Final Projects

Yeah, it's a bit weird to be posting my final projects from last semester on the first day of the new semester, but with so much coming up this semester (and hopefully a more frequent posting schedule), I figured I'd better get this out of the way. ;)

Without further ado, this was my final project for my concept design class:

Digital Illustration

A story moment from the Uglies!  I have a little more work to do on it, especially if I decide to enter it into any competitions, but I figure it's fit enough to show.  I've actually had a few people recognize this scene from the book without even being told that it was an Uglies illustration, so that was kind of gratifying. :)

And this was my poster for Richard III that I did for Narrative:

Oil painting, 18"x24"

This one also needs some work, but I'm so done with it right now that I don't know if I'll bother.  I learned a bit painting it, though, so that's always nice.

Finally, there's this piece from Narrative 1, which is definitely a fixer-upper:

Mixed media

My teacher really liked the composition, so I'm considering redoing it and painting a sort of border around it.  Funny story about this piece--it used to be twice as wide, with a whole other segment to the painting, and my teacher didn't like it so much.  When I went in to ask her how I could fix it, she looked at it for a minute, took a pair of scissors, and cut it in half.

"There," she said.  "Now it's an A."

No arguing with that.

Imprimatura

40-minute value study

Second post! That makes this blog official ;)

I was going to take portrait painting from Chris Thornock this semester, but in the end I had ZERO time for it, so I had to drop the class. I did manage to get a fairly nice imprimatura out of it before I left, though.  It was my first time picking up oil paints since April, and my first head study since way before that, so it was kind of fun to get into that groove again, even just for a day.

My teacher showed us this awesome painting ground I'll have to try sometime where he mixes shellac with old painting pigments from the bottom of his turps can. It ends up with a warm grayish color and a lovely texture from being brushed on. I also learned that you can put gesso on watercolor paper and paint oils over that, which for some reason never occurred to me before.  I'm not sure how archival it is, but for the purposes of an illustrator, it's perfect.

I'll have to make sure to take a painting class from Thornock before I graduate, because I honestly can't believe how much I learned from him in just a week.  Why must I be so busy?? ;_;
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Chris Thornock's website