More Speed Paints, Less Exciting Titles.

Given how busy I've been of late I didn't think I'd actually get another post done until next month, but here I am tapping away at my keyboard once again. As you may have gathered from the title of the post this one is another round up of speed paints, this time with an emphasis on "Speed."

You may recall some of the the Christmas Paints I did back in December that strayed over the self imposed line I had designated for Speed Painting, taking longer than an hour. Since then I've posted one more set of speed paints which varied wildly in the time taken, but did seem to hover around the 45 minute mark. Well, this time around I decided to deliberately step on the gas, and with a couple of exceptions these were knocked out intentionally faster than usual with a limit of 30 minutes. How were the results? Well, have a look and see for yourself...

Time Taken - 30 Minutes

Not much to say about this one, it's based on an Asian girl and doesn't look all that much like her, although you can tell her race at least. She's wearing black and shiny, but I don't think Adam Hughes (master of black and shiny) has anything to fear from me for the time being.

Time Taken - 15 Minutes

This is based on a photograph of Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester from the show Supernatural.  It looks a little like him, despite how blurred and rough it is.  I was aiming to capture a rough likeness very quickly, since the previous one looked nothing like the subject.  I think I succeeded, and for 15 minutes it's fine I guess.  Not likely to hang it on my wall though.

Time Taken - 25 Minutes

Made a right mess of the proportions on this one, but I'm quite pleased with the skin tones.  I'd like to say what it's based on, but I have no recollection.  I didn't adhere all that closely to the reference anyway.  It also puts me in mind of some paintings I've seen, but I'm not sure which ones (I know that a painting wasn't the reference since I never use them for speedpaints).

Time Taken - 40 Minutes

Yes, I spent quite a long time on this one, and it doesn't really show.  It's a dog, in the snow.  Not much else to say.

Time Taken - 45 Minutes

The less said about this one the better really.  I wasn't using any reference, but that's really no excuse to speak of.  Let's move on and I'll try to pretend this never happened while you laugh at me.  Okay?

Time Taken - 20 Minutes

Made a right plumb duff of this poor womans face, but other than that I quite like it.  I've done worse work in a longer time frame (Like the previous piece for example.  Yeah, I know, I said I would but I couldn't.  Some things are just unforgettably bad).

Time Taken - 20 Minutes

It's based on a thumbnail that io9 had on their front page a while back.  I would like you to the article, but I can never get direct links to work since they redesigned the site to have more advertising in your face, so sod that then.

Time Taken - 30 Minutes

A long time ago I was involved in creating a child safety video for the South Wales Constabulary (two of them actually, the other one is lost in the mists of time... I hope).  I didn't do much on it; I did the VO and helped behind the scenes of one of the shots but that was about it.  Anyway, to my knowledge the film was never shown to any children, but in the circles I used to hang out in the name "The Golden Helmet" lives on in infamy.  It's hilarious (if you can understand the accents), and I think you can find it on You Tube.

For a change I painted him in Photoshop rather than ArtRage.

Time Taken - 20 Minutes

It's supposed to be a caricature of James Cagney, but it didn't turn out looking much like him.  I quit elike how the eyes came out though, but the rest is a bit feeble really isn't it?

Time Taken - 40 Minutes

I had actually forgotten about the Cagney one when I started this one, otherwise I would have picked something else rather than have two in a row in Black and White.  It's some feet, and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  That's really all I have to say about it.

Now, since more things external to my quest to become a half decent artist raise their heads daily I'm not sure I'll have much of a chance to update for a while (or much worth updating with either).  I will try and make it back for the first anniversary of the blog at the end of the month though.  I might not have anything new to show, but at least I can repost what I think was the best and worse work I've done this year eh?  Until then (if I can make it)...

Facing the Future

And here we are again with the third attempt at capturing the likeness of the woman known as Nephania.

If you're a relative newcomer to the blog you can see the previous attempts here and here. You may want to go read them for a refresher even if you've been around a while. Since you won't have bothered doing that, here's a refresher. Found a photo of Nephania and chose it to be my litmus test for how my illustration is coming along. I picked this particular image for four reasons:
It's a difficult angle to get right at the best of times.
I was previously unfamiliar with her, which removes preconceived notions of how she should look.
She's got a very distinctive profile, making it easy to judge how well I'm doing.
She's ridiculously pretty, which is harder to capture than the looks of someone like Me, or Jeremy Clarkson say.

My rules are simple, I have to replicate the image using nothing but my eyes, a piece of paper and some pencils - no grids, tracing or other mechanical assistance (and in this particular case no eraser, but that's not actually a rule).  If I'd allowed myself to use such things I'm pretty sure I would have a spot on likeness, but I didn't.

What I didn't know when I started (back last year, not this latest picture) was that she's not only a model, but a bloody good photographer too - so that put me in my place I guess. OK, enough preamble, here's the pic.

Which looks... better I guess. I mean this one pretty much looks like her, despite the few proportional issues. What are they you cry (or actually maybe you don't, maybe you spotted them right off the bat). Well, her jaw is the wrong angle her head is too low (The top of the hair should be a little higher), her neck is too thin her arm too thick and her boobs are too big. Other than that and her eyebrows it's a fairly close match. Look:

Obviously the illustration is in white (negative).  I'm quite pleased with her actual face though - I mean look, everything more or less lines up, and the angles are pretty close.  I find it amusing that things at the top of the image are too small (the top of her head), while things at the bottom are to big (her lady bumps).  I have to wonder if this is something Freudian, whether it's just because I have my drawing board at too steep an angle or whether I'm just incompetent.  I'm going to go for the middle option, while secretly thinking it's a bit of the first and last.

Here, for the sake of reference, is a comparison of all my efforts thus far:

You can click it bigger if you want a better look at the reference lines.

I left drawing this one for far too long.  I meant to draw her again before the end of last year, but I wasn't confident and didn't want to do it if I was going to make a complete mess of it again.  Obviously I did just that in the end, but not near as much as I had feared. I won't leave it this long next time... maybe.
This one took the same amount of time as the whole of the first one and as long as the layout on the second more finished one (an hour).

Next time we'll see if I can finally nail it (and yes, I almost typed "her" there, stop sniggering).  With any luck it'll be a close enough likeness that I can move on to a different picture to butcher for my litmus test.

Midweek Madsanity

It's not usual for me to post on a Tuesday, but it just so happens that tonight I came home at a reasonable time, had a Son that went straight to sleep at bed time, had practically nothing to watch on TV (watched one shortish show), and I don't fancy playing a game. This means it's not even 9PM and I find myself in front of my PC. I can't remember the last time that happened when it wasn't a weekend!

With all those stars aligning you'd expect I'd have something fantastic to show right? Sorry, out of luck today - Just some sketches from the last few weeks. I actually prepped these over the weekend (scanned, laid out uploaded etc.), but didn't get time to write the related post, so here it is.

Good
Quite a bit to see in there. Nothing today is truly outstanding (same as any other day there then), but I do like the dimensionality of some of these. The proportions may be off, and the anatomy a bit wonky, but some of these actually looks like they're sort of 3d - either in terms of mass, or in terms of emotion. None of these were drawn from reference, and yet the Hulk-a-like in the top left corner is clearly rather angry (You don't like him do you?), The girl in the robe is quite pleased with her morning coffee (looks a little like my wife as it goes), And the small figure under Hulk-a-lot has some attitude to her pose. I'm quite pleased given that they're all off the top of my head, even though I still clearly have a long way to go.

Bad
It's fairly sad that of the two sketches that were from reference this time both of them ended up in the Bad pile. The first is the inked one. He was based on a character from Castle while it was paused and my wife was off trying to get the lad to go back to sleep (he had a cold). I can't help but think that had the paused image been of Beckett the end result would have been rather better (A little Stana Katic makes everything a better IMO).

The other is in the bottom right corner, and if you can even work out what it's a sketch of I'll be impressed. It was hands down the worst thing I'd drawn int he last couple of weeks, so in it goes. Other than that there's the usual collection of freaks, mutants and almost but not quite goods. The girl in the middle would be pretty good if it was just her head - but with the rest of her body in there it just looks peculiar. Maybe it's the lack of perspective, or maybe I just suck.

OK, enough of that, here are some more feet!

Ugly

Yeah, I threw in a crane and a couple of drawings of a helmet too (the astute readers will already have guessed what the next Blart is, if I ever bring myself to do it properly). I just figured that nobody wants to look at a picture that's nothing but a bunch of poorly rendered feet, so I added the bonus. Hopefully you'll see a difference in the quality of the feet in my other sketches too (in as much as some of them have them), but I still need a reference for anything remotely decent.