I’ve had to put Goliath on hold as I’m working on a submission for a job! *fingers crossed*

The requirements are to create a panel themed as tropical including a woman and called “Paradise”. Thing is to do it in Illustrator with vectors only. Here’s the base sketch I’ve worked up for it:

I’ve got to make it as realistic as possible. A first time full realism attempt in Illustrator 8D Time to learn new things!

“Giraffe riding the bus” is my first new painting in five months. I spent the last half of the year focusing on the basics of character design and digital painting. Its been a rebuilding process and something I need to do. When I evaluate this piece it still feels like some of my older work, but more refined. I think it captures the correct feel and more importantly I had as much fun painting the giraffe as the giraffe had riding the bus! I’d like to see Rockwell try to set up this photo shoot!

Original digital painting of a woman as the Protector of Mountains with her Eagle companion.

she protects mountains
the web of tranquility
leaves the soul spellbound

– genece hamby
To buy fine art print of Protector of Mountains

Had no time recently to sit and doodle. But all that is going to change (yeah right!).  I am going to make a concerted effort this year to get stuck in. I have even been looking around for life classes in and around Sheffield, but so far the only ones I have found seem to be at the weekend and my time at weekends is pretty tight.

Please, if anyone knows of any life classes on weekday evenings in or around Sheffield, I would love to hear about them.

Here is a little sketch taken from the excellent GDG.

My version pales in comparison to the original, but seen as time was tight,  I was pleased to get something down.

Lesson number four was another lesson in texture.  This time I learned how to take a high resolution, textural image and use it to create realistic and interesting textures on a painted image.  As per usual, Bobby Chiu is responsible for the drawing and almost all of the color.  In this lesson, he taught me how to add in the various textures (the cracked ground, rocky cave and wrinkly skin of the creature).  I also painted in some extra wrinkles, hair and drool on the creature.

Quick update~ been busy as a bee today =)

Found a great ref photo for bg! This will be the first ‘grays first’ image I’ve made with a background planned from near the beginning haha. Exciting stuff!!

And I worked out how to make it so you can click on the pic for a slightly bigger version since the whole 500px width limit doesn’t help in a landscape image har har

*flees the scene*

In this brief introduction I want to tell you what I plan on doing. I want to use a hybrid of digital painting and photography to create surrealistic imagery that looks ultra-realistic and semi-fantasy based. In this I’ll show you the initial process I’ll take BEFORE any digital painting (if you don’t count the masking, dodging, and burning as painting).

Here is the original image I took.

After HDR

After a color shift using a solid color with overlay as the blending.

This is the image I added. I took this about 4-5 blocks away from the original image

And, finally, the final result.

After this I plan on painting a cityscape in the background as well as having a few subjects in the foreground for Part 2.

This is the final version (maybe) of this painting. The version posted at Pixarra.com had a poorly painted tree on the right side that I found distracting so I repainted that area and flipped the canvas horizontally.

Afternoon Storm Brewing

Just to let you all know I’m still here!
Speed painted over a quick pencil sketch.

The original sketch took me one boring Typography class¹ at the University some months ago.
Today I spent about 1 and a half hour working in SAI. Hope you’ll like this boy from the hell inside Mr. Mignola’s head².

¹ notice that the boredom of the class is due to the professors dullness instead of Typography itself, which i love.
² obvious enough: HellBoy from the work of Mike Mignola.

It’s the weekend! And so much to do! Been searching for suitable backgrounds for Goliath and the Dragon (still working titles) and want it to be aerial but with interesting lighting. You know how you get those pictures of thunder clouds where some of them are almost black against light hit foreground ones? Something like that.

Onwards to google image search! There are so many pictures of clouds to get ideas from XD Getting great ref images helps so much with image creation I’ve found. You can’t always get everything you want or need but you get enough and can fill the rest with your imagination =)

I have a possible cloud set up going but wanted to show the character placement so far so here it is (flipped Goliath around XD):

Hmm hmm, today I am going to go for a walk… I need to get out of my room =3

Original digital of a rabbit hopping along a path, enjoying the Spring season.

white, fluffy rabbit
springs along a seasoned path
winter is over

– genece hamby
To buy fine art print of Spring Season

Original digital painting of a rabbit symbolic of the Chinese Year of the Rabbit.

year of the rabbit
of stillness, beauty and grace
la dolce vita

I was born in the Year of the Rabbit and profoundly relate to the descripti0n, especially the need for quiet contemplation and creating beauty.

– genece hamby

TwistedBrush Pro Studio 16.14 was released today with a new soft pastel art set so I have spent several hours trying it out.

Who Stole The Pear

Soft Pastel Morning

TwistedBrush Pro Studio is available at Pixarra.com. There is a thirty-day free trial.

So, for this lesson I learned how to use a scanned in, traditional texture like stippling or cross-hatching  to make a digital drawing look completely traditional.  I probably sound like someone who’s never seen Photoshop before, but with each class I’m amazed at these simple little tools and tricks that can turn a good painting into a great painting.

Once again, I want to make sure that Bobby Chiu gets all of the credit for the drawing itself.  He supplied the original line drawing and the textures and I used them to shade it so that the line drawing was no longer necessary.  Bobby has a much lighter touch than I do and his ability to create subtle details out of light and shadow is something I aspire too, but I’m a little heavy handed as it is now.

This concept of futuristic interceptor is part of FireFly Creation’s new brand identification.

It’s only sketch, final version will be made in 3D software with higher precision.
Tools used: pencil, white paper, Epson scanner, Adobe Photoshop CS3, Wacom Intous 3 tablet.

Digital oil painting

untitled

Here’s the latest. I keep looking at it wondering if it’s finished. It is now.

01/30/10 – 02/03/10.

Made with GIMP.

Original digital painting of dark and wild violet seas; deep mysteries and dark shadows lie beneath the surface.

above dark shadows
light moves rapidly with force
collapses the wave

– genece hamby, daily painter

To buy fine art print of Dark & Wild