Sam's Tasty Art

Helper

2012-01-25T15:53:00.001-08:00

An illustration I did for a "New Era" magazine article.

Watercolor brushes

2012-01-18T20:05:00.000-08:00

A comment in the previous post on brushes made me think I should examine the "Real Watercolor" brushes more closely, but with the proper expectations (ie. unexpected results are okay). So I did, and I didn't try anything too crazy with them, but I like them better in that context. Making multiple watercolor layers at once is nice. The watercolor eraser is awful, though. This was done for the Avalanche blog:

I still like the digital watercolors better though. This was a drawing session a week or two ago.

Brush Review 2: Painter 10, Painter 12, Photoshop CS5

2012-01-02T16:40:00.000-08:00

I used to paint mostly with custom brushes, but my old custom brushes aren't very practical for demonstrations since they confuse new students. So when I bought Painter 12, I branched out into the stock brushes some more. Here are some of the ones I liked: some new to Painter 12, some that have been around for a while, and one or two from Photoshop.

First of all, the "Real 2b Pencil" from Painter 12. This is the only thing I use for drawing now, except occasionally the markers. Why? Because it feels exactly how you would want a digital pencil to feel. The only problem with it is the fat Wacom pen's inability to lay completely on its side like a real pencil would. But once you get used to it you'll never go back. And it's a "cover" pencil so you can draw with any color.

Painter 12 finally got markers right. I like quite a few of the new markers, but my favorite is the "Variable Chisel Tip," only I changed the Opacity control to pen pressure.

The new markers basically treat a single stroke all as wet ink, and don't layer on new color until you start a new stroke. If you've used art markers before you'll immediately feel how much better these are than Painter's old markers.

The next brush has been around in Painter for a while, but they've improved it just slightly for 12: the "Grainy Water" Blender. Something about the way it blends feels really intuitive, and best of all, if you're blending line art, you can see the original lines underneath just like you do when blending natural dry media. Lately I've been using this brush instead of an eraser when drawing, because the unique way it blends gives you a very natural feel.

The "Grainy Water Blender" makes two brushes I would have avoided before suddenly become pretty nice: The "Real Soft Chalk" and "Real Hard Pastel." The former is ideal for mixing and adding depth to your colors, the latter gives you a nice opaque color with some texture when blended.

One inherent problem with digital painting is that it will never feel as tactile and "right" as natural media. However, digital media DOES provide extra controls and options that you may not have with, say, something like watercolor or oil paint. So why did the Painter guys make their new Watercolor and Oil brushes even MORE painful and unpredictable than their real-life counterparts? I don't know, but I'm going to recommend you use some of their older brushes instead.

The watercolors Painter 10 (or 9?) introduced are mostly just useful for adding texture to your image. I really like the "Diffuse Bristle" for that very purpose. If you absolutely must use the new watercolors for actual painting, the "Wet Wash Flat" isn't horrible. But if you want something that does what I described above, in mixing some of the benefits/feel of natural media with the power and flexibility of digital, use the Digital Watercolors. In my last post on brushes I think I liked the "Simple Water" best. Well, the "New Simple Water" is even better. Digital water color is best for adding color to an existing drawing, like this:

Original drawing

Fine details added using Real Soft Chalk and Grainy Water Blender

My favorite part: low pressure pushes the colors around and pulls some of the color out, much like the behavior you'd get when switching between a wet brush dipped in color and a damp brush. If you want to have more than one layer of digital watercolor at a time, create a new layer and turn off "Pick Up Underlying Color" in the layers menu. If you want to dry the digital watercolor (merge colors with the canvas) for any layer, the option is in the Layers menu.

The new Oil brushes are garbage, for the same reasons I cited above: less intuitive than the real thing, and nothing new added by making it digital. Maybe a little less expensive and fewer health risks, but Corel could definitely do better than this. The biggest problem is that none of the Oil controls can be attached to pressure, pen tilt, or any other Wacom settings.

I thought I'd throw in an addendum for Painter users who are curious about Photoshop CS5, or for Photoshop users who want the same results as Painter. I'm sorry to say that for the most part, Photoshop does everything differently than Painter does. It is possible to make a Painter brush feel exactly like Photoshop, but getting Photoshop to mimic most Painter brushes is just impossible. Photoshop does a few things well, like the way it handles Dual Brush effects and texture. But its brushes don't scale well, making edges hard to manage, and its Mixer Brush Tool doesn't live up to hype. In fact, CS5's Mixer Brush reminds me a lot of Painter's Oils, and you know how I feel about those. You'll get much better behavior from modifying your smudge tool (which isn't as good as the Grainy Water Blender in Painter, but it's way better than the Mixer Brush settings for blending).

Class sale

2011-12-27T17:28:00.000-08:00

I did this image as a tutorial about mixing light colors for my Schoolism class.

I also noticed that my class wasn't included on the flyer sent out by Schoolism, so I thought I'd better post something and say that the sale DOES apply to my class. The sale is $100 off self-taught classes, until Jan. 25, 2012.

TRUUOOOOOOWLLL!

2011-12-06T08:08:00.000-08:00

I recently watched Troll Hunter and got inspired. I don't think a film has captured my imagination so strongly for a long while now.

Profile

2011-11-29T13:38:00.001-08:00

I need to do more quick studies and sketches.

You know, like Life of Pi

2011-11-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

Done for the Avalanche blog.

Neversink cover

2011-10-04T12:06:00.000-07:00

Here's another book I did art for. I did a bunch of interior art for this as well, so I might post some of it when the book comes out next year.

I was heavily inspired by the art Xiangyuan Jie did for Brother Bear, especially his painting of the glacier creeping over the mountain. It just seemed like the right feeling for the world of the book. Check out his art, he is amazing!

Stealing Apples

2011-09-19T12:08:00.000-07:00

Done for a Friend article. I wanted to try a different render style, but looking at it now I wish I would have done something more with the drawing style as well.

Clouds

2011-09-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

I forgot to mention that Schoolism is having a $100 off sale on all self-taught classes for people who sign up today and tomorrow, if anyone's interested. Sorry for the late notice!

I did these clouds as a 45-minute warm-up this week, thinking I'd show some of the things I teach about atmosphere and clouds in the class. I saw this scene last year and it has stuck in my head ever since. Painting clouds can be really fun!

Quick Cover

2011-08-29T09:03:00.000-07:00

Another book cover. I did this one in a hurry, but it turned out okay anyway.

Interview with Bobby Chiu

2011-08-12T20:52:00.000-07:00

I recently did an interview and quick painting demo with Bobby Chiu. You can watch it here.

Link vs. Link

2011-07-27T15:44:00.001-07:00

For the Avalanche blog "Legend of Zelda" topic. See if you can decipher my feelings about the newer Link designs vs. what I imagined the old one to be.

Art Book for sale now

2011-07-22T15:13:00.000-07:00

You can now buy the book I sold at Comic-Con last year, here:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2342434

Thoughts and Doodles | Make Your Own Book

I've spent the last year deciding whether to publish it as is, or to beef it up and move it to a more cost-effective format. In the end, I decided to focus my energy on other projects and just release this book as is. Unfortunately, that means Blurb will be the only way to get this book!

Random Cars 2 Concept Work

2011-07-19T11:54:00.000-07:00

I usually show the best stuff I did rather than the odds and ends from a project, but Cars 2 was mostly odds and ends for me. So here's a glimpse into the actual day-to-day work of a concept artist.

I was the first concept artist on Cars 2, and my first job was to create a style guide based on the first movie since Pixar didn't have one for Cars 2. I did a bunch of pages for this, but I'm only posting these (and posting them very small) because I'm worried about legal issues.

We had almost no art from Pixar at the start, so my first task was to show how to translate Tokyo's Ginza district at street level into the Cars world. I gave up on this one because I knew this was mostly wasted effort since we would get the actual art from Pixar later.

Our world builders are very competent, but we end up doing lots of paintovers anyway, I think because multiple eyes on something always produces better results.

Another early task was to test out how various game design ideas for gadgets would look on the cars. I don't think any of these ideas made it into the game.

I went back onto the project at the end, and at this point they needed final concept for the gadgets. Some of my job was to add some polish to things other people had done (The upper left cluster), but in other some cases I had to explore a bunch of new ideas. In cases like this you just paint or draw over the model because it's a waste of time to draw the car over and over again.

Cars 2 Videogame

2011-07-14T13:50:00.000-07:00

I worked for a short time on the game for Cars 2. It turned out pretty good! Not that I can claim any credit for that.
This was for a ceiling texture in the Italy track. It was meant to tile with itself, flipped horizontally and vertically. Based heavily on drawings done by a Pixar artist I do not know the name of. If you know the artist, please let me know so I can give him/her credit.

All image rights belong to Disney.

Great artists still steal

2011-07-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

Here's an awesome video series that addresses many of the same ideas (and in a more elegant way) that I did in a previous post. Watch through the credits because he puts more content in afterward.

Everything is a Remix Part 1 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix Part 2 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

I can't wait for part 4.

Figure Session

2011-06-16T17:14:00.000-07:00

This one is from last Friday.

Dead

2011-06-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

Sometimes cool ideas become real projects. But most of the time they find a quiet corner to die in, like an escaped pet newt drying under the couch.

Memory sketch

2011-05-29T15:41:00.000-07:00

I usually have a ton of doodles from memory littering my desk, but I thought this one would make an interesting image so I took it a bit further. I also like to push myself into trying new techniques every once in a while.

The Glorious Adventures of the Sunshine Queen

2011-05-26T13:52:00.000-07:00

Here's another book I did the cover for. This one went through a lot of changes along the way so I really had to hurry at the end. I'm happy with how it turned out considering, but I also wish I could have taken more time and really made it stunning. Oh, and the book is great. I definitely recommend it.

Cool people

2011-05-25T08:51:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks after our new baby was born, we got this gift in the mail:

It was a framed original from Bobby Chiu, along with a note congratulating us and explaining the creature (elephant mice are born the size of walnuts but grow to 3 times the size of African elephants, in case you didn't know) We've gotten many gifts for our kids' births over the years, but I have to say this is the coolest one so far.
Also, occasionally I get requests from people who want to create models from my paintings. They usually turn out pretty good, but I think this is the best one so far. Nice job by Porter Vinson. I'm including my piece below the model for comparison:

The Art of the Heist

2011-05-16T10:52:00.000-07:00

Some people misunderstood the intent of my last post. It was certainly condescending toward the "thieving" artist. But it was not in a sanctimonious-dean-accusing-a-student-of-plagiarism way, but in an experienced-thief-shaking-his-head-at-the-burglar-caught-by-leaving-tracks-in-the-snow kind of way.

Because let's face it: all artists are thieves, if you count being influenced by images or ideas that you didn't create as stealing*. So it's not "good artists borrow and great artists steal"; it's good artists clumsily pick-pocket, and great artists pull off the heist of the century. Great artists steal in ways that are either untraceable or in ways that are so masterful that nobody cares where it all came from.

So while I'm not one of the all-time great plunderers, for the sake of other bungling burglars out there I'd like to share the ways I've learned that you can steal and still "get away with it."

The Lookie Loo
Otherwise known as "using reference," this is the most fundamental grab-and-run operation. It consists of drawing or painting something that already exists, usually while the artist is looking directly at that thing. Sometimes the artist will set up a scene and then pilfer it verbatim, but other times he or she will pinch from smaller photos or art that describe the individual elements needed for the larger piece.

The Memory Game
Similar to the Lookie Loo, but in this case the artist steals imagery or ideas from things he or she has seen or been inspired by in the past. The beauty of this ploy is that the artist may perform the theft without even realizing it is happening. In order to avoid a surprise outcome with the Memory Game, artists may intentionally throw in a Combination Caper or layer in a Romance Scam to throw people off the scent.

The Combination Caper
Here the artist lifts multiple ideas from different sources and fuses them together. The success of this caper relies on constructing an image from things the audience is already familiar with, so that they will subconsciously register each contribution as it influences their reaction to the piece.

The Parrot Ruse
Otherwise known as "quoting," in the Parrot Ruse the artist repeats a recognizable portion of another artists' work in order to establish context for his own message. By calling upon the viewers' familiarity with the work being quoted, the artist suckers them into thinking that his wholesale rip-off is acceptable because "it's ironic." The non-art equivalent to this would be stealing a Lambourghini in broad daylight while singing. Not only would people allow it: they would applaud afterward, assuming the theft was a clever part of a flash-mob.

The Romance Scam
Sure, the artist's character design isn't that original. But when everyone is looking at the way she's handled the lighting, or the emotional expression of the piece, most people don't even think about the design. The Romance scam works by misdirection---the artist hides her fraud in one area with fancy execution in another.

I'm pretty sure I didn't paint all these textures from scratch

Salting the Line
This is one case in which an artist can get away with taking other art or photos directly, if it is done carefully. By layering in textures, patterns, or other effects from another source, the artist can quickly add polish and something interesting to his piece. This type of cheat only works when nobody recognizes the source being used, or if some combination of the sources creates an effect that masks the individuality of the plundered pieces.

The Chop Shop
Think of it as a collage of crime. This one is commonly used by digital matte painters, who need to create a sense of realism, but do not have the time or inclination to paint in every leaf on every tree. In order to pull off a Chop Shop successfully, the artist has to know something about composition and how to get things to fit together. The artist's primary goal in a Chop Shop job is assembling his ill-gotten goods in an appealing way.

Scams that Don't Work (Anymore)

The Pablo Pipoppycock
Don't have any original ideas? Just vandalize one of your lifted ideas with some crazy effect and call it "modern." This lowbrow version of the Romance Scam appeals to people's fear of being considered less intelligent than others. Just be aware that, even if your lengthy essay explaining the piece impresses your art school buddies, you can't expect to win any points in accomplished art crook circles. It's a small-time scam and we've all tried it at least once, but the real satisfaction is found in bigger heists.

The Snake Oil Swindle
Selling a product made by someone else as your own? We all know that direct copies and studies have value to you personally, but don't try to profit from them unless your big dreams as an artist include being blackballed by at least a corner of the industry.

The Flemish Prisoner
This is when the artist decides that, since nothing is original anyway, he or she will just paint the same boring things as everyone else and not ever even attempt to have an original thought. Mastering a technique, but not developing the ideas beyond stage one, is just a waste of potential.

*Disclaimer: I'm not condoning actual art theft, of the literal or figurative variety. In fact, I don't believe artists are thieves any more than I believe that artists are accountants. I DO believe in relaxing a little and appreciating the fact that all artists are standing on the shoulders of giants. Please don't begrudge another artist if they are standing on your shoulders; because you've enjoyed the same courtesy from other artists around the world and throughout history.

"Good artists borrow, great artists steal"

2011-05-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

Even if Picasso or T.S. Eliot really said that, I'm pretty sure that this is not what he meant:

Something I painted a few years ago

Art from a recently released game called Tiny Bang Story

I'm still not sure how to react. On the one hand, the artist borrowed heavily from my art without credit or recompense. But on the other hand, they made it look like that. I should probably feel more bad for the culprit than anything. Not bad enough, however, to spare him or her the public ridicule he or she rightly deserves.

Update: Joe Olson points out that the kid in the image (including the hand on the shoulder, but not his eyes) appears to be modified from a picture by Kevin Keele. It's very strange---the rest of the art in the game looks pretty good and the artist here obviously re-painted everything him/herself. So why do such an ugly hack-job on this portrait?

Lord McCaw

2011-04-22T08:07:00.000-07:00

This was for an exercise I did with some of the other concept artists. We were supposed to take an animal, find an appropriate personality, and push the caricature a bit. I want to do another where I push the caricature further, but I was happy with it anyway, considering I did the whole thing in an hour.

Weak

2011-04-14T16:38:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I loved Superman. But now he's so boring to me. Maybe it's that he can do everything. Maybe it's that he acts like "the ring is so heavy" Elijah Wood whenever fake green rocks show up. Or it might just be that in order to balance out all his power, writers seem to love making him unsure of himself. Uncertainty doesn't necessarily make a character appealing. It just makes you frustrated with him, like you always are with Hamlet. And let's face it, Hamlet would have been way less interesting if they made him sword-proof.

Gestalt

2011-04-01T20:37:00.000-07:00

Gestalt psychology is an important concept for artists, and it's one way that the struggle of order and chaos is part of good design. The Gestalt effect is also built into everyone, so you can expect audiences to respond exactly the same, regardless of age, gender, or culture.

Gestalt psychology is about how we sort the complicated mass of information our eyes (and other senses) constantly feed our brain. Look closely at the above image for a minute. Stare at one point, or move your eyes around. Notice how everything swims a bit, like your brain is having a hard time retaining the shape and spacing of the circles?

Now look at this image in the same way. Any better?

How about this image? Notice that most of the swimming is gone.

Your brain makes sense of things by forming relationships between the objects in your field of vision. When these relationships are all equal (in the first image, even the blank spaces are similar in size to the circles), your brain has to constantly work in an attempt to organize the field. In the third image, your brain easily categorizes the shapes by proximity, value, and size. Clustering the circles into groups and the colors into gradients makes this sorting even easier.

Strangely, in Gestalt psychology, too much order feels chaotic and organic disorder feels more controlled! This idea can be incredibly useful in painting. An artist with a good understanding of Gestalt effects can visually engage an audience without overstimulating them, helping them be open to the ideas his or her art is trying to express. I'll talk about some specific Gestalt principles in later posts, so stay tuned!

Friday drawing

2011-03-21T08:21:00.000-07:00

Schoolism Sale

2011-03-18T10:50:00.000-07:00

In case anyone's interested, the self-taught version of my Schoolism class is $100 off for a short time! The self-taught class has all the lectures from the full version, but doesn't include the personalized critiques, instruction, and paintovers. For more information, go here.

Order and Chaos

2011-03-10T16:16:00.000-08:00

One of the objectives of good design is to create something aesthetically appealing. Aesthetic appeal does not necessarily mean beauty in the traditional sense---so appeal could be awkward, or even "ugly," if it strikes the right chord and your audience likes the result. That said, there is an element of beauty to every great design, even when "ugly" is the purpose.
Purpose, premise, and story are intuitive (but not necessarily automatic) parts of the appeal equation, because most people can sense when a story is interesting, or when a premise is new, or when a personality resonates with them. But what about all these seemingly arbitrary rules about the visual relationships of lines, shapes, and colors? Are these universal rules or something that is a product of our art culture?

My answer (and this is a working hypothesis so feel free to chime in) is that while the current trends in visual design aren't universal, the thing driving those trends is. The universally appealing law underlying the use of design principles is the age-old conflict between order and chaos.

Order versus chaos is a fundamental struggle of the universe. Creation struggles against entropy, explosive stars struggle against gravity, life struggles against plague and famine. Convection, which life on earth depends on, is the byproduct of systems seeking stasis, but the result is incredibly chaotic.

Original file here

Order and chaos are also a fundamental human struggle. We seek stasis in our lives, but then we're not happy for long once we achieve it. This is one of the major forces driving industry, war, and politics---people, societies, and countries endlessly striving against each other either in the attempt to reach a sense of security or to sate their dissatisfaction with the security that they enjoy.

I believe this is what makes great designs appeal to something deep inside us. When something is too ordered it becomes boring, but when it's too chaotic it's overwhelming. This struggle is such an integral part of life that when a design balances this struggle in a way that parallels what we experience in nature, it can resonate with us in the same way that a great story can.

The idea of order vs. chaos has a huge variety and depth of application in design and painting, so that's what I'm going to talk about in the next series of posts.

Nonsense

2011-02-28T13:59:00.000-08:00

This was for an imagination sequence in the game. Thanks again to Dave McClellan for help and critiques.

Another paintover

2011-02-14T14:32:00.000-08:00

I had more to work with this time. The red rock was built by Reed Hawker in 3d, and most of the sky done by Dave McClellan (link on my sidebar). The sky hadn't been placed in this world and they didn't really have a look for this area, other than they wanted it to be flowers and butterflies while still having some tie-ins to the rest of the old western town look. I pieced this together, and Reed did a fantastic job at making the world look like this in the final game.

Level Paintovers

2011-02-08T11:30:00.000-08:00

I did a lot of paintovers in the game, but most of them were quick scratchy things that aren't really worth posting. A few of them turned out well though, like these ones.

I included the screenshots they gave me for comparison, in case you're wondering what those vague polygon blobs are. That's not a knock on our level guys, they're excellent! They just didn't give me much to work with in these cases.

Spaceport

2011-01-25T12:55:00.000-08:00

Something else for the TS3 game. Designing a toy is both fun and boring at the same time. You have some interesting restrictions to play around with and the result is appealing and familiar even when it's something new. But then there's this frustrating threshold of imagination and life that you just can't cross without losing the things that make it toy-like.

I never finished the interior shots because the game went a different direction, but you can at least see where I was planning to go.

The best muffin I've ever drawn

2011-01-14T12:04:00.000-08:00

Here's some unused concept art I did for the last game I worked on . I might post more every once in a while just to keep things from getting too word-y around here.

A Retraction of Sorts

2011-01-13T13:53:00.000-08:00

I said that premise should be the first thing you address, but someone's great comment made me think I should revise the part about it being first. Purpose and premise, while extremely useful in the search for good design, don't need to define your process. Especially if you have a method that already works for you. For some people the exploration and discovery process is something that comes naturally. Great ideas can come from many sources and sometimes in surprising ways.

That said, at some point along the road, you should be able to answer these questions or you'll have a hard time pushing your paintings or designs to the next level. Go ahead and look at premise first if you don't know where else to start, but if you have a feel for where you want to start, do that first and then try to address premise and purpose retroactively.

More on Premise

2011-01-06T18:21:00.000-08:00

I threw "premise" into the last post almost like an afterthought, but I should have talked about it first. Premise is usually where you start. There are a variety of definitions for premise. In logic, premise is a foundational part of an argument; it's the presumed truth that the conclusion is based on. In story, premise is the core concept the story is based on, and can usually be summed up with a "What if?" question. For example, the movie Inception is based on the premise, "What if you could 'con' someone through their dreams?" Some arguments for premise say it must include the central conflict of the story, which would make it impossible to state the premise of Inception in a single sentence.

My use of premise assumes that, like a story or a logical argument, every component of a property has a foundational idea that it's based on. I believe that, like in a story premise, these premises should be designed to make each component interesting within the context of the whole. I apply this idea to every character in the story, to every area in the environment, to every story scene, to every action the game character can perform, and so forth. I don't always do this consciously, but I'm never satisfied until each of these can be described with a short blurb that makes that component compelling to work on. The Incredibles is filled with characters who are based on interesting and interconnected premises:

A retired superhero longs for glory days
Superhero's superspouse wants to settle down
OCD boss of superhero can't accept breaks with protocol
Stalker-fanboy becomes supervillain

All of these premises are enough, as incomplete as they are, to inspire further story choices and drive design decisions. I often have students pitch premises like "hero hiding a dark secret," "charismatic but evil bad guy," or "gorgeous girl who is insecure." These are technically not bad premises, but they have been used so much that it will take lots of work to make them interesting. So part of creating a good premise might be finding an original aspect to infuse the idea with.

So let's say you're assigned to do concept art for a goblin. Without a deliberate search for premise, most artists (myself included) default to the most generic solutions: ugly face, green skin, fur boots, spare armor, feisty personality, etc. I'm not saying generic goblins are bad, because in some cases the stereotype is the right choice. But I'm trying to train myself to go generic as a last resort, because usually a more interesting premise that can drive the design is just around the corner.

No matter how ornate the armor is, he's still nothing new

This is where another aspect of good vs. bad premise comes in.

Honestly, I'm not sure if there is such thing as an inherently bad premise, with the exception of 2 rules:
1. Originality and interest are good
2. Unless those things mess up the story or alienate the audience*

So an unimportant character with a premise that requires screentime to explain is a bad thing. Also bad: a main character that has an interesting premise but that is incompatible with the premise of the story. And of course, if you're making a property for popular teenage girls, they will not be impressed with your mossy hobbit-hole tree world, no matter how rich with history the magical runes are. The only (*)exception to the don't-alienate-your-audience rule is when a story beat requires something that the audience would be uncomfortable with.

What's My Purpose?

2010-12-30T17:24:00.000-08:00

This is the first question I ask myself when starting a painting or drawing. You can't make intelligent decisions on a painting until you've decided what you're trying to accomplish, and have some idea of how you're going to accomplish it. That may sound simple, but there are several facets to this idea and you should be able to answer most of the questions below BEFORE you start drawing/painting:

Audience: Who am I making this for? Am I trying to make something that my audience feels more comfortable with, or something that feels more innovative and new?

Some audiences are inherently hard to please and have to be
won over. Like hipsters, unless you're Wes Anderson.

Format: How will the audience experience this image/character/environment/etc.? Does the format affect the scope of what I can communicate?

Fringe's mad scientist is a great character that probably wouldn't work in a video game.
Or in a stand-alone illustration. Internet images have a unique format problem also:
everybody sees them at a different size!

Purpose: What needs does this painting/character/environment need to fill? Are there special or arbitrary parameters from the publisher/art director/marketing/writers/technicians/etc. that need to be included?

The house in UP had to function as an interior and exterior
environment, hold a storehouse of props, work as a vehicle,
and be something audiences came to care about as a symbol
for Carl's deceased wife.

Story (technically an extension of purpose): What role does this character/environment/etc. play in the property? What emotional chord do I want to strike with the viewer? Are there additional story/moodsetting things I could layer into the piece without distracting from the primary purpose/story?

Jack Sparrow's costume design is great---an iconic "first read," with lots of
suggested history in the details, yet all of it supports his personality
and the core idea of his character.

Premise: Which of the many ways of expressing the above purpose and story will feel most fresh and interesting to my audience? Is there a way of integrating the publisher's/art director's/etc.'s parameters in a way that "feels right" or gives things an unexpected twist?

Let me reiterate what I said earlier but add something: If you can't answer all of the above questions, DON'T START PAINTING UNTIL YOU CAN. In fact, if you can't answer them in a way that makes you feel inspired about your illustration or whatever you're working on, I'd recommend that you either do some brainstorming or start over with a drawing that inspires some of these things!

What does design have to do with painting?

2010-12-26T21:27:00.000-08:00

As crazy as the version on the left seems, it's not far off from something I see fairly often:
thoughtlessly placed colors and values, ruining a perfectly fine drawing

Many of the students who take my painting class at BYU have limited training in painting. Because of this, I expect to find a lot of structure or technique-related problems. Surprisingly, while those other problems sometimes show up, the flaws that hurt students' paintings the most are usually design problems!

Some things I see all the time:
- A badly-designed drawing ruining what would otherwise be a fine painting
- Poorly-designed values resulting in visual chaos
- Unappealing renders of character designs that look great as drawings
- Ugly color schemes
- Workable color schemes ruined by poor distribution of colors
- Weak or confusing value/color composition
- Arbitrary or default decision-making, resulting in a generic image

While good structure and technique are essential up to a point, design seems to affect most whether or not a painting is successful and appealing. The problem with design is that while the tenets are simple, the principles are so interconnected and expressive that there are endless ways to convey any single idea using completely different design principles.

Because of this, implementing good design into painting isn't a simple thing to learn. I've studied design a lot, yet I still struggle with some pretty basic things all the time. I confess this is part of the reason why I want to do this series of posts. If I can work through some of these complex ideas some more, maybe I'll get better. If not, at least some of you will get a peek into how I think about art as I work.

Now that I've introduced the subject, we're going to dig into specifics. We'll systematically break down each of the above subjects, in addition to some other things that are affected by design in painting: texture, silhouette, dimensionality, and communication of ideas or emotion.

Happy Santa Speedpaint

2010-12-21T12:57:00.000-08:00

The drawing isn't terribly exciting, but I like some things about his design. Spent about 1 hour on this.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

2010-12-15T12:45:00.000-08:00

Did this cover for the December issue of The Friend. The next post on painting and design is taking a back seat to a bunch of other things going on right now, but I'll finish it up and post soon.

Epic Mickey

2010-12-01T13:13:00.000-08:00

I did a little work for this game, for which I will never receive any credit (thanks Mr. Guy-Who-Messed-Up-The-Credits). I did a bit of work on this project, but these are the pieces I was happiest with. The line art/character design in the second one was by my talented coworker Jon Diesta. Sadly, they went a different direction on that character in the final game.

Why Design?

2010-11-20T08:45:00.000-08:00

Design is, in a way, a derivative of something that makes humans unique---tools. Wheels, ovens, pens, iPhones; these are all things that allow us to shape the world around us and change the type of experience we have in it. Design is about making more effective tools---things that better serve the purpose for which they were made, and in a way that is most aesthetically pleasing to the user. I love design for this reason---it's purpose-driven and its results are measurable (satisfying my scientifically-oriented brain).

Because of this, instead of talking about the broader subject of what defines art, I'm going to assume that everyone buys into my philosophy that a piece of art is only "good" when it's successful in the goals it set out to accomplish. These goals could include expressing ideas, evoking emotion, and creating appeal or beauty. However, I'm also not going to talk about where good ideas come from, or about what qualifies as beautiful. Those might be interesting discussions for another time. What I want to talk about is the raw elements that effective art is constructed from.

Design is one of three major areas of study in art. These three areas are Structure, Technique, and Design. Very few artists have a mastery in all these areas, because there's a lifetime of learning in each one. Interestingly though, all three areas are closely related and rely on each other. Your character design of a horse won't be appealing if you don't base it on a real horse's structure. Design guides the use of brush techniques when painting. Some techniques for constructing the figure can speed up the process and produce more pleasing results. My Schoolism class is focused on structural learning (rendering surfaces accurately), but it ends up touching a little on design and technique because those things are inescapably tied to structure. Because of this, while I'm going to be talking a lot about design in the upcoming posts, keep structure and technique in mind because many of the principles will apply in both of those areas as well.

Next Post: What does Painting have to do with Design?

Design and Painting

2010-11-17T08:41:00.000-08:00

Since most of my artwork these days is stuff I can't post, I'm thinking of doing a series of posts instead where I condense down the workshop I did at LAAFA on Painting and Design. Will any of you out there read it if I do?

Environment

2010-10-26T13:09:00.000-07:00

Considering how much I love doing environments, it's strange that I don't do them more often. They do take a lot of time and they never turn out as good as I imagined, so maybe that's why.

I started this one for fun, then decided to keep the riverbed dry so I could use it as a base for one of the Schoolism assignments (the one on water and liquid, I'm having students paint water into the scene).

The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman

2010-10-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

I just noticed the a book I did a cover for last year has been released! Working with Harper Collins was fun. Probably the hardest part for me was hitting the right look for the target audience, as I don't exactly have a thumb on the pulse of the "tween" fiction market. So I just went for something more realistic than my usual, but that still had some fun and imagination to it. In retrospect I should have hired some models instead of trying to work out of my head, but I still wouldn't want to lose that that slightly skewed, almost carictured look.

I read an early draft of the book before starting the illustration, and I enjoyed it in spite of my out-of-touch-ness. If you want a copy, you can see it here.

Drawing Session

2010-10-08T09:31:00.000-07:00

I think this one was around 70-80 minutes. I didn't do a good job with the likeness, but I'm happy with everything else.

LAAFA long workshop (Starting Friday!)

2010-09-29T15:08:00.000-07:00

If anyone is thinking of signing up for this at the last minute, I thought I'd send out a quick clarification on what you're supposed to bring.
Bring some line art you're happy with and feel comfortable turning into a painting.
Bring a painting that you would like critiqued.
And if you have a laptop, tablet, or ipad you can paint on in-class, bring that also. This one's not necessary so don't sweat it if you don't have anything.

Heading off to LA soon, see some of you there!

Lines

2010-09-24T12:38:00.000-07:00

Here's some line art I did recently for the students of my BYU class. I'm trying to give us more time for painting, so we're not spending as much time critiquing and fixing drawing issues. We'll see after this semester whether it turns out to be a good idea or not.

I haven't had time to clean up the lines very well yet, and there are a couple more characters I'll post after I've fixed a few more things. It's possible we'll just spend the whole semester fixing my mistakes instead!

Wind Rider

2010-09-17T12:03:00.000-07:00

This was for another lunch project. The assignment on this one was flat black and white values, minimal line work.

It didn't take that long, but it was a really good design exercise.

LAAFA: Design in Concept Painting

2010-09-13T08:18:00.000-07:00

To be fair to. . .well, everyone, I'm not good enough to deserve teaching anything at this school.

That said, I'm going to do a 3-day workshop for the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art on digital painting and design in concept art. This is my favorite subject of all, and I'm excited to get a chance to show attendees the real reason why I love painting.

Learning how to render form and light are essential foundation skills, but nobody becomes a great painter without a strong understanding or deep-seated sense of design in everything they do. This is the most advanced class I know how to teach, and I'll be giving away every secret I know for using digital painting to transform a good concept into something really exciting.

I'll also be doing a demonstration for a few hours one of the evenings. This will be like a condensed and less-deep version of the 3-day workshop.

I hope some of you can make it!

Yellow or blue

2010-09-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

Some of the people I work with are doing "lunch projects," where we use whatever time we don't spend eating during the lunch hour working on an assignment. I won't post mine every week, because it's mostly an educational exercise, but occasionally something good might come out of it. This week's assignment was to do something based off a palette from a Gustav Klimt painting.

Schoolism Class: Advanced Lighting

2010-08-30T08:38:00.000-07:00

There are already a lot of other online tutorials on lighting and surface. Not only that, but Schoolism has some amazing artists and instructors. Because of this, I felt pretty intimidated when I was asked to teach a class for Schoolism. I wasn't sure what I could bring to the table that would be on par with their other classes and worth the investment compared to similar offerings elsewhere.

However, after doing some work on the course I can say with confidence that this class is going to be awesome (if you don't mind my awkward way with words in the lectures). I've done enormous amounts of research and boiled it all down in a way that anyone should be able to understand. I'm excited to teach when the class starts up next month. The part I'm looking forward to most is the interaction with students on the assignments, because that's where most of the learning is going to happen.

I did this as a demo from the lecture on "fleshy" materials.

Troll-ish

2010-08-20T15:39:00.000-07:00

For the Avalanche Blog.

Something from Friday's drawing session

2010-08-08T16:44:00.000-07:00

For some reason I liked this painting a lot better on Friday. Now something seems off about it. Maybe I didn't push the exaggeration enough. Hmmm.

Comic Con: Schoolism and LAAFA Booths

2010-07-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

If you want to find me at ComiCon, I'm going to be giving live critiques at the Schoolism booth (#2042) twice a day on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I'll be there from 12:20-1:15pm and 4:55-5:50pm. I'm not going to be selling my books during those times though, so if you want one you'll want to catch me just after I finish. I'll be in the booth primarily for giving critiques on people's art and promoting my upcoming class for Schoolism. If you're curious about the class, it's going to be an in-depth course on painting light and surface, and you can learn more about it on the Schoolism site. I'd like to tell more about it but maybe I'll save that for another post.

I'm also going to do a painting demonstration at the LAAFA booth (#5562) on Friday from 2-4pm. I'm doing a huge 3-day workshop there in October on digital painting and design.

So if you're coming to Comic-con, drop by one of these booths and say hello!

Book for Comic Con

2010-07-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

I'm attending ComicCon for the first time this year, so I thought I'd better produce my first art book also. It's filled with almost 80 pages of paintings and drawings, including old art, new art, and updated art. I only printed 20 copies and I won't have a booth, so if you're interested you'll have to (A.) Go to comic-con, (B.) track me down, (C.) be one of the first 20 people to do so, and (D.) Have $30.

I will, however, be doing demonstrations at the Schoolism and LAAFA booths, so if you're wondering where to find me, I'll post a schedule of when I'll be at each booth soon.

Here's a cropped sample from one of the new images in the book:

Hope to see some of you there!

Beak Mountain update

2010-06-22T11:12:00.000-07:00

I haven't had much time recently to work on my own projects, but I want to thank everyone who gave critiques on the mountain picture. Here's a progress shot to show that I'm attempting to address the various problems that many of you pointed out. I haven't gotten to everything yet, so don't worry too much if you see something awry still. For those who suggested that it needs a story, you're right (Curses! Why do I never think of basic rules like that until I'm deep into the painting phase?). Still, I don't feel too bad since that wasn't the point of the piece; it will still work just fine as the painting process tutorial I wanted to make.

In other mountain-related news, I took my family up into a nearby canyon (about 30 minutes from my house) for a campfire/picnic last night. Here's one of the views we had from our campground---although a photo doesn't give a very good idea of how impressive these mountains really are in person.

Also, if you haven't ever had wood-roasted hot dogs and s'mores, you need to find a way to make it happen. Even if that means setting a fire in a dumpster and cooking before the fire department arrives [common sense alert for anyone who has none: DO NOT REALLY FOLLOW SAM'S ADVICE.] (<---Actually, this is not a bad mantra to live by).

Costume designs

2010-06-16T13:34:00.000-07:00

I've been sketching with pencil and paper a lot more lately, and trying to get some of the rust off. Unfortunately, I'm not confident enough yet to break the inks out, so these were inked and colored digitally.

As a side note, I've noticed that it's very difficult to design costumes that look good regardless of what the character is doing. Still, I've found I get the best results with a fairly straightforward stance pose.

Shadows

2010-06-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

Did this for a Liahona article. The printed version I saw had different colors and lots of pixelation, so I don't know what went wrong (probably something on my end). At any rate, now you can see what it was meant to look like:

Work-in-Progress

2010-05-25T14:43:00.000-07:00

Something I'm working on, but I'm unhappy with something I can't quite put my finger on. Any suggestions/critiques?

Book Cover

2010-05-13T14:55:00.000-07:00

A cover I did for a German publishing company. The book is a compilation of two previously published books by A. Lee Martinez.

Old man and tablet

2010-05-04T16:12:00.000-07:00

I use an old Intuos 2 at home and the pen is falling apart. I hate it. I'm counting the number of times that the button falls off and the sleeve falls down before I get fed up enough to spend money on either A) a new pen or B) a new tablet altogether. I hate to spend $70 on a stupid pen, but I'm having an equally hard time justifying the much larger expense of the tablet.

I do like the Intuos 4 though. I spent about 10 minutes scratching out this color sketch on a coworker's new intuos 4, and then spent another 20 minutes polishing it up on my rickety tablet at home. The quality difference between the two was pretty big, but I have to weigh that factor against how cheap I am. So at least for now, cheapness wins.

Orangutans and Character Design

2010-04-27T16:40:00.000-07:00

Character design has always been a struggle for me. When I was at BYU several years ago, I was so bad that I had to take Ryan Woodward's excellent character design class twice. One assignment was to make characters based on animals, and the first time I tried an orangutan. The result was so unappealing that I hate myself for having to post it:

I realize now that my problem wasn't my skill or lack thereof; it was a lack of knowledge, and more importantly, purpose. All I did then was try to find a funny way to abstract the shapes that an orangutan was made out of, with maybe a little caricature. What I needed to do instead to come up with a better design was have a more solid concept of who and what that character was supposed to be. When you don't know anything about your character, it's hard to determine what kind of lines, shapes, proportions, or anything else to use to describe that character. So what you end up with is a hodgepodge of decisions that don't lead the viewer toward any conclusions, which usually results in a less appealing character just because the chances of finding a great combination of elements at random aren't very high.
Armed with this knowledge, I decided to attack the problem again. The lower left guy (image below) is where I started after doing some research on orangutans. When I started to think about character types that fit with orangutans, my first thought was stereotypical surfers/hippies. Then it hit me: Orangutans are the rednecks of the primate world. So I did some more brainstorming and came up with a more specific personality/role that I liked for this orangutan. My top drawings are starting to go somewhere. If I was doing this character design for work I'd probably do about 20 more iterations to improve the idea and replace (where possible) stereotypical elements with more surprising ideas that filled the same purpose. I already think the new guy (upper left) is a big improvement on the original, though.

Tetrigid Tank

2010-04-17T12:39:00.000-07:00

Something for the Avalanche blog. Joe Olson came up with the topic. Honestly, at first it didn't really inspire me, but after mulling over the idea this idea popped into my head. That's the great thing about committing yourself to do art based on topics---trying to find an interesting take on a topic that isn't (at first) interesting to you is a healthy challenge for your creativity. I also like the idea of taking the challenge seriously and making it into a portfolio piece. Although I do wish I'd spend a little more time on the bug's design before starting the painting. The details are cool, but the overall structure is basically a regular old grasshopper.

Brush work

2010-04-12T11:04:00.000-07:00

Here's the original drawing I did of the grumpy jedi before Jason Kim helped me fix the drawing. Jason's suggestions made for a much better drawing, but I still think I slightly prefer the original character design.

In case you're curious about what brush I used, I just did a brush tutorial over on the art center blog. This means that I will be as grumpy as this guy if I get any more people asking me what brushes I use.

Colored Frog

2010-04-06T16:46:00.000-07:00

Used for another process tutorial on the art center blog.

EDIT: Added some more transparency to his throat. I can't decide which is better. What do you think?

Light Frog

2010-04-05T15:27:00.000-07:00

Something I'm working on for a tutorial about placement of lights. I don't know yet whether the tutorial will make it onto the internet, but I can at least show the art.

Finished (maybe)

2010-03-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

I also added another tutorial on how I got it to this point. Don't worry, I haven't abandoned doing tutorials on this site, in fact I've got one in the works that should be done in a few days.

Fall class at BYU

2010-03-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

My Fall 2010 class has changed section numbers to VAANM 365R, but it should still be easy to find if anyone reading this plans to take it, since they've also officially changed the title to "Digital Painting." I'm making the class more friendly to people who are less drawing-focused, like some lighting and 3d folks in the Animation program, so don't hesitate to sign up even if your drawing skills are not as strong (we'll still work on design and composition for those who are interested, though).

New Art Center Post

2010-03-23T23:19:00.000-07:00

Here. I'll have more art soon.

Lights and Shadow

2010-02-24T13:29:00.000-08:00

I added a new post on The Art Center blog. What I left out there was how to apply light sources to get the effects you want. This is just an overview, but I'll probably go more into depth on it if I ever write that blasted book.

Diffuse light sources are the most common and useful lights in painting. They make great fill lights, rim lights, and key lights, they always make subjects look appealing. They tend to soften features and are good for creating a pensive emotional response when used as key lights. Light reflected from "lambert surfaces" always fits into this category.

I didn't have time to paint examples and the great masters are better at it, so instead here's Edmund Blair Leighton above, using a bright overcast sky to support the gentleness of the scene. William Bouguereau's painting below that uses the common "north light" from a window to soften the girl's features and emphasize her beauty.

Direct or spot lights have a strong visual impact and are useful for creating drama or tension. You can mix the effects of direct light sources with the effect of diffuse light sources by using light sources that are somewhere in between. Here's a great example from Paul Delaroche of the drama created by a direct light source. Below that, Edmund Blair Leighton shows how a diffuse light can have some of the dramatic effect of a direct light, in this case by using a large window but positioning it some distance behind the subject.

Remember that spot lights are really just direct sources with something "off camera" casting a shadow, so the light beam has a specific shape to it. This shape doesn't always have a hard edge, a great example being sunlight blocked by soft-edged clouds (see Albert Bierstadt example below, on the rocks). So you can also mix the softening effects and gradients you'd get from a diffuse source with the hard shadows of a direct source.

Finally, nearby light sources are the most dramatic of all, but they can also be distracting if too strong or used too often, because of the visual tension they create. I also forgot to explain another thing about them on the other site, so I'll post it here instead.

theartcenter.blogspot.com

2010-02-19T12:25:00.000-08:00

The other day I was upset when I found a blog that stated that my art was a blend of 3d renders and painting. I felt like Ned Nederlander when he was accused of using camera tricks to make his fast draw appear faster. I guess I've occasionally used 3d to cheat my way out of having to work out the perspective on a spaceship, so does that make the accusing blogger correct?

Speaking of using 3d to cheat, I've been invited to contribute to a new sister blog to Randall Sly's excellent Character Design blog (link in my sidebar), The Art Center.
Here's a preview from my first post there (the aforementioned cheating used to render the spheres. I'm not going to waste an hour or two breaking a sphere down into planes):

And don't worry, I'll continue my art thinking/learning posts here---I'll probably focus on digital painting stuff there and spew all my other thoughts here. Or maybe I'll post the same in both places. I guess we'll see how it works out.

More line art for characters

2010-02-17T14:26:00.000-08:00

There's something odd about the policeman I don't like yet, so I might need to bring in Jason again for help.

Thank you, Mr. Kim

2010-02-11T08:35:00.000-08:00

I'm thankful that I get to work with people who are awesome.

One of my coworkers, Jason Kim, has a great eye for appeal and design, and he spent about 20 minutes helping me out by drawing over my design. He always notices seemingly insignificant things that in the end make a drawing much stronger. Click the image below for an animation showing the transition from my original drawing (blue) to his fixes (red) to see what I'm talking about.

Just for the record, Jason suggested that I put some feet poking out of the end of the dress, a suggestion I ignored for reasons I'll explain later. So if it looks funny without them, that's my fault.

Speaking of which, do you ever wish that people gave more critiques on art blogs instead of just digital high-fives? I used to go to some art forums and I liked the positive criticism and exchange of ideas there. But I understand why it's not the same with blogger---it's missing is the constancy of conversation threads, where it's easy to keep track of dialogue you're interested in (and interesting comments don't quickly get swept away by new posts). Maybe someday someone will come up with a hybrid solution that can satisfy both needs.

Form Changes Preview

2010-02-09T07:38:00.000-08:00

Something I'm working on, but I'm not going to make a post about here (I have to save something for the book or nobody's going to buy it!). Done 100% in Painter 10.

Figure

2010-02-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

I like the result from last Friday enough that I won't wait to post it with a slew of others. About 90 minutes.

Creativity, Expression, Education, and "The Dip"

2010-02-03T08:00:00.000-08:00

Based on things I've read and seen (ie. just a hyphothesis), I believe there's a big dip in creativity as artists increase in learning. I think this is one source of the common (but mistaken) idea that education inhibits creativity---because most people and artists stop actively learning about their craft before they reach their creative and expressive potential.

This graph illustrates my hypothesis that after the big dip, if an artist continues learning, comes a leap in creativity and expressive ability. The key to reaching that point is pressing through the dip and not assuming that you already know enough.

Image Credits: Some kids, a Disney Artist I couldn't track down, Frank Lloyd Wright, Luc Desmarchelier

I separated expression and creativity because I think expressive ability never takes a dip, but it is accelerated as creative ability is unlocked.

Also keep in mind that this is all learning, not just learning construction---although construction is still the foundation for expressive learning. This graph doesn't represent any particular period of time, and can actually happen multiple times over an artist's development (ever experience art depression? You're probably at the bottom of the curve and just need to press forward and try to learn more.) An artist can also simultaneously be in different stages of the graph for different abilities---e.g. very creative architecturally but not as creative in designing creatures.

Also, I put in the red graph for anyone who happens to be amazing and never experienced a dip. You are awesome, and you really shouldn't waste time reading my blog. Unless you are part of that elite group of people who are still in the dip but don't realize it (we all know one or two).

Life Drawings

2010-02-02T09:24:00.000-08:00

As the numbers visiting my blog increase (averaging 4-600 visitors, 1000-1700 page views per day!), I'm becoming more self-conscious about posting doodles and failed experiments. The best example of this is the weekly life drawing session---I used to post every attempt even if it wasn't that strong. So this type of post is my fallback---post a bunch of mediocre drawings in the hope that together they'll look better.

I hope it works.

Thoughts on Construction and Expression, Part 1

2010-01-27T23:17:00.000-08:00

Image credits: Macdon401, oliko, Ben Balistreri, OEffeO, H.B. Lewis, J.M.F. Oli, Ryan Wood, StephenSanchez

Looking at the concept art world shows multiple "schools" of concept art with completely different goals and opinions about appeal. These differences can be boiled down to a struggle of two artistic forces: construction and expression.

Construction is like rhetoric, and appeals to audiences through accuracy of description. Expression appeals to audiences through purity of design, emotion, or ideas. Construction can be devoid of expression, and expression can override the need for accuracy.
Every school of art uses some combination of construction and expression, but great artists recognize that expressive elements connect with audiences in ways that crude construction can't. But my point isn't to prove that expression is better than construction. In fact, without construction there can be no expression. The reason why Acadamia has difficulty producing good artists lately is because most schools have rejected construction-focused education and focus almost exclusively on expression, leaving artists without the tools necessary for powerful expression.

Rendering this monster's arm with a few expressive lines took some thought, and relied on years of studying anatomy and how to use line to describe form.

Remember though that construction covers a lot of areas of learning, so anatomy and technique won't guarantee expressive ability. The first image shows that a basic knowledge of anatomy applied randomly can result in a hodgepodge of shapes and form changes that aren't terribly appealing. The second image is a lot more clean, fits the wound-up personality of the monster, and has an appealing interplay of shapes and forms that compliment the overall design. These design decisions relied on constructive elements of design being applied to other constructive elements of anatomy and form in a harmonious way.

One last story to make my point. The other day I was trying to draw people and I couldn't get the hands to feel natural. I could imagine what I wanted, but even when I looked to my own hands for reference what came out was awkward. I suddenly realized that I've been coasting for years on a rudimentary knowledge of hands; I'd learned to fake things so well that I'd overlooked some important education. So I pulled out Bridgeman's Constructive Anatomy, spent an hour studying the forms comprising the hand, then attempted my drawing again. That time it came out the way I wanted. Now I've resolved to keep studying hands until I can express what's in my imagination effortlessly.

The moral of the story is: if you're struggling to find expression in your art, your problem might stem from gaps in your knowledge of construction. There is also another roadblock to expression that I'll talk about in a later post.

Forgotten Princesses

2010-01-22T15:41:00.000-08:00

Done for the Avalanche blog "Disney Princesses" Topic. No, this isn't an insider leak of future projects, and yes, I do realize that Hester Prynne isn't technically a princess.

Abstraction

2010-01-17T23:44:00.000-08:00

I run into a lot of people that don't understand the difference between abstraction and caricature. Maybe that's because the meaning of the words has become muddy in common usage. Artists in general would be better off if everyone was clear on the terms, though, because while abstraction and caricature are related concepts, they are problems that have to be addressed individually.

My definition of each is:
Caricature=Distortion and exaggeration of a subject's distinctive features
Abstraction=Simplification down to a subject's essential features, eliminating unnecessary information

Abstraction is one expression of a design principle called Signal-to-Noise Ratio, which states that the Signal is any information that is important for the viewer, while Noise is unimportant information which necessarily interferes with the signal.

The key in any good design is to identify how much of the detail is actually signal, and downplay/subdue/eliminate everything else. In other words, not all detail is noise---sometimes it's part of the signal. The best way to judge whether a detail is signal or noise is:
- Does it say something important about the character?
- Does it enhance the overall style of the piece/property? (ie. Does it say something about the world?)
- Does it significantly increase the character's appeal to my intended audience?
- Will the audience be able to see/appreciate the detail or is it just adding clutter to the scene?
If the answer is no to all four, tone it down or cut it out!

So the level of abstraction in a subject is just an expression of the signal-to-noise ratio. I usually have to consciously abstract things after my first designs, and I often don't go far enough. I've seen other artists who have the opposite problem and simplify things so far that they lose their connection to their audience. I think that's why it's a ratio and not a hard and fast rule; too little is too little, and too much is too much.

With this Goldcrest, at first glimpse it may seem I didn't abstract things at all, just used caricature to push the personality and distinctive features. But while I wanted people to react to it as a real bird, the details themselves could become distracting really fast. So I used tricks like alignment, color, shape juxtaposition, and contrast control to keep the eye focused only on what was important. Of course, after doing the little abstraction example above I wanted to go back and simplify about 10 more things in this image, so I'm obviously still learning this principle.

Mourning Dove

2010-01-13T20:53:00.000-08:00

I always thought they were Morning Doves, but apparently they're more sad. Maybe they ARE Morning Doves but they're just not morning people.

I keep trying to write a Tip-of-the-Day style post, but it's taking more time than I expected. Stay tuned.

Winners

2010-01-09T17:04:00.000-08:00

Here are the winners of the free app:
Howard Shum
Nabs Mirza
Ian Summers
Maria Van Bruggen
Ben Hickling

If you five could please e-mail me, then I'll respond with the code that will allow you to download your free copy. My e-mail is just artsammich and it's a gmail.com address. (You can also access it through my profile)

Everyone else, you can still pick up a copy through the artist sketchbooks site I linked below. Thank you for the comments and support!

iPhone Art Book! And another bird.

2010-01-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Bobby Chiu and others at Imaginism Studios, some of my work is now an iphone app.
You can find it here! http://www.artistsketchbooks.com/

I will be giving out five promotional copies---if you want one, comment on this post and in three days (Saturday) I will pick five comments at random for a free app for your iPod Touch or iPhone.

The app/book includes hi-res versions of work I've put on the blog, as well as some updated and finished pieces never seen before.

Bird number two:

Resolution

2009-12-31T12:14:00.000-08:00

I'll be honest: I am not likely to finish the book I resolved to write. At least not anytime soon. However, after watching Marcelo Vignali's inspiring interview, I decided that I shouldn't wait for that opportune time to share what I'm learning. So I'm going to revive an old feature of this blog and post the discoveries I make as I evolve as an artist.

I still plan to write a book once I've got some of the gaps filled in my own knowledge, but hopefully this will do until then.

My other resolution is to start working on more personal art, specifically art that I can use to illustrate points in the book. This image is part of a series of birds I'll use in the character design section of the book.

Thanks everyone for reading and Happy New Year!

The real reason why toys are getting worse

2009-12-23T22:31:00.000-08:00

The Avalanche topic was elves, so I started this by wondering, since there's no real description of Santa's elves anywhere (that I've seen), why do we assume they're all these cute, cheery-eyed fellows with curly hair?

Merry Christmas everyone and Happy Holidays!

Lessons Learned

2009-11-30T15:00:00.000-08:00

I did this for a children's magazine published by the LDS church. I'm also a member of the church, but that's not why they hired me for the article. That credit goes to Natalie Malan for sending a letter of recommendation to their art directors on my behalf (Thanks Natalie!). They hire a lot of very talented artists, so I'm honored to be included.

I learned some useful tidbits doing this, and I pass that knowledge on to you:

If nobody complains about your unrealistic, made-up lighting, just run with it
Bright pinkish-purple subtleties do not convert well into CMYK. Experts conclude that you have to paint the colors and values more carefully so they will convert correctly. I conclude that I'm going to avoid that end of the spectrum entirely next time.
If the borders of your painting are boring enough, your art director will never notice that you didn't include bleed for the edge of the page
If your wife has a baby due around the time your art is due, it's probably better to finish it early than to take a 3-week hiatus and then sloppily finish at the last second.

Twilligt

2009-11-18T12:56:00.000-08:00

Twilight wasn't as bad as I expected. But then, I expected it to be really, really, really, really bad. Done for the Avalanche Blog.

Babby

2009-11-11T14:17:00.000-08:00

For some baby announcements featuring our new daughter. This was my first attempt with the brush I mentioned in the previous post.

Brains

2009-11-04T13:51:00.000-08:00

I had this idea of a mad scientist with a malevolent cupcake for a brain and it evolved into this.

Here's another monster with a different brain for a work friend who wanted posters for her Halloween party and an earlier design for the painting. I like both of these monsters a lot better than the one I used, but the faces/horns were awkward when I tried to pose him with the scientist. I was heavily influenced by Todd Harris's designs on these guys.

Fall

2009-10-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

Autumn is my new favorite season.

- Colors!

- Crisp air

- Crunching leaves

- Football games

- Back to school (this is the same reason why it used to be my least favorite season)

- Fresh vegetables and fruit

- Apple Cider Donuts

- Holidays

The only part I don't like is how short-lived it all is.

Finished

2009-10-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

I have a bunch of half-finished images waiting for the day when I'll finally turn my attention back to them. Today I had a little time at work while waiting for feedback on something, so this was what I did.

Also, something worth sharing

2009-10-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

I'm working on a tribute-to-fall picture, and this is why. We took these pictures on recent drives up nearby canyons. My wife posted more here if you're interested.

Paint demo from class

2009-10-15T10:18:00.000-07:00

I wanted to spend more time on this before posting it, but I'm getting that antsy "been too long since I posted" feeling. So you get a glimpse of what something looks like when I've spent about an hour on it. Lines by Joe Olson (link in my sidebar).

The Thinking Artist

2009-10-05T13:19:00.000-07:00

Just a sneak preview at some of the stuff I'm working on for the book I (eventually) plan on releasing. People taking my class will get to see the rest and the explanations that go with it.

I want my book to be about how aspiring concept artists and digital painters can cognitively increase their "talent" level. Some people are probably born with great talent---but not most of us, including me. Luckily, I had good opportunities and the audacity to think that nothing could stop me from doing what I saw my peers do. And with a lot of effort, I learned how to do things I saw other people doing naturally. Now I want to share what I've learned.

The only problem is I want it to be a masterwork, but I'm nowhere near capable of that. Because I keep recognizing areas where I need to improve, I keep putting off my work on it. So I hope people waiting for the book are okay with a release date of 2069, when I've finally mastered everything.

Either that or you can convince me that an amateur publication is good enough for now.

Not-so-popular admission

2009-09-16T13:35:00.000-07:00

I like musicals, I can't help it. I sometimes wish life was a musical. Like when Jeff Bunker fires me, I'd much rather have him do it singing a bass counterpoint to the chorus of the entire staff of the company, who would of course be peering through the window to his office and flinging their hands into the air in rhythm.

My wife bought me some songs from Wicked for my iphone. I've seen the musical, and it's okay (lots of untapped potential in the story). But some of the songs are really great, including "Popular," which I can't get out of my head. The situation behind the song is funny, but the song itself is nothing short of brilliant.

Chicken scratch

2009-09-11T11:09:00.000-07:00

Went to figure drawing for the first time in months. I need to go more often, I learn so much about observation and structure every time, even when the process is frustrating.

Marvel Tribute

2009-09-08T13:16:00.000-07:00

My employer just recently bought Marvel. They will never let me anywhere near the characters, though, and this is why.

Sharks

2009-08-25T12:21:00.000-07:00

A post for the Avalanche blog. When I was very young, somewhere between the ages of 3 to 5, I wanted to be a shark when I grew up. But my mom tells me I was terrified of going into water, including the bathtub. Now, thanks to Planet Earth and Youtube, it all makes sense. Of course I didn't want to be a regular old water-bound shark. I was planning to become one of those amazing flying sharks. Alas, my dreams were never realized, but I do occasionally creep up on my children in the swimming pool and bite them just for old time's sake.

Also, in case anyone asks, I totally stole the ocean from a low-res photo and then painted over it. They say cheaters never prosper, but the saying should be, "cheaters don't have to paint the whole stupid ocean." I win.