Lagomorphosis - Vin's Sketches

[vineris]

Rough for a practice illo from the book "So You Want to Be a Wizard"


Warrior Alice design for CHOW, ended up discarding this one as too awkward, gonna redo:


Thought I'd better get started on redoing pages for my graphic novel. Establishing shot! New! Improved!

[vineris]

[Jetpack]

First time seeing your sketchbook! Very impressed, and really enjoy your Flickr drawing photos.

[vineris]

@Jetpack - Thanks! I enjoyed doing those.

This week's random stuff of randomness.

Sketches from D&D


I missed the whole Dreamweaver CHOW, I was doodling and this came out:

Looks kinda like Tori Amos.

[vineris]

Speed scene:


"Remedy" for Illustration Friday (started too late, didn't get it done in time)


Dreamweaver (finished up):

[Nkristian]

nice creepy athlete! good use of colors.

[vineris]

Life sketches up this week:

[Angel Intheuk]

Wow, what a cool sketchbook enjoyed all of your posts. You've made a good start on the digital painting side of things, I wish I was as disciplined as you I keep meaning to do greyscale-only studies but keep getting distracted lol. Anyway I love the Remedy illustration so funny and your 'Talking to Girls' strip for POW is great, did you enter it, I can't remember I would have voted if it did. Hope to see you on POW's again and I'll definitely check out your comic when you're done if you're putting it up somewhere?

[vineris]

Thanks for the comments Angel! I can't say I'm really disciplined... I mostly do the greyscale studies because I'm avoiding something else I ought to be doing that's even more annoying! Also, there's the guilt of living off my guy while I get my art business going which is a real motivator.

I have my old comic (still going...) up on http://www.skulkingninja.com and when that's done sometime next year (I hope I hope) that's where the new comic will go.

---

New(ish) art:

Sam and Maaax, Freelance Police! Apparently I can still doodle hyper-kinetic rabbity things from memory.



An ink sketch I did back in May in a cafe:



I liked the Army of Darkness poster in this thread so much I wanted to do a version for Rocky Horror. Now I realize I placed Franknfurter in exactly the same place as the bad guy in the Army of Darkness poster but I'm not entirely sure I want to change it.

Anyway, this is my first rough. I don't think I've ever really done poster design, it's an interesting challenge:



Next time, my ink sketchies from Barcelona!

[vineris]

Ink sketches from Barcelona!

[vineris]

The Remedy, final:

[vineris]

I forgot to scan some stuff from the last sketchcrawl in January. Here's my watering can stuck in a pile of snow. Those round things on the bottom right are the tops of tomato cages, completely buried.



A kids' toy at the airport, dragged out of the play area to one of the gates:



A bench and view of a snack bar just off San Miguel beach in Barcelona:

[vineris]

Scanning some sketchbook pages. Random girl doodle and a couple life sketches.

[vineris]

More random cruft from the trenches:



Future Artist CHOW:


The void:

[vineris]

I was at a painting workshop in the Badlands all last week. It's been about a year since I painted last, I'm not sure I acquitted myself all that well, but it was fun and I'd do it again if it was cheaper. So that's what my next few posts are gonna be about.

The first day we were out at the Hoodoos outside of Drumheller, Alberta, playing with watercolour. I think I need a lot more practice.

Pencil sketch:


Hoodoos (This one I think turned out well although the colours are pretty dull in the painting. I think I'm going to invest in a few more artist-grade colours.)


In the afternoon we all overheated (it was 33C with no shade) and went down to the river to paint. I think I like the colours I was playing with but I rushed the bottom third of the painting. That purple shadow needs softening up and the trees and river could use more work. This might be a decent base for an acrylic painting, though.



Next time, more watercolours at Horseshoe Canyon.

[vineris]

Horseshoe canyon! I had a lot of trouble trying to get the essence of this place down -- the dark, dark shadows of a sunny day lying on the striped hills. There was one more watercolour that was such a total failure I didn't even bother photographing it. It was the same subject as the ink sketch.

I was really trying to get those dark shadows down before they went away, but I think they dominate the picture too much.




This was a last-minute composition study. Too symmetric, would probably be all right without the cloud smack in the middle of everything.


Next post: acrylics! (Woo!)

[vineris]

Acrylic landscapes from the Badlands.

Fields near Dry Island Buffalo Jump:


The hills in the Dry Island Buffalo Jump valley. I was kinda messing around and wanted to do something a bit more graphical.


A shack in Dorothy. I think it turned out all right except for the composition. I tried to move back to get a better view but there was an artist to the right of me blocking my view and an artist to the left whose view I was blocking. Eesh. Also, I think I need to fix that car up a bit.

[vineris]

And here's a couple from the last day, which I cut a bit short because it was (surprise surprise) broiling hot and I was keen to get the four-hour drive home over with.

Fields near Munsen:

(I was trying to get a more muted look than the first set of fields I did in the last post.)

Backlit oats:

(Just a quick thing I did to keep busy while waiting for the instructor to come back. I was out of small boards at that point, this was done on my 5x8" watercolour pad.)

I've started a couple of paintings since then and should be able to get a few more done before the weather turns. I'm hoping for some nice fall colour coupled with warm weather in the next few weeks.

[vineris]

Trying to get back into just sketching again.

[vineris]

Cacti from my Barcelona sketchbook:


A painting of Big Lake in St. Albert, Alberta, Canada:


The next kids-type illustration I'm working on. I've been listening to CCR lately.

[vineris]

Landscapes:




Corner Street Players:

[vineris]

Finished up the first painting I did when I came back from the Badlands workshop:

[vineris]

Fall in the River Valley:


IOW #6, "Botanical Garden of the Future":


It's a barn:

[Bella DC]

hi vineris, thanks for taking the time to critique my work!

i really like your landscapes, you have a great sense of colour and mood. i really love the colours and the minimalism in the painting of the reeds as well as the painting with the purple clouds! Keep up the awesome work!

[vineris]

@Bella DC - Thanks! Colours are definitely my favourite thing to do.

One of these days I'm going to find an illustration method that works. Today doesn't seem to be the day. IOW #6:


Just an experiment in lighting and colour. Poison apple:

[chris_kaw]

You're a real inspiration! I really dig the illustration work! Keep it up!

[vineris]

Some lighting and rendering practice:

I used this wonderful reference photo by Jaymasee.

And a couple of new goes at old CHOWs:

Harajuku Warrior (dang, I need to fix that skin colour. It looks nice and warm on the Cintiq but kinda technicolor on other monitors.)


Titania:

[vineris]

Animal sketches from random photos found online:

[vineris]

Illustration:




Sketch for Hallowe'en CHOW. If I was on Team Vampire:

(I'd be a Malkavian. They have more fun.)

[vineris]

So here's the story. This year I thought I'd do an acrylic portrait for International Self-Portrait Day. Sat down after lunch, started working, three hours or so later the light was going and dinnertime was nigh. I took the thing out to the kitchen to get a second opinion and Mr. Vin and I agreed that the portrait was shite. Complete and utter crap.

So after a good dose of swearing and dinner I took another couple hours to do this digital self-portrait, from life for a change (I usually end up doing them from photos because, well, look at the lighting. Atmosphere de fluorescent bulb.)



But now I have this problem with acrylics. Then I remembered that there used to be a guy who did these little acrylic portraits for practice using a big brush and limited palette. So I decided to start doing a few for practice and see whether I can improve. They're tiny so they can be done quite quickly, apart from the usual lot of work I still plan to do.

Here's the results of today's experiments:



These took about half an hour each. The first one I used iron oxide black as the cool colour and quinacridone red for the red, the second I switched to Payne's gray and permanent alizarin hue. I'm also using yellow ochre and titanium white. I think I'll stick with Payne's gray as I seem to like it, but I'm not sure I've settled on a red.

So... the big brush was really hard to control and I'm not really pleased with the results, but hey, I guess when you're at the bottom all roads lead up. The cheering thought is that I can steal photos with impunity because no photographer is going to recognize their subjects in these.