Doomhammer 2010: Comp

I hate technology.

But not as much as I love it.

I've gotten away from doing action perspectives in recent years, having been so taken by the formal compositional arrangements of the Romantic and Victorian painters. But every now and again I like to go back to my comic book roots and do something really outlandish.

I liked the perspective in my original thumbnail, but something about the arrangement of the bridge pylons kept bothering me. So I decided to try to lay out my scene in Google's free 3d program, Sketchup to try and solve the problem. It only took about an hour to figure out, and after that it was pretty easy to work the scene out and solve the perspective issues.

It seems fitting that I would end up using technology to help me work on my piece about how much I sometimes hate technology.

Doomhammer 2010: Conceptual

Sometimes a person paints to communicate to other people a specific feeling or emotion they have experienced in their lives.

And other times, a person may paint for themselves, to make sense of all the fire in their head. To turn the static upstairs into something they can better understand.

Last week the Mac Pro, the Xbox and the cell phone all died on the same day. I found myself terribly frustrated at my circumstances. Why can't things just work? What idiot monkeys even made these things? Oh! Miserable life- it is better for me to die than to live.

...

Then I remember that people all over the world have lived happy and full lives without the benefit of this exotic technology for a long time and I should do some yoga, calm down and find inner peace.

But I drew this instead:

The Buccaneer

6 x 9

Acrylic Ink on Illustration Board

Fine Literature: Acrylic Final

Fine Literature

Elderly Faun Framed

Oil, 9 x 12

Elderly Faun Underpainting

Elderly Faun Acrylic Stage

Elderly Faun Sketch

November Conventions

Unless you are an evil villain, you will be pleased to learn that I am no longer making zombies. And now that PS3's hunger for carnage is momentarily satisfied, I have some time to work on a few new oil paintings and make my plans to survive the rest of this year's conventions.

The first is Illuxcon in Altoona, PA on November 12-15. Illuxcon is a show dedicated to fantastic illustration and will have the largest display of original fantastic art to be found on this planet. I am really looking forward to being there. If you are in that neck of the woods stop by for a visit.

Then our tour of America continues as we hit CTN in LA on November 20-22. If you are there, stop by booth #37 where we will be rocking California's socks off. I will be giving demos and taking part in a few panels. I will also be stalking the floor looking for a copy of Peter De Seve's new book.

So with these conventions looming ahead I have been in the lab working on some new gems. Over the next few weeks I will be posting some process shots of the ones that I will be taking to these conventions.

Hope to see you there.

AWOL Digital

AWOL

10 x 17

Digital over Watercolor and Charcoal

AWOL Watercolor

Watercolor and Charcoal on Bristol

This week, I've been making zombies; millions of zombies.

I have begun work on an animation project for an upcoming PS3 title and it has consumed my every waking moment. It has been a steady diet of profound carnage, terrifying mayhem and Chic-fil-a chicken sandwiches.

Considering this, you might wonder then how the above image came into being. The truth is that while I enjoy zombie-killing havoc as much as the next guy, there came a point where I had to paint something completely different or I'd lose it.

This was done while waiting for my files to upload to the client. I used charcoal and watercolor this time to try a new approach in my ongoing campaign of finding the perfect illustration medium to work digitally over.

***

Side Note: The PS3 game I mention above is going to be awesome. I wish I could show you the illustration work done on it thus far. However, the lawyers tell me that the company who has hired me will have the legal right to come and toss a pack rabid baboons into my studio if I let anything slip on the blog. Stay tuned.