Steampunk Wizard of Oz #3: Underpainting

Underpainting

Oil on Masonite

18x24

A few years ago, some friends (who shall remain nameless) and I broke into an abandoned chemical plant that had been damaged by a fire. It was huge complex, that stretched over the better part of a square mile, it had its on rail yards, depots and an underground labyrinths of pipes and crawl spaces. In the passage-ways there were hazard signs on rusted, pressurized-doors that read, CAUTION: DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT. Oily water dripped and pooled in the hallways. Everywhere we were surrounded by an atmosphere of latent deadly chemicals and the feeling that maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all. We crept through this labyrinth in complete darkness using headlamps. Everything was dripping, dank, ruined, and everywhere lay twisted steel girders, collapsed ceiling tiles and rusting electronic equipment.

But in one burned out rooms, we saw something that didn't fit in with all the rusting, man-made structures and machines. As we came into the room we froze, stopped breathing, and backed out the way we had come. In the room, we had seen large colonies of fungus several feet high covering the ground. One of my friends had worked in water and smoke mitigation before told us not to breathe in the air anywhere near there. So we crept out of the room and back into the relative safety of rooms labeled, TOXIC CHEMICALS PRESENT with their friendly MSDS diamonds on them. This struck me as very strange. Here in the midst of this dangerous man-made place, was something organic that was more immediately dangerous to us.

When I began to think through possibilities for this particular scene, (which you have probably recognized by now) this experience of seeing organic decay creeping into the ruins of man-made industry inspired me a great deal. The idea of 'don't breathe the air' in this industrial decay fit the mood of the scene for me.

Tomorrow we begin glazing.

Steampunk Wizard of Oz: Color Comps

The Steampunk Wizard of Oz idea was such an appealing concept that I ended up doing several dozen conceptual sketches before arriving at the piece I did for the previous entries and the 2009 IMC.

There are 2 concepts in particular that I would like to do in oil, if you all will permit me.

I'll be finishing the previous watercolor and digital piece tomorrow, but I will also be posting a progression of these pieces in oil during the next few days leading up to Comicon.

For those of you who will be attending Comicon in San Diego, stop by and visit me at the Portland Studios booth. It is going to rock. For some shots of last years immaculate action, check out these shots of awesome people. This year, on top of being publicly awesome, Cory Godbey and I will be rocking the convention center's socks off by painting original pieces on site. On top of this, we have also caved to the overwhelming public pressure to deliver new limited edition prints of recent works. And I do mean limited. While they last, we will be selling them like it is our duty to mankind at the convention.

Catch the action in San Diego. Booth #1032.

Steampunk Wizard of Oz: Digital Work

Digital stage 70% finished

imC 2009: The Lady of the Lake

Transfered Drawing on Masonite

Underpainting

Oil Painting in Progress

IMC 2009: The Lady of the Lake

Conceptual Sketch

At this point in the week, I decided to begin a second piece in an effort to take advantage of the fantastic oil demonstrations that were being given. For this one I chose one of the other options that had been given, which was the Lady of the Lake from Arthurian legend.  

Tight Sketch

IMC 2009: Steam Punk Wizard of Oz

Drawing on Bristol

Underpainting

Note the difference in the two pieces. The composition works much better in the one on the left, and the image begins to make more visual sense. (click on image to see larger version)

This was after the advisement of the faculty who pointed out the dead spot there in the lower left and how knocking back the corner would improve the overall composition.

Final Underpainting

ImagineFX

For those of you who have been wondering about the specifics about my method of working, (and I know there are at least 2 of you) this month my work has been featured in an ImagineFX workshop. 

IMC 2009: Steam Punk Wizard of Oz

For the Illustration Master Class we had some homework to do before we arrived. 

Our assignment was to choose one of several stories that the faculty had provided and bring a tight sketch to show the faculty on our first day. This image would be critiqued and then we would spend the rest of the time during the week executing the piece.  One of the choices was to do a steam punk version of the Wizard of Oz, which is the coolest homework assignment ever. 

Thumbnail

Sketches

The Cowardly Lion

Rough

Final Sketch for monday.  Off to IMC...

Illustration Master Class 2009

Last week I attended the 2009 Illustration Master Class in Amherst Massachusetts.  The faculty included the amazing talent of Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Greg Manchess, Charles Vess, Donato Giancola, Rebecca Guay, Irene Gallo, Scott Fischer and Dan DosSantos along with guest appearances from Michael Whelan and Jon Foster, among others.  

Donato Giancola elaborating on the finer points of galaxies

Dan Dos Santos showing some mad skillz.

Michael Whelan about to go to work

Charles Vess showing us how to do magic tricks with paint

It was a very intense week of lectures, demonstrations and projects with the faculty working very closely with each student to give very personalized guidance. It was a highly rewarding week and I cannot thank the faculty enough for so generously giving their time and efforts to the students. I learned a great deal from the course and I will be posting some of the work I did there in the coming days. It felt like going to Hogwarts where all the professors are literally teaching the students how to do magic.  

And in case you were not yet convinced. FLYING MONKEYS.  

For more images Irene Gallo's Flickr pages for a look at the mayhem. They have a great overview of the whole week as well as images of Greg Manchess being awesome, Fantastic art in progress and myself in a fight to the death with Allen Williams.

And for the run-down of the event she has also posted a number of entries on her blog.  If you are interested at all in possibly signing up for the event in 2010 you should check it out.

A Dark Horror from the Last Age

I show you just this portion of the piece because the rest is too horrifying to show.  

What could possibly make it horrifying? After all, its 2 friends wandering in a sparkling tunnel with bright lights. It should be a recipe for the warm, happy feelings one might associate with Tolkien's literature. 

You should sit down for this, and you should be prepared to run from your computer the minute you see the images below. (I have already run from my computer 3 times just trying to post this.)

Here is the sketch:

Nothing unsustainable yet, right?  So far, so good. I drew this while in a dank subway car in the bowels of France. 

It seems harmless enough right?  A simple, straightforward composition with medium figures in a dark environment.

And so I thought, this will be a great first piece to do for an illustration based on material from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings.  I have wanted to paint some illustrations based on this awesome story for a while. For the first piece I wanted to attack what for me, has always been the most terrifying and gripping in the story: Shelob's Lair.  

Page 3 of my collection of nightmares. 

My thumbnail seemed solid enough, and seemed to have the right amount of tension in it.  So I started doing my developmental sketches for this. One of the first things I did was to draw several hundred gestures of spiders.  This is a mistake.   

At about number 36 I realized just what soulless terrors spiders can be when seen close enough to make out distinguishable features.  

Unholy Terror # 36

(BTW Thank you Uglyoverload.com for the excellent reference and for the regular updates on hideous creatures that I was perfectly fine before I found out existed.)

In spite of the general horror of these sketches, I persevered.  I thought, "well, these are terrifying and I now have the shakes and won't be able to sleep for weeks, but hey, I'll bet I'll feel a lot better after I knock up a more finished sketch."  

(Now is a good time to stop looking at your computer screen)

I do not feel better. 

After I did this I took several large steps away from my desk and looked for an adult.  Finding none but me in the house, I took 3 showers, then ran back in like batman and smashed the painting with my giant book of mythology.  It has sat there, crushed, until just now when I worked up the courage to see if I had killed it or not. 

Not convinced that this isn't the most terrifying thing you have ever seen? 

LOOK CLOSER. 

Maybe I'm overreacting.  In general I like spiders, of all the creatures with chitinous shells and more than 2 eyes in the world, they are among the most interesting.  But what did me in was the way she was holding her legs up.  In my mind I had seen it as the spider shielding her eyes from the light and trying to blend in with her surroundings until the Hobbits past her so she could sneak up on them from behind.  But after I drew it out, I realized that what was really in my head, was her playing a weird and altogether horrifying peek-a-boo game with the Hobbits. As soon as I got that far my brain exploded and I had to put the drawing down.  A 12 foot spider playing peek-a-boo with its prey was just too much. I could not bring myself to finish this painting.

There has always been something terrifying to me about a predatory creature that is sneaking up on you as if you don't see it.  Like a lion creeping through the grass towards you, its eyes fixed, about to pounce, but acting casual. You know its about to kill you.  Seeing it in stalking mode, and knowing that it is stalking you freaks me out.

I know this is a strange thing to freak a person out, but well, there it is.  This drawing freaked me out.  The spider hiding her eyes behind her limbs, and peaking out had some deep, primordial sinister perversion to it that crossed whatever internal threshold I have for, is going to wreck your brain if you go through the process of staring at the piece for the 25 hours it will take you to paint it.   

But you are probably saying, "Well, what were you expecting Gerard? You are drawing a 12 foot spider in a dark tunnel that eats PEOPLE. Last spawn of Ungoliant, the terror of the pass of Cirith Ungol in Morder, where the freaking shadows lie. What did you think it was going to look like? A Watercolor of ducklings in a quiet pond? Adorable puppies frolicking at the beach?"

All that being said, I am not sure what I am going to do next.  I will have to think about it. 

---

Next Week: Adorable Puppies Frolicking at the Beach.   

Terrible Yellow Eyes: Final

There has been a lot of really great work showing up on the Terrible Yellow Eyes site.

One of my particular favorites is Peter DeSeve's contribution. It is perfect.

***

After finishing this piece, I went back and began working again on some more Tolkien-related work. This time from The Two Towers. I had planned to do a piece in oil.

But the sketch I came up with was terrifying. In fact, it was so terrifying, so utterly horrifying, that I actually had to put it down. And now I don't know if I will finish it. It's still there, under the stack of books by the pencils, recluse and staring at me with beady eyes.

It's been a very long time since I did anything that genuinely freaked me out to the point that I had to stop.

Tune in next week.

Terrible Yellow Eyes: Watercolor