Locked & Loaded

Many, many moons ago when I was a student, one of my professors gave me a project that nearly killed the class. He gave us dimensions and a due date but then told us that we could create whatever we wanted. We had become so accustomed to taking orders and solving other peoples problems that most of us (including myself) didn't have a voice of our own. I had to quickly discover what kind of things interested me. While I'm a big fan of comics, music plays a much bigger role in my life.


The piece above is from Aerosmith's "Janey's Got a Gun." I'm not completely finished with it but I wanted to lay it out in Illustrator before taking it into Photoshop. I strayed away from the sketch and now it seems to have lost some of the impact that the sketch has but it's still the same basic composition. You'll also see that I corrected the spelling of the song from the thumbnail sketch. Now I'll just make notes on what to correct and get back to it.

King of the Sea

For the most part this is the final. I still have a lot of details that I'd like to zoom in and take care of at a later time. As an update from the last post, I've added a map to the background so that it's not just canvas. The map is part of the coast of Ireland. I also included a collar and more definition to his chest. On to the next piece.

Making Progress

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Here's a brief update on Aquaman. View number one is the progress that I've made from the last Aquaman post. Since then I've added more detail to the face along with more contrast. In addition to working on the face I've the shoulders and a background color to help him stand out.

After taking a step back to really look at it I knew that the green in view number one was too bold so I lowered the opacity to let some of the canvas texture show through. Next, I painted a scale and cloned it. This made life a whole lot easier than painted each scale. Again I lowered the opacity on the scales to let the texture of the canvas and the base color of the outfit dictate the color. Just a little bit further to go.

Deep Sea Painting

This is the updated version of Aquaman. After deciding on what sketch to render I added a toned canvas, that I scanned in earlier, over the first layer of the sketch. I lowered the opacity of the tone canvas layer in order to see my sketch. Even when I paint traditionally I use a toned canvas. It really helps to unify the colors as you're painting and it's better than working against white.
When I paint digitally I like to paint with brushes that have brush like tips. I'm ol school so it's easier for me to work as if I'm working on a traditional painting.

I had a lot of fun painting his face. I'm not sure as to just how many colors I used but since the layer was semi transparent I was able to achieve colors and effects that I couldn't if the layer was opaque. I thought that it would be appropriate to make the skin pigment a little brighter and more intense than normal since he is a superhero. On to the next step.

Submerged In Progress

This is the initial sketch of my Aquaman portrait. Why Aquaman? Well, one of my favorite cartoons and superhero groups was the Justice League. Aquaman was part of the original cartoon but I always felt that he didn't get nearly the attention or fan fair that Superman, Batman and Wonderwoman received. In addition, I rarely come by Aquaman artwork. This is more for my own leisure than anything.

I'm going to work on top of the sketch in Photoshop for now. I don't foresee any problems with getting the effect that I want but I may take it into Painter as well. I'll add a map and a canvas texture for the background and to give the piece a more artsy feel instead of graphic. Let's see where this goes.

Process Works

I can't tell people enough as to just how important process work is. Most outsiders from the art world don't get a chance to see all of the prep work that goes behind a good art. Process work is important for those artist who create representational work as well as abstract art. Many people, including artist, believe that a major part of the creative process is 50% luck. This may be true for some but what's the success rate? How many canvases or, in this case, files do you go through. How many hours have you wasted playing on dumb luck? Here's a short string of process work that I used while working on an illustration for Highlights Magazine. This piece in particular was completed traditionally with oils but i still apply the same process to digital work.

As images I enjoyed the first couple of layouts but I had to think in terms of the intent of the image and the text that would accompany the artwork. After looking through several reference photos...here's the final.

Low Goes

Creating a logo for yourself can be hard for some. A great deal of it depends on the initials that you're given to work with. The logo above is my own. It didn't just spring to me over night or over weeks for that matter. My first attempt at creating a logo for myself fell short because my concnetration was on the "W" and not the "S." I'm sure that there are several logos that can be made with "W" as the primary but that doesn't meant that it'll reflect me as a person and an artist. It took time but it finally came to me.