Hey all!
I hope everyone has fared well over the past month. I certainly didn't intend to take a month before posting again, but adult responsibilities and obligations kept me away from the drawing board more than I wanted. That's life though. Anyway, I'm back with some images to share. I managed to catch up on all the Lineart studies, but still need to get the 1-Point Perspective assignment done. I'm planning on finishing that up this coming week (while trying to relax a bit more)and then the following week will finish up Term 1.
Character Lineart Studies Commentary
On reflection, I either overlooked some instructions on how to do these or such instruction does not exist. With my background in amateur comic work, linework means pencils and inks, but I came to the realization that this was not the intent of the assignment. But I had already done a few of them this way and for the sake of consistency, I finished the character lineart studies the same way. I was struggling to get the same kinds of inking shapes out of my digital tools when it dawned on me that inking is a fairly complicated subject on its own and it was unlikely that I was supposed to learn digital inking at this point. Oh well, I got to make some stuff that I am pretty proud of. The remainder of these studies reflect the fact that I'm getting old because they are in homage to my favorite artists from my teen years in the 90's.
Hilary Barta:
Barta really impacted me through his "What the?!" comic work in the 90s. His cartooning is great and has a darker edge to it, which I love. So in honor of him, I chose the duo found on the cover of What the?! #5 - Wulverream and the Pulverizer. His linework features a lot of smooth curves and feathering with short thin-to-thick lines (that I struggle to make with a single stroke).
Ted McKeever:
I discovered Metropol at a consignment store in my hometown (no comic shops) and was blown away that it existed. McKeever's art is some of the most dynamic, expressionistic, and underrated in comics. I am sad that he has completely stepped away from comics at this point, but I guess I can't blame him. There are a few interviews out there to explain why he has done this. He is missed. Luckily, I bought an original page from his Savage Axe comic and get to see it in person multiple times a day. His linework is dynamic and explosive over a cartoony noir style. The use of angles over smooth lines gives it an energy that smacks. His use of stark black and white (most of his comics are b&w) again create really striking images.
Mike Mignola:
The Rocket Raccoon mini-series was my first exposure to Mignola, but his work didn't jump out at me until he did Hellboy. Given my love for McKeever's b&w work, my love Mignola is obvious. When I first picked the Batman image, I mistakenly thought it was be fairly straight-forward as his style is very "graphic" without a ton of feathering and other "filler work". I started picking up that there are internal design structures that align design elements to other elements that may not be obvious at first glance. But when something is "off," it is often because there is a misalignment of those elements. Genius-level abstraction and minimalism. This made me REALLY appreciate his work a lot more.
Bart Sears:
To finish off the character lineart studies, I wanted to pay tribute to another artist that really impacted by teaching me a thing or two. Bart Sears had a series of drawing tutorials in Wizard magazine that taught me a ton about anatomy and introduced me to Burne Hogarth. So I wanted to do a study of his work and started searching. After seeing his really cool work on Turok, X-O Manowar, Eclipso, and a bunch of other stuff, this image of Venom popped up. I was a little surprised, because this was the cover of Wizard #9. This version of Venom really melted my teen brain and was just awesome. The original is signed "Wittman" and I never found any comics that Wittman had done. So as awesome it was at the time, I just kind of let it go. But now with the existence of a developed internet, I was able to undercover that "Wittman" is another pen name for Bart Sears. That settled it, I decided to really challenge myself and selected this image. His anatomy is clearly 90's level exaggerated and sometimes questionable and the use of feathering through out create smooth transition zones into his shadows. I'm happy with how this turned out.
Environment Lineart Studies
After determining that I spent way too much time on the character studies, I decided to go a bit more sloppy. Part of that is that I felt like I was spending too much time on pieces that I could not really claim as mine 100%. They were still valuable in terms of seeing perspective utilization in images. But I intentionally stopped before giving a final pass to create tight linework.
Syd Mead:
In thinking through what kind of images I want to create, my mind settled back on things that are "cyberpunky." And what is more iconic of cyberpunk than Bladerunner? And who better to study than futurist Syd Mead?! I don't really know what to say about this. The foundations of the drawing are on four vertical planes going towards the vanishing point to the right. Each plane is broken up with lots of interesting elements, but some of the interest is lost because of the use of neon, highlighting that "cyberpunk" is probably more accurately described as "neon-noir."
Viko Menezes:
On the more playful and light-hearted side of my artistic interests, I found the artwork from the TCG Keyforge to be of interest. I flipped through "The Art of Keyforge" book and settled on "Quantum City" by Vinicius de Sa Menezes, also know as Viko Menezes (if my research is correct). I suspect this is close to the style of "cartoon-realism" that Blizzard nailed, which I also appreciate. This was an interesting blend of natural environment and man-made structures. It is a one-point perspective piece with a ton of detail. I found it a good challenge and like the overall tone of the image.
Extra Credit:
I did some additional reading and watching additional training on Painter (old, but still relevant). I also acquired more stuff than I can reasonable ingest at this point, but soon…
I also was inspired to create a quick sketch to combine with something that occurred to me during a meditation session.
And that about sums it up. I'm hoping to focus a bit more time this coming week on my art because I also have to admit that I finished playing through Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty since the last post. It was great and calls out to me to just keep playing. But time is limited, so Art School stuff is going to get pushed back up to a higher priority after my day job.
I hope you all have a great upcoming week and make lots of progress on your journeys!
