The Right Kind of Ragged

Trying to figure out some character designs for an assignment I am currently working on. The story is obviously about a teddy bear. But oddly enough, this won't be my first time working with a stuffed bear, this will actually be my third. And so I wanted to make sure this guy looked different. Plus I have the added challenge of making sure he looked like a well-loved(worn and ragged) toy.

Let's Face it!

Done in ArtStudio with a Jot Touch.

I'm back with a quick new sketch I just completed! What made this sketch a bit different is that this all these faces were drawn on my IPad! We all know how versatile the IPad is, with all the available apps for the device, there's a myriad of things you can do with it to help you stay productive(or sometimes nonproductive). So I wanted to experiment with some drawing/painting apps and see which one I can incorporate it into my workflow.
I played with a couple of the more popular sketch/drawing apps out there(Procreate and Sketchbook Pro), and out of all the ones I have tried so far ArtStudio clearly stood out as my favorite for sketching. For someone like myself, who works mainly in Photoshop, Artstudio shares a lot of the same features, which made for an easy to transition. With the key features being the lasso tool and the ability to transform and distort, the biggest hurdle was actually getting reacquainted to drawing directly on the surface.
So far, I'm really happy with the results I am able to achieve. I can see this being a great on-the-go sketching tool...well when I'm not on Facebook or YouTube or Words with Friends or...

Artist Apps

I wanted to share a couple useful artist apps I discovered for the iPad.

Mara3D: http://www.mara3d.com
For you anatomy buffs, this app is for you. This app gives you the ability to rotate and zoom a fully rendered three dimensional anatomical figure. A very useful tool for when you need to reference the human anatomy.

Handy: http://www.handyarttool.com
This is a very cool artist reference tool that allows you to rotate and light a 3d hand in a variety of poses. Though I wish this app would allow you to pose the hand yourself, nevertheless, there is still enough preset poses to make this more than worth it. A very "handy" tool indeed.

Poseable: http://danvulanovic.com/index.php/apps/poseable

This app allows you to pose your classic artist's wooden mannequin to create your own scenes in virtual 3d space. With the abilities to move your camera and light, this can really help you explore and play with different compositions.

Fairy Tale Promotional Illustration

I'm back with the finished illustration! I really had fun working on this piece! Below I'll quickly share my process:

As usual, I wanted to quickly establish the basic color scheme of the illustration. Because I hadn't settled on a color or look of the jellyfish at this point, I decided to ignore them for now and concentrate on the elements I had a better grasp on. I was hoping that once I had some sort of color down, it would give me a better idea for them later on.

Here I made my first big pass on my mermaid character. Once I had her in pretty good shape, I went back and continued to pull out the rocks in the background as well as the coral in the foreground.

Next I added the sack for the dolphin. After that, I made another pass to the coral and cleaned it up further. The purpose was not only to tighten up the area but I also wanted to create more illusion of depth.

At this stage, I finally felt comfortable enough to add the jellyfish...WELL ACTUALLY, I simply stalled as long I could and I simply ran out of other things to work on.

Here is the final piece again. With all the main elements worked out, all that was left was to tie everything together. I gave the illustration a blueish tint, since we are underwater afterall! Along with that, I focused my attention to the composition and added some final value adjustments. And with a couple touch ups as well as some finishing touches to amp up some of the fantasy and the drama, this one was a wrap!

In Deep Water...

I thought I'd share this new promo piece I am working on. I've wanted to illustrate an underwater scene for quite some time now ever since my visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Among all the fascinating sea creature there, I was particularly intrigued by the jellyfish they had on display. I thought it would be something new and fun to illustrate, but of course I wanted to add my little twist to these little critters.

One of the things I enjoy about working on these promotional illustrations is the opportunity to pick whatever subjects and environments my imagination takes me. Though sometimes my imagination can get the better of me. Unlike the last promo piece I did, this illustration will have a lot of elements that are new to me, so I'll have to do a lot more figuring out as I go. This will be a challenging illustration...