Owen's The Magic Feather Sketch

So this is my sketch for the Flight assignment.  Boy on a fish.  I always like working in some magical items like the wish bone and the stone with a hole in it hanging from the tail fin.  Let me know if there is anything I should change or add, but I'm pretty happy how it is.

The Magic Feather Sketch, Pencil on Strathmore 2ply, 11" x 17", 2010.

Owen's Flying Thumbs

So these are my plans: to make a fish fly via a magic feather held by a young boy riding on said fish's back.  I think the bottom version is the best, the other versions weren't dynamic/ looked like the fish was falling.  Thats kinda all I have to say about that, if ya'll have any ideas/comments let me know.

Becca's "Flight" Sketch

So I'm torn. I have been wanting to paint an owl for a while now, but, as the girl who grew up totally obsessed with horses, a pegasus would be pretty sweet too. In all of the thumbnails, the main character is a girl of about 11 or 12, who is on some sort of adventure (in the last sketch I included a little sister type of character too). I am going to have a lot of fun designing her outfit/accessories...not sure yet if she should have an weapons (I gave her a bow and arrow in one sketch). I want this to be a fairly close-up shot, with the idea that it would be a book cover. Thoughts?

Scott's Flight Sketch

Here's a small sketch I had done when I first came up with this project. The image is of two adventuring children around the age of 12-14. One is a girl and the other is a boy...and they are flying on the back of a type of dragon-bird. They are with a guide of sorts, but I'm still not quite sure how i want to portray him/her. They are being taken to a rocky island that has a magnificent highly fortified village on it. The first one is a bit of a small abstract thumbnail that I scribbled out while at work. The second is a slightly more refined sketch. I think I like the more downward view of the first one. Gives a bit more forced perspective and feeling of height. Any thoughts and comments would be great! Can't wait to see the others!

Next Project: Flight!

Now that the Witch project has come to a close (we'll pretend we didn't notice Becca), it's time to get going on our next one!

This project will be to produce a cover illustration for a young adult fantasy book. This way we can incorporate a bit of a different age group to our typical images, and open up our portfolios to a slightly different market in the fantasy genre.

The image should be based on the word "flight." It can be incorporated in any way you'd like...as big or as small an element you'd prefer. For example, the character could be fliying, or there could just be a butterfly somewhere in the image...it's up to you!

Dates

Sketches: 4/23

Reference/Drawing: 4/30

Final: 5/15

Through the Woods Painting

This is my retooling of the witch sketch I did.  It's cropped in a bit, and I did a bit of experimenting.  I gave the trees a bit of texture with a bit of sculpting medium, and after doing the ground color I dripped a very thinned out grayish purple throughout the piece to give it an eerie feeling to the atmosphere.  I love the outcome. I will definitely work that into more of my future work; I especially love what it did to the bark texture.  

Since posting this the first time I have realized that I got the colors and levels completely wrong and have thusly changed it to be a bit more close to the actual painting.  Hope this makes it easier to see.

Through the Woods, 10"x 14", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2010.

Witch Final

Here's my final for the witch project. It was fun to throw this piece together. Most of it is made up from my head...i had some reference for the lighting kind of, and the bird, but pretty much just winged it the rest of the way. It was a nice difference from my usual extensive reference taking and gathering, and instead of just copying I was painting and playing. Is it my best piece ever? probably not, but it sure was a fun little image to make, and gave me a bit more confidence to be more loose with my reference taking and adherence to the exactness of my photos. Looking forward to see the others!

Color Comp

Here's a quick color comp I did last night for the witch painting. I also played with adding the skull on a pike between her hands to deal with the tension issue that Becca had mentioned. Does it work any better? Any opinions on the colors? I want to keep it fairly unified, with her skin being the one of the few non-brown/reddish orange things. I'd like it to be more of a dull deathly purple of sorts.

Witches Painting Project

The Magic Circle by JW Waterhouse

Happy April Fools Day!

While this may be a day of deceit and debauchery, we are not joking when we say that we are starting a new painting project, inspired by our last drawing project, on none other than those wiley, wizened witches!

This is a very open-ended project, and may be based on the drawings done for the previous witches assignment. New drawings may be posted any time, but since we already have some drawings critiqued and done there will not be a sketch phase this time - just a painting deadline.

And the deadline is... April 15th! Tax day!

Stay tuned!