A Circle of Trust!!

Made of Bamboo! :D :D

Just a primer for a new start, hopefully.

http://www.paperwingspodcast.com/2012/07/critique-groups/

Hope everyone is hanging in there.

Portfolio Grind

Hey guys,

I know it's been some time since any of us has posted here. I started an endeavor to do 30 characters in 30 days that fell short after day 6 mainly because I realized it would take away too much of my time I wanted and need to dedicate towards making a better portfolio to show off this coming convention season. 

By this I mean an actual physical copy of a portfolio, which needs to be revamped. My work in the past, and even now, has been quite erratic with my images looking to be done by a group of artists rather than just myself. It's been hard to stay consistent with my work and I haven't been able to sort out exactly why that is. But I recognize the problem and am working to fix it. 

As for the cons, I go to Gen Con Indy every year, and have attended Origins in Ohio (my new residence, oh how I miss Chicago!). Raven Mimura  told me that I needed to work on getting my work more polished, which I agree with. He has been a great person in general at cons to talk to so I suggest checking him out. Aaron Miller  gave me perhaps the best bit of advice while looking though my folio last year. He mentioned that an art director wouldn't know what kind of art they would be getting, based on how varied my images were.

So I have been working to do two things:

1) To create a more consistent and polished feel to my artwork.

2) To really narrow down on my subject matter/ industry

I realize that my traditional work doesn't carry over a polished or finished look to it unless it is a 'fine art' study. I've also been struggling with adjusting watercolors over digitally without going over all my traditional work in photoshop to make it look better. This has lead me to working a lot more digitally, which isn't so bad since I do continue to paint traditionally on the side. 

With Gen Con in a few months I am really cracking my own whip on getting works done for a portfolio review. Working digitally is both a strain and a relief. I was thinking to get a bout 6 solid images done but after talking to another friend, Lake Hurwitz, he convinced me to try to grind out as many quality pieces possible before the due date so that I have more of a range of images to choose from.

While I admit this is a lot of work, I know that while I was in school I often did at least 2 pieces of work every two weeks. Sometimes more. And I realize that if I was working the way I hope to some day, that a real work load would include making a lot of quality pieces, so it's not really as far fetched or high a bar as it seems. But it will be tough to stay focused and motivated.

I realize this post has grown quite long, so I will leave you with some WIP images of a piece I am working on right now.

Wish me luck on my endeavors!

-Kat Guevara

Just a snip it: I've had this idea in my head for a bit now. I did the sketch/ drawing in PS, using a reference image from DA for the model. And also, since I am using pieces of the Sistine Chapel, I decided to just place the images where I wanted and 'trace' them to be safe in concerns to proportions and what not. I tried a grid first, which didn't work out.

Anyways, I am doing this all in greys and will be laying color over the piece when it's ready for it. I plan to make more images this way. 

30 Days of Character Sketches!!!

Hello boys and ghouls! I'm kicking the month off with an attempt to draw 30 characters in 30 days, an exercise I hope will motivate and inspire me to move on to some bigger better pieces. I have to admit, sometimes being an artist is a drag when you get caught up in artistic blocks and a lack of motivation.

I'm not planning on these being spectacular pieces, just pieces to keep me occupied and drawing every day this month. So wish me luck with this endeavor, or if you like, try it out for yourself and let me know how you feel! And if you want, check my blog for follow pieces through out the month!

Dr. Mrs. Monarch

Little viking WIP

Hey peeps, here's the new fellow: Little Viking! A wip with final colours coming soon!

Hope everyone is doing great. Tomorrow is the first Sketchmeet i put together every month here in Sydney. What do you guys have planned for the weekend?

First Post of The New Year!

Its a new year, and already there are some projects to be had. In light of playing some SWOR and enjoying a little spiked cider, there are a couple of gallery events that have a call for art. The first is for pin-up work and while I have a piece drawn out I have yet to post it. The second is a call for pulp art, which is what I have posted below.

Pen Sketch

Pencil

Color Comp

Mock Cover

I'm planning on painting this in watercolor, and because of the large amounts of black I decided to do a digital color comp just to be safe. I did consider inking this in but am hesitant since doing so may give this more of a comic book feel. I am also not sure at this point if I will add in the type or not. If I do it will be done digitally. Anyways....back to work!

Happy New Year to everyone! Chicken mail is here!

:D Hey guys, sharing a little fun creature from my sketchbook that i decided to have some fun colouring up. Hope everyone is doing great and cannot wait to see everyone's art for this year.

The Frog Prince

I finished my first entry for the CGHub challenge "Fairy Tales reinvented", that quickly became an entry for the Art Order challenge as well, with Schindehette's permission.
I chose the Frog Prince tale, but I didn't really reinvent it, I just once again focused on little symbols and hidden meanings, naughty humour and such. Nothing that the tale itself doesn't already implicitly represent.
That's why I think it suits the ArtOrder challenge much more than its CGHub counterpart and I'm now drawing an Alice in Wonderland reinterpretation for that.

Anyway, here's the Frog Prince.

Original height is a little over 6000 pixels. The entire illustration was fairly straightforward and smooth except for the girl. I redrew her completely at least 3 times, due to anatomical problems and such. As usual I never start with reference. I adopt it through the process if necessary.
Since I have the "bad" habit of picking weird angles I had to use some reference for the head and shoulders, but had to make the rest up.
Hands are based on reference too (my own hands) for realism and style purposes.

Since I start moving more and more towards realism I notice my need for reference is gradually increasing, but I will never start anything with reference. Whenever I did that I noticed it killed my vision of the piece, it constrained me to what I was seeing in the reference, becoming a true obstacle.
I also don't particularly like how something entirely based on reference looks like. It feels like it's not my own work, it feels alien and depressing.
The least reference I use the best it is for me. These are personal choices and I disagree with those who promote using reference whenever we encounter a little problem.
Our memory is filled with precise images of the entire world, we just don't have access to it with great lucidity, but it's there. We can train to access it and to refresh those memories though.
First I try to figure out what I've done right. Once I know why I've failed on what looks bad I look for help (opinions, reference).
If we don't give ourselves the chance of failing through research we'll always be reference-slaves. It's good to research and experiment when doing personal work or contests with generous deadlines (most are).

Thundershock Archer WIP

So I am back from Origins Game Fair, and taking a lot of things into consideration after getting some critiques on my portfolio as it is. Along with that talking to some of my buddies and other artists, as well as reviewing a lot of the companies out there, I've come back to focus more on doing the kind of artwork I had set out to do before college and all the fluff involved had their effect on me. 

Originally I wanted to work on MTG type of images, so after some thought it was recommended that in addition to creating my own art, that I ought to look at 'reinventing' concepts that already have been done. Above is a sketch on 140lb coldpress (yes, that's right...coldpress, not the type of paper I normally use) Fabriano watercolor paper. I had some other sketches I had done previously in my sketchbook that led up to the actual drawing. It's approximately 8.5x12 inches. 

I've sorted out some reference materials as I got ready to finalize my idea, and am kinda sampling some of the colors to create a pallet. Right now I am using a mixture of Viridian Hue, Yellow Ochre, and Windsor Violet. I've been painting with watercolors for a little over three years now, and it's my medium of choice. Along with that it's also lead to me picking up tendencies to favoring the use of particular colors, be it for pigment, or what not. To get a grayed violet I add in a little yellow (complementary colors will do this), and for a darker near black I like to mix green into the violet. I don't often use pure black when I paint. 

Right now I am taking a break, as using the cold press paper causes my paints to take a little longer to dry, and I am not a fan of using a blow dryer to speed up the process as I feel it moves my pigment around. Furthermore, I have applied salt in some areas of the painting in a controlled manner, and to use a blow dryer would push the salt around to areas I had not intended to use it. 

I know some people prefer to have pristine paints in their pallet, but it's been a habit of mine to muddy up my workable pallet. 

It's been nice to jump back into painting, especially as I find that I have been doing digital work more frequently. Right now my biggest challenge is how to handle representing lightning using watercolors....or rather in general. Lightning isn't something that I have painted before, so I am a little anxious as to how this will turn out. 

Anyways, I've written quite a lot but figured it would be nice to feature this here...wish me luck on the lightning!

-Kat