Phantasmagoria : Jason Snair's Sketchbook : Updated TODAY!

[Emil_J.]

Lovely character design - i will really look forward to seeing the finished piece.

[Jason Snair]

Finalized Chow from last week, plus WIPs.

Started this week's Chow; Female Sith.
I wanted to stay away from the aggressively evil look. Instead, I'm going for distracting beauty. The shawl is going to be a dark silky lace material...just enough to have some transparency. The skin will stay pale, but not caked on make-upy.

[Hyptosis]

Fantastic work man! It's all crazy good and very confident.

[Jason Snair]

Hyptosis: thanks man

Update CHOW

[Jason Snair]

Finished last week's chow and started this week's one.

Brief: The Queen's Consort. {Free reign}

After sketching around a bit, I decided on going for an old Elf King. He was once a proud warrior, and due to social customs ended up marrying the Queen. He quickly found out, though, that the role carried with it no power. It was mostly ceremonial in nature and he found it completely boring. To show this, I drew him leaning back in his chair, while gazing down at the floor, bored, and perhaps recalling more interesting days. I also wanted to play around with light and shadows in a narrative way. The shadow on the right is going to be the Queen standing. As much as the King wishes to edge away from her, from his role, she (by using the shadow), keeps him in place. Even the shadow of her staff (her power) cages him in place. He has little room to go.

[Jason Snair]

painted some tonight:

[Zebz]

Nice to check in to your book after a long while, Jason. Stuff is looking really good. I think you need to perhaps try and lay off the line a bit more and focus more of your stuff towards pushing and pulling out the form by laying down brush strokes. It's coming along very well tho. The female sith is an interesting take on everyone else's super beautiful vixen. I'd like to see her even uglier tho! You had a cool idea there. Nice lighting on the last dude too. You're obviously getting better, dude. Keep it rockin', man.

[purb36]

hey jas. interesting idea for the consort. i would suggest maybe putting him even more in shadow, so that just a tiny part of him sticks out. play with it some, see what is most interesting to you. g'luck with it man.

[Jason Snair]

purb36: I do want his upper part bathed in light, but you're right. I do intend to take it down some once I have the whole picture more complete. I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Zebz: Hey man, thanks...a lot! I think you're right about the brush strokes/form part. I think it's just a natural progression, baby steps ya know.

Update for the night: I'm really happy with how things are turning out.

[Jason Snair]

Final. May change a few things. Let it rest a day or so, though.

[purb36]

cool. g'luck with the voting!

just one suggestion: if you shift the shadows a little more depending on their depths, it can pop the piece a little more. again, g'luck man. keep pumping out these chars!

oh, and his eyes are different distances from his nose. take care!

[Jason Snair]

Yeah Plurb, I'm definitely seeing that now. The whole queen shadow could use a good nudge to the left some. The staff shadow on the back chair is too close to the shadow on his shoulder. And I don't like that she lines up with the chair on the bottom.

At least I have time to tinker around. It's nice getting this finished this early.

Thanks.

[Jason Snair]

Okay, now it's final. fixed a few area, the shadows, the perspective on the floor, his left eye.

[purb36]

much better!

he looks reALLY bored, too. niiiiiice. g'luck with it man.

you up for coming out tomorrow? we're switching the night this week, seeing if that works better. cheap pizza night at oggi gourmet (next to ABP).

[Jason Snair]

Plurb: Thanks man. I do want to join in the Sketch group...it's hard to swing by after work during the week.

Update:
A friend and I are doing a shared comic together, possibly as a hand out for Comic-con. He'll do half in his style, I'll do half in mine. We're just beginning to do the story now and come up with characters, one of which is an old sea captain who's narrating the story.

Want to go with a classic crusty old man, who's got a thousand stories, and no one believes a single one of them. The line work underneath is real basic, but I want to add in a pipe and really work up the details of the body. And come up with a cooler cane too.

[Jason Snair]

update on the old sea captain. need to work on his hands still.

[Tofa]

loving your paintings mate, the faces especially, you got a hold on good character building
*thumbsup**

[Jason Snair]

chriis zed:

Little update:

[Dan Valkar]

the old sea captain and that boat r really good...keep postin'!!

[Jason Snair]

Wow. What a month! I haven't been drawing much lately, although I wish I were. Life's been kind of crazy. I usually don't divulge my personal life on here, but just this once, I'm going to.

You see; My dad has cancer and he's almost at the end now. In fact he just moved into a hospice last night. So it's very close now. The doctors have told us, perhaps less than 2 weeks.

In addition to that, last week, a friend...someone I just started chatting with in March...someone I was just getting to know...was shot and killed. I'm not going to name her, because it made pretty big headlines....but...I'm going to miss our chats, especially about art, books & travel.

Sooo, I'm trying to do a little art. I have big plans for San Diego this year so I have to force myself. Actually, I have to do a lot of art! A friend and I are trying to produce a comic book, just something for our portfolio art book to hand out.

Here are some thumb pages.

[Jason Snair]

Started laying in color. Trying to find the right palette.

[Jason Snair]

Started painting the face.

[blankslatejoe]

hey jason!

I'm liking that face so far, the color choices are very moody/fit the setting well. You might want to consider working some of that green from the background into the left side of the face--not much, but a slight greenish rim-light might really sell the form.

sorry to hear about your father and your friend. Hang in there!

[Jason Snair]

Joe: Thanks. I'm hanging in there. Good to see you're still around.

Update: Working on promo for The Curse of the Werewhale. And a character concept.

[YihyoungLi]

In my opinion, your paintings are kinda dull because the shadows are too gray. It is an attractive and inky illustration style; however, using more saturated shadows will "pop" your pieces into more lively paintings--especially in the skin areas. When selecting your shadows, instead of going down in the Photoshop Color Picker (darker and grayer), perhaps going more to the right: darker and more saturated. Your paintings will seem more realistic.

Unless I'm an idiot and you're deliberately trying to improve that style.

[kikindaface]

Yeah, i find the colors dull too ! try to do more paintings from life, it will help you dude ! Keep working ! i'll come back

[Drin]

I like your painting style a lot. Really interesting.

[Mark Tarrisse]

Man you must update more often, very solid work, really like your colors, and your chars.
Keep it coming !

[Jason Snair]

Markusthebarbarian I'm trying dude. Thanks for the comment. See you in the CHOWS soon again

Drin Thanks man.

Walid D & YihyoungLi Thanks for the crits. I'll try out what you're both saying. Although I do go for a more stylised illustration, I do want to push myself in a more naturalistic approach.

[kidult]

keep pushing! things are looking good!