Neil Blevins' Speed Paintings

[BlightedArt]

Wow, great to see you're still posting! (posted on your sketchbook about 2 years ago or something).

I've noticed that for a while you did speed paintings of environments... and thought you might get some inspiration from Milford Sounds, here in New Zealand.

Peace!

[soulburn3d]

Thanks BlightedArt, that looks like a beautiful area, hopefully I'll get to visit New Zealand at some point.

here's a few more images that I finished this week.

[soulburn3d]

Here's another new one. This started off as a speed painting, ended up finishing it off to be more of a matte painting (total of 4 hours of painting over a few days).

A few words on the technique. This is based on a photograph my wife took, I decided to paint this all by hand rather than doing some sort of photomanip (it's good practice), using the photo simply as reference. The only photo used in the actual painting are the two photoshop tree brushes, which I created by taking real photos of 2 trees against the sky, making them greyscale, and then contrasting the heck out of them. 99% of the image is the three brushes below.

May I say that painting clouds is both fun and incredibly frustrating. But I'm happy to get the practice in.

- Neil

[grenappels]

you may say that, and i may agree, but damn good job on them! in fact that whole painting looks so much like a photograph it's hard for my eyes to accept it's a painting--kudos

[soulburn3d]

A quick Color Sketch based on a sunset I saw while driving home.

[Mik2121]

Wow! Really nice looking sunset.
I just saw your sketchbook for the first time and while I liked the stuff you had around two years ago, I definitely like the newer stuff more.

I'll pay attention to this sketchbook from now on!!
Good luck with your drawings!

[gnilrE]

whew, i just read trough your whole sketchbook, i like yar style!

[soulburn3d]

Thanks Guys!



Here's another quick one, based on a sunset I saw while driving home again (love those sunsets <G>).

[AphexTweak]

You get to see some pretty amazing sunsets on your drive home.
Really enjoyed the brush creation/use in post #93. I've tried a similar technique and had a lot of fun as well.
As always, thanks for sharing.

[soulburn3d]

Not quite a speed painting, since I finished it up a little more, but the image did come together pretty fast, maybe 2 hours of work.

The inspiration for this piece came from the lighting I saw driving into work one morning. The sky was dark with rainclouds, but the sun was pouring through the clouds behind this one hill near the Berkeley / Oakland border. Rather than doing a normal study, I decided to use the ambiance for a more imaginative piece. All painted in Photoshop.

Think I'll take a break from the sunsets a bit in the new year. Have a great holiday time everyone, see you next year for some new stuff.

[soulburn3d]

Environment rough. Did a rare winter piece, which is odd, my life in Canada had so much winter in it, you'd expect I would do lots of winter scenes. Need to do more of that.

[Linguini]

Beautiful paints! So glad to see you posting again, I can't wait to see more. Lots of inspiration in your sb.

[Metal Fingers]

Cool schpeedies man, really vibrant colors. I would like to see some completely rendered fleshed out landscapes from you. Cheers.

[AphexTweak]

Nice update.
Was able to pick up your DVD. Thanks for putting that together. Learned a lot from it and started using some of your techniques right away. I've watched it a few times now and always pick up something new.
Thanks for sharing your art and insight with the artistic community. I appreciate your continued contributions.

[mike butkus]

Wonderful!

[soulburn3d]

Thanks guys!

I would like to see some completely rendered fleshed out landscapes from you.

Check out http://www.neilblevins.com go to the art gallery and check the Environment section. There's a number of more finished landscape pieces there.

Was able to pick up your DVD. Thanks for putting that together. Learned a lot from it and started using some of your techniques right away.

Cool, glad you liked the DVD.

Got another couple of speedies coming up, just wanna do a few last tiny tweaks

- Neil

[soulburn3d]

Gotta love those sunsets, twice a year for about 3 weeks each, sunsets happen almost exactly when I head home for the night, so I am treated to some of the more beautiful colors nature can provide my whole drive home. Here another feeble attempt at capturing some of that magic.

[rydicanubis]

Urgff... wow. I am jealous of your style, your colour sense, your composition, the moods you portray, pretty much everything. Thanks for sharing, makes me want to paint now. Very inspiring!

[soulburn3d]

Thanks for the kind words rydicanubis! Mother nature has sure been inspiring me to paint lately

[soulburn3d]

A friend at work is very ill, and some co-workers decided to organize a charity auction for him. So I took the opportunity to do my first Acrylic painting in close to 10 years, and donate it to the auction. Here's the speed painting I did as a test for the final painting.

[soulburn3d]

Another speedy on my currently favorite subject.

[soulburn3d]

Quick abstract doodle.

[JoshDArtist]

dude, just checked out your site... AWESOME work... and this sketchbook rocks too... lol

[Flashback]

Your stuff reminds me of Peter Elson, and Chris Foss, but I wish for space stuff.

[soulburn3d]

Thanks guys.

Flashback, I actually hadn't heard of Chris Foss until about 2 years ago, but once I saw his work, I was really impressed. Never heard of Peter Elson, I'll look him up. Thanks.

[soulburn3d]

Here's a few starship hull tests I've been working on. I made these images to explore variations in greebling and hull plate shapes and configurations. The tests are a little less practical and a little more abstract, but they have been really helpful, and should be a great source of inspiration and practical experience the next time I decide to make a full fledged 3d model of a starship or space station. Parts were modeled in 3dsmax (many wires were done using my wirebundler script), rendered with brazil, some was painted in photoshop (so the image isn't 100% 3d), and many patterns were inspired and produced by Darktree, Bercon Noise and Filterforge procedural patterns.







More to come in the coming weeks.

[DeathByChris]

Thats looks really cool, never heard of Filter forge before just looked it up and seems pretty useful, thanks!

[soulburn3d]

Glad you like em. Here's a few more...

[soulburn3d]

And two more...

[Flashback]

Are you planning to put these mashes and texture together to make a spaceship?

Because I'm still waiting for more spaceships and environment pieces!