I’ve been working on a long-standing barter project that’s very near and dear to my heart. My 13-year-old son just received his black belt hapkido at Portland’s Ninja School, a martial arts academy specializing in Heuk Choo Kwan style that’s dedicated to their students’ transformations and sense of personal empowerment. The owners are really awesome folks, and we worked out a trade for my son’s tuition in exchange for a comic book to promote the school. It’s been a great project, and the storyline they’ve been cooking up is expanding well. Here’s a sample of the work we’ve done so far.
ArtStudio
I’ve been working a lot in watercolor since my GMac died last spring. I found myself getting a little bored with it, so I decided to explore the drawing app ArtStudio on my iPad. I’ve owned it forever and never did anything serious with it. I took a photo and opened it in the app, which does almost everything that I use Photoshop for. I have a $10 stylus that I picked up at Walgreens, and I just dug in. I’m pretty impressed with the software. The tools are intuitive, and I like that you can rotate your drawing just like a sketchbook. This is just a work in progress that I’ll be playing with for awhile, but it’s been fun to get back into digital painting.
Background Color Studies
Good:a Gallery in North Portland’s historic Mississippi District recently asked me to do the flyer art for their Star Wars-themed group show in May. I think it turned out pretty good, considering the six-day deadline. I’ve been trying to think of a piece to do for the show itself and I’m really into ewoks right now. Even though I’m still not sure what I want to do with them specifically, I tried out some color studies and backgrounds on my ArtStudio iPad app with a new stylus I picked up at Walgreens for fifteen bucks. Damn things work great!
And then this happened…
Belatedly…
Puppet Swarm!
Thesis Film Backgrounds
Here’s a small sample of the backgrounds I’ve been painting feverously for my thesis stop-motion film. It’s a staggering amount of work and I have to keep reminding myself that the backgrounds don’t have to be perfect; it’s the animated puppets that will really carry the plot. Some elements of the scenery are missing here — like arms and heads — because I’ve drawn those separately to be animated on another layer. More to come!
Thesis Rabbit Walk Cycle
Iranon Grey
Some work in progress shots for a triptych piece intended for use as the interior of a trifold CD cover. The album is inspired by H.P. Lovecraft’s short story “The Quest of Iranon,” and I borrowed inspiration for the graphics from Art Nouveau’s best-kept secret, Max Benirschke.
This was my first experiment with patterning. Click to see it bigger. It looks sooo much better that way.
And here’s a rough, pre-color layout of the final image.