12WC: Week 5: The Strange Fruits of Labor

"Goggles"

I am happy to have pulled this piece together... finally. The ardent reader will recall that this image was actually started some 7 months ago*. It is unusual for me to put something away like this, but at the time, well, let's just say "stuff came up," and leave it at that. For the last few months this piece was actually pulled of the board that it was taped to, and stuck on my wall... staring at me... watching... waiting. Every time I worked at my desk, it would be there, looking back at me all un-done.

So, I took this opportunity to set things aright, and pulled it down from its lonley and dusty place, taped it back up and started making moves. The process was realitivley easy going, almost alarmingly so, but perhaps during its time on the wall, it was ripening. Ah, such are the fruits of labor. For this painting, I didn't stop to take process pics, things just moved along smoothly from one stage to the next.

*I'm keeping this post short, but if you're interested in the first stages and the story behind the image, please check out the first post { here }, and the second { here }

Stay tuned for more to come, there will be another painting coming up in the next two weeks. Thank you to everyone who's been leaving messages it's really great to hear from you.

Cheers,

Mutant Challenge: Small Win

Anubis; my answer to a Mutant future

Recently on Art Order, there was a Mutation Nation Contest. Basically the challenge was to come up with one of two Mutant paths; a gene splice of two critters, or an anthropomorphic blend.

My thinking that ended up leading to the painting above, is that after whatever holocaust blows us off the planet, and radically contorts all forms of life that might be left, there will be scavengers. Packs of wild creatures, roving like gypsies, mutant creatures scouring the land looking for anything of value. They would be scrappy critters with sharp pointy teeth and an insane laugh that could curdle milk. Enter the mutant dogs, half man - half jackal, and all business. Seen here in their natural habitat, the mutant dogs have ripped up anything that might be used as a bludgeon; a parking meter, a no parking sign, and "other."

Their leader, Anubis, runs an orderly, if not psycho, band of scavengers. Woe be unto those who might cross his street or per chance happen to have upon themselves a scrap of anything that he may desire, for he is quick with a smile and a laugh but he's just as quick to shred your flesh right off the bone!

For those of you still reading along { thank you } here's the process that brought about the final painting. In all honesty, I have to say that this painting is not one that I consider to be a huge triumph, more that it is a small win. I was able to finish on time to enter the contest and I was able to explore some new techniques with the airbrush. But as a finished piece, I don't think anyone will think "elegant simplicity," in other words, I think the piece is overly complicated for the requirements. Where did it go wrong, or was it ever right?

This is one of three thumbnail that I generated. The things that I like here are the saunter of the main character, and the creature in the super foreground. I felt like the creeping mutant dog in the back felt a little like "a boy and his mutant dog go for a walk," so I axed him. I did like the flotsam of fire and smoke in the background to give it that post-apocalypse feel.


A little further down the road. I am still trying to wrangle some kind of understanding/ imagineering of how these legs might work, and how the rest of the body would respond. I am struggling with the hips and the shoulders. I know there should be some kind of contropposto going on, but my result so far is very square.

The value study.

Then after showing the WIP around to some friends, I started to rework the drawing. While I was doing that I couldn't quite remedy the awkwardness of the character in the fore ground. And by awkwardness I mean "I wanted to draw those fabulous backwards dog knees." This may actually be the point when I start going downhill, I was falling in love with my drawing. My friend and drawing mentor Mark has warned me numerous times about this. I was sacrificing the piece for those hard won lines of legs.

After some friends Vaughn and Vince {see links below} helped out by sharing their observations about this drawing, I brought it to the final stage. Some of the suggestions that were made was to establish a better horizon line with some more dynamic perspective to give a better sense of space, and also to better coordinate the main character's gaze with where he's pointing.

In the end, the painting seems to be a technically well produced piece, but that it's just a little too busy for my taste. Not bad, but a beautiful looser. As the age old saying goes, "you have to paint the bad paintings too," and for me, that's OK. It feels good to know that I am still learning, and that the next piece... well the next piece will be even better.

As ever, your comments and observations are welcome and appreciated.

Cheers

Helpful Friends:
Vaughn Barker { site } and { blog }
Vincent Lee { site }
Final Challenge Gallery: come see everybody's work... it's pretty incredible!: { here }
Original Mutation Challenge page on Art Order { here }
Keep checking back for the gallery link, which will be posted here when it becomes available.

Book Cover: The Chieu Hoi Saloon

January has been a very good month, 2 book covers ~ DONE!

The past few weeks have been quite eventful. there was the Holidays, followed by New Year's eve, sprinkle in t he social events, and you've got a busy month. Some where in all that, I made time to paint 2 cover paintings for the "Switchblade Series," from PM Press. As I mentioned in my previous post , Santa brought me a great gig doing 2 book covers. I am happy to say that both covers are done and on time.

The books are stories that were outside the scope my personal work, and so I was challenged to come up with images that would be appropriate for the stories. The cover shown here is for The Chieu Hoi Saloon. The other image will be posted separately.

The folks at PM Press were very nice to work with, and they allowed me full reign on these pieces. In turn I did my best to deliver work that would be conceptually strong and technically well done. I feel good about both those aspects, but as always, there's room to grow.

Here you can begin to see the genesis of the work. I submitted a couple of concepts that were generated off of the initial brief that was sent to me. The thumbnail I chose to use has strong graphic appeal, and speaks to the story with in. As I look at other cover artists whom I admire, I am often really attracted to work that, while based in the literature, resists being literal. This is not the contradiction that it may seem to be. My endeavor is to allow room in the image for mood and tone to creep in. Bearing all this in mind, I felt that this image would work the best.

Next was to expand the image from just a cover image to a wrap-around cover.
I struggled with a few things in this image. One was the gun in the shadow. For a long time I wanted to put something in the character's hand that would possibly cast a "gun-ish" shadow. Then at some point, I remembered that this is an illustration, and not a photograph! It's funny that I should have to give my self permission to do that, but hey that's life. Another area that I worked on was the perspective, you'll notice in the sketch that the street light in the upper left corner moves from the sketch to the final. I realized that if the guy is walking and casting his shadow that way that everything else in the image should be the same. In that way the internal logic of the image wouldn't be broken.

I am very thankful for the opportunity to do these book covers and hope that it will lead to many, many more such wonderful gigs!

Check out the companion image: "Pike"