Took a pastel work from Whaihanga into GIMP and performed a line, grayscale, and color traceover. It has been a very long time since I have done this – not since I have my old Medium Wacom tablet. The small tablet handles the line trace fine.
Anyway, one of the main reasons why I did this was for concept house designs to model out in 3d. It’s always easier to produce 2d works first to get a feeling into what I want to create.
And without further ado. Enjoy -
warning: there be giants.
I’m doing the BaconGameJam. The theme is Lights Out. Three of us are working on it
Here we are live:
Here is the first painting: 
I’ve been spent the majority of my time in Unity working on a game. It’s been fun, but I still believe it’s important that I paint regularly. So I started this painting this morning, got interrupted and had to take a break. I got back to it this afternoon and finished it. I want to take more of my paintings into Blender and model out 3d assets from the paintings. I need to get back into making 3d posts on this site – it’s very dominated by my digital work.
Ok reference. I just grabbed some random drawings off the computer that I haven’t done alot with. Both of the pencil drawings are from Wellington, the best and most developed the waterfront. I really enjoy painting water so want to include it in more of my paintings. The third reference is a line drawing I did over a photograph. I want to include more characters in my work – normally I don’t use reference for figures. Hopefully this figure helps. 
Th[e black certainly makes t[hat red stand out. When I was drawing this I had the reference in the background, so technically I should of used a white background. The line in this is surprisingly minimal, once I get into tone I flesh it out further and add details. The line doesn’t have to be much – it’s just a starting point. 
Black and white tone. I had fun with this. Started with the figures first and got those darks into them, before moving onto the water and background. The final area to cover was the foreground. As you can see I added lots that wasn’t there in the reference or line drawing – including land in the distance. This technique adds information and detail to the piece. I’m happy with the figure. Those eyes sure are scary…
Color is minimal. I started with the sky first, covering it in blue, then the water. I used 2 greens for the ground – the same greens that I worked with previously as Wellington water. Normally I work with just the light green but want to mix in the darker. Having a light and dark of each color is helpful.
I’ve been following the Environment of the Week for years over on Conceptart.org, but rarely brave enough to enter. This morning though I warmed up with that birthday card for Erik then afterwards got straight into creating a concept art painting for the EOW. The reference I used for it was of the Auckland waterfront, but I used the reference very little. These are certainly not finals – but it’s a great start.
Here goes -
The reference used:
Reference thanks to my stock images over on FreshFigure
I started this with using my first reference and creating a small thumbnail on the left. This extended and I build the scene from that. Though I started this as an exterior work it developed into Cavern of Creation. The idea was to have these figures travel on a escalation - being created. This is why there is a guzabio in the middle. I guess that character could be the queen.
Tone added. I wasn’t happy with this. Maybe it needs more darks in areas? Anyway, it’s unfinished and I moved on to the next one. I’m just treating these like thumbnails.
I used the second reference for this. I stuck with the reference but added extras to it. I especially wanted to add vegetation as I believe a new world would have plenty of beautiful vegetation It’s common for me to draw it on the street – so why not include it in this!
I also created a large character in the water (right side). This character represents God watching over the smaller characters as they walk down the path to their new home. He could be there also to build as well – not everything can be completed in a day.
Tone helped flesh out this piece and give it a sense of direction. Overall I’m happy with the left side but have concern over the right and the lack of information. This is true for the background. The best option for this will be to treat it like a thumbnail and develop the scene further – with my own reference photos. I’ll work on this idea tomorrow, but for now here’s a color layer added -
Colors are what I’ve been using regularly. Though looking at this now I should of used more yellow – especially mixing it into the red areas. The red tends to dominant the work. I used the green for the water but it’s hard to notice – maybe needs more colors mixed in.
Oh and here’s the video:
Good morning. Another painting complete. I started this painting last night and finished it this morning. It works out well even if I just get the reference sorted, I can jump straight into it. Once I get started painting I generally don’t stop till it’s finished – unless I’m interpreted and that’s usually only by Dad.
Here’s the painting - 
Reference. Several of these drawings I have used previously but like yesterday I thought I’d redo them, something fresh. May help with the continued theme of subject manner. Plus I reakon I’m better now than ever before :P.
On the left is a drawing I did during my trip to Auckland in July. It’s in the Westfield mall. It was always one of my favorite drawings of the trip.
Top left is a bridge drawing from Wellington Waterfront.
The top right is the Auckland Railway. I did this several visits ago in Wellington, but happy with the drawing, and I always get decent digital paintings from it.
This third reference is from Takaka – a drawing I did on the beach. I don’t believe I’ve taken this digitally before but I have produced a acrylic painting using it as reference.
I almost forgot about my last reference – a portrait I did of a friend – Hannah. This is in the far left. I was happy with the drawing but the portrait didn’t work well in this painting.
Line. Simple really, I traced the reference. I didn’t change the reference much, only little things like making the figures look larger than life and standing on rocks in the distance.
Grayscale tone added. This is always the most fun stage, I love tone and building up those lights and darks. It brings the scene out of plain line into something that’s real.
Again I made the characters dark and light for the background. I used the same brush in this whole painting attempting to create a range of textures with it.
I wanted to create a water type effect for the ground. I’ve been told the way to paint water is paint reflections. 
And finally color. My normal color trends here. I used the green for the sky area in the top left and for the water area on the ground. Something a little different, though I’ve used the green for water in the past. I wasn’t scared to mix the colors together, mixing yellow and red for the figures.
Overall I’m happy with this painting, time to get off the computer, take some photos and eat.
I have been changing a few brush settings in GIMP to get different effects. Most notable I enabled opacity pressure sensitive. In the past I’ve always had this pressure sensitive set to just size – so the harder I press the larger the line. Turning both on really execrates the effect – the smaller line seems further away since the opacity is lower etc…
I have also started using full screen mode in GIMP which removes the top bar – the result – the painting taking over my whole screen Great.
Anyway, I had to ink this work 3 times – my first three attempts resulted in my video file being over 2 gigs. I use CamStudio which has a bug in so that if a file hits over 2gig the file corrupts. I’m normally really excellent at not letting files hit this 2gig mark – but this morning it went wrong twice. CamStudio has a option to auto stop after a certain amount of time – I’ve got this set to 1700 – but it didn’t stop for me!
On to the painting:
The reference is a combo of 3 drawings in total. The first is a drawing I did in Palmerston North sitting in the square. This is one of the rare perspective drawings I have done – the road fades off into the distance. I mashed this up with another two drawings of the Levin Skate Park. This is technically one drawing spread over two pages – but i scan them in separably. Opacity is dropped to 50% in order to seen drawings underneath.
Line done. Holley saw me do this inking and liked it. The opacity changes certainly helps the line feel more flow. 
Tone added, Small detailed areas ignored and focused on large shapes. My favorite areas are the cars, Added vegetation to the foreground in order to help with the depth. 
Color. I had lots of fun with this. Mixed colors on the palate – something I don’t normally do. Added a figure to the right – felt it needed something in the foreground. Certainty not my favorite work as I feel it’s still too fuzzy. What if I used the smudge tool?
I didn’t do a concept art environmental work yesterday so wanted to make sure I did one today. I haven’t been getting out and drawing on the street. I have been drawing everyday, but it’s been at Mothers rather than public. I need to start getting back out in public and drawing again.
Anyway, here’s a painting I did today.
For the reference I opened a bunch of drawings up and used them as reference to create a new composition. I could mashed these works together into GIMP and traced over, but just decided to just use it as reference.
The drawings are various areas in Levin – including a Church that I went with family for a party. It’s very rare that you will find me in a Church – but when you do, I’ll likely be drawing.
Line work. Size 7 pixels works best for me. The default 20px seems too large. Again, no black – just a lovely red.
Tone added I worked over the trees several times with a range of textures as I was not happy with them. My favorite area is the letterbox – the range of tone works well. The image may need more detail on left, especially behind the figure.
Color. Keeping with the same palette of colors – though this time I decided to use multiply and overlay brushes (like the portrait I painted yesterday . I used the I’ll keep working with the multiply and overlay settings as it gives the image a gutsy feel.
Finally, the video of the process:
I’ve started taking the drawings from Wellington into GIMP to produce digital paintings. I tend to do far more drawings than digital paintings. It’s my goal this month to pump out digital paintings of these drawings. I have a large backlog – including drawings from Levin.
Here is the first work. One of my favorite drawings from Wellington – the railway. 
My first task was to ink in GIMP the pencil drawing. Looking at this now I wish I had used a smaller brush – it would of created a nicer line. This line seems too large – not enough thin variation The tone added next helps this problem…
Gray scale tone added. I used the same custom made flat brush on my of the work – with the exception of swapping to the chalk brush for the grass area. 
And color. For the colors I choose to use colors I had used in previous works – dating back as far as July. I haven’t used this set of colors for sometime. For now I’m going to keep with them – and see how they evolve.
During my trip to Wellington I saw some abstract paintings. They made me vomit. Marks on canvas. Whats the point? If you aren’t going to paint something, no point painting.
Instead of character focused SketchDaily works I’ve been focusing on environments … done mostly with taking my sketches – inking and adding tone. I want to digitize the majority of my sketchbook works so using SketchDaily as motivation works.
Day one of these works. The theme was Robots with an alternative being Moon. I started with a image of the moon and went from there. Instead of starting with painting the whole work I went with thumbnail drawings – something I must practice As you can see in the video I had fun drawing Robot character on the moon.
After the drawings were done I went in with a mid gray – fleshing out the work and creating texture. I’m always a fan of painting light on dark so for the moon I painted it black then covered it with a light gray. I want to use a larger range of brushes in order to create more textures in my paintings – difference in surface!
I took the line out completely, just leaving minimal tonal areas. The image certainly evolved - hardly anything from the beginning is left.
I’m not that happy with the result.
Here’s the video:
Tim Burton. I’m no Tim Burton fan but for this I went with plain black and white. Other than that it’s not much different to some of my other paintings like this.
Again, the video:
Western. This one was fun and I’m some what happy with the result. The western influence is in the colors.
Here’s the video. I think I’m getting better with editing together these videos, all its missing is sound:
