A Chance Encounter

A Chance Encounter, oil on canvas, 32x24.

Glad to finally get this one off the easel.  It was a good slog through the final work on the three adventurers, with lots of rethinking and repainting as I changed a few things up for the finish on this, and maybe figuring out some semblance of painting that feels right.  So I broke down and added a nit-picky round sable to my stable of hog bristle brushes, and also made copious use of a burnt sienna, ultramarine, raw umber, and pretty much any other dark on my palette glaze for the final shadows.  All in all, pretty happy with how everything turned out.  Enjoy.

Also, props to my student Matt Gray for the "Golden Axe" suggestion, though he's a bit too young to get the reference...

Of Giants and progression...

A short little post with some WIP shots of my latest painting.  I've been taking the opportunity to work back through some of my thumbnail sketches from right after I got back from the IMC last year.  And this frost giant has been lurking around in my sketchbook just waiting to find a piece of unsuspecting canvas.  There's obviously a long ways to go in the painting above, but I'm really digging the blues in the underpainting so far, I'll have to see how much of that stays, and in turn, see how much it forces me to change in the figures in the foreground. 

The sketches for our three adventurers were pretty straightforward, although I'm sure our neighbors think I'm now truly crazy - I shot everything behind our garage (hey, the light was right...).  And just for kicks - the dwarf up top started out as me snarling with a snow shovel, I'll let your imagination do the work on that one, as I don't think I'll let that reference see the light of day.

 And, here's the origin of our starring giant/titan.  I had been wanting to make a maquette for a while now, and this seemed the perfect opportunity.  They are absolutely fantastic tools for finding value reference, and damn fun to build as well.  I found that my sketches never quite got to what I was looking for in the giant's face, so I figured I would kind of "feel" everything out in the clay.  It worked quite well, but I found that the maquette ended up with a bit of a "slow" feeling in the face, the tight drawing turned out to be a bit of a blend of thumbnail sketch and model.  A good learning experience in all, and I'm really looking forward to getting this one finished up.

The Guardian

 

 The Guardian, 30 x 24, oil on canvas.

About time this one was finished.  Believe it or not this guy has been lurking in the studio since about last April.  The water, Good Lord, the water.  How it taunted.  Quite a challenge getting all those waves in there, I think it turned out alright, but I'll definitely have to tackle another "maritime" piece for some much needed practice.  I'm sure that there's some dumb-easy trick to painting water that I just glossed over in the alla prima painter's handbook, but man - this was a challenge.  I also suppose this could be considered my first "dragon" painting.  Though I prefer to think of the beasty as an overgrown snapping turtle.  The finished drawing below for some comparison.

During the painting of all that water, I decided that the little silhouetted shaman/priest fellow on the cliff had to go.  I think it works a little better for the composition and storytelling (I like cliches as much as the next guy, but this was definitely a decision that I was more in love with 8 months ago than now), plus it was a complete pain to keep painting around him...

Oh, and I also managed to spell the file name incorrectly - yay, English.

GBWIP#3

Hazy sky, now on to the water, which is proving... challenging.

GBWIP#2

The skin is mostly done, now on to the craggy shell.  I think I'll probably come back and try to play with some reflected color in the final stages of this.  Light bouncing up from the water and such.  As well as fix up the oddball highlight on the right arm.  I got a bit carried away with my whites, and realized that that arm would more than likely be in the shadow of the nearby cliff, and therefore not have a striking edge light. Ah well, easier to fix when it's dry.

The GB WIP

Plan on wrapping up all of the skin tomorrow.  Also, I am enjoying painting on canvas, as opposed to board, greatly.

And I go to bed this evening sad, having just learned that Frank Frazetta passed away.  People have all kinds of heroes, one of mine happened to be an illustrator who usually said he'd rather be playing ball.