Of Martian Giraffes and Infectious Art

I finished my cover for Out of the Silent Planet and learned how to make an animated GIF of my progress shots. You can see some of the odd solutions before arriving at better ones, especially with the creature in the foreground. Also, I will note that the pinkish version of the illustration is the base-color I established with a gradient map before adding the local color of different objects. You will notice that it starts off quite vibrant before I back off on saturation and move the color scheme more evenly around the canvas.

And the final illustration: 

In other recent news, the Infected By Art website is compiling their 3rd volume of artwork. Judges will be making most of the calls, but the artwork will be open to virtual public voting, which will guarantee the inclusion of 3 pieces. The dates for public voting have changed a bit due to the avalanche of submissions, but I believe it is from December 3-9. Good luck trying to decide on your favorites! There are over 1,000 to choose from...

Here are the pieces I entered:
- "Out of the Silent Planet"
- "The Last Unicorn"
- "Monocle Mantis"
- "Reckless"

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy your day of thanks and feasting! I give you the man responsible for the official observance of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, Abraham Lincoln.

Book Cover Sneak Peak

Just a little close-up of one of my new book covers for Out of the Silent Planet. It will be released to the interwebs very soon...

Mini-Comics Expo

If you are in the vicinity of Savannah, GA, you are welcome to come to the 2014 Mini-Comics Expo, presented by SCAD's Sequential Art Department. I will be there with my little table, portfolio, some prints for sale, and free bookmarks for your enjoyment. Come say hello and check out the amazing work created by my peers!

Finished: The Last Unicorn

A book cover assignment I recently finished for The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle.

Dancing Sketches

Just a few studies from the beautifully choreographed music video for Chandelier.

Of Unicorns and Malacandra

I have two book covers in the works. One is for The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle and the other for Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis of his "Space Trilogy" Series.

Three semi-loose thumbnails for each book.

 

Tighter renderings of the two thumbnails I've decided to proceed with. I posed some Daz3D models for reference on the figures and looked at several different deer-like animals for the unicorn.

I made this little maquette of the giraffe-like alien for the Out of the Silent Planet cover. I made sure to make the limbs free-moving so I could use one maquette for all of the different poses the creature appears in. To make sure that I got the right angle in all of the photos, I created a reference point for the horizon line. I made a blob out of foil and tape that is a stand-in for the human character that appears on the cover. The blob is scale-wise the correct height that the character should be in comparison to the giraffes. When I took my photos, I made sure the "horizon line" (in this case, the end of a ironing board covered in green towel) ran through the lower half of the blob, just like it does through the character in the thumbnail. This trick would not work so well with a higher horizon line since the end of the ironing board would be visible and not represent the true vanishing point.

After taking my reference photos for the creature, I combined them into one image to continue working out the composition. 

Using the previous photo and several others for more detailed reference, I created the current composition with yet more changes. Most striking is the greater presence of the tall pointy things or Malacandrian "mountains" in the background. With a tight drawing in place, I can move on to rendering with a very clear direction.