Another Beastie

Another beastie from an ongoing project!

His feet could be bigger and his toes more pronounced and forward rather to the sides like that! He looks bow legged. Did this while watching Rise of the Planet of the Apes. What do you think?

Thank you Photoshop!

Just finished another coloring book! I love doing coloring books! So much fun! In the process I learned how much I absolutely love Photoshop!! Thank you, thank you, thank you for Curves, Layers, Levels and Hue/Saturation! It's so easy to get tunnel vision and for your palette of colors to get way too narrow. This happened to me on the cover. Here's the image chosen by the art director to be the cover. This is just the linework that appears within the book.

I then proceeded to color it. And guess what I thought I was done. Here is that image.

After looking at it I realized that my contrast was crappy. My background was muddy. The foreground characters were getting lost. So I pulled out the Curves, Hue/Saturation and Levels to push and pull my colors. When I finally got something I liked it looked like this.

Now truth be told if I had more time I would have posted this to a few groups I frequent online and let my art peers tear into it. Pick the advice that I thought was the most on point and went back in and reworked those areas. But I am glad that I am getting better at seeing what's wrong with my own images. (Not the best, but better.)

Every image we do is a lesson to be learned about what we are bad at and need to get better and what we are good at...and still need to get better. I'll let you know when the book becomes available for purchase!! :)

Some Critters for Sunday!

Some Critters from a recent image!

Enjoy!! More on the project later!

Congrats Gabby

This started out as a warm up sketch and I decide d to try and emulate the style of Miss Vanessa Newton. Of course I come up woefully short!!! She is amazing! But enjoy the image none the less! Congrats to Gabby Douglas!!!

Process for Educational illustration

I haven't shown a process piece in a while so let's do one now! This one will be something that was done for a client. The first step: I was given a poem about a kitten and some visual direction and reference for what they wanted the image to look like. I created a sketch and sent it to them leaving the predetermined amount of space for the left side of the image.

The first step: I created a sketch and sent it to them leaving the predetermined amount of space for the left side of the image.

The second step: The feedback received was that they wanted me to zoom in on the action. Move the mouse to the left. The kitten didn't need to be under the table and use the string to allow your eye to move from left to right.I made the changes and resubmitted.

The third step: The sketch was approved for color. I proceeded to color in the image and resumbit it.

The fourth step: The feedback received was that they wanted me to show the full room and remove the white fade. They also weren't happy with the boys face and wanted more roundness and depth to it. I also adjusted the shadows, added stripes to the boys shirt, added stripes to the wall, changed the color of the string and changed the shapes and colors of the shadows.I also did some touching up to the kitten.

The fifth step: Before submitting I showed the image to a few fellow artists who noted how odd and wrong the floor patterns were. I went in and changed that as well as add additional shadows to the back wall. Then I submitted it to the client. Let's keep our fingers crossed that it's approved!!!

New Project - Bugaroos-We are what we eat!

A new project that I did a while ago with the creator Garry DeArmond at Bugaroos. I just seem to have forgotten to post about it. It doesn't seem to be available at traditional markets, but it looks like you can snag a copy here!

This job was different for me in the fact that I had to deviate from my normal style to come up with something more vector and licensed looking. For the most part the characters were already established and I needed to match what an artist had done previously. Definitely a learning experience!

I'm back!!!

What I'm working on today

I have been neglecting my poor, poor website! I've been pouring a lot of energy into my other project Once Upon A Sketch! But it's time to give my own blog some love and attention. So for the moment I'll quickly post the freelance I'm currently working on. This is an image in progress for a new book. Enjoy! I'll update it with progress later this week!