Gryphon Fetus Continued

I got my glazing medium, so I can start getting some nice nuances in color and fine detail.

I was running into some tangencies with the feet and the umbilical cord, so I went ahead and had them overlap completely. The new pose is +1 on the cuteness level.

I Made a Fetus

SCAD had several magical snow days this past week, so I took some time to understand more about twitter and the illustration presence there. I made sure to follow some cool art directors, illustrators,  and illustration societies so I could stay in-the-know about competitions, annuals, gallery openings, and other such events. I happened upon a tweet by Jon Schindehette that led me to his post on the Art Order. Mr. Shindehette's plan is to have a booth displaying hundreds of 3x3 paintings at Spectrum Fantastic Art Live as an inexpensive way for artists to show their work without paying the hefty booth price. My reaction was "omygoodnessyes!". I had been crossing my fingers with the Rising Star Competition on Muddy Colors, but knew that it was a long shot. "Tiny Pleasures" on the other hand offers me a pretty good chance.

So I made a fetus:

I thought doing a gryphon fetus would make for an interesting painting. As it turns out, a gryphon fetus could arguably span both sci fi and fantasy genres, which is good for my audience in question.

I am using this little guy for lighting reference. In the last image, you will see I put a bright light behind him to get that translucent womb-y atmosphere.

This is the quick study based off of my photos as well as several photos of chicken and cat fetuses.

I don't know why I did such a dark first layer of acrylic paint. That pretty much disappears in the second layer. It took me a while to figure out how to mix the paint correctly. I was leaving red out of my palette for some reason early on, but quickly learned that I very much needed a high saturation of red in the translucent areas. Two steps forward, one step back.

Ok, now we're getting somewhere. I used my acrylic retardant in some areas like a glaze, which the bottle says I shouldn't do... I think I will go back to Dick Blick and buy some glazing medium. To be continued!

Illustrating Sound

The current assignment for my Concepts and Composition class is to make an illustration that visually represents a sound.

These are my initial concept sketches, which are on the tighter side of rendering. The advantage of clarity is that it's easy to see if the composition will work out and my "client" has a clear idea of what is going on. Also, I am learning to be selective and accurate with my lines as to expedite the sketching process. Something new that I tried was drawing the borders after I roughed out some of the basic composition. This resulted in a greater variety of borders and creative cropping of figures.

The sounds that I made attempts to visualize include scratching fingernails, sanding with sandpaper, the overtone series you hear when you blow in a straw, the Doppler effect, tinnitus, and television static. If you have never made music with a straw, I suggest you listen to the overtone flute or overtone singing.

Bearded Cloud Folk

Here are some more cloud people. This time, I had some fun with facial hair.

Odd Animals 2

Here is another page of animals with exaggerated features:

You have from top to bottom, left to right: Malayan tapir, some type of iguana, sun bear, a young fossa, and a scheming chipmunk. Gouache on recycled file folder.

Benefit Art Show

You can see the original for this piece....

In this show... here. It's a show benefiting victims of Typhoon Haiyan. Friday, 1/10/14, starting 6pm and open to all. There will be food, beverages, and live entertainment! Not to mention awesome artwork.

Meet the Cloud Folk

Meet the cloud folk.

This was a fun rough painting session. I'm gearing up for my Digital Illustration class and have been wanting to get these guys out of my head and onto pixels. I have this story in my mind that's developing and it involves these types of fluffy individuals. Combining clouds and people gives you a wide range of creative outcomes, especially in the facial hair department.