The way forward

I kind of touched on this in the last post... But who read it anyway?

As I said I'm going to be cutting back on my personal projects and even my Illustration Friday submissions for a while.  I feel like all the images I have been making have definitely helped me progress a lot more then I anticipated but with other commitments and interests coming into play I need to start balancing things a little differently.

Currently I have 3 projects on the go.  One is a pinup commission that won't go away, but it is looking good.  The other two are illustrations for a book my dad is writing.  I'm going to try a different approach on the last two illustrations.  They will be developed with the intention to be used purely as black and white images.  If colour works with them then that's great but I want these images to be able to stand on their own in black and white.  I will also be approaching them in a fairly planned manner, coming up with rough comps digitally, then pencilling from those comps and then inking (traditionally).  I really want to get more traditional mediums into my work and if I can bring more pencil, pen and ink into my work to start with, then great.

It seems like some paying illustration jobs will also be coming in which is fantastic.  I'm hoping that more actual "jobs" will speed up my development by challenging me in new ways.  I think a combination of tight deadlines, working with a brief and drawing point of views that I wouldn't normally should do the trick.

Although I won't be doing as many personal pieces or Illustration Friday submissions for a while, I do want to use some of the time it frees up to work in my sketchbook.  I feel like my faces are good but the rest of my anatomy isn't up to scratch.  Drawing dynamic figures is killing me and  hands are also an issue.  So I'll be pulling out the anatomy books (Burne Hogarth, Andrew Loomis etc) and getting to work on those in my sketch book.  I'll be working mainly with pencils but do want to end up working in my sketch books with ink only for a while.

Going through my portfolio, I have noticed that there are two or three "styles" that seem to recur over a few different pieces.  I'd like to refine those a bit and get them to a higher level of finish.

Well, that's basically where I'm trying to go over the next few months... Let's hope it works out!

Two new pictures

Wow.  It has been a super crazy time lately.  I have been busting my ass off for a while trying to get my portfolio somewhere near complete.  The good news is I have succeeded, so hopefully I get signed by an agency. 

What I can say about the experience is you definitely learn more about image making nailing one or two images a week then when you work on one for a few months.  I think it is a case of we all have a certain amount of shitty images to get through before we start striking gold.  And the more you do the more often you strike gold.  It's like hitting on girls, sort of.

These latest two are actually slightly longer running projects that have been hovering in the background while I've been busting out quicker works.  It actually works pretty well.  I learn something from each fast image I do and often get to apply it to the longer images.  These longer images also benefit from me getting a chance to tweak them more and look at them with fresh eyes, more often.  As I said I have finished these two.  There is another I have been working on which is becoming a bit of a white elephant.  But I will get it done...

Just a quick blurb on a few artist's I have been looking at a lot lately... Adam Hughes, JH Williams and Ryan Sook.  The connection with my work may not be obvious but there are a few things I really like about these guys work. 

Firstly, there is a real sense of depth.  Their figures are usually detailed and take centre stage, the middle ground falls back a bit because it is less defined and their backgrounds sometimes border on abstract.  It's a nice way to play with depth and stop your picture become too dense with detail. 

Another thing I have noticed is that it seems to be done at a larger size then what it is printed at.  This isn't a brilliant deduction on my part, it is common knowledge that comic artists work bigger then what the final piece will appear at.  What I have started to appreciate about this method is that if you zoom in on Adam Hughes or JH Williams III's work you will notice jagged, sharp edges in the more defined areas.  It looks almost pixelated.  These aren't pleasing on the eye close up, but when printed at a smaller size it looks fine and the human eye can't pick it up.  The moral for me is that details don't have to actually be accurate down to the tiniest detail, they just have to seem that way...

Here are the two pics: