slacking

Haven't had time to sketch for a while with the redevelopment of mindresin going on. It's almost there!

I happened to have cooledit installed (cooledit is oldschool -- what Audition was before Adobe bought it), so I ran a little databending on this sketch. I'll write up a tut on it later since I can't seem to find any coherent ones myself right now.

How Lemmin gets to work

Quick study of a Hezrou in artrage. I have the D&D figurine on my desk (christmas gift from Amy), with the addition of a scarily happy Lemmin Kainen riding it.

Samus - Bounty Hunter

Started this before the weekend. Probably my last Metroid thing for a while. 1920x1200 here

Parallaxin'

So the brush sets I posted a few weeks ago were created with a specific project in mind;- This site. It's a work in progress, but let me explain what's going on here.

If you load up the site and resize your browser window horizontally, you will notice a lot of the illustration elements slide along independently of each other at different speeds, in what is known as a parallax effect.

The client requested this functionality after seeing the technique used on a previous project that I was commissioned for, Reisa Elva. This time around, instead of computer generated toon-like illustrations, I chose to approach this project in a more traditional manner, with a watercolor style illustration.

Parallax sites as a whole are a fun gimmick (easter egg?), that hopefully people will at least find by accident.

Some junk I found

Cymone

Odette

ZeroSuit Samus Aran

Very pleased with how this turned out. It has its obvious flaws but it was a challenging perspective/posture to deal with, and not many people depict our favorite heroine Samus in this style. Click here for a glorious 1920x1200 wallpaper version for your enjoyment.

This took a little under a week in artrage. I greatly enjoy artrage's simplicity and stability in contrast to Painter, and the price tag is a lot more forgiving as well.

Happy Easter.

The burning white hot rage of a thousand angry suns

Last night I was witness to a rage benchmark that left me in awe. It was so inspirational I had to sketch it down immediately. It was also very understandable.

My dear Mr Fry, although the whole encounter may have been intended as tongue-in-cheek, we can probably avert further upset of legitimate New Orleans residents if we avoid electing a French Quarter 'voodoo priestess' as their representative in an interview.

Other than that, we totally love you.

Pigment Freud Watercolor Brushes Volume EINS

Here's my next set of PS brushes for you. Fun name. Preview here and download here.

Watercolor Swirly Things! Free Photoshop Brushes

Here's the first in a series of PS brush sets that I created for personal use, but decided to release for your pleasure. Swirly things!

See a preview here, or download here (25Mb). If you would like a quick and dirty guide on how to best use these brushes, I've made one for you here.

Where y'at, Spring?

srsly.

What's the deal: fashion illustration

Since early Uni, I've had a fascination with fashion illustration. I own several wonderful compilation books full of colourful and radically varying styles -- yet, I have no passion at all for actual fashion design.

Infact, I've had a hard time trying to define what exactly can be considered 'fashion illustration'. After several debates I've come to this conclusion. Take from it what you will, people more versed in the industry may have altering opinions.

Fashion illustration is not entirely subjective. you don't necessarily have to be a fashion nut to appreciate it. Like any illustration, it is the representation of the artist, and in most cases of fashion illustration the artist wants to show you something super pretty. Usually ladies.

I will never become tired observing the wonderful work of others, but the time has definitely come to put my own stuff out there. I will train and refine my technique and style, and maybe someday I'll be published in one of those books too.

Please feel free to share your own thoughts on the subject. I'll link back to some of my favourite artists in a later post. For now here's some books if you're interested:

• Fashion Illustration Next by Laird Borrelli 
• New Fashion Illustration by Martin Dawbe 
• Fashion Illustration Now by Laird Borrelli 
• Imagemakers: Cutting Edge Fashion Illustration by Martin Dawber 
• Drop Dead Cute by Ivan Vartanian

Fade out

Normally I don't like to post WIP's, but I've left this piece alone so long  that I am not sure I'll come back to it anytime soon. The idea here is mixing digital style 'glitches' and signal breaks into painting -- painting them in instead of superimposing them. I like the method enough to pursue it more, and more detail will follow when I try a new piece.

Live, damn you.

Reviving this blog with some new work. I've been finding more time to paint/sketch lately, and my Twitter isn't cutting it for me as far as updating goes.

Hush, you. Here's a 1920x wallpaper version with a hint of colour.

Gorgon