progress: Menolly's Dragon Stones Cove concept

I'm sad to say that I wasn't able to make the deadline for the EOW #100 challenge. There are some other artists that did finish and they've posted their most excellent work in the final burning thread on conceptart website here.

However, being such a fan of Anne McCaffrey's early Dragonriders of Pern books, I'm determined to finish all five of my own concepts when I have some more time once again after the holidays. I did get close to being happy with the above concept, and I may just revisit it again in the next year to do a tighter print-ready illustration of "Menolly's Dragon Stones" featured in the book, "Dragonsong".

More EOW: Benden Weyr -- Just Add Dragons

More progress during the day, about another hour or so between other projects. I'm feeling pretty happy with it, maybe too many clouds...hmm. In any case, I will still be putting final touches to this one and the others over the weekend to wrap it all up for the EOW challenge. You know, little final things like ledges and "dragons" and people and such.

EOW Progress: Benden Weyr concept

This concept-in-progress of Pern's Benden Weyr is still very much in the early coloring stage. Also currently missing the various peoples and the dragons which will all be added at the end. Just a couple more days to get it and the others completed for the EOW challenge -- in between the paying projects that also have deadlines next week, d'oh!

But, that's part of the fun, too.

More EOW: The Mountain Progress

It's been alot of fun pulling this image from my head into Photoshop after visualizing this particular scene from the book for so many years. Still in progress, after about an hour of coloring before the storms hit last night. :)

EOW Progress: The Mountain concept

Just found out this morning that there's been a change to the deadline for the ConceptArt.org EOW challenge -- yay! Even a few extra days will help me juggle these concepts in and around my job projects for a bit more polish.

Meanwhile, I've posted a progress shot from one of my Pern epic environment concepts: "The Mountain". I plan on posting a series of progress images here and on my CA sketchbook once I've finished them all. Lots to do yet for this, but you can see that I've done a quick pass on the background imagery, potential lighting and palette.

You can see the original thumbnail sketch for this here. OK, back to work!

Latest Environment Thumb...

I went back and forth about determining that final EOW concept scene -- whether to go with Ruatha Hold during a celebration or Gather of some kind, or maybe some other scene related to Landing and AIVAS. Finally decided to float above both of those and go with a key scene from "All the Weyrs of Pern" -- the Yokohama spaceship.

The two images I posted will likely be merged somehow for the final environment concept so that just the edge of Pern and the Yokohama is showing and there will still be a view into the bridge where Ruth is floating and gazing down through the window at Pern and the Southern Continent so far below...

Another Quick Thumb...

I decided to include Half-Circle Sea Hold as one of my selected environments for the EOW challenge. Here's the quick thumbnail sketch that I did the other evening (took a break from all art yesterday to celebrate Thanksgiving with friends -- yay! -- still feel full from all the lovely foods....mmm.). Anyways, I've already decided on some layout changes to this one to better frame the Sea Hold docking cavern; and of course, will be including people to help show scale and context (particularly for those unfamiliar with the various Pern locales).

Some Quick Thumbs...

Here are some quick environment thumbnail sketches I did for my EOW epic last night. I've already rethought the layout on two of them. :) I might end up doing a bowl-side view from the Hatching Caverns instead of the current aerial view...well, we'll see. I've been thinking that I may end up doing interior scenes for the final two environments, too. I'll decide tonight for sure. Time is running out!

It's Gonna Be Epic!

Had just a bit of that nostalgia feeling while doing some minor research today for the current ConceptArt.org Environment of the Week (EOW) challenge. It's the 100th challenge, so the topic has been appropriately selected as "Epic", and for my epic series narrative selection: Anne McCaffrey's Pern. Yup -- that's my not-so-great first acrylic painting posted above that I did in high school some 20 + years ago -- totally inspired by those dragons, that world, and Michael Whelan's interpretation of the same. Now, I've got to come up with something completely different! And, also still not in the direction that Tony DiTerlizzi went with his Pern version. :) The challenge deadline is December 9th to give us all enough time to come up with concept art that meets the following criteria:

• Come up with an epic narrative (my pick, "Pern")
• Your epic saga of choice is going to be pitched as an RPG
• You create 5 different environment concepts from this narrative
  
• The art must be cohesive (in other words they all need to be from the same artist style, same world and be visually designed)
  
• Presentation of your five Enviros and the design of the layout and titling counts!
  
• As does a consideration of the possible player demographic of your game.

In any case, this project will give me a great opportunity to rapidly develop some additional environment concepts which I've been lacking in my portfolio. Sketches I have plenty of, heh. This rather topsy-turvy year has somewhat allowed me to continue to revise and update my online portfolio to include more of the kinds of artwork and project opportunities that I would like to be working on all (or at least most) of the time, rather than the extremely varied art and design projects that I've done in the past just so I could pay the bills. :)

Anyways, as a long-time fan of the original Dragonriders of Pern I'll enjoy pulling out a few of those visuals that have been stuck in my head for so many years from reading and re-reading the two series (Dragonriders of Pern and the Harper Hall trilogy) from elementary school through college. Ok, alright -- I admit I still re-read the Harper books every now and again (and, nope -- I don't plan to read the new ones).

Introducing Norbert

Yes, this is a drawing of Norbert. Where did I meet him? Well, I had a dream about him the other night. Not entirely sure what made me imagine this kind of a character since I haven't been drawing any dinosaurs or reptiles of any sort lately. My more recent projects involved creating art about Christmas, crystals, canids, and comics...but no reptiles. Hmm. And, just how do I know his name is Norbert -- well, in that dream I asked the safari guide what he called him (this was a rather convoluted dream), but he hadn't given the creature a name; so in honor of Hagrid's baby dragon (you know the one...from Harry Potter) I had decided to call him Norbert.

He's a juvenile of his kind of whatever they are. I don't remember that part if I ever knew. And as a juvenile he's actually about the size of a camel which is rather bigger than a large dog. When we were "introduced"...I remember I had my back turned to the tent opening (I was unpacking my bag on the cot), felt somebody nudge me on the back, and when I turned around I just about freaked out because of all of Norbert's rather large sharp and many teeth right in my face (!) but luckily he just wanted to be petted.

The guide also told me that Norbert had kind of adopted the tourist group as his own herd. This turned out to be a good thing because the adult versions of Norbert weren't quite as friendly although they were happy to see us...as dinner. I do remember seeing an adult checking us out when we were walking along the river, but I didn't see the entire body...just the rather large head floating alongside, about the size of a mid-size car, and later the large and vicious claws when he reached out to grab some "food" that happened to be walking along the riverbank. I think that, like the hippopotamus, the adult versions of Norbert tend to spend most of the day floating in the water and, then like the Nile crocodiles...they reach out suddenly to snatch their prey whether above, below, or beside the river. But, they do have those rather long and sturdy legs, like the dinosaurs...so I imagine they could still trot right on out of the water if they felt like it...or were hungry enough.

Yeah, this dream had an edge of nightmare about it. But, Norbert was sweet. I'd like to write about him in one of my stories some day. :)

International Self-Portrait Day

It's International Self-Portrait Day over on the ConceptArt forums. Above was my quick contribution for this year. Yeah, no pink in the hair. For now. Posted the initial pencil sketch below, which was colored in PS7 as usual and posted above. Hmm...about an hour coloring.

In other news...keeping rather busy with freelance. Lots of creative juggling.

Happy Halloween!!

Many wishes for Happy Halloween fun scares and tasty treats!
The usual before and after sketches: pencil line-art below, color version (in PS7) above.

Almost Fall Fairy

We're supposed to finally get a real cool front in the next couple of days, dropping the temperature (at least at night) to 40F for a few days. That will be lovely. So, in tribute to the cooling weather and the Fall season, here's this year's Fall Fairy sketch. :)

Sketch

I'm a bit busy...all kinds of creative stuff going on. I'll post more about that later. Anyways, here's a quick sketch from the sketchbook. I'll post a quick color version later. :)

Orphan Works: Proposed Legislation Adversely Affecting Artists' Copyrights Just Won't Die

I read this post over on the SCBWI board today and it pretty much states what I'm thinking, too:

"I've been contacting my representatives all week -- I hope they're not sick of hearing from me yet.

I find it especially disturbing the way this is being done.

First it was "hotlined" on Friday evening and passed in the Senate.

Next, first thing Tuesday morning a statement was issued to Wired magazine online by a lobbyist that the bill was dead for this legislative session. That article quickly spread around the blogosphere and a collective sigh was heard. Not that I'm big into conspiracy theories but I do have to wonder exactly who's side that lobbyist was working for.

The IPA was an organization that did not take the bait and continued to urge action on the part of independent creatives.

Now the vote is being cast just as the first VP debate is going on.

This legislation, as currently written, has always been and continues to be a sledgehammer approach to a problem that requires a scalpel solution."

And then received another email today from the Illustrators' Partnership of America that's definitely worth sharing:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS' PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works: "We Are Our Work" Voices from the SBA Roundtable 10.3.08 Tell Congress that corporation lobbyists don't speak for us. Here's where they can go to hear the real voices of artists. "I fought for the rights of Superman's creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster. Others made millions while Superman's creators lived in near poverty. Jerry was a clerk and Joe was a legally blind man who lived in his brother's apartment, slept on a cot and worked as a messenger. "I met and fought for their small remaining rights when they both turned only 60 years old...The battle took months and the settlement was meager, but it let the men live the remaining years of their lives with dignity. "You know what they cared about most? They cared about having their names once again associated with their character, Superman! Why? Because it was what they were as people. They were their work. Why do we have copyright law? Because we wish to protect people and their creations, even if they are 'hard to locate.'" --"Orphaned Works Legislation," by Neal Adams, Artist For this and more written statements you can use as talking points Go to: Orphan Works: "We Are Our Work": http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/10/orphan-works-we-are-our-work.html The SBA Roundtable is the only forum so far conducted by the government to consider the economic impact of the Orphan Works Act on creators. These are the real voices of the creative community. Tell Congress not to accept substitutes! - Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Board of the Illustrators' Partnership Please post or forward this message immediately to any interested party. _______________________________________________________________ For news and information: Illustrators' Partnership Orphan Works Blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/ Over 75 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. U.S. Creators and the image-making public can email Congress through the Capwiz site: http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/home/ 2 minutes is all it takes to tell the U.S. Congress to uphold copyright protection for the world's artists. INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS please fax these 4 U.S. State Agencies and appeal to your home representatives for intervention. http://www.illustratorspartnership.org/01_topics/article.php?searchterm=00267 CALL CONGRESS: 1-800-828-0498. Tell the U.S. Capitol Switchboard Operator "I would like to leave a message for Congressperson __________ that I oppose the Orphan Works Act." The switchboard operator will patch you through to the lawmaker's office and often take a message which also gets passed on to the lawmaker. Once you're put through tell your Representative the message again. If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place "Add Name" in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

STOP THE U.S. ORPHAN WORKS ACT NOW.

Little Girl Lost sketch

A quick sketch and Photoshop coloring job to test some brushes I modified. Before sketch (blue pencil as usual posted below) and after (posted above) with quick coloring in Photoshop.

Pencil in Progress

One of my rough pencil explorations for a sequential art project I'm in the middle of developing. Something different than the stuff I usually do (you know -- cute, sweet, and probably something with lots of Christmas sprinkles), so it's becoming a fun challenge and giving me the opportunity to stretch my skills in a direction that I've been really wanting to do. I'm enjoying it. :)

Mermaid variation

One of the early sketches for a small project I'm doing.

Illustration Friday: Canned

Initial sketch for the latest Illustration Friday project, "Canned".

Sketches

Nothing to say at the moment, other than I'm keeping busy. Here are a few recent doodles from the sketchbook.

Pixie Dixie photos

Working on a bit of this and that...but either can't post it just yet, or it has to wait till later this week or next (personal illustration art -- more adventure bits and pieces, of course!). In the meantime, here are a couple of quick photos that I took of my mousie, Pixie Dixie. She has to be the friendliest mouse that I've ever had the chance to meet. You can see just a bit of my cat, Tabby, in the bottom photo: patches of orange and gray stripes from her right flank.