Storm

I've been feeling pretty jazzed with the drawing lately, so I thought I'd take Storm off the Req-a-sketch list. I did a hurried version of this a couple minutes before bed in a hotel somewhere in Utah, planning to get back to it once I returned home. Of course, once home, I promptly tucked the sketchbook that I had taken with me into a drawer and forgot about it (why use paper when you have a shiny computer, right?) until just recently. Pulled it out a couple days ago and finally got some time tonight to see where I could take it.

Clearly I took some  liberties with the character design, running off the idea that Ororo the weather shaping mutant was worshiped as a goddess by her tribe while growing up, and imagining where that might take her were she to have stayed. I played a lot with perspective here, and I'm pretty happy with the results. Hopefully it's something I'll be able to do more of in the near future.

In other, likely interesting to no one but me, news... I do believe I've made an official edit to my signature. As you can see in the above pic, I added the year underneath my little scribble, and I'm quite liking the way it looks. I used to put dates of some kind or another on my work ages ago, before I had really settled on a signature of any kind, and it's something that proves quite valuable. At times when you feel like you've hit a wall and just aren't growing as an artist, it's important to be able to take a quick look into your past to see where you came from, and understand your development as a function not just of effort and skill, but of time as well.

Aaaaand that's it for me. It's almost time for my wife to get up and head off to work, which means it's far past the time when I should have packed it in...

G'night! 

DD

I'm taking a lot longer with these than I'd like to admit (they're supposed to be quick, loose, and experimental) but I'm consistently pleased with the results, so I can't chastise myself too much. Spent between 3 - 5 hours on this one, which is about twice as much as I'd hoped. The goal here was to nail the expression, but I found myself spending a lot of time working, and then re-working, the lighting of the brow and the space around the horns. In the end though, I'm gonna claim success (largely so that I can move on guilt free), and ignore the fight for attention going on between the eyes and the rim lighting of his head.

Moving right along!

Topical, No?

Not that I've actually seen the new movie mind you, Nolan's interpretation just doesn't do it for me, so it's not something I'm going to rush out to see. I am experimenting with shadowy painting though, and you don't get much more "shadowy" than the Bat.

This one's pretty minimal, but I really liked the way the face turned out, as well as some of the strokes. Could use a bit more substance in the lower section though.

I'm flipping back to spending time on the commissions I've got sitting on my desk, so it'll probably be a few days until the next one of these hits. That said, I'm having a blast with them, so maybe I'll find some time.

Punisher

Playing around with this new brush and I thought I'd do a series of these black back paintings. This Punisher is the one that followed Spidey, and I've got a Batman in the wings, along with a Daredevil and a Black Panther coming next. I'll probably cap myself at 13 pieces, so if there's any that you'd really love to see let me know and I'll consider popping it on the list. I'd really like to get some female characters in, but currently can't think of any past Black Cat and Catwoman.

As for this piece in particular, I had a lot of fun working on the face (what you can see of it anyways) as I've never painted skin before. I've read a bit about it in ImagineFX and online and had a bit of an idea about what I wanted to do (like trying to suggest pores in the skin), but it's still very much a first attempt. I quite like how quickly these come out, though to be honest I spent a lot more time making correction with Punisher that I'd like to admit. Bats came out damn fast though, and I'm hoping the same will go for the rest.

Fingers crossed!

Here comes the Spider-maaaaaannnnnn!

Picked up a digital painting tutorial from DART a couple days ago and whipped this up while experimenting with the brushes that were included with the download. I'm pretty floored with the way the brushes work, and will likely be deconstructing/rebuilding them for weeks to come. I'd like to get handle on this style so that I can use it for the next Red Cape piece.

While I was setting things up over at CAF I found that they run a monthly sketch group, and conveniently enough this months challenge is "Spider-man, Batman, or both", so I'll be posting this there as well. I don't know what the other topics have been (there's no list that I can find) but I'm going to assume that I'll be tempted to take part each month. Fingers crossed that it leads to some great new art!