Me and my shadebox

Another week, another conceptart.org challenge. This time I opted for Creature Of the Week, which is currently "Fire Bug". My little ray of sunshine of a bug lays eggs everywhere, then sprays flammable chemicals all over the place, which causes the eggs to hatch. The bug dies shortly afterwards, and the larvae eat up all the charred remains. Beautiful, no?

The second the sun was out, so was I. My first attempt at Plein Air was slightly spoiled by me being rained on within minutes of getting started, so I ended up painting from the garage doorway :/

The next times I went to the park, which is full of great scenic spots. 

Below is my set-up. Works out nicely. My only gripe is that I have to turn the brightness of the screen down quite low so the battery doesn't insta-die. This means when I get my paintings home they look completely different on the computer monitor (overly bright and saturated). I'll probably end up buying a portable power-pack.

I've had a few shots at Mike Bierek's Sketchule. It is basically a 4 hour rota for tackling different subjects, using studies to influence imaginative concepts etc. It's super-intense and I am usually pretty exhausted after finishing, but it's good fun and challenging. Below is an example of some storyboarding practice - a short scene stolen from a book I'm reading.

Horsie studies, because, why not?

Life drawing. The usual.

Play time

After last weeks intense push on the university front, I can now say (with something of a smug smile) that I am pretty much done and dusted with university work. There's the odd thing to do here and there, but I am counting this as play (painting whatever I like) time :D

It's been full steam ahead with the Titty Bar. I've developed one of the thumbs I posted last week into a final image, and it's been great fun. A while to go until the deadline - I must remember to actually submit it.

I did stages for someone, so I might as well post them here too. The "Team Awesome stage" is what came of some really thorough feedback from the Team Awesome community (http://www.facebook.com/groups/awesomehorse/). Everyone over there is knowledgeable and helpful, so it's a no-brainer to join up and post some work.

I am delighted to announce a new addition to the family; a shadebox for my laptop. I got the specs from the latest IFX magazine, which has a great article on Plein Air painting, which I've been itching to do for a while now. Alas, I only finished it yesterday and it has been raining today, so now I'm on the lookout for nice weather.

Rainy day Sargent study -

Last nights life drawing -

Odds and ends. Mostly odds.

Well, it's been a busy week for me in terms of university project deadlines, and unfortunately they didn't involve much painting, so I haven't had a great deal of time to get much done :( Anyway, here's what there is -

A Bierstadt study, done after watching Noah Bradley do the same on the Awesome Horse stream (http://www.awesomehorsestudios.com/)

15 min film still studies -

I was looking through the community challenges on conceptart.org and noticed a thread titled "Celestial Titty Bar" (environment of the week). Of course I was compelled to give some rough sketches a shot. Not sure if I'll go further with it, we'll see.

Life drawwwwiiinnnggg -

Quick dump

Another poster for the robot-dude game idea. This one is to have type on it (like the back of a game case) which will go at the top, hence the general dark area there.

15 min "The Hunger Games" still study.

Life drawing.

Latest batch

Some promotional work for a university game project -

In the past few days I've taken to doing speed studies of film stills; an idea stolen from Karla Ortiz. 15 minutes each -

Last weeks life drawing -

Though I rarely post them on here, I regularly do digital figure sketches too from reference, using this site; http://www.lovecastle.org/draw/ 1 minute each.

More polished Alien Apple brief work -

Easter scraps

Speeds;

Uni work;

A, erm, robot head... thing.

Line art for the Alien Apple project;

After Levitan;

The passion of the Painting

I've been enjoying a lot of free time lately since it's the Easter holidays, so I've been trying to push my paintings (in particular the compositions) as much as I can. Below is what I believe is my first ever use of 3 point perspective (shameful, I know);

The Alien Apple piece has been quite a struggle. I have played around with countless arrangements of the main elements, and even started again after spending a good couple of days working on it. Fortunately I have the time to do so! Better now than when I'm in the job and have to get things working quickly, right?

Some scribbles from life drawing this week;

Over and out.

P.S: Sorry for the corny title :P