Freaks & Friends: My Portfolio Review

I will be having my portfolio review at the LimeLight. As I understand it, from noon to about 4 or 5 will be the time for professionals in the industry such as art directors and/or creative directors to stop by and view the latest batch of Nossi's finest.

Then, after 5 will be for friends and family to come. The award ceremony will begin at 6pm (i believe?) If your in the area please stop by and say hello!

:)

OZ : The TinMan pt.3 FINAL!

Tinman : ACCOMPLISHED

Part 1 - sketch & thumbnail

Part 2 - Details

The ZDS Project

coming soon.....

OZ : The TinMan pt.2 (progress)

A few screen shots of the TinMan revamp in the making. He is finished and has already been sent to the printers, but I will wait until they officially release him before I post the final.

OZ : The TinMan pt.1

I recently had a class at school called "Illustration Specialization." That was basically a fancy way of saying, "draw what you want, as long as it focuses on the genre or type of work you would like to do professionally."

So I had always thought it would have been neat to do my own interpretation of the characters from The Wizard of Oz. The Tinman, The Lion, Scarecrow, and of course Dorothy. I also wanted to try something I had never attempted before. I wanted the paintings to "flow into each other" so when I was finished with the project, they could all be assembled together as one BIG long illustration. My mind set was to take on the project as if they were a series of book covers or maybe as character concepts for a game.

So I got to work with the thumbnails (which I did as one overall thumbnail) refining as I went along. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted for the Tin Man, so I started with him first.

Now I must tell you, right before I had started this project, I was introduced to the works of Justin Gerard and his amazingly unique process of which I had tried to mimic ... (and I failed)

(You should Check out his super awesome Hobbit projects he recently finished up.)

The process was to get the tonal value via thumbnail, which I did in Photoshop. then from that, print and pencil out the tighter pencil work. From there, using a very limited palette of watercolor to get all my textures and values (light vs. dark areas) Once I got my values in, I would scan in the painting and finish it off in Photoshop.

But... Like I said, I failed to execute this process as smoothly as Mr.Gerard. So here is a look at what happened the first time around...

Below is was what I turned in for the grade. I was very unhappy with it, and I knew i could do better.

The part 2 of this post, I will show the new and improved Tinman and a few progress shots of how I got there.

Thanks for viewing and being that this my first "real" post on my new blog, I would love to get feedback from anybody who took the time to get this far. Good or Bad. :)

WonderFest 09

WonderFest 09 - ThinkBaker
Originally uploaded by ThinkBaker

The first batch of my recent trip to WonderFest are up in my flickr stream. I'm new to the Flickr thing as well and it only allows me to upload some obscure tiny amount of photos per month. I guess thats what I get for being a cheap-o and not paying to have the membership fee that would take the limit off.

I'll will continue to post them as much as they will allow. (I've got about 6gig's worth of photos to post. whoa!)

The models were absolutly mind-boggling, not to mention all of the amazing artist that I had the chance to chat/drink with! ;) Not many people at my young age have had the great opportunity to sit back and talk art techniques and J.C. Leyendecker with William Stout. Or "Hang with The Wang" in the Hotel bar until closing time. Steve Wang was a super down to Earth great guy to hang with and knock a few drinks back... matter of fact.. I think he might have bought me a round... (awesome... I owe Steve Wang a beer...)

I just wish that music in the bar, which was SUPPOSED to be a one man band, had not turn into a Karaoke contest for the worst country songs ever. Geez, and I thought Nashville was bad.. go to KY and listen to "Aspiring Vocalist" ...not so much.

Many other great artists were there as well Like Frank Deitz, Ken Kelly and David Fisher just to name a few. And Last but least i want to thank my former instructor / mentor Jeff Preston to whom none of this would have been possible. I had a blast guys! And I will for sure be back the many years to come!

Welcome!

Hello all!

I have decided to try out this blogging thing.

My intention is to show the world what it is I actually "DO."

You can expect sketches, process shots, thumbnails, wacky reference, and finished illustrations. Also, every once in a bit I might post things or events the are taking place in my life.. who knows really, I am just going to wing it and see what can come of this bad boy.

So.. wish me luck!