JPacer's Sketchbook

[jpacer]

Hey there,

I'm fairly new here. I've been lurking for a couple of months now trying to get the lay of the land here and decided that maybe I should finally post some stuff. It seems like the sketchbook forum is the place to do that. I've only recently been experimenting with digital painting. I've made some progress thanks to things I've read in these forums as well as the downloads and classes available here. Kudos to Jason Manley and everyone at Massive Black for having this site and making learning more accessible.
Anyway, my digital skills aren't up to snuff just yet to the point that I'd want to post anything digital so I figured I'd share some of my other work here. I was trained in a more traditional manner (oils, watercolors, etc.) so I'm posting some watercolors I did for a comic book I was doing about the Iraq War...



Addendum: I figured I'd give a little explanation as to what these images are, so that they are not misread in any way. These pieces are part of a much larger series which I’ve been working on for the last year. Please note that this is not a traditional narrative. Rather the pages are designed with what Scott McCloud, in his book, Understanding Comics, refers to as “Aspect–to–Aspect” transitions and “Non-Sequitur” transitions in an attempt to convey the overall atmosphere of war. The images are juxtaposed according to subject matter or an overall visual “theme.” Interspersed throughout the series are abstract images which I thought conveyed the psychological intensity more directly.

[jpacer]

This is a quick oil sketch I did recently.

[Heartwood]

Wow those Iraq War pictures are looking great! Good job especially on the composition which is so varied and full of action.

[jpacer]

Thanks for the kind words Staffan.AI. I sometimes get nervous posting images like that because there's an underlying political connotation that may or may not be misconstrued. With the whole series there's an effort on my part to not take a side, but to simply show what war is. If there's any conscious political statement being made with the series it's about the media and the way they treat such subjects and events. i.e., as if they're entertainment, like a comic book.

[jpacer]

Here's a quick sketch I did of a cowboy...

[Icedearth15876]

Great work so far, the cowboy is my favorite so far. Keep up the good work!

[jpacer]

This is a sketch I did for a live watercolor demo a couple of weeks ago...

[jpacer]

These are just some figure studies I did. I was going to post some of my first ever digital paintings, but I'm unsure whether or not to do it here or in the WIP forum, as this forum seems to move at a blazing speed...

On a side note: How does one change the thumbnail that appears next to the thread title on the forum menu? It still shows the first image I showed and I'd like to update it with each new image I post...

[jpacer]

Here's a study I did of a young Guyanese boy named Celon.

[jpacer]

Hi there,

Here's one of my first attempts at digital painting. This is a quick little one hour sketch I did just trying to figure things out. I've spent the last several weeks watching some MB downloads and reading through these forums trying to figure out how to use the software. I did this in Photoshop 7. Although I've had the software for years it's only now that I've tried to paint with it. While I've gotten the hang of using layers and such, I am still figuring out what the different blending modes do and such. Any comments and critiques are appreciated of course.

Thanks.

[jpacer]

Here's another quick digi thing I did. This was just me playing around with and learning about some custom brushes I made...

[jpacer]

Here's a cheesy sketch I was working on. Couldn't get the textures to work the way I wanted, so I gotta go back and do lots of reworking on it.
I also threw up one of the thumbnails I did for it.

[jpacer]

Title says it... Playing around with multiple views...

[Giordan]

hey dude, great works you have here, going to bookmarked this to see you evolve in digital painting, you have a lot of talent, post some more often

[p sage]

A Barnstone student. Awesome I'm going there in January.

Great stuff!

How long were you there and when, if you don't mind my asking?

Thanks!

[zou]

your comic book style seems well chosen to depict the war

good luck for your work

[jpacer]

Giordan: Thanks! I should post more often. I have a huge backstock of traditional work that I could put up. I haven't done any "new" stuff in a couple of weeks though b/c I'm spending my time doing the digital stuff. Unfortunately, my Photoshop (Version 7.0) keeps crashing and locking up on me so I have to constantly restart my computer and sometimes restart the whole piece if I didn't save. I've tried everything except getting another hard disk to serve as a scratch disk. I'm not sure what to do.

p sage: Haha! How did you know? How did you find out about Barnstone? I was there from '97-'98. I took a year off after high school and studied there for a year before going to college. It's an amazing place. There's nowhere else like it that I know of.

zou: Thanks. I may post more of the comic soon, just to fill up the sketchbook, seeing as how getting new digi work is going slow...

[William b. Hand]

jpacer - Quite a few lovely works here! The figure drawings... oil sketches... Iraq paintings... Really excellent! I'm very much interested in seeing where you go digitally. As far as the Photoshop-Crashery goes -- Yeah, you should buy a "scratch" disc! If you're really gonna be using PS a lot more, the work you start to produce in it is gonna be much more painful to lose to crap like hardware fall-shorts. (I've run into similar problems with my old equipment, and'm staying away from any serious Photoshopping until I get a new electronic horse to ride.)

[Sublimus]

hey great start man!

Can't wait for more!

[jpacer]

Well, so my Photoshop is still wonky. It freezes all the time. I was reading in another thread that this may be caused by having too much going on with my custom brushes (specifically textures and/or angle jitter set to direction) and that it's actually the CPU not being able to handle it that causes the freezing. If that's the case I'm worried that getting a scratch disk and more RAM won't fix the problem.

In the meantime I figured I'd post some small and quick plein air landscapes I did of Cape Cod...

First is a Cranberry Bog





Then the beach...

[p sage]

p sage: Haha! How did you know? How did you find out about Barnstone?

You had posted something to Zaszers (who also was a student)... which clued me in--plus you still live close to Allentown.

I found out about Barnstone through this site, actually. Someone posted a question about the Golden Section

I was there from '97-'98. I took a year off after high school and studied there for a year before going to college. It's an amazing place. There's nowhere else like it that I know of.

A year off just to do Barnstone. Killer. Did you live there? Were you full time?

Anywho... not to sidetrack your thread

Cool paintings; not much to say in the way of crits.

[TASmith]

Mad props on the Don Hurtzfeld sketchbook animation - automatically the best sketchbook advert on CA. What's even better is opening this thread and finding a ton of great art! Love the watercolors, and pretty much everything else in here. Keep posting!

[sandeepbarot]

Great. "first attempts at digital painting" is nice.

[jpacer]

Thanks, everybody, for the kind words!

TASmith: I didn't know that was Don Hurtzfield. I snagged it from someone else's avatar years ago. Do you think it's ok if I use it?

p sage: Could you direct me to the thread about the Golden Section? I guess I could just use the "Search" function. The Golden Section is one of the most misunderstood aspects of art, I find. It's little taught today and when it is it's usually glossed over as something unimportant. Are you familiar with the two books by Juliette Aristides, "Classical Drawing Atelier" and "Classical Painting Atelier?" She's a former Barnstone student as well (She mentions him at some point and thanks him in the "Acknowledgments" section). Both books give a general overview of the subject, but I think the painting one has more. Most people seem to think using the section means just locking principle elements on major divisions, but that's only the beginning. You also use the principle diagonals (and their reciprocals) as the principal directional movements of your design (i.e., if your painting in a square, your principal directional movements should be the 45 degree diagonals). This gives unity to your design by uniting it with the 2-Dimensional space it's in. There's a lot more to it, but I've rambled enough for now. I should find that thread...

I found two pieces on my hard drive that I did while I was at Barnstone. I have plenty more, but they're on a CD somewhere. They're basically just highly schematic measured drawings, one of a cast and three views of a boar skull...

[p sage]

Killer drawings! I saw many of those types of drawings at the studio last week.

Here's the thread.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=162897

Cheers!

[jpacer]

Quick Still Life of Shoes.

[p sage]

Cool. I can see the dominant diagonal in that piece (and recognize it!) and see the light & dark halos. Do you use passage in this? I'm not really trained in all this yet.

Anyway it's a nice piece.

[jpacer]

Thanks! I used passage in parts of it. I tend to use it subconsciously. If it's conscious, it's later on when I'm trying to fix or emphasize something. Sort of the push and pull of what's commonly referred to as "lost and found" form. You'll be asked to do it everywhere in the interest of clarity. But once you know how to be clear (and have shown you know how) you can play with it. At least that's how I understood the lesson...

[jpacer]

Another Iraq Comic Page:

[majortom]

Your comics are really interesting, I really want to see more