Cylon Interrogator

So one of my favorite things to do is to do drawings and paintings of my favorite loved things and then post about them. This week's post is the "Cylon Interrogator" character from Battlestar Galactica.
This was a minor character in the "Pegasus" episode..who's specialty is interrogating Cylons and forcing them to turn over secrets through means such as brutality and torture.
He didn't get enough screen time in the series, so I thought that I would do a piece dedicated to this tyrant of torture. So here is how I went about this piece..


1. So as always I started with a sketch. I wanted to have Lt. Thorn standing in the front with two armed guards in back...I did a number of sketches, and like this one the best. (below)

2. From there...I scanned the sketch into Photoshop and imported the sketch into Sketchbook Pro.
In sketchbook..I did drawing on a seperate layer and tried to capture the energy and spontaneity of the original sketch. Then on top of that layer I inked the pencils in pen. I used a heavier weight for objects that are closer and then used thinner lines for the guards in the back. (below)
**Note: I purchased a reference file/book called "Posefile Reference: Ultimate Collection". It's a reference for action poses which has been super helpful. You should def. pick it up....

3. From there I then saved the drawing in Sketchbook and then moved the drawing over to Corel Painter 11. Here I add values and tones. I would love to move to colors one day...but I think that rather than moving right into colors, I would start with values and tones first and get a lot of practice setting the feel of the drawing. Below I started with the background.

4. From there I moved to the characters themselves. I wanted to emphasize the light coming from the door, and the light from over head. So I made the shadows and the fonts of the characters darker.
If light were coming from behind, then you would see lots of shadows on the front planes of most figures. I also added a haze effect in the lights and the door (not sure if you can see it at that size). Below is the final..voila!
Hope you enjoy...more to come..

Hulk vs. Zombie

So, i'm a little late with the post this week. Had some business happen, and I was still trying to finish up this piece before I could do a post. A while back I did a Hulk vs. Zombie piece that I thought was funny and that I wanted to post. Since I love drawing, illustrating and painting I wanted to use all three to see what I could come up with. I can't paint in color well....(yet) so I decided to do a gray scale painting that would help me get some practice on using values (light medium and dark values.) I will move up to color later.

So first...

1. I started with a sketch in Sketchbook Pro

2. Next I moved to blocking in the basic colors in Painter (I think that next time I should block in colors all at once, and not just use tones on the foreground and characters first.

3. More time in Painter....adding the tones, and the backgrounds (I am not good at backgrounds..I gotta work on that)

4. I then moved back to Sketchbook to add the word balloon and final touches. and Voila!

I am psyched for how this came out, and I hope to get better as I move along.

DarkSeid Rules All

This is an illustration painting of Darkseid on Apocalypse.
I wanted to take this illustration as far as it could go, including colors and effects, etc.
I really like the way that this came out, but would love some feedback. Thanks for taking the time to look all!

DarkSeid Quick Paint

Just to keep me motivated for my bigger piece

DarkSeid Rules

This is a piece that I am going to work on over the next few weeks, and see where it goes.
This is just a line/ink drawing for now, but I will be adding color and shading and see how it looks.
It's fun to paint stuff that you are into.
I will post the final when done..

Metroid Painted Final

This one was actually the first attempt at combining illustration and experimenting with some coloring ideas. It's not the best in terms of outcomes, but I like some of the way that the lines and the colors look.
Anyway..here it is.

Hulk Painted Final (I really mean it this time)

Ok, for the final time...my Hulk, painted in Painter, sketched up in Sketch Book Pro.
I really really like, it..and I love the way that this came out. So, I think that with that, this one is done.

Letting Go of Something that Doesn't work

For those of you that know me, you know that I have to complete things. Otherwise I feel some sort of lack of accomplishment (i'm a completist). I read an article recently on Escape From Illustration Island that says that sometimes you need to let something go from a personal project perspective that isn't working.

At the end of an illustration class that I took recently, the final project was to be a three part piece that we could use as a postcard or publicity mailer. So, my idea was to develop three movie posters that would be the "tin man" from the wizard of Oz's favorite movies. My idea was to take three semi popular movies and make parodies of them.
I got through two of the pieces, and when I got to the third piece I decided that it just wasn't fun anymore and it just wasn't working.

So, I decided to let it go, and paint something else...

You can see my progress here:
(it's as far as I got)

(Here is the original movie poster below)

the moral of the story..try and pick a project that you are excited about, and it won't seem like work.
Otherwise it'll just drag and drag and drag...

Maybe I will finish it someday if I run out of other things to paint...

Water Color Test

So I haven't been able to post anything lately as I have recently gotten a book project that has taken up some of my time. However, I decided tonight to take a break and experiment with the water color brushes in Painter. they have quite the nice effect once you layer them, although I don't think that I quite got the hang of it just yet. You know what they say though, practice, practice, practice..

Anyway, more to come next week...