More bits and pieces...

First off i just saw that the lovely Courtney Brims has a new flash site with some cool new work, if you havent already, go check out her work, the flash makes the site a little slow to actually view the full-size images- although it could just be my connection.. still great work anyway.



Secondly, Diskursdisko have a good interview up with Kevin Dart. Kevins work on his Yuki 7 project seems to be everywhere at the moment- and rightly so, its beautifully crafted and imagined. I have been a fan of his work for years, ever since i started seeing his retro posters start appearing in places like cgTalk and its a real pleasure to see the Yuki work gain momentum! Check out the interview with him here.



Im postponing my process piece about the book cover for Forbidden Sea, ive had another last minute alteration and until i get an official sign-off from the publishers i cant really do anything about posting any images up. Hopefully i will be able to sort it out next week.

Something i just wanted to share on a tech type note, recently my secondary monitor started packing in so i purchased a new tft, i run a dual screen setup so i have a 24" w/s for my working area and upgraded from an old 15" to a 22" w/s for palettes from apps like photoshop, painter, illustrator and the like and have room to have mail or anything else open i should need. Anyway, after adding the larger monitor and reorganizing my palettes etc i noticed a really bad lag while painting in photoshop. I would do a brush stroke and then the timer would appear for a second as if the CPU was stressed a bit just by the application of a few pixels. Not a major thing but irritating. So thinking it would likely be the graphic card drivers or the OS needing updates etc i did the usual updates and promptly killed my system.

Now i would think that if you got the latest drivers for your graphics card it wouldnt mean a near terminal problem for the machine but thats exactly what happened. So after wasting practically an entire day messing around un-installing driver, rebooting and traveling back in time i got the system stable again and cleaned up. After thinking that it may be the higher res of the new monitor killing the graphics card then finding that it probably wasnt the problem, i turned my attention to photoshop itself- after all, thats where my original problem started.

After more research and trying various possible fixes it turned out to be something so stupid i almost wept. With my new found screen real-estate i had opened the info palette (as well as a few others i dont usually have active), turns out that was the problem. Working on hires files which have quite a few layers, the info palettes live updates on x/y, color etc was basically killing the CPU. Close it off- no more irritating timer lag! Bear this in mind if you start noticing the same behavior from PS.

All work, work, work...

Ive been pretty slack on the posting for a while, this is in part due to my somewhat absent mindedness of late and the recent beavering away on a couple of jobs. With those two looking like theyre pretty much wrapped up i can get back to having a look around the old interweb and see what ive been missing out on.

So much awesome work is being generated at the moment, its quite hard to know what to look at first, Nate Frizzell has a couple of new pieces on show (or at least new to me) make sure you stop by his blog and check out what hes been up to.



Tessar Lo has added a few more pieces to his portfolio site, this one seems to be a favorite among quite a few fans but seems like no-one else has mentioned the 'barely there' face in the landscape, im sure its reminiscent of a dream that many have had.



I discovered Kristina Collantes work awhile back and have just seen her site update with these cool Microscopics pieces...



Fecal Face have a good interview and studio visit with sculptor/artist AJ Fosik who currently has a show running at the White Walls Gallery in SF. Check out the interview here.



I could carry on with posting interesting bits and bobs ive found but theres far better places for you to find this sort of stuff so i will leave it there!

With any luck i will be making a process post about the book cover ive just completed for Scholastic, a watery mermaid piece thats come out rather well after a somewhat shaky start. Heres a small preview, im off for some medication to combat a cold i seem to have picked up from my daughter and to start sketching up some characters for a new job.

Fledgling process

Finished up on this the other day and thought i would share a (somewhat longer) process post. First up heres the initial sketch drawn up in artrage on a neutral ground, this is drawn out at the same dimensions as the final artwork- (an a4 plus bleed document) once thats drawn out quite roughly in blue i neaten things up using a normal graphite color- namely the face as thats where the focus of the painting will be.

Still in artrage some texture gets blocked in using the oil textures and pallet knife. Then i can move over to painter and get the flesh painted in using the oil brushes and then its all photoshop from here on. Panel 3 shows the base shape of the hair painted in using a rough, almost fur or grass type brush.



This is painted on a few different layers and then merged together when im happy with the shape. A layer mask is added and using the same brush- but a lot finer, I paint in the mask to clean up the shape of the hair- it also allows you to create gaps in thicker strands to allow light through and also is non destructive to the original paint.



The next 2 panels show the detail being added, using a combination of brushes and the blur tool- layers are built up over the base hair layer as 'clipping masks', meaning that when you paint on each consecutive layer, paint is only visible where it overlays the base hair layer. Once the detail and form is done, final tweaks can be made- including a layer, set to color with reduced opacity where a tint of pink and blue is added.

The Third panel shows the vest started- a dark gray base shape layer is marked in using the pen tool then a solid white fill adjustment layer is created above and 'clipped' to the base shape. Then the folds are brushed in on the layer mask. This has the advantage of letting you adjust colors quite far down the process without too much hassle.



Further layers of texture and pattern are added to the vest stack using a variety of blending modes and opacities. The rest of the clothing is handled in a similar fashion, the jumper gets a basic shape drawn out with the pen tool which is saved and used as a group mask in which multiple layers of texture are added, each having their own masks which are in turn brushed using various textures. As the lower half of the body is only going to be partially viewable i dont worry about being too precise in creating her pelvis and thighs- painted in using a default hard edged brush does the job.

Once the clothing is done, each items group (eg the vest is one group of layers, the jumper is in another and finally the waist down) gets a mask and more texture is added, this is done in a couple of ways- texture brushes roughly painted in and also taken from texture photos. A pretty simple way of doing this is to find something with a suitable contrast, paste the image in on top of where you would like to add the texture. Once its there lower the opacity so you can align or scale it to your liking, reset the opacity to 100 and go to the channels tab, choose the best channel for the textures contrast and ctrl click the thumbnail. This loads the channel as a selection, hide the actual pasted texture layer, select your group mask and paint some black over the selection.



Next the background texture is created at the bottom of the layer stack, using some photo texture, brushes and masking. Back up at the top- the thread lines are simple paths drawn with the pen tool and 'stroked' with a default brush set with a pixel or two of blur and 'simulate pressure' checked. The resulting lines are slightly blurred and enhanced, grouped within a folder where yet another mask is made and areas brushed out and softened.

Finally in a separate top folder, additional texture, vector details, accent colors and touch-ups are made before a flattened version gets a small amount of noise added.

Final artwork and details.

Portrait drawing test

Recently i decided it would be a good idea to put pencil to paper- just so i remember what the hell it feels like. Unfortunately, working digitally its all too easy to forget how to draw / paint, not having 'undo' and the myriad of tools available in applications like painter and photoshop can actually be a daunting prospect. So here is the result- i took a few process shots on my phone so forgive how bad they look- the final drawing was scanned in, hence the better quality. Quite happy how it turned out and can now get back to my wacom with a slight sense of relief that i hadnt forgotten everything.

The Illustration Academy

Ive just discovered that the Illustration Academy have added a new section to their site, the Visual Literacy Program. It gives a selection of podcasts, blogs and forum and has in its list some fantastic illustrators. Check out the new section here.

Shown here are works by: Mark English, Jon Foster and Sterling Hundley