Monday, March 31, 2008

Alum Rock Painting


I went for a bike ride this last weekend, and I decided to also try and do a landscape study at Alum Rock park in San Jose. I haven't done one for a while, and I discovered that I missed painting considerably. I very much enjoy creating art on the computer, but there is no substitute for spending time outside with raw materials. It's tough to find the time do get out, but I am going to try and squeeze a little in every week.

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Neptune Great Beast


This is a concept sketch I did for one of the giants of Neptune. This creature trolls the gassy layer of the planet gathering nutrients with the absorbing tentacle-like formations in its mouth. It has small eyes since it spends most of it's time in the hazyness of the gas, but they can move independently of one another. The creature spends most of its time gliding about, searching for the richest methane deposits. The next piece I'm working on will show the ship from the previous post coming into contact with this behemoth.


These are the quick sketches I was exploring in order to find the creature I thought would be right for this part of Neptune.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Neptune's Secrets



This is a piece inspired by the strangeness of the planet Neptune. I developed this little story about a fighter that ventured too close to Neptune and found out there was more to this blue planet than meets the eye. I did research about the real Neptune, but these pieces I am working on are more along the dreamy Jules Verne -anything-is-possible sort of reality. I though it would be interesting to have the initial fight with the fighter's pursuers as depicted here, then show another piece showcasing the inhabitants of the gaseous soupy atmosphere below the cloud tops. I am working on that piece for the next post.

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Heavenly Light


I was goofing off with a new brush I made specifically for clouds, and this came out. It's sort of typical "angelic" fare, but it was fun to play around with different effects. This certainly is not the fighter project I mentioned would be next on the blog, but I forgot my scanner today at work, so that will have to come a little later.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Daily Paints




I never seem to find a digital look that I really like, so I am often messing around with brushes, layer effects and the like in Photoshop. I know Painter has some great natural media stuff, but for the most part, I want to see if I can achieve something I like in photoshop since that is what I mostly use professionally.

I also needed some work on my painting in general, so I decided to do some studied every day. I tried a few from photos that had great color and lighting (they were not my photos) and I tried one of a tea garden from a photo I took in Portland when I visited my good friend Drew. I'm still not satisfied with any of these, but I learned a whole mess of stuff while doing these, so I might just keep it up. Next up -- the fighter ship project I was working on.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Work Doodle


I was not feeling it at work today (I'm on for another two months) so I did a quick sketch for the Creation Engines blog. The theme was assassins and serial killers. I originally did a whole thing on serial killers, but that started to creep me out, and I only did one quick painting for that. I may explore this guy more at a later date, especially since he is not very creatively designed in his current state.

My immediate thoughts for this assassin was a marksman, so I did a modified version of a tactical suit mixed with a target shooting vest. He is supposed to have an airgun for silent poison dart shots, but I think I want to work on the gun some more. I just discovered the word assassin originated as an arabic word for "hashish eater." I might play with that since the original assassins were possibly drug users (some scholars claim this to be incorrect), that opens up a totally fresh world of ideas.