Progress!

Well, the last studies are done, and the comp has been projected on the canvas...there's no hiding now, time to man up and get this thing done.

The sketch of Emily, above, really brought my confidence back.  I was having a hell of a time trying to get her expression right on the canvas, but this quick color study really locked it in for me.  Had a blast with all the red in this one as well.  The study of Heather is below...

Heather's sketch was by far the fastest, probably only about 20 minutes of easel time on this one.  Sometimes it's hard to tell how long I actually spend on these as I have 30 high-schoolers back behind me.  So a lot of the painting is really broken up; it's a good thing I don't work in acrylic.  I have to admit that doing these color studies before the final really helped me loosen up and enjoy the paint.  It's something that I may be adding much more of to my routine.

So, the painting has started in earnest on the final.  I started in on the carolers from left to right, one at a time.  They're mostly finished before I move on to the next, but there are a few little details on each that need to be filled in before the finish.  And I'm sure I'll find little things here and there to mess with, I always do.  Progress follows:

Projected on the canvas.

Most of Matt.  I also toned the canvas, but forgot to start shooting pics until this stage.

Lining on Heather.

Basic value structure.

Most of Heather.

Starting Emily.

Basic value, and a scarf.  This is where I cleaned my brushes today, had to head out early to pick up one of my boys.  Too bad all of the underpainting will be dry on Monday when I get back to the canvas... But hey, on the bright side, this should be almost finished for Tuesday's post.  Fingers crossed.

And the friday kicker.  After getting my butt handed to me at last week's figure session, I got back on track last night.  We had a new model, and she was absolutely awesome.  I kid you not, she was built just like a girl out of a Frazetta painting.  The gesture poses she gave us were great, and I was pleased with this final 20 minute endeavor as well.  Until next time.

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.

More hhhwip

As it stands on the easel, right now.

A quick B-dub photo to see how values are coming along.  Think things are going well...may knock the mountains around the left shoulder back a bit more, and add a few more darks into the face, but I'm pretty happy with the value overall.  This however does fail to mention the HUGE amount of refining that still has to go into the figure...Hopefully have this off the easel by the end of the weekend.

Mystic Gunfighter gets rollin'

So, got some paint rolling on this over the past couple of days. Pretty happy so far, I'm digging the way the background is coming along, and it was definitely fun to paint. I haven't tried tackling a spacey kind of background in a good 5 years, and some of the pointers that Donato Giancola tossed out in his DVD on the topic definitely proved invaluable. And this turned out to be a ton of fun. The color may have gotten away from me a little bit, perhaps a tad more full spectrum than I was initially gunning for, but I've always been blown away by the photos from "way out where the lights don't shine" where you can see the whole Milky Way just blazing across the sky. So hopefully I got a little of that here. Plan to knock out the rest of the background over the next couple of days (fingers crossed).

MGF

Hanging in the studio encased in a cocoon, this specimen will emerge as an oil painting in approximately 4-6 weeks.

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. 

Progression

The raven and refining remain.

I should really stop by more often...

Some WIP-ery on the Bard/Self-Portrait.

Photocopy of the drawing mounted to MDF board.

C'mon baby light ma faiyah...

Pretty sure the background is set at this point.  Now it's time for the important bits...