Jones Panel NYCC

by Arnie Fenner







If you're going to be in New York this weekend and are lucky enough to have a ticket to the sold-out New York Comic Con at the Javits Center, make sure to pencil in Maria Cabardo's panel and preview of her documentary, Better Things: Life + Choices of Jeffrey Catherine Jones. The film is very much a labor of love (what documentary isn't?) and has been in the works for the past three (+) years. Every clip that I've seen so far is compelling, honest, and unforgettable: if you have time for only one panel during the con, I'd suggest to make it this one. It will be a great way to remember Jeff and to show Maria some much appreciated support.

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Iron

The following music video was recommended to me this weekend, and touted as being the moving equivalent of a Sam Weber painting. Sure enough, the video is pure eye candy, and evokes a wonderful mood that any SFF illustrator is sure to appreciate.



Perhaps not so coincidentally, the musician, Woodkid, was an illustrator at one point in his career.

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Queen of the Demonweb Pits Cover demo

This is an old cover I did for WOTC years ago that I actually saved some
steps. Usually my steps in a painting are fairly incoherent. For whatever
reason, this painting was done more methodically. There’s still lots of
searching going but the boundaries are there and were for the most part
unchanged till the end. The painting is digital of course, and was completely
done in Painter. 

 

 The first stage with this illustration was to give the Art Director a couple of ideas. Basic composition stuff. Done in Painter with the scratch board tool. He picked the third one.

 

 

 Going with this one, I fleshed it out  a bit more with value before diving into color. its rare for me to take a sketch that far as most of my love of painting comes from discovering the image as I go.

I did a fill here to get my under painting color. Next I started glazing with the Digital watercolor. 

More Digital watercolor with the air brush tool for the opaque. 

 

 

More color added with glazes. Working into the shapes with more definition.

Finished painting. Between this and the last stage was just working through glazes of color, trying to keep my shadows transparent, refining my lights.

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Warmer Air

Jeremy Geddes has been hard at work, producing pieces for his upcoming show at Jonathan Levine Gallery next year. Most of the work will be figurative, departing from his past 'Cosmonaut' series. However, Jeremy has decided to do three last paintings exploring the cosmonaut theme, all of them miniature. Here is the first of the three said paintings, entitled 'Warmer Air'. The piece is typical of Geddes' work, moody and highly detailed. What makes the level of detail even more amazing is the painting's size... just 13 x 22 inches!

Jeremy is offering limited prints of this piece, reproducing the image at it's actual size. More info on the print can be found HERE.

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Pirate Paintings for National Geographic Pt.5

 

Gregory Manchess



This painting depicts what it might have been like for a slave to board the Whydah for the first voyage. Chained two-by-two, they are whipped and beaten through town to get to the shore boats, often separated from their own children.



The natives were in various stages of undress. The challenge was to show them realistically, but in such a way as to not offend the sensitivities of a wide range of museum attendees. This meant I would have to be prepared to change what they wore any number of times, depending on the decisions of the client. We all wanted to stay accurate, but there are limitations that had to be considered.



The thumbnails started out showing the captain along the rail of the slaver, Whydah. This was put to better use on the last painting showing the capture of the slave ship by Bellamy.

There was much to get across: the tropical location of the town of Quidah, the slave traders, the natives’ forced march, the action of loading the slaves, and longboats heading out to the Whydah in the harbor. I worked my drawings through several iterations until I raised the camera pov to just above the setting, showing all of the above.

The beginning sequence of painting, starting with the sketch to canvas.

Establishing the values, working dark to light for the overall piece.

Stroking in the first layer of water.

A costume change for the foreground and middle ground figures, and a request to add a small child.

Too much nudity, so a loincloth was added to the middle figure.

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Awol no.4 Studies

By Justin Gerard



I am currently on the road so today's post will be a quickie of some studies done for an upcoming digital painting demo in Utah.

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Bill Nelson Art Book

A few days ago my friend and fellow creative Bill Nelson sent me an e-mail announcing his latest art book. Some of you may already be aware of Bill Nelson’s work - he’s an award winning illustrator (500+ awards) and artist. Bill is the master of colored pencil and has also developed a very successful career in sculpture. His dolls are sought after by  celebrities and collectors. Recently he has entered into a partnership called “Inspired Worx” to produce fully articulated ventriloquist dolls.



Bill has garnered numerous awards in his thirty plus year career including medals form the Society of Illustrators, The Art Directors Club of NY, Communication Arts Magazine and many many more.

Here are a few brief comments on his technique. In Bill’s words:



“As for the illustrations, the technique is colored pencils on various background colors. Sometimes I use a basic wash to fill in an area instead of trying to build it up completely with pencil. I work on anything from mat board, to recycled paper, ( with a little Canson charcoal paper thrown into the mix ).”



“The INSPIRED WORX figures begin as heads sculpted in plasticine. Then seven coats of polyurethane varnish so they`ll withstand the trip out west.

I have tried animating them myself but have no talent in that area.

RANDALL the bum figure is fully loaded with, moving mouth, stick out tongue, one stationary eye and one universal one. Raising and lowering eyebrows, wiggling ears and a light-up nose.”



“I`m in partnership with a very talented engineer on the west coast and, while I design and sculpt each character, he casts them and builds the intricate movements. We are called INSPIRED WORX.”



Links:



Bill’s website                              

Bill’s art book

 

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