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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.