Iterations and iterations

One of the reasons I love my job as a concept artist is the ability to solve visual problems with quick thumbnail iterations. Especially with costume design. So my Audacious Accomplishment for Oatley Academy has been good fun thus far! 


We were asked to take scenes from a film and transpose the characters into an extra ordinary setting, so I set my heart on Silence of the Lambs, where Clarice Starling would be a priestess new to a the rank of Demon Hunter rather than FBI agent, and Lecter would be the demon she needs to get into the mind of, to catch the even more evil threat (Buffalo Bill). 

I'm exploring stylistic choices here as well as costume choices, as I'm still trying to figure out where I'd like to push my art in terms of getting that something special I can call my own. Ultimately I have my favourites, but as ever, I welcome opinions and feedback! And these are very much a first iteration. Once i decide on a stylistic direction, I'll explore more costumes, hair styles and faces. 

I should also point out here that I envisage Starling as more of an HQ-based demon hunter.. the sort who doesn't leave the office much and is more research and questioning-based, so practicality is a lesser concern over looks (imagine if you will a less prudish, high fantasy female equivalent of the get up the priests of the vatican wear). I'm also trying to bring a little of my biggest inspiration, Brom, into my own work, in my own way, so if she feels a little sexier in some, that's a deliberate choice.

And here's some quick thumbnails with the idea of turning my fiesty, dirty-mouthed, water-wielding pirate chick, Eideann into a potential trading card. Also really trying to get better at doing dynamic, interesting poses, since my initial attempt at a more fleshed out version of her after doing These Thumbnails Here, was Pretty Damned Boring. 

Proof of Oatley

Okay I'm going to start sounding like a rabid fan or something with this Oatley stuff, but hell it works, and I'm prone to gush about stuff that works. (For balance's sake -  I had the same kind of colour epiphany when I watched Jason Manley's Light and colour stream and can also highly recommend that for people who can handle their classical painting breakdowns and want some enlightening on colour!)

Back in December i attended the first of my live sessions - where Chris shares his desktop with us online and  goes through a bunch of student pieces offering advice and occasionally paintovers. My major problem with the piece below was I'd started it as a pure characer practice then built up the environment as a secondary thought, meaning a lot of it felt a little contrived. Chris also made the suggestion of dappled light, which is possibly my favourite thing about the image now, and refocusing the character so he was facing the same way as the beast. That made the narrative much stronger... some kind of threat off to the right or above of the image as opposed to two forms in the picture simply doing their own thing. Tweaked little things like the line of the mask so it fed back into the face of the elf, and tried to do the same with a lot of the subtler environment elements, the result of which means the eye is subconsciously fed back into the face of the elf where ever it wanders off to.

I've shown both the finished piece and a comparison between the finished piece on the right and the piece I submitted to Chris for critique. The left hand one isn't bad in it's own right, but the right hand one just subconsciously feels more solid and composed. 

Audaciously Accomplishing...

So my time at the Oatley Academy continues. Just over half way through, and I'm still learning immense amounts from it. A lot of it is information I've picked up over the years, but it's condensed into what I would consider a really understandable form, though I know there are others in the course who are struggling a little with some of the latter homework.  I think my masterwork studies over the years have definitely helped me get to grips with what's being  explained. I should also mention here which I might have done earlier that the course I'm currently doing is a composition-heavy one. But damn if it isn't making me look at artwork in a totally new light a lot of the time. So many subtle things I would have missed before.

While I've been doing the more serious tasked homework, I've also been thinking about my ideas for the ultimate goal of taking the class, which is ending up with two finished pieces. The theme of the work is taking an existing film set in the ordinary world, and transposing it's characters and narrative into an extra ordinary one. So my film was Silence of the Lambs, and i'm turning into a dark fantasy setting, where the FBI is a holy order of demon hunters recently open to women, and Lecter one of their worst captured demons.

These are just my first initial musings. I'd like something of a Brom-esque aesthetic to it, but as i gather more inspirational ref, it's likely to fluctuate. Also dabbling with the idea of having it be pushed stylistically in terms of character design, since that could be where I'd like to take my portfolio. Enjoy!

More bust fun - Epona

I should probably start by saying that these busts were mostly inspired by the gorgeous works of Dapper Owl over on deviantART... go check her gallery if you like these, she has such a beautiful style!

Just another bust, this time a little more labored over (female faces with their soft blends are harder for me at the moment, being in hard surface mode all the time for Transformers Universe) depicting another friend's character, Epona. A somewhat phoenix out of the flames of tragedy character, I chose to use her as practice for more over the top expressions, as mine are usually quite still. She's a faerie who was robbed of family, voice and wings, then sold to the circus as a freak act before she escaped. 

Here's the final piece and an animated gif of progress shots as I remembered to take them. 

New Year's Resolution

Alongside the usual 'must get fitter/more productive/drink less' kinda promises that will ultimately be broken in the near future (though I swear i'm going to get at least part way through the P90X program if it most likely kills me), what should be my most achievable goal in 2013 is to try and keep a more active web presence. This means more updates to this blog, and trying to respond to comments and posting more on the other sites I'm on (CGHub and deviant art being the prime at the moment).

So as it's aaalmost 2013, here's a quicky to start with, just a quick bit of character bust fun for a friend, of her character Ramah, desert prince and werewolf (focusing on the former).

Oatley Academy continued

Okay so a bit of an update regarding OA. I'm 5 weeks in thus far, and barring this week's homework I've not actually drawn *anything* yet. An odd thing, for a painting online course. I've drawn *over* a few things, and decided on my Audacious Accomplishment for the course overall (almost). My thoughts this far:

This isn't the kind of course that will teach you what brushes to use, what techniques will make you a better technical artist -  if you're after something that will teach you how to paint digitally or traditionally in some fashion, there are more apt courses out there for sure. What this course has given me so far is an excuse to actually step back and think properly on what I want to do.

The Art Order has recently posted a great set of self assessing questions about your portfolio that tackle the similar kind of issues that have cropped up in this course so far (click here for link). But Chris has a very unique way of looking at art that I think is very healthy. This course isn't about finding your style. It's about giving you the building blocks so that you should be able to work in *any* style, on any kind of subject with any kind of story. This allows you to put your own style aside and just focus on the story.. about what's important in a painting or illustration. I really, really love this style of approach. It makes you question why you do what you do. Am I just doing this style of work because I'm too afraid to really jump into something better? I work a lot with very 'pretty' subject matter. My work is always on the lighter side, barring a couple of pieces. I love working with soft feminine subject matter, but I have a yearning to do something darker.

I love Brom's work. I love his innate sense of elegance even when he's drawing the most messed up creature you can think of. It's not the kind of unwatchable dark art that some horror artists delve into that becomes uncomfortable. I love the contrast he can get with this style, blending beautiful women and strong, handsome men with unusual designs and gothic horror. I'd love to get that style of approach in my own work, but I suspect my work by the nature of me, will be a little softer, maybe a little sexier than Brom's, with a few more tentacles. I'm almost imagining Brom's aesthetics with a Rebecca Guay/Mucha twist. The idea of that being who I am to the art world is hugely intriguing.

THIS is what this course is giving me. Focus. A goal. I've always loved dipping my toes in any number of styles and stories. I love fantasy and modern day stuff almost equally, and working on Transformers is giving me a real sense of how awesome sci fi robot design can be. But this course is also making me realise that I'm sort of diluting myself by doing so much of this kind of stuff. It's really beginning to burn that wide warm arcing sunbeam into a firey laser. And putting me alongside others who want the same thing, but are coming at it from a totally different point of view. All of which is super healthy for any artist. Add to that the fact we get a crit session with Chris every month where we get to sit and watch him crit a bunch of work from every level of skill. I've had one session thus far and it's definitely got me thinking already.

All in all, there are a myriad of courses out there, but I'm being more and more pleasantly surprised by this course the more I put into it. I always thought it would be good, but there's a tonne of new angles on art that it's giving me. Roll on the coming weeks!

Aaand just so you have a visual reward for reading all that, here's some doodles and a character rough that I'll probably go rethink in the long run.

Oatley Academy and a finished piece!

So I recently signed up for the Chris Oatley academy, as a birthday present from my lovely boyfriend .  I thought I'd post my thoughts on the experience here as the course goes on, to give those who might also be interested an idea of what to expect.

For those who don't know, Chris Oatley recently worked for Disney as a character designer, among other things, and quit his day job to pursue an online learning academy for artists. His website is something I'd only recently stumbled into a couple of months back via a couple of links on twitter and I've found a lot of the information posted in it to be inspiring. He does come at a lot of stuff from an animation background, not surprising given he worked at Disney, but all of the information can be used regardless of the artistic field you work in. One of the things that really appealed to me is Chris' apparent desire to really want to connect to other artists and to want to help them personally -  one of the reasons he's doing an online course, rather than a book with his knowledge, is the interaction with those who want to learn. He can be a little rambling and often comes across as distracted, but I find that quite endearing -  testament to the fact he's human too, and maybe doesn't want to spend his whole life editing posts.

The course is called Painting Drama -  and focuses on colour and composition as tools to craft really in depth story telling images -  the kind that have an emotional impact on the viewer. I've had some success with this (if number of favs is anything to go by), but I often feel like I'm inconsistent with my ability to really push emotion, maybe because I'm too busy thinking about the rules of art, rather than simply focusing on the story at large. So, a week in and I'm already starting to rethink how I view my art, and thinking on what I really want to get out of my art (weirdly something I don't do much -  I'm  more of a 'hey lets paint this cause it's pretty yay!' person). 

The price is pretty reasonable too -  under $500, and that currently gives you access to 2 years worth of monthly live meetings to discuss student's work with Chris himself and access to all the posts and links he puts up in his Secret Lab, which you get access to as one of the Academy's students. The course work itself consists of 12 weeks worth of lessons, which can be done at your own pace, and all the live sessions are, I believe, recorded and put up for you to watch if you can't attend -  the first ones to take place are actually doing so over 2 days at different times, so internationals like myself aren't blearily rubbing eyes at 3am, with work the next day. All in all, it sounds  like it should be a good deal, but I will keep you posted!

And here's my latest posted piece, Soul Spark -  my own character, Kana, dragon prince.  You can also find this on my new Illustration Portfolio blog too... which will just be images without the ranting I do here. :)