concept beginnings for cgsociety contest

These gentlemen are some designs for aliens that I did coming up with ideas for the CGSociety contest last May

For an easier link to my CGSociety page:
MY CGSociety image entry

CGSociety Entry

I have been working on a piece for the CG Society website challenge lately. Here is the link:
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?postid=5089354#post5089354 to see my entry.
Things have been slow, and my computer has been having the fits too...I'm actually working photoshop on my wife's laptop now. It is a faster machine, and PS doesn't crash-or crash the computer like it does on mine. :)
Otherwise, Mr. mom for the most part right now. Elizabeth will be 3 in June! The phrase about kids growing up has caught up to me...it had to happen.
More to come in the future.
Later

To Paint

The day finally came, and I had to get this car done! Unfortunately, I had to use acrylic instead of the enamel that I had, but the finish still had a bit of a shine to it. Acrylic dries faster thank heavens. I didn't go into a lot of detail. There aren't any racing stripes like there is on the Bumblebee from the Transformers movie, and I was going to give a little black to the grooves in the body of the car. Sorry there are no shots of the wheels. They didn't go on very well, and came off too easily! Still, a little black, silver, and red, with a lot of yellow, and BAM! a Chevy Camaro made of pine. I definitely would invest in serious carving tools for this project...definitely better tools than I had...stronger...sharper... oh well :) Can't have everything. As it was, the car was a hit. No, it didn't win anything, but everybody knew it was Bumblebee. It was 7.07 oz, so I couldn't race in the regular races. No problem, I was just glad I could go, and that I had a car with wheels on it. The thing that I think would have done a bit more justice to it, more so than the racing stripes, would have been the Autobots Logo on the hood. Time was against me though. I am thinking of resanding it, repriming it, and doing it the way I had intended with the enamels. If I do, I will post that here. Enjoy folks! Now for the clean up.... :( Later

This is the basic beginning that I had. I started with the standard block for the pine wood car. I then added a sailboat kit and a birdhouse kit to it. The bottom of the boat is on the top of the block, and the sides added to the car are the roof of the birdhouse. All in all, it added the amount that I needed to reasonably carve the Camaro. You see the side template above that I used to approximate positioning of the design. I used a photo which I then filtered to look like a simple line drawing in Photoshop.

Pine Wood Derby

I am also in the middle of making a Pine Wood Derby car. The Elders Quorum at church is holding a race the day after the Scouts do theirs. My wife said that I should make "Bumblebee" from Transformers the movie, so I am making the 2006-9 Chevy Camaro concept car! I have some photos I will post later, but Nose to the grindstone for now....I only have 2 days left! And there is dust everywhere. Man, I really wish I had a heated shop out back.
-Later

Sands of Time

So this one is in blue pen. I bounce between this pen and the pencil quite often. I really miss using the old blue colored pencil though, so maybe one of the next ones will be that instead!
Anyhow, a couple of hours at most, 9x12 sketchbook, during church. I ever I get a little tired, this is the kind of thing that helps me stay awake, and I can still pay attention as well. Bonus. I will possibly color this one in Photoshop. It'll have to wait for a while though. And what color scheme to use? Mood? Time of day? All things I need to consider. Enjoy, and take care.

A while back I was doing a project that was driving me crazy, so I started this guy to blow off some steam. Even he was driving me crazy by the end. The other image still isn't done either. This is entirely Photoshop, from sketch to finish. The idea was a dragon with a flaming beard and mane, which raised issues of how to show structure of the bottom jaw, and also just how to work with the lighting it would cause. In the end I tried to make him look like he had internal heat as well with the designed veins of yellow. I couldn't decide if I wanted him in a dark forest or a dank cave, so I didn't really do too much detail there and just left it to the imagination...but it is dark for the contrast. as to where the blue secondary light is coming from...I don't know, perhaps it should be a night sky with the moon. I have done too many moon scenes lately though. It was a real challenge and took my altogether far longer than I expected for a vent piece. I enjoyed that last few hours pulling it together to the end though. Normally I do a pencil sketch of my dragons first, and paint from that structure...this was a different way for me, and the original drawing is a far cry from this finished painting. Enjoy. I hope the contrast and color are a nice reprieve from the graphite renderings. Thanks as always.

Sketch 12

So I get the idea of adding more characters into my work, and I only add a sword? This is obviously a loose reference to the sword in the stone concept. It was fun, it took forever, it's done. No reference material was used here, just pure guts. The sword was fun to design, but it is likely not possible. Oh well, imagination counts for a lot here then doesn't it? As I mentioned in previous posts, these are my anchors to sanity. So enjoy them, critique them, and remember to give me credit! I suppose I should eventually create a way for selling prints, but for now this is the best I can do. Take care!

Sketch 11

This is the new book I started this year utilizing a little more room for sketching 9x12. Consequently, they take longer to do. I only do them here and there while taking care of my kids anyway. The chance to sharpen my pencil skills and my imagination are a must. With these I get a chance to breathe the air of art in and avoid suffocation from reality. As these are just landscapes, I am beginning to want more life in them by putting characters within. I hopefully will integrate that soon. For a side note, I did use a photo of a tree to get the basics. From there, its all original, since one of these babies doesn't exist outside of my head. As always, Enjoy!