2010 Student ADDY Awards

My Wizard of OZ series won a Silver ADDY last night at the Student ADDY Awards.

This was my last time entering anything in the Student competition rounding out an even number of 10 ADDYs total throughout my art college career.

Although I still feel my work is not up to a professional level as I would like to be, I will continue to learn and try my damnedest to get better. So, goodbye art for grades, hello Living the dream of "Please hire me to do art so I can pay my student loans... and rent."

Thank you to all the great instructors I've had at Nossi, especially Jeff Preston, if it wasn't for you, I'd probably still be working as a cook in a chain restaurant. As Arden always says... *"We're competition now"* and may the best artist pay the bills. :)

*note to self- I've got my work cut out for me...

The Road to MidSouth Con - JASPER

Last but not least, we have Jasper Dunlap to round out the Apparition Abolishers. This concludes the portraits that will appear on the upcoming poster that will be available (from us) at the MidSouthCon in Memphis. (more info about the con here)

Next week will be the first look at the poster, although I might post some progress or comp shots of it this week. Stay tuned to find out!!!

-b

Fun Time Fridays - FARMVILLE!

Farmville, oh how I loathe thee...

Torque's Lab - thumbnails part2

The whole point of the quick thumbnails is so that I will have a map as to how I want the story to unfold. They are very crude as you can see, but their only intent was to get the story down onto paper while I still had it fresh in my head. That way I can later go back and reference them when I am drawing more realized layouts without worrying about the story continuity as much.

Now I am able to go back and basically redraw the scenes with a bit more attention to overall design more conscious of the perspective and details of each scene. Some of these images will be different in the final cut and some might not actually make it at all. It's just better for me to just keep drawing fast loose renderings and then be able to take away rather than struggle for content.

These will then go through another phase where I will bring them into Photoshop and fix all perspective issues and create pretty tight color comps before I go to the final pencils.

The goal here is to fully realize the entire painting before I even begin the paint process. I want to work out all my kinks early on so I can just have fun when the paint starts flowing.

I'll try and post some of the color comps next week.

-b

Torque's Lab - thumbnails part1

After the abstract thumbnails I did about two weeks ago. I was able to revisit my original thumbnail sketches (below) and try to make what I thought was a bit crammed and bland into something a bit more exciting and interesting. The abstract thumbnails helped me find new perspectives and overall better layouts of what I thought should be an over the top underground laboratory of whom a few have considered "The Tony Stark of the Victorian Era." With a title like that, you can't just cheapen out on the grand introduction of his laboratory. I needed bigger and better. So what was a measly two pages, has now turned into EIGHT, most are full page illustrations too. Full of steam, gears, airships, nautical ship, gentlemen robots and the introduction to the first Abolisher. (finally!)

(initial thumbnail sketches = poo)

Needless to say, I have my work cut out for me. :)

Tomorrow I'll post some more refined sketches and maybe you can actually understand what the heck you're looking at up there.

-b

The Road to MidSouth Con - SIR QUINCY

Back again with another Abolisher portrait. This week we have Sir Quincy Peck. Next week will be our fourth and final portrait with yours truly aka Jasper Dunlap. and a sneak peek of the new poster which will be available at MidSouthCon the weekend of March 12th - 14th.

Thank you for viewing. and see you Wednesday when I will post the next stages of Dr. Torque's underground secret laboratory!

-b

Fun Time Fridays - My Little Pony ...Movie?

This week's fun little post goes to this epic adventure...