Color and Light

The second book I got is "color and Light" from James Gurney. An other very well put together book. I usually don't really read too much of the books and get the info from the pictures... lazy me.
But not this one, the text are to the point and easy to read. example are also very good.
If I want to be a little nitpicking, I would say that I wish the book had more diverse example, I just felt that it was a bit self promoting.
James Gurney is a very good artist, I'm not very found of dinotopia. I don't hate it, I don't love it.

Anyway, His lighting example are very nice and the photographs of example very usefull.
I can't wait to get to the Color section of the book.

I was happily surprised to see how thick the book is ... I 'm not saying that I judge a book by the pound, but for such a low price (25$) it's a lot of information. The quality of the reproductions and the paper used is also remarkable.

Framed Ink

I just received a fantastic book by Marco Mateu-Mestre called “Framed Ink”.
Marcos has been working in feature animation for more than 20 years and his knowledge on layout, composition, and lighting is amazing.
This book is very well put together. The information is very clear and to the point, the examples are easy to understand and precise. This is a great book to read or to use for references. very easy to browse through.

Many books on framing and layout talk only about the camera work, but Marcos also talks about something very important, lighting:
how light and shadow influence and affect the framing, how you can use light and shadow to direct the spectator’s eye toward what you want them to look at. how it can set a mood very strongly.

Marcos drawings are also a treat for the eyes. By using black and white and sometimes a shade of gray , he makes the drawings very strong and readable at a glance. Each example in the book is accompanied by a rich drawing and a thumbnail. The thumbnail is a simplified version of the drawing. Simplified in the sense that it is stripped to the bare minimum in an almost symbolist way to explain what we actually see, and where our eye is drawn.

Cave

Sketching during lunch. about 1 h.
I just continue to work on my values. Still not feeling it. Something is still off but can't put my finger on it.
After reading Sam Nielson blog I'm revisiting some old drawings and paintings I did long time ago, trying to improve the design, the composition, or just redoing them.

Mr iggy

Quick painting, done in Photoshop with one square brush.
Paul Richards posted a very nice painting he did with a square brush and I wanted to try it out.
His is very smooth and nice, but still I'm pretty happy with my version. I choose this picture for the rich value and, off course, Iggy's amazing features. About one hour during lunch.
Thanks to John Brophy for his constructive critiques and advices.

old car

I recently watched the new Luc Besson movie "The Incredible Adventure of Adele Blanc-Sec". It is based on the french comic books by Tardy. I use to read them avidly growing up. They always had a mysterious feel to them and the rendition of the 1920's atmosphere and dirt was always amazing.
The movie was well done and entertaining but wasn't totally true to the comic books, which I don't mind actually. They are a different medium and they were done by different people, I guess as long as I'm entertained, I'm happy.
As the movie (and the books) happen during the 20's, they had a few cars in it. I got attracted to these interesting shapes and forms, so I decided to draw one. I made it a little cartoony for the fun of it.
My friend Andrew Arconti helped me a bit to define when I should stop and what to push.

I might later try another one with harder lines... meaning using a ruler or straight lines in Photoshop to accentuate the mechanical feel of it.

lunch sketch

quick sketch during lunch.... about 30 min.

Island

Quick color sketch based on some shot in the trailer for the new narnia.
Fun to work in colors. I liked the lighting of it. It has a little Hudson river school feeling to it.
It's still very rough, not sure if I'll have time to do a more detailed version... will see.

Pirate

Here is a little piece I did to help a friend of mine. He and his wife are writing a nice story and I'm creating some visual for them.
I think the lighting is pretty successful but I need to work hard on my anatomy skills... I should say application of my anatomy knowledge.
I know quite well anatomy. construction of it and physiology but I'm having a hard time putting it down on paper. I always something is off. I'm still doing a lot of practicing; fold study, poses, colors, light and shadows, composition, storyboard....etc.

I'll make some test with different value, I'm still trying to decide if I'll work with only black and white or like this one, with value

new work

I'm preparing a new type of work.
My inspiration came while thinking of a project that my friend Dave Fierson and I are working on.
I can't really talk about the project itself as it is in development.
But I can talk about my work. I've always be interested and attracted to composition, framing, light and shadows. I was researching some interesting camera angle and thought it would be interesting to work in a italian format, long and narrow. this format as always be pleasing to me. it's a little more than a 1.85:1 ratio. I could talk for long about that ratio but I prefer to talk about my ideas.
So, what I'm trying to express in my sketches... that I hope will become painting. Is a piece of a story. I have does frames in my head, maybe from movies, maybe from books or life itself. I'll present them and it's up to the viewer to make up the story, bring a story around it.
I'm first going to work with big plane of black, I'm still not sure of some aspect of the project.
-will I work in series with theme like :western, fairy tales, 50's space movies
-what medium am I going to use? gouache, ink, acrylic?
-will I only work with black ? use different values of gray? colors?

anyway, here are some that I did digitally, I'll try to post the one that I did on paper later today.

lunch sketch

...about 40 min sketch from an old photo. I found online.
Just trying to get different value with brush strokes.
I didn't want to set it symmetrically as the character is asymmetrical.
I'm not very satisfied with his eyes though.

head sketch

Just practicing. Using a nice brush from Mark Behm reacting like a real brush and gouache.
I sued as reference a set of photo from Paul richards blog. (caution there are some NSFW stuff there, amazing work though).
They aren't all in character but that's in purpose.

lighting

Long time no post!
but here is a test painting of indirect lighting.
more to come...

I continue to work on value and Lighting.
Still working based on photography found online. I tried here to recreate the under exposed feeling of photography.
about 40 minutes. I also liked the strong deformation the perspective was having.