Drawing Challenge Day 10 - Useless Superpower

Look, it's Tea-Time! He's a master of disguise because of his knack for creating royal hats out of thin hair. He can also materialize rather nasty tasting cups of tea. Though, like many heroes and villains, he too has a weakness.. his kryptonite is the fact that he can only use his powers at 5pm in the UK.

Drawing Challenge Day 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8.

Day #4 - Favorite Muppet or Jim Henson character.

I don't have a particular favorite.. so I googled a bunch that had an interesting style to them.  I had a list of Clifford, Pepe, Crazy Harry, and Animal.. but I decided to go with Sweetums.

Day #5 - Favorite Musician or Band.

I went with Bear McCreary.  I don't know if I like the soundtracks because I liked the shows.. but I feel extremely productive when I'm listening to, say, the Battlestar Galactica season 3 ost.

Day #6 - An Idiom Literalized.

Day #7 - Favorite Movie Quote.
I couldn't remember many quotes from my favorite movies.. so I decided to watch one that I thought was funny.  Role models.

Day #8 - Favorite Animated CharacterI was going to go with just Ren and Stimpy, but I also find Adventure Time to be pretty damn hilarious.  I don't know if that makes me immature or not. lol

30 day drawing challenge!

I've been procrastinating.  I'm a molding potato.. and video games have taken over my dreams.   So, I'm going to ween myself back to productivity with this 30 day drawing challenge that some friends of friends of friends have started on Facebook.

Day #1 - Self Portrait

Day #2 - Mythological Creatures.  Frost Giants?  Or just giant vikings?

You can tell I waited till the last minute and just started scribbling.  :(

Day #3 - First Album/Co

If I ignore the Christian albums/hymns I had forced on me as a child, the first real album I remember buying was this WCW soundtrack.  I didn't even watch wrestling that much.. I just remember randomly grabbing Final Fantasy 7 and this off a shelf.  Was the first time I really listened to Metallica or Limp Bizkit.

In A World Where the Internet Doesn't Exist!

I really want to get this topic out of my head.. and what better way than to show a gopher bashing it's own brains out before buying a scammy cable television package that provides him at max 2 hours of quality content a week?

I think it's kind of ridiculous what people pay for when it comes to cable television.  Sometimes I think that the only reason people buy it is to have something to mindlessly flip through after work while saying "1000 channels and theres nothing on!"

The whole package plan thing requires you pay around 100-200 dollars a month.. or less if they pull you into a contract with a bogus discount. That money doesn't even go to a specific channel or program you enjoy. I read somewhere that ESPN/ESPN HD gets 4 dollars of your bill no matter what.  Meanwhile, say you like the SyFy channel, 21 cents goes to SyFy a month. Your 21 cents doesn't pay for specific programs you enjoy.. and the company is more likely to pay for the cheaper project.. like reality TV.  Lets not even go over what happens when your favorite show goes on a 4 month break after 6 episodes.  Reality shows and winter olympics?  Ugh.

You could support your favorite TV shows more by just paying 2.99 on itunes each week (assuming that apple doesn't take some ridiculous amount of profit from selling the episodes).  And you'd save massively.

At this point with the technology we are capable of it's like these cable/satellite companies are really just scamming everyone. I can't even see a younger adult who understands the internet even intelligently paying for a package plan. It's a waste of your hard earned money.

Heres a great link on the topic: http://afrodaddy.com/shelter/cable-tv-overpriced-scam-there-are-other-options

Gopherk yourself cable/satellite providers.  Lets move on to digital media now.

Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones

I've been working on color theory and value.. but I could still use a lot of advice!   The only books, dvds, or sites I've found on the subject are Practical Light and Color with Jeremy Vickery, Color Theory:  The Mechanics of Color with Richard Keyes, and This ImagineFX tutorial.  I also feel like these Force books (Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators, Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing) have helped me loads in just generally drawing.

Here is Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones.. I personally can't see the likeness at this point, but I've had others say it does look like her. lol  Also recorded the entire process and upload it to youtube.

Help! Landscapes, color theory, and digital painting techniques?

I've been attempting to practice landscape/environment painting, and with that I realize that I need a better understanding of color theory.. and maybe even some digital painting techniques that professionals use.  I'm at the stage where I suck so bad at environments and color that I generally want to quit early on because it's so frustrating.. but I know quitting only leads to NO IMPROVEMENT. lol

Could anyone give me some advice?  Techniques?  Books?  Dvds?  Videos?  ImagineFX articles?  Useful brushes?

I use Corel Painter 12, the scratchboard tool, and a blender.. every once in a while pulling out the oil brush.  I'm sure any kind of brush can be applied to any program.. what would you recommend?  Whats your workflow for painting?

I'm unsure of how to go into great detail on any of my pieces also..

I'm working in black and white first because I'm not confident enough to work with color AND value at the same time.. though I don't want to continue like this for much longer.  If I do continue like this, how can I work on the value and then use layer modes to add color into that? Seems like I use layer modes and the colors don't match at all. Should I just go over the black and white with more saturated colors slowly?

Here are a few of my recent studies.. I kind of feel like I'm hopping around blindly until I get something right, and I hate it.

First environment sketch and some notes from Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery:

My most recent studies:

Some things that have helped me get to this point recently:
Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery (Gnomon dvd)
Color Theory:  The Mechanics of Color with Richard Keyes (Gnomon dvd)
This ImagineFX tutorial from Issue #31 on the subject of colour!
And I've frequently watched these Feng Zhu videos.. lol
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmz3XuS6TI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9MMdzbWcw

Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Environments and doodles.

Working on environment sketches.  I gotta admit, I'm the most unproductive person in the world.. and it feels awful!  I got out of this mode somewhat briefly in January and now I'm right back to it.  I will destroy my desire to waste time! ...but first i'm going to play ME3 multiplayer.

Some things that have helped me get to this point recently:
Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery (Gnomon dvd)
Color Theory:  The Mechanics of Color with Richard Keyes (Gnomon dvd)
Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators (Figure Drawing book.  EXTREMELY helpful.. two chapters brought my figures to life.
Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing (Second book in the series.. even more amazing.)
This ImagineFX tutorial from Issue #31 on the subject of colour!
http://www.pixelovely.com/gesture/index.php
http://lovecastle.org/draw/
http://www.characterdesigns.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCmz3XuS6TI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wy9MMdzbWcw

Digital Painting and Color Theory? HELP!

I haven't done a whole lot.  I tried to do some environment sketches and realized I might need to go over this color theory dvd, Theory and Application with Jeremy Vicker, again.  To be sure I got most of the information, I took notes.. and then I tried to use the information in a sketch.  In the sketch, I realized not only do I lack knowledge on color.. I can't seem to get into the details of a digital painting!  

Other than that.. I had a dream that I was lost in a giant house looking for a specific room.. before long I came out of a door to see this large open area with trees, cliffs, and waterfalls.  A sword in a stone 'locked' the path up to a loft on a cliff.  I quickly tried to sketch it out.. but I found trying to make sense of the location didn't.. uhh.. make any sense. lol  The stone felt like it was locking a path in the dream, but it was a wide open area.

"I hear Nebraska is nice."

I was in a rut for a few days.  One bad drawing spun out of control and I couldn't draw anything.. until last Sunday when The Walking Dead came back on.  All I can say is that "I hear Nebraska is nice" scene made me want to draw the characters. lol

I attempted to record everything I drew.. but I was having some serious problems with CamStudio.  One file is 2.2gigs but won't play.  One file is 1.2gigs and displays multiple cursors while flashing to black constantly.

What did I do all week aside from skimming the Force books (Force:  Dynamic Life Drawing for Animators;  Force:  Character Design from Life Drawing)?  I read a few comics that I thought were pretty good.  What I like most about most of these is they aren't the typical comic book character style of drawing.  Most of them have their own style.

1. Blankets is just a story about growing up.
2. The Walking Dead comics are really good so far too!  They don't spoil the show since the show seems to take new directions and twists.. but the whole time you're hoping the show will meet the gruesome expectations of the comic for that extra shock and understanding of what a world like this does to a human being.
3. Pride of Baghdad was about some lions that escaped a zoo in the middle east and attempted to survive in a warzone.  
4. Sky Doll.  Generally I don't like the style of art where characters have obnoxiously big boobs.. but this is set in a cyberpunk-ish world where sex dolls have become sentient and religious miracles are sold off like products and prophets are more like stage performers. 
5. Transmetropolitan ofcourse. :P

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures Study Group?

I'm kind of jumping between books at this point.. but I just got Drawing Words and Writing Pictures in the mail.  The book says it's structured to follow the model of a 15-week college semester course.  (Typically a three to six hour session once a week).. and I love that.  A book that has clear exercises and assignments in it just helps me understand so much quicker.

I've only checked out the first chapter 'Building Blocks'.. and i've only done the first exercise.  Would anyone else be interested in going through this book together?  We could compare our drawings.. etc.  You don't even have to be good.. hell, I started drawing comics this january because I spent so much time sitting on my hands thinking "I'll make an animation/comic when I'm capable of it!" while other artists start out bad and get good from all the experience.

The first exercise was:  Sketch these five moving objects in five separate drawings, each one a single image (not in sequence). 

After that, you're suppose to compare different versions of each object drawn by your colleagues and  figure out which ones were most successful at conveying movement.  Figure out which aren't working and why.. then make a list of each technique used to imply motion.