UPDATE 2/10

[smokenmirrors]

Seage: yup, its much easier to be loose and get your forms together with a light and soft brush, then once you start to make some illustrative decisions to go darker and harder.

midknight423: Thanks!

looks like I finally kicked my bad habits and have taken my art abilities and application thereof seriously! As such Im getting my folio set and online. Im going back to my old pieces that I struggled with... be it from just being rusty, to not knowing PS very well... whatever the case Im applying my new vision and updated tool belt to make POWer pieces thatll represent my pro vision and get me a real art JOB!!!

Im all fired up, been on point for over a month now, so Im feeling pretty stoked that my slackerage is at an end!

so, been revamping my centaur piece. Ignore the weak sauce fuzzy shadow, the scribble in the upper right is a note to self of a pedestal type platform that Ill design on which will be placed my multitude of oncoming characters. I just thought that would be a cool element to tie in my concepts and an easy cut and paste...

the rest are some fun doodles for a graphic tshirt Im designing for a friend... and then some more team chow... good ole thumbnails!

[smokenmirrors]

some more chow stuffs...

[smokenmirrors]

progress...

[smokenmirrors]

heres pretty close to my final grayscale of my demon elf... just a couple details to be polished... then onto color!

[young paddy1]

that is damn sexy in an evil geezer in a tree kinda way.

cheerio

[James Wolf]

awesome sketches some of them feel a little flat though, might be the blacks cause it seems to happen the most with the darker pieces. still great work!

[smokenmirrors]

young paddy 1: glad it sex appeal is apparent! ;p

James Wolf: thanks bro, and i agree.... my pieces have tended to become too dark too quick... perhaps my monitor is to bright... hmm.... or i just love my darks....

so heres a color pass... and it might just be done. got to rest on it till tomorrow. hope its working.

[smokenmirrors]

details...

[JailHouseRock2]

Fantastic T-CHOW work my friend, your team produced some amazing artwork!

Great sb too, I thoroughly enjoyed looking though!

Thanks man!
matt

[smokenmirrors]

been revisting pieces that I wasnt satisfied with.... unearthing them as it were.... fresh graves, dusting them off with some new eyes, sprinkle in some recently learned wisdom and a mediocre piece can become a strong one!

in any case this was my contribution for the first team chow. I was really disappointed with my work in how it read... lighting... technique... even the concept for that matter wasnt pushed enough... esp. compared to my fellow team mates.... my past habit was to just delete it afterwards...as Ive whited out big ole paintings with gesso before... which i still reserve the right to do if sucks big donkey balls it does... however, if I can step back enough to appreciate enough aspects of it to be worth saving, Ill file them away in a "to be finished" file.... and just let it sit for awhile.

before and after (still working by the by...)

[smokenmirrors]

another re-visit...starting to feel much much better another thing that I noticed for my own wok methods is that its cool to work on multiple projects at the same time vs. what I used to do, and probably a reason for lagging so much, is starting something and working it straight through till the end. Not that I wont if Im in a groove, but i find sometimes i just start to get burned out on a piece and rather than just power through it to the finish to the detriment of quality... better to just take a break and pick up somthing new. THEN come back to it with fresh eyes!

[smokenmirrors]

i realized as I was reworking old pieces... that sometimes in the effort to try to preserve the detail work.... time was just flying by in trying to "fix" the piece...

then EUREKA!!! i just said the hell with it and painted over the mofo with the quickness! , funny how, esp. with the centaur piece... as I was still such a noob to the ways of photoshop.... how quickly I got caught up in detailing how I overlooked the fundamental flaws in the pieces and jumped to layering on the many emblems, shields, ribbons... etc.

well I see the LIGHT!!! and it certainly helps that my speed has greatly improved... knowing that I can whip a similar level of detailing with the quickness helped in switching it up....

where I was one shuffling in trying to fix it... I now free flow with the confident strides: hence goes progress! hope you see what I do....

[DanielC]

Too dark ! : ) Other than that, it looks cool man. Keep working !

[smokenmirrors]

DanielC: thanks for checking in on me.... and yes i know you fear the dark side... but your right... i think for concept work, visual clarity is key, and easier to stay away from the heavy blacks and whites for that matter... I suppose for my illustration purposes I just got to be mindful of what it is that I want the viewers to pay attention too.... old master status.... carravagio action... hmm....

in any case: centaur w/wing action I decided I had to completely start from scratch w/ a new pose: so this is what I think ill roll with....

[smokenmirrors]

think i got a cool panoramic comp going on......

[smokenmirrors]

lil sargent study.... got to brush up on my... errr... brush skills. Train the old eyes on color discrimination..... hmm..... going to try to do many of these.... along with good ole fashioned anatomy studies... till its all flowing second nature.... buttery smooth illo skillz......

[smokenmirrors]

nother sargent study done on my break... quicker than I wouldve liked, but I think I got the color fairly close....

[Me,Myself & Me again]

That 3rd to last pic is brilliant! the one with the centaur and the flying shark, i really can't wait to see how that comes out, so much so that i'm subscribing to this thread.
Dont let us down, you got a stellar comp going on there.

[smokenmirrors]

Me,Myself & Me again: ill do my best, Ill post some progress on that one after another session.... soon.

gave another go at that space marine I started awhile back... the goings far too slow for comfort though as I would do armor differently (layer wise) to make things easier on myself... but I like the designs I have on this piece so Im figuring out my methods to rendering as I go.... just slow.... sucks....

in any case heres to learing!

[smokenmirrors]

nother sargent study. messed around with a simple gif.... fun stuff.... i realize the last step is a big jump... i just forgot to segment it... sorry.

[smokenmirrors]

some flesh studies.... getting more comfortable with color application....

[jcpahl]

Huh, I thought I had commented in here, but I guess not. This is one of my favorite sketchbooks. My only crit, and I don't know if this is a conscience stylistic choice on your part or no, but you're pretty heavy on the black; higher values and more subtle value shifts might make coloring easier, for instance, and improve the readability of your work, but you draw so damn well it doesn't bother me. 5*s

[Sketch]

I absolutely LOVE the personality you put in your lines and characters! Keep on going

[ZIP]

hey dude i was wondering is you could tell me how to make my pictures smaller on my sketchbook thanks man

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=168945

[smokenmirrors]

jcpahl: Thankyou MUCHO! and your right, i think i have to make a more deliberate effort to choose when I use the heavy blacks and when not to. Ive found that up until now it was just a matter of pen pressure and starting shade... Regardless: point taken and its finally gotten through my sketching skull, so Im taking steps to modify the habit!

Sketch: YO love your stuff! and thanks for the compliment!

ZIP: yeah fosho, well what are you editing your images with? if youre doing it with photoshop you have to go to IMAGE then scroll down to IMAGE SIZE: from there choose a resolution of 72dpi and whatever measurement horizontal/vertical you want. 72 dpi is internet resolution so if you make you unit of measure inches, itll show up relatively that size on your screen... and everybody elses for that matter! (just remember to do a "save as" so as not to loose your working resolution) if you dont have photoshop, theres plenty of internet applications that can resize images for you. just do a google search.


I love me some space marines... I think Ill do a series of portraits...add those to my portfolio quota....

space wolf! (wip)

[Dished]

just curious, fuel for fire, reference to an M. Ward song??

anyways awesome sketchbook man ! really dig that jedi chick. lookin forward to your updates!

[jcpahl]

Man, you make me want to draw space marines. That Grey Knight (?) a few posts up is one of the best-designed suits of space marine armor I've seen.

[Lateman]

very hot stuff here! keep at it!! cool dynamic an poses ... it time to work a bit more on colors and you rock hard!

much probs l8man

[smokenmirrors]

Dished: naw, just a random slur i wrote in ref. to A: throwing sb pages into the fire and B: something to keep the inspiration flowing..... unless that song is super fresh in which case.... err.. YEAH, thats exactly what I meant!

jcpahl:thanks man! and yes the grey knights chapter is one of my favorites fosho!

Lateman: word to the color exploration... doing the master studies is helping alot, but grayscale is 90% of the work in my book, so getting things hashed out tonally for me is where the grit goes, the color is more of the final polish...

ok, so another one from the no so distant past... Im not sure what Ill do with the background on this one... but I do know that Im going to wrap some crazy tatts on his arms and maybe some bengal'esque patterns on his animal side..... hmmm....

[smokenmirrors]

some analog sketches.... i try to keep my regular lil sb in use on the daily.....