The hollow apple, How much you got? and The Strawberry Slasher,

It's been a while since I posted a blog entry, but if you've been keeping up with my Instagram, and frequenting the latest section you will have seen that I've been posting other stuff.  If you haven't been then I better not catch you slippin' again. Here is what I've been up too

After doing the cake piece I decided to continue experimenting with simple shape and color and try to get better. It taught me a lot about  color and form and I used that in this next one.

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"The Hollow Apple"

I was pretty happy with Simona and her worm nemesis here.  Definitely some improvement, in the composition and better defined anatomy, and the interaction between the two gave me the idea to do a little comic or something.

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"How much you got?"

666 - pronounced 'Triple six-  is a character in my "Doom City" Comics and story. Many of the characters in that series go by earned nicknames.

666 and a low level summon.

This so far is the most successful of what I was trying to accomplish with this series of color and form experiments. I can tell I really learned a lot from working on the previous ones and I use that to make something has a lot of great feeling moments, from the composition, the anatomy and the color. The idea for the color and clothing came to me actually while I was working on the piece below, and it struck me so hard that I skipped to working on this instead.. I also picked up some speed although I at first did have some trouble figuring out an expression for her. It came together once I created the expression on her face and worked her playful position into place.  I decided not to go with text in this one and just let it stand on its own, but if you are wondering they are about to order a pizza and only have about  ' tree fiddy' between them.

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"The Strawberry Slasher"

Uma does make great strawberry pie, I promise.

Uma "The Strawberry Slasher" here was by far the most challenging. I started and worked on this one several times and even stopped working on it to do the one above "666".  The color palette, I started with felt really limiting and I ended up starting over a few times.  Finally after completing the last one I started this one over using what I had learned and broadening my color palette and it really took off.  I also decided that since I had gotten better at the figure portion, that I would add more to the 'set'.  I feel pretty successful at capturing the crazy expression and gory fruit murder .

Anyway  thats what I did all june and part of july haha.  More will be on the way, but I think this particular series is done for now. 

-Auchtsvell

How my diet works - June Digital piece.

As a fat kid, I've slowly been whittling away at the 30 years of eating whatever I wanted; There are times when My girlfriend and I experience such base atavism in the need for something sweet, that our regression shakes the very ground. Above is a perfect example of my reaction, when the mere suggestion of some delectable treat makes itself conspicuous.

My 2nd attempt at subtracting color with a color,the first time was about 10 years ago. It is the "blue girl" in the illustration section.   

Im pretty excited about this and I adore the energy and expression  this image portrays. 

1st Drawing of June. Knights yo!

Oh Snap! Knights yo!

For my first sketchbook entry in june.  I decided to head back to my roots and draw stuff that I liked to draw when I was a little kid.  That would be knights and monsters and stuff. If anyone played Myth the fallen lords, it kind of reminds me of that game.  As I was drawing it I decided it would be awesome to do a scene of stuff like this on a much larger scale.  so I think I will.  This is just a preliminary sketch of just one part of that scene.  I will use this month to flesh out more of that scene.  There will probably be like a giant boss dude and maybe a sorceress because thats awesome.   

I am currently posting this in between E3 events. If you forgot it was E3 then I just reminded you and the line up of stuff is looking pretty awesome.  Aside from games I was waiting to hear about like Sunset Overdrive, Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Division. I was incredibly excited to hear about a new Phantom Dust! An incredible original and creative game with intense and fast passed one on one combat and a unique and immersive art style.

Two games that also caught my eye were Ori and the Blind forest and Inside from the makers of Limbo. Both  are 2D side scrolling and absolutely breathtaking.

Here is a screen shot form Ori and the Blind Forest.

Anyway.  I have a lot of projects Im working on. Im still working on the Color version of The Bridge Drawing I did  last month as well as a color version of Millenia and Beelzebufo. that combined with the drawings for this knight battle project will keep me busy for a while but I'll keep you guys updated.

Oh..  and E3.   EA is up neexxttt...

-Auchstvell

Tea time with beelzebufo and Millenia

Sometimes Beelzebufo and friends speak russian

Or this image  which I have already posted of Millenia and Bufo waiting for a train.

Welp there you have it, a couple of my best imaginary friends. I hope you will enjoy their antics.

On another note If you haven't seen the fan made live action Street Fighter web series- Street Fighter Assassins Fist.- PLEASE watch it.  It's still better than any SyFy channel show and some how I even got my girlfriend to like it and she had no Idea what street fighter was. Don't worry I made sure to change that by sitting there and explaining it to her for like an hour.  She loves when I explain video games to her.

She wont admit it but the last episode made her cry.

Auchstvell

The bridge

The second sketch book page for the month of may, is a cityscape based on this photo of Prague.

This is really the first city scape drawing I've tried.  I haven't really focused on backgrounds before other than kind of generalizing so this is a first for me. Honestly I'm surprised that I pulled it off.  By no means do I think it's flawless but  It's better than I thought I would have managed. I've actually decided to take this simple drawing and flesh it into a full color Digital piece. The color reminds me of one of my favorite pieces of art, Van Goghs Terrace of a Café at Night.

I've been working on the digital piece for a while now and because of it's intricacies i may considered only doing one or two more sketch book pages before the months end. I'm really liking how the digital version is turning out and I will post my progress on it at some point.

My girlfriend and I have been looking for more series to watch since it seems shows are either in finale mode or being canceled without prejudice-or thought- (bye bye revolution). 

Aside from how Tv execs decide what to get rid of and replace with stupid stuff, what I would really like to know is..... Why is the Sy Fy channel so bad at special effects? For that matter why is the quality of most Syfy television just poor in general?  You would think that channel that is dedicated science fiction and showing futuristic or advanced alien stuff, would actually take the time to make it look it wasn't created 20 years ago.  Seriously Whenever I see a show and don't realize what channel it was created by  I am able tell with in seconds if it's on the Sy Fy channel. It has some of the worst CG on tv and they are not ashamed to over use it.  I'm not saying it needs to be Neill Blomkamp level. But you're the science fiction channel! 

Battle Star Galatica was fantastic. But it could be pretty ugly.

Auchstvell.

Prospect study.

This is a study inspired by the short film I talked about in my last post. The short film is called Prospect. It's 13 minutes if you don't have 13 minutes then you should cast slow or stop on life (she's a bitch anyway). If you do have time: WATCH. IT.  Very atmospheric with slow building and tension.

I did a preliminary drawing for it first which I forgot to scan but you can see it on my instagram. I then focused more on the positions and the structral drawing and backgrounds it took me a few hours but I DID stop to watch Vampire Diaries. 

This is first of the 5 pages for these month, still holding myself to my original promise.  5 sketchbook pages and 1 Digital piece a month. This doesn't include my small sketch pad I carry around to do studies and plan stuff, cause I fill that with stuff all the times.

Yes I know It's already the 16th.

So I procrastinate. So what? What are you gonna cry about it? probably.

I did fourteen pages in fourteen days last month, so I must be overconfident. Like when you finally beat a fighting game in arcade or story mode and then try to go online and fight some doood/ette who snorts Capcom pixels for a living and whips themselves for every hit they take.

Still I think I can do four more pages  in fourteen days.

At some point I definitely want to rework clean up and maybe add color to this so yeah anyway.

Blah!

Auchstvell

May - Digital work

It started out as a sketch;  two young performers in the town of Lumen Marcia gossiping in the corner of a lively room.

The original drawing from my sketch book.  You can see I fixed the feet in the finished version for the girl on the right.

I wanted to give the impression of a cozy little scene, in a room that had a lot of other things going on. Originally I wasn't going to do a background but I started experimenting with a color tone and the idea of multiple light sources with very different qualities giving the impression that a lot of other activity happening in that room just out of sight. The background then kind of fell in to place with my original idea of a quiet scene in a crowded room;  A town such as Lumen Marcia would have a lot of artwork on display in public places because of its rich Mythologies. The subjects of these paintings depict the strange animals that live in the surrounding wilds and that are featured in the mythos of that strange mountain hamlet.

I did't want the line work to be very clean it kind of adds to the feeling of energy, I could be wrong and it probably looks stupid, but who knows.

You do. SO TELL ME.

 The program Im using is called Black Ink. It's a beta I found on steam that is pretty awesome, but I am still learning some of its complexities. It gives me some of the best control I've ever had digitally over line weight and width control during a stroke, and its specifically molded around being able to create brushes on the fly.

It took me about 3 days to finish this I think.  I cant remember because there was one night I was going to work on it but I fell asleep on my knees with my face in the couch.  It's one of my favorite sleeping positions fo' real, ask my girlfriend.  I finished it last night at about 3 AM-which actually means I forced my self to stop and not over work it. 

While  I was working, I mistakenly watched this 30 minute long short film by Kanye West.  I didn't mean to watch it.  I just had no Idea what it was.  I was browsing this site called Short of the week; usually I watch the sci fi and horror shorts. Watching new talent in special effects and story telling display raw Ideas without the influence of hollywood and in little delectable bites is incredibly inspirational and rewarding. This one and this one got my brain gravy all heated up.

Anyway, so i run out of new content to watch and start browsing some of the other sections and I see one by Kanye West.  Immediately click on it because thats stupid and I love pain. Don't. Get. Me. Wrong.  I like a lot of Kanye's music- but I can just tell that when he thinks about stuff that isn't music, it's like his brain is made out of smoke.

I start playing it while I return to drawing.  Almost immediately I want to turn it off, but I cant because it took me this long to find something and I don't feel like looking anymore.

It's on and it's playing his music,  whatever, musics is cool yo. So I begin to tune it out and just keep drawing; however, I am hounded by the pretentious shit that's happening on the screen next to me. There is this half naked bird woman that fell from the sky and only wants to hang out with Kanye and she is doing ballet to his music and It reminded me of watching student videos in high school, the ones by those kids who ONLY liked movies you'd never heard of, and instead of making you curious to see these movies, the pretentiousness of the individual just made you wish that everything they loved and stood for was fired into the sun. They would make videos of like.... feathers and stuff falling from the sky for 30 minutes. 

I have a thing about things I don't like. I love to keep subjecting myself to them. Even when i mentally keep telling myself to just STOP doing this to myself, I just can't help but be transfixed by how much I hate something. 

Any way, It was real dumb.

This is a blog

This is a a blog and sometimes I will post stuff here.  Usually in reference to projects Im working on or to explain things about pieces of work I've done.  I will probably also talk about video games, other people's art, books, writing, movies and whatever else I want.

As  first post I will inform you that for the last 3 years or so I had not drawn anything. Chalk it up to a sort of loss of confidence, I still loved art, but I felt somewhat defeated about my own work. Occasionally I would produce a piece, that was strictly digital in creation, mostly because I felt comforted about it's easy corrective processes.  The only piece I did last year in 2013 is the Jane Doe piece which I did in september and then i quit again.  

However Recently, something happened. I developed this horrible itch like I've never had before. A combination of being around other artists and seeing and understanding techniques suddenly brought my need to produce art and not just look at it back to life.   I was given a drawing desk for my birthday by my perfect and wonderful girlfriend( Im not being threatened) and after requesting off from my job for about a week, I forced myself to sit own and draw every day.  My goal was to produce 15 drawings in my sketch book by the end of april. I started this idea in the middle of the month though I was just shy of my mark having completed 14 pages in 14 days because despite being born in april I had no Idea it only had 30 days.

The progress I made is the first time I dramatically saw an increase in my skill and although I don't think Im quite good enough, I have certainly gained some confidence.

I didn't even noticed the difference until I uploaded some of my older drawings and compared them to my newest ones.

In a few days I will post some examples just to show that some things I have learned and practice have definitely made a difference. 

I will also being keeping a set goal.  I will adjust it some to compensate for not having a week off to draw every month and also for the fact that there were no video games to play last month.  Im going to produce at least 5 pages in my sketch book and at least 1 digital piece a month. Hold me to this people.