Ansate Jones is all about art– not about invading your privacy. Any information you share with me is necessary to run things on my end and to provide you with awesome art. Sometimes that means I need to collect, store, and share that information. This is actually way more boring than it sounds, and the […]
One of the things I’ve noticed since becoming a full-time freelance artist is not only how different the workflow and general vibe can be compared to a 9-5 job… but also how the job is perceived from the outside. You probably hear a lot about how potential customers can devalue artistic work as opposed to, […]
Neko Case, Austin City Limits 2014, reference provided by Scott Newton.
Welcome back to my three-part tutorial on digital portraiture, using my most recent Neko Case piece. For those just joining, here’s some links to catch you up:
Now onto Part 3, the fun part where we actually start painting!
Neko Case, Austin City Limits 2014, reference provided by Scott Newton.
Welcome back to my three-part tutorial on digital portraiture, using my most recent Neko Case piece. For those just joining, here’s some links to catch you up:
Now onto part 2 where I discuss the preparation I go through, including reference photos and settings. While these steps might seem tedious, they’re super-important to save a lot of frustration later on.
Neko Case, Austin City Limits 2014, reference provided by Scott Newton.
So it’s twice now my digital drawing has been referred to as ‘like magic’ by onlookers. Recently I uploaded this video to Youtube showing a timelapse of me digital painting Neko Case and got a few good questions about it (plus one of the aforementioned ‘magic’ comments!). It kind of reminded me that a lot of people probably don’t really know what ‘digital portraiture’ really is. While drawing skills take time to develop, and portrait drawing can be a special subset of that which requires even more practice, I thought I’d at least try to demystify some of the process by sharing how I do what I do. This ended up being pretty long so I’m dividing it into parts. This first part is a general overview of digital painting and equipment used.
For the past few years I’ve gotten into collecting advertising materials. Mostly business cards, but also flyers, menus, brochures, single page ads– anything that reflected some degree of design put into the process. The reason is simple when you think about it: I’m a graphic designer as well as a traditional artist, and seeing what other people are doing and learning from it is part of the game. You have to stay current.
Unfortunately most of the design I run across is… well, at best it’s just flawed in a few ways, but at its worst it makes my eyes bleed. I know there are a lot of sites that poke at bad design. In this ongoing blog series I intend to go a step beyond that, and actually attempt to FIX the design issues I find. It’s a good exercise for any designer, and in some instances can even serve as a portfolio builder. If you’re careful enough to say, like, twelve billion times over in your portfolio that you were not actually hired to do this and it is just a sample of what you’re capable of doing for your future clients.
A big part of this, though, is that I just have the urge to fix things, even if I’m not getting paid to do it. Ever have that?
My first attempt, then: Candy Baron’s business card.
Just a quick sketch I did the other night of Crowley from Supernatural. The hardest part was the armpit region of the suit, believe it or not. Who thought that’d be so hard to get right? Obviously it’s a demonic conspiracy.
I finally finished my Hot Guy portrait! And here’s a quickie of Amy Pond:
Jeremy Renner as Hawkeye from Thor and The Avengers movies. My first monochrome (purple of course)! I thought all the cables and lines of rain would be a fun challenge. HAHAHAHAHAHAkillme
I might get a lot of flack for this. But there’s a reason for the existence of that old trope of making guests sit through boring slides of your vacations. You’ve just been to a whole new world and you want to share your experiences with your friends and family, so why not make your […]
