Attack on Titan! also more portraits!


Here is a bunch of my latest work. I just finished this Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) fanart. This is the longest I've spent on a piece yet. I think I really need to work on my painting economy. I think it lacks some saturated color, but I could not figure out where to add it. I setup this painting by doing value studies before hand and I think by doing them it really helped me organize the work. Maybe I'll get a gif up of the process here too. 



Above is another portrait I did of a friend. I spend a long time on this as well, as I constantly went back to it to look for areas where I could improve likeness. Also Painting curly hair is hard!
Below is my first attempt at a still life I setup using a shadow box. The drawing is not very large so I could not get very deep into details on smaller objects. But as a light study it is useful. Also included is a page from Toronto Subway Sketching. These are a great way to make friends with similar interest and learn a lot!

Let me know what you all think! Thanks!

-Alex

Portraits and Puppies!

A bunch of things to post! I developed an addiction to having twitch.tv streams playing in the background while I was drawing and began to follow the streamer CobaltStreak(http://www.twitch.tv/cobaltstreak). So I ended up doodling some pictures of him. I ended up painting it in photoshop and sending it to him. He uses it on his stream quite frequently! Awesome! Thanks Cobalt.


This piece took a long while to make as there are so many characters, but I had a lot of fun trying to pose them and really try and show off some character personalities. Although looking at it now, I can see some lack of contrast, it is still an improvement on my previous more washed out paintings.

After this I had some time away from the digital realm doing some life drawing classes and more studies, but returned to photohop to practice both my painting and portrait skills.
These are posted in order of completion, and I think I can already see some improvement. I specifically tried to use shots where there is a clear light and dark.



The first portrait I really learned how the value changes in the shadow area are very subtle even though when observing them, they are very obvious. In addition, how great the contrast can really be with direct light.

The second portrait really allowed me to understand the use of greys to produce the appearance of a contrasting color. In this case the greys appear blue because they are surrounded by the orange hues in the face. Using the greys in the light side of the face helped to enforce the fact that there was a window to the right of the picture, where the blue light shone in.

This last portrait of my dog turned out very successfully and although I have gotten many comments on the realism of the muzzle, I really liked how I was able to capture the fur in the shadow side on the right. I really wanted to show the layers and was happy with the chance to vary the color aswell. I colored this piece by beginning with painting in local hues and then, using 4 or 5 different burshes, worked in some texture. I had different brushes for short hair as seen in the snout, and for the longer hair around the neck.

I'll be continuing to do some portraits, so if you liked these, be sure to check back! I'll also be starting up some pieces to try and sell and Anime North! Feel free to comment!

-Alex

Sagat, King of Muay Thai





 More street fighter work! This is based off of an old acrylic painting I did at the bottom of this post. Sagat has always been really kickass and a real pain to fight against as Dhalsim. For such a tough guy he sure uses his projectiles to do a lot of his fighting!

I feel like I learn something new every painting. For this one I really wanted to simplify my values and create greater contrast between my light and shadow. I ended up with some rim lighting which is something I've never done before, although I attempted it in my original acrylic. I also tried to use more saturated colors as a common critique I get is that my paintings look washed out.

Looking back, the FF9 piece with Steiner and Beatrix was a nice idea for a picture but I don't think I executed it well. Something I learned was that I'm relying on lines too much when instead I needed to simplify and clarify my values. In addition, I think it is okay to use lines, but on that FF9 piece the lines stand out too much, and not just because of my weak line steadiness when working in photoshop. They are much darker than the darkest shadow, and really distract from the work.

TL;DR
Overall I really have learned a lot and I tried to use the following in the Sagat piece:
                     Simplify values
                    Background
                    No linework (although I guess the rimlight is a bit cheating)
                     Stronger colors: less washed out

Acrylic Original
Done for a highschool project when I was 18, I am now 22.

Thank you for viewing and feel free to leave any comments, questions or critiques!

Chun Li and FFIX's Real Hero

More art to update with yay!
I think this Chun Li was a real jump from the previous Street Fighter works in terms of quality. I made sure to work hard on the details and put care into everything. Warping the texture to fit the cube worked really great. I think the blue really glows too!

I threw this portrait together really quickly just based on how I was feeling that day. I followed it up with a happy one, but it didn't turn out so nice. I was trying a different painting style here. Beginning with a dark fill I  would paint in lighter and lighter areas. It was fun.


These were based off of a couple of FF9 doodles I had in my sketchbook. I always liked Quina. She was funny. I redrew my lines digitally in these pieces and although it looks better than the blurry Chun Li, I don't think it is quite the look I want yet. I tried to limit my colors in the Steiner(second) picture, and reserved the warmth and red for the love note.

Thank you for viewing and feel free to comment or give me advice!

Street Fighter and Life Studies

Back from a trip to Las Vegas woo! Damn gambling will destroy your wallet.....unless you're sitting next to me. After poisoning myself there, my liver is currently filing a lawsuit against my brain. It was fun.

So I did another fruit painting study from life and was quite happy with it. I for sure have a lot to learn but I can remember how much trouble I had painting an apple in the past. It didn't look half as good as this.


I had morning-after regrets with my first Ryu painting. I thought it was stiff and too blurry. Here I decided to use more linework and altered the pose. I believe this one turned out more successful as it is a more natural pose and has better defined forms.


Here is my latest work since returning from Las Vegas. I was feeling some WCW wrestling entrances and went for that sort of pose. I believe my painting skills are improving but if any viewers have any suggestions or comments just let me know what you think! I'm trying to learn what I can. Zangief is so sick. Also its fun to take him down with my favorite character Dhalsim. Such a calculated match and at the same time, the Dhalsim player is scared shitless because being cornered or knocked down is pretty much death.

Still not sure how much linework I want to use in my paintings, as I haven't quite learned how to properly use high contrast and hard edges yet. Linework might help with clarity of my works. 

Its been hard to defy apathy, I'm working on it.

Portrait, Avocado, Ryu

So this is kind of my last chance to make it in art. After finishing university and earning a bachelors in biology,  my parents won't support me for too long until I have to get a serious job or go back to school again. I'm really trying to learn to paint now, both digitally and traditionally. Although I'll likely be doing more digital work as that is where I plan to specialize in.
I'm planning to work my ass off and make up for all those false starts I had in the past. There would always be plans to begin to work hard and achieve great skill, accompanied by "more to come" comments, but the more never came. I really think I'm meant to do art, I don't even notice time when drawing or painting (lol this helps with my constant snacking at home). Here are some paintings I've done over the past few days.

This first pair is a self portrait done from life entirely in photoshop. The frist painting is the original done by eye. I think I have a tendency to limit my value range in pictures as my contrast is weak. I played with filters in photoshop and used some masks to produce the painting below.



This avocado is done from life to improve and practice my painting skills and color picking. I really like the color scheme of the avocado, it makes me want to design an outfit based on it.

Finally a Ryu I did entirely from imagination. The painting style I've been using is kind of a hybrid of tips and tricks I've picked up, but the painterly look is done using a scatter brush. This is something I learned long ago on the Shoryuken.com forums when i would lurk there. User SFMC made a digital painting tutorial and I thought it looked cool. I don't think I've done it justice though, I need to work on adding more colors and using hard edges more. 


I'm currently working through Bammes' book "Complete Guide to Life Drawing," and will continue to practice painting. If anyone has any critiques or recommendations, feel free to comment and let me know.
Thanks for reading!
Decided I wanted to work on digital colouring, I still have a lot to learn and play with, but this was pretty cool to do. Maybe I need to push some darks further.