Dan Maynard WIP

WIP

The Merchant (not final title)

This is the underpainting for my next personal piece I started in-between jobs. Hopefully I will be able to the the final done before too long.

Take care,
-Dan
http://danmaynardart.com/

Poignant Existence - Final

 

Poignant Existence - Travis Hayes

I'm happy to say that, I'm finished with this piece! Due to traveling, commissions, and other random events. I've stared at this piece much too long. But Overall, I'm happy with the results. Due to prior posts I wont go into detail of progress or anything of that matter. This piece, along with future pieces will be partnered with poetry where you can find on my website: www.travishayesillustration.com

Also, I think that I've decided that this will be my last piece done entirely in Photoshop. I feeling of holding a brush is something I miss oh-too much.

Monarch

My first painting of 2014! and the first after 7 months of no painting DX I refuse to let that happen again.

Anyway, it's done. I could have spent more time on it, but it was mostly just to make sure I'm still an artist.

and here's a fun little gif showing how far along the painting was after each of my 6 sessions working on it.

Now it's time to plan a large scale painting that will be my main focus for probably a couple months, once I decide on what to paint that is.

A Man out of Time

I'm glad to finally share this with you all. Albeit, a little late, but still glad to share!

To start, I guess I should actually introduce myself. The name's Andrew Thompson. Like so many of us on this blog, I graduated this past May and I'm currently out in Boston working as a graphic designer for Reebok. Unfortunately I haven't really done a full scale illustration since school until now. They told us how tough it would be to work a full time job and do art on the side, but I never really believed it. If you'd like to see more of my work, you can see my site by clicking my name off to the right, but you can also check out my tumblr and Behance at:
 http://www.tumblr.com/blog/arthompson6  
https://www.behance.net/arthompson 

A quick recap, I did this illustration not just for The Winter Soldier. Recently I've come to really admire the Captain and his unwavering character. Despite all the shit he's been through, he still fights for what he believes. I wanted to show his transformation from the First Avenger, to Winter Soldier. To the hopeful kid from Brooklyn to the broken man who is being attacked by those he used to work side by side with.

The following are in progress shots while I was working.

 

One last thing before I go. I'd like to welcome anyone interested in art or studying art to leave us a comment about things you'd like to see. Tutorials, critiques, Who inspires us, style, etc. Thanks so much!

Hope you enjoy our site.

Justice Drawings

Fishin' 2013

The past few months since summer ended have been interesting to say the least. I moved back home, visited NYC frequently, went to a lot of art events (Illuxcon, Art Out Loud, etc.), met more great artists, started drawing and practicing a lot more and got an internship with a studio back in Columbus for the new year.

In October I took part in a drawing challenge created by Jake Parker called Inktober. Every day of the month of Inktober October hundreds of artists would do a drawing in ink. Every. Day. I chose to do it to improve, grow and form positive habits because that is what it was all about. Here are a few of the drawings that came out of it:

Smaug (Not from Inktober but fit the subject-matter) 

Things slowed down during the holiday season and I stopped working on personal projects I set out for myself. Now that I have an internship with a possible full-time job lined up I can start again with a pair of fresh eyes on the work I have.

Next post I make will be about all my personal projects that involved robots and other industrial works from the past year that need finishing. Keep on making kick-ass work everyone.

-Justice
justicedraws.tumblr.com

"Beauty Minus Beast"

I was commissioned to do some album artwork for a friend of mine. We decided to do 3 different covers for the album using the titles of the album's three singles -- "The Idea of Two," "I Don't Want to Fall in Love" and "The Bird Path." The album has a folk sound and deals with the themes of failed relationships.

The fourth graphic is an outtake inspired by Robert Crumb's blues series, but I thought it was worth sharing. :)

- Alex

alexlaniosz.com

Acrylic Practice

Now that Illustration is my hobby and not my career I've been thinking a lot about how the switch effects my art. One thing I've decided is that I want to try my hand at traditional painting again. Digital was nice for being fast and cost effective but I really miss the feeling of having a physical painting to hang on a wall. I also want to try painting large scale. 

However I'm not in any rush so I figured it would be good to start with a small acrylic painting (this will be 30cm x 40cm) I wanted to do something familiar so naturally a dragon made sense. I also didn't want to do something that required a ton of backstory. I'm definitely an illustrator not a writer. So here's what I've got so far.

It's been so long since I used acrylic, and I don't think I've ever painting in acrylic on a canvas (I haven't found a place where I can buy illustration board yet :/) So if anyone can remember some good ways to prep a canvas for acrylic that would be very helpful. Video tutorials would be even better. as of now I'm planning to do probably 1 coat of gesso, then do my transfer and enhance the drawing on the actual canvas and then do another coat of thin gesso to seal the drawing and go from there.

Also any comments or critiques of the piece so far are welcome and appreciated.

-Wes
http://westalbott.com/

I MADE PICTURES!

These are some post grad personal pieces I did. the first is completely my own, the other 2 are fan art pieces from 2 of the best video games ever. I hope you all like!

Keepers of the Border

Honorable Kill

Malphite Splash Art

Ill try to be online more n' stuff to post and comment.

- Dan

http://danmaynardart.com

Panic! at The Gun Show

Good evening my good sirs and madams my name is Michael Kemp: Co(s)mic Illustrator.

here's a link to my website: mkempillustration.com

I just finished this  illustration about a month ago and entered it in a contest to hopefully be the cover art for AFI's new single "A Deep Slow Panic"  It went through a lot of different stages...

I initially envisioned it as a black and white graphite rendering but soon realized that I am more of a pen and ink kinda guy so I stuck to my usual method of focusing on the line work and coloring it in photoshop, this time around however I wanted to add an ink wash texture to the black-ness, so I did a few ink washes and scanned in my favorites and dropped um into photoshop which helped ad the "airiness" that I initially wanted to get with the graphite approach. 

I also made a pin-up for my friend's all-ages comic Ragged Rider : Tales of a Cowboy Mummy , I really enjoyed making my own type with brush and ink rather than digitally making the type (something I though I would never enjoy!)

Finally here is a promo cover and some character designs for a comic I am working on and hopefully will get developed enough to pitch to some companies. Working on having some more work form this project to show soon.

 Cheers.

Poignant Existance - Beauty in Darkness

Happy new years. O.O

Hopefully everyone gets a great start to their year and it is full of many successes. The key to that is, work hard. And.. "Photo references, photo references, photo references" E. Fortune/Chris Payne.

For this piece, I've had a bit of a round-about time. Originally, I had wanted to do a quick, simple study in reference to Chinese paintings. As I did the thumbnails, I had wanted to focus on more of the concept and the idea of doing a traditional painting.

The idea behind this piece originally started as someone in a place that does not really exist (limbo, I suppose) while grasping on to the last feeling left . While brainstorming, I realized that it's a difficult task to objectify an emotion to hold on to - so doing what I tend to do... I used dying/growing plants as emotional references. =] The flower being held will be the last living/colorful flower, while the rest will be muted/withering.

While working on the traditional piece though, I had made a few mistakes that I wasn't too fond of and realized that I didn't fully think of everything and had jumped the gun a bit too quickly due to excitement of being able to touch brushes again here in China. (Not showing photos of that..)

Another issue that I tend to run into is, it is hard for me to fully plan a piece. Which is why I think that I work better in photoshop for the time being. I enjoy being able to move small things around, turn and adjust, add and take away as I'm working on it. For this piece in particular, I get to figure out how many flowers/rocks I want as I finish everything as a whole instead of having to plan every rock, which isn't always the most fun. && Along with this, if I do decide to adjust the color back to the typical brown feel of traditional Chinese pieces/make a variant version, photoshop makes it a much easier task until I'm confident enough for those long term traditional commitments.

During the process, I feel that it's nice to step back, turn the painting around (which is done frequently), and figure out what needs to be done. I like to take notes while working so that I'm able to remember/be as nit picky as I need to so I understand how much I have left to do.

Lastly, I think that it's nice to keep a mood board around. It helps me remember that these other people are amazing artists, and my work needs to fit into the mood board and not show a lack of quality.

So, to 2014.. I wish you all the best. To making art /raises glass\.

P.S. -- I agree with Luis, the lack of being around creatives is tough. So, thank you all for this blog & let's make history. I am humbled <3