Tuesday, February 26, 2013

Week 8 Is Dog Tired

Actually I'm not especially tired right now, nor am I tired of working on this but I ran out of bad dog jokes. I'm content with it and thus shall leave it as is. It's not meant to be perfect, just fun.

Also I've started my next painting. It's inspired by Crime and Punishment and will depict some symbolism Rodion Romanavich's inner conflict.

Sunday, February 24, 2013

Week 8 Is Having A Dog-Gone Good Time

These titles really are growing steadily worse this week.

It would have been easy to finish this today, but since I'm ahead I might as well pace myself. The anatomy on the wolves could likely stand to be better, but I'm doing this for fun and relaxation so it's not going to bother me much.

Saturday, February 23, 2013

Week 8's Three Dog Night

And the awful dog puns continue. It took forever for me to feel like working on this today but it was mercifully quick work once I did. All this leaves is figuring out the color of Jean's shirt and adding in highlights and shadows. His shirt will likely be a dark blue, since that's the color I associate with him. I can't help it that the sky just happens to be blue as well.


Thursday, February 21, 2013

Week 8 Is Working Like A Dog

Let's see how many bad dog jokes I can make until this drawing is finished.

Not much to say other than that, really. The progression is pretty obvious. Hey it's Friday tomorrow, cut me some slack.

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Week 7 Conks out and Week 8 Rises

Right now I'm caught between never wanting to see this painting again and seeing where I could easily come back and fix things. Due to poor Katniss' very masculine build here my professor thought it was a commentary on gender and could be a drag show or something of that variety. This made him happy, which is good, but that's honestly not what I want. I think when I come back to it I'm going to totally re-do all the places where you can see her skin as well as her hair. I do like her dress though.

Since I had the motivation and the extra time tonight, I started Week 8. Actually I re-re-started Week 8 after trying to put it on paper twice and failing miserably. Some things just have to be digital to work for me nowadays. That and after cramming a painting into six days I think I earned some tablet drawing.

The subject matter is fan art of a character I haven't drawn in a while. He's a werewolf of sorts and to me it would be a fun quirk if he communicated with dogs (including wolves) well enough to chill out with them. The wolves are possibly way too large, but that's deliberate.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Week 7 Crawls Towards the Finish

What I'm looking forward to the most this week is being finished with this painting. I took a break from it yesterday, which was a relief.  My eyes needed a rest from looking at all of the errors. This morning I did some touching up and added some flames that hopefully look like they are twirling with her dress. Tonight the game plan is to stay up until it's finished and then collapse into a satisfied heap in my bed.

Week 8 is going to be something fun and completely self-indulgent.


Sunday, February 17, 2013

More of Week 7

This is growing incredibly boring. But, an assignment is an assignment. Also it came to my attention by staring at this painting too long that Katniss looks like a line-backer so I'm trying to slim her down considerably. This photo was taken with flash on so you could at least see more of it. The sad truth remains that there will only be a decent photo of it once it's in the studio at the school.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

Week 7 Shuffles

There's not a whole lot added to this update, but there is some. It's difficult to time building up paint when the whole thing is drying slower due to the cold (oils dry faster in heat). But it is slowly turning into what it needs to. I'm confident in finishing by Wednesday. Tomorrow I hope to add the final highlights and low-lights to Katniss' skin and maybe start detailing her hair so it's actually visible. I took this one during daylight so the lighting is slightly less awful.


Friday, February 15, 2013

Week 7 Brightens Up A Bit

I apologize that this isn't as clear as I would like. My apartment has terrible electric lighting and I couldn't use natural light because it was dark outside when I took the photo.

Anyway, just blocked in some more details and the shape of the dress. Whoosh!


Thursday, February 14, 2013

Week 7 Has A Late Start

The lack of updates over the past few days is due to school continuing to be a cruel mistress with high demands that are never met. These demands include having to start over on my painting for class. The other concept is actually too illustrative  and since it's a painting class, the piece needs to be universally readable, meaning you can make something of it whether you're "in" on the subject or not.

Though I'm going to take a different approach, The Hunger Games will still be the subject matter. I'm keeping the other painting because I like it for what it is, but since I have until Wednesday for my second attempt, it's going to be the Weekly Art this time.

The new idea is a portrayal of Katniss in her interview dress, doing the awesome twirl that shows the fake fire effect. You can see (maybe) an animated GIF of that here.


Sunday, February 10, 2013

Week 6 Is Satisfied

Well, it is unless I find a typo in the required text I had to add. That wouldn't shock me in the least, but that's why I still have it as a multi-layer file as well, for easy fixing. I'm putting it up with text so maybe if someone else spots an error they can let me know.

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Week 6 Drags Its Feet

This week has been busy with little time (or motivation) to work on the poster for the contest. I toyed with giving up but after coming this far I will make myself finish even if I don't like it enough to enter it on March 2nd. Hopefully the girl looks more "Disney Princess" than "anime girl".
Also, started adding Katniss and Peeta to the top of the painting. She looks weird and blobby right now but hopefully once I add more highlights and detail to her hair so you can actually see it, she'll look better. Also the numbers are more annoying than I expected.

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Week 6 Realizes This Is Silly But Continues Anyway

As the title implies, I came to a realization while working on the drawing this evening. That is that I will no longer be living in this city during the Renaissance Fair for which this poster is being drawn. I will be busy settling into a new life and won't make a trip back the weekend of the fair, mostly because it's really small and partly because it's unlikely I'll have the energy.

That, however, doesn't mean I'm going to just put a stop to the drawing. Practice is practice and it's always healthy.The slight chance of winning $200 or $100 doesn't hurt either, nor does being able to say that I entered the contest on a resume. Not only that but I'll have to put text on this thing, which will also be worth my time to practice.

I updated with a close-up screenshot of Paintool SAI this time because all the work I did was on the girl and a full shot wouldn't really focus on that too well.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Week 5 Waves Goodbye and Week 6 Arrives

Aside from the fact that this looks nothing like Jensen Ackles anymore, the print turned out decently. I'm not sure what went wrong there.

Lithography is stressful (partly because of my instructor) and I plan to never do it again. Ever.

On a happier, more relaxed note, I started Week 6 last night at a craft night get together with a friend. The local Renaissance Fair is having a poster contest and it wouldn't hurt to enter. The theme is Springtime. I did a lost last night but there are far more details to add. The deadline is March 2nd, but no harm in having it done early and being able to fix anything before-hand.


Monday, February 4, 2013

This is Not for Week 5

No, indeed it is not. It is, however, my current painting project for class. It's another conceptual book cover, this time for The Hunger Games. It's going to be far more symbolic than the last one, but the book itself uses a lot of symbolism.



The Roman numerals will all be white with dripping blood in them (hey it's a very macabre book), and there will be a forest on fire at the top with silhouettes of Peeta and Katniss at the top of the "clock" where the 12 is. I'm considering using a bow and arrow for the clock hands.

None of that probably makes any sense at all unless you've read the book or seen the movie, but I'll explain it more as the painting progresses and makes more sense in and of itself. Also my canvas was lop-sided when I took the photo. The numbers need work but they are straighter than that.

Friday, February 1, 2013

Week 5 - He's a Son of a Gun

This morning I finished drawing on the lithography stone and there progress will halt until I print on Tuesday morning. There will only be eight prints on nice paper from this. After that the stone has to be washed off so that the next person can use it. I've already decided to give one away, but I'll hold onto the rest as long as I can.

In other news, my new computer has arrived! I picked it up from the Post Office this morning. The "shell" of it is an old Thinkpad, but the internal workings are wonderful and smooth. As long as it works the exterior isn't a big deal to me. It's running Windows 7 beautifully and I'm very grateful to have Google Chrome back, plus a large screen.

The mass installation of all my software will take place tonight once I'm home from work.