Sketch dump and life update!

That last one keeps getting longer and longer every time I open the file! "Oh wouldn't it be cool if there were more mob references? WHAT ABOUT MORE TENTACLES lets just move that up and voila more room for more characters" It'll be the death of me but It's going pretty well so far! I intend to animate the writing (placeholder font) so that it, and several aspects of the painting flicker/fade. 

Top two are yet more visuals for my Dragon Age pen and paper campaign, 3rd is a 20 minute warm-up for thumbnails and then of course at the bottom my old nerd guild wars feels.

Not much has changed since the last update, though I will be heading to Industry workshops next week and I am hella excited about that. I look forward to seeing all everyone from my MA course too, and to catch up with everyone while learning a lot! I will be in London for the week and I intend to be sketching a lot!

Also I started a new project, lowkey. I've been thinking about it since office days in Osaka and I'm gonna make a little oneshot Guild Wars 2 comic, about 10~ pages long, give or take a couple. I've written the script so far, and started thumbnailing out how I want the layout to go. Its pretty dang hard but I knew that going in. Thanks to this though, Im finally starting to get my head around clip studio paint! Another program to learn the quirks of! Hopefully next update I'll have something better than napkin scribbles and some cheesy lines in a .doc to show for it. (And also progress on the long painting)!

Sketchbook update as of July; Lots of people looking at me! So I drew their eyes :)

See you next time!

-Sam

I got plans!

With my teaching contract with Interac ending in early March, I've decided to return to the UK for the summer, instead of re-contracting for another 7-12 month period from next September.  Teaching at my elementary schools have been incredibly enjoyable and the time has flown in, almost without me noticing it; only 5 weeks left! I'm glad I applied and got the chance to work here, but its not a job where I can work on my art after work or on weekends, most of my free time is spent getting enough sleep so that I can wake up early enough to get to my rural schools for 7am.

Thankfully I was able to recover the PSD file from an old backup of that GW2 piece at the top- I started it back in the summer and just got back to finishing it over the Xmas break

 This was for a Dragon Age codex illustration, the games have such a cool art style for the murals and wall art that I wanted to give it a go!

My sketchbook hasn't been entirely neglected either (but still not enough!)
 **Sketchdump incoming**

 I've been drawing out variations on these characters, which are developed versions of the "Monk" concepts from the Excelsior MA project. Looking at some of the art I submitted for that course, I can only be embarrassed of. So to Level Up! as it were, and to update my portfolio, I'm working up turn-arounds and character paints for these guys/gays/masked constructs/whatever they are.

Please check out my artstation profile and like anything that takes your fancy!

System Down

Long time no type! Im continually surprised to see any activity on this blog since I haven`t had a substantial Art update to post in quite some time. Teaching is taking up about 70% of　my　time　here,　and　the　rest　is　probably a toss up between sleep and doing important adult life things- such as paying bills, laundry, video games，skyping people back at home.　You know,　the things that keep me sane. Unfortunately I don`t get much chance to draw outside of sketchbook scribble.

 

 

Can you tell that people stare at me a lot here? Comes with being 6"5 and white in somewhat suburban Japan. So, when sitting on long train journies, I open my sketchbook and draw the eyes that I catch watching me.

 

So tl;dr a lot of eyes and a lot of Sylvari (Im really enjoying GW2 Heart of Thorns ;D)

 

I got hit by a ransomware through my appartment building's network and it resulted in me loosing everything on my laptop from the last 3 years. Thankfully I had some backups but they are still 3 months out of date. RIP to many of my .psd files and unfinished paintings in photoshop.　Its a rather harsh lesson on keeping regular backups, finishing things and having a reliable anti-virus!

 

Until next time!

Sketchdump

These past two weeks have been quite busy with my graduation and flying over to England and back within 24 hours, so while I missed life drawing,  I still managed to get some printing and sketchbook work done. For some reason that meant a bunch of unrelated rocks and rocky landscape thumbnails, but it is what it is. 

As for the constellation characters, I've printed the libra design again but with varying amounts wiped back (below);

I've also thought about printing it as a combined etching/lithograph, so we shall see how that plays out. 

Speaking of lithography, for my next stone print I've come up with the design below (the actual stone drawing is different, this is just a rough idea for the design).

And to end off this post, a couple of sketchbook things I quite liked/found interesting. 

Life drawings & Etching update!

So despite the weather's desperate attempts to prevent me from getting to life drawing last Thursday , I still managed to get there if a bit late. The rest of these will go up on my facebook page but heres a couple that I quite liked. 

As for print work, I've started the first of two (perhaps more than two) plates for a new series of prints based on Zodiac characters and the constellations that their 30° divisions of space as seen from earth. Starting with Libra (the sign rather than the constellation), in his cloak are the constellations of Lupus, Ophiuchus, Scorpio, Virgo, Hydra, Serpens Caput and Centaurus. Somewhere else on his figure will be the astrological notation for libra ♎.   

First, I drew up some quick thumbnails and silhouettes in my sketchbook, did some research on the constellations in each sign's domain and tried out different poses and places for the star field to be placed- on the cloak, hair, skin, shawl, dress etc.

Then after drawing it up in Photoshop to my liking, I printed it out A6 size (same as the copper plate) and traced it onto the plate with the needle. Then, as shown in the image above, I laid down a light rosin aquatint and stopped out all the areas I wanted to remain clean with varnish- the background, the mantle and the constellation points.

5 minutes of etching later, the plate was ready for another round of stop out varnish. 

And after 2 printing proofs this is where it's at. I'm quite happy with the result though I should have let the aquatint be stronger on the cloak since it isn't quite as graphic as I expected. Next week I intend to re-aquatint it so that this time I get a light shade over the figure as well as the cloak, and also to deepen the tones in the star field. The 2nd print will be Virgo but more on that next week.

Dragon Age Inquisition comes out pretty soon, so I channeled my excitement for the game into trying out the official artwork's beautifully stylized Tarot cards. It was a fun exercise and in the future I might be tempted to include more abstract shapes within my work.


And finally, I've got some prints available to buy in the Belfast Print workshop Gallery , should you be in the city and want to see some of my older prints. There are several artist proofs and unique prints (non-edition ed) that I will be adding to my Etsy shop in the coming weeks so look forward to that! :)

-Sam

Animex Sketchbook scans!

I had intended on posting these sooner. Oh well. 

Up until this point, I'd focused on trying to draw the hands of the various speakers.

Then after being 100% unable to draw Rhianna Pratchett correctly I gave up and drew Barry Meade (Fireproof studios) and shifted my focus to random thumbnail and environment ideas

(Pause in drawing for an excellent anatomy lecture from Stuart Sumida)

I think that next year they should run a thing on twitter called #Animexsketch or something similar, since I was certainly not the only attendee drawing through the lectures.

As for module work for the second semester, I'm working now on a series of teaser ideas for visual story telling and the Excelsior brief from before.