Darth Vader Photostudy

Here's another Photostudy from "The Empire Strikes Back". This time of Darth Vader.

Amazingly, this is actually the first time I ever painted Darth Vader and man did that helmet give me some trouble! However, it was a good challenge and I learned a lot from it!

This did take longer than I wanted just shy of 3 hours. Between the helmet and the lightsaber's fx and perspective I got a little side tracked. No matter though, tons of fun as always in Photoshop Enjoy!

Luke Skywalker -"The Empire Strikes Back" Photostudy

Here's another Photostudy, this time from my most favorite of the Star Wars movies "The Empire Strikes Back".

This did take a little longer than I wanted, about 2hrs and 20 mins. However, I'm really trying to learn how to nail faces and this was just one of those times that it was a little more difficult. Luke has such a recognizable face and I think sometimes just knowing that there is a self imposed time limit means that it can be a little more difficult to capture the essence of the character.

Either way this was a lot of fun and as always great practice. It's interesting too because I changing up my approach a little working more with soft brushes to have smoother blending and gradients. Not sure if I'll stick with it forever (since I do love texture brushes) but it's great fun to experiment. Also, I have to say I really love the high contrast of the movie still that I was studying from. I love cinematic lighting!

Captain Picard Photostudy

Another photostudy, this time from one of my all time favorite movies "Star Trek: First Contact". This is from the Halodeck scene when Capt. Picard is shooting up some borg intruders. If you haven't seen this movie you need to! I think it still holds up even if it is 17 years old!

I know everyone has their favorite captain and while some might disagree, Captain Picard is still my favorite captain, though that could be because I grew up with him :)

Anyways, as far as the art part goes this took 2 hours in Photoshop CS4. I wanted to play around with trying to get a likeness so I spent some more time on it, and all in all I think I got pretty close. It's not 100% but I think it comes close enough that most will realize who it is. Either way, practice, practice, practice! I'm trying to speed up how quickly I can nail a likeness, I don't want to spend 10 hrs trying to get it!

Well enjoy the rest of your Sunday and God bless!

"The Dark Knight" and "The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder" Photostudies

"The Dark Knight" - Another quick and dirty  study. This one was about 50 minutes, trying to push it so I could get it done even quicker. Hard as always to get the likeness in such a short time but workin on it. Practice, practice, practice!

"The Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder" - Another "Dark Knight" study lol :) Well not really the Dark Knight were used to seeing, but the classic Caped Crusader and Boy Wonder of the 1960's!

I had fun with this one because of the campy nature of it, as well as all of the different colors in the palette. Also, this was a chance for me to really play around with texture brushes. I'm a big fan of very painterly, impressionistic work so this was a time for me to try and capture the mood without getting too caught up in details.

It's also a good exercise because I want to see how "painterly" I can be and still sell the idea without having to focus so much on the detail. Since it's personal work I can experiment and not be bogged down by what an art director thinks my style is supposed to look like. There's a lot of freedom in doing exercises like this :)

Finally, if you're curious, this was done in Photoshop CS4 and took 1hr and 30 mins. Thanks and enjoy your Sunday!

New Art!

 Scorpion Redesigns: Here are my turnarounds for my Scorpion Redesigns. My goal was to redesign Scorpion (from Mortal Kombat) for a High Fantasy genre such as Lord of the Rings.

This was a great exercise for me because in my professional work I never really do turnarounds. More often than not it's just characters in static poses in order to convey the idea. It really forced me to think in 3 dimensions.

If there are any 3D modellers out here who would like to model this, please feel free to have a go at it. Just let me know as I'd love to see the final product! Thanks!

Photo Studies: Got inspired to learn and practice from "The Dark Knight". Commissioner Gordon's likeness got away from me but I feel like I got Joker's. Gordon took 1hr and 25mins and Joker took 1hr and 15mins.