Vast Improvements

I've been using custom brushes to try to create matte paintings and environments, instead of using photos, textures, and 3d generated content.  This piece was alot of fun and I can hardly turn away from it to post it here. 

This is still a work in progress but I feel that it's a vast improvement on my previous painted works and things seem to be starting to click in my brushstrokes. 

Approaching Army DS Sketch

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ice planet sketch

Doing this one just for fun. I'll be updating it more in the coming weeks.  I felt really good about the concepts in this and the shapes so I think I can take this one really far. 

Shadow Bot

Decided to test out al.chemy and do the first thing that almost everyone does. Create a robot. When I was pleased enough I took it into photoshop and did some painting over. I'm pretty pleased with the result. Lots of happy accidents

Edit: forgot to mention that I did this right before bed so I could have cool robot dreams.

Sketch before bed

LOLPainters? a new internet meme? Sketched this one before bed. Saving as JPEG and save for web F's with my colors though. Gotta get a color calibrator.

I Miss Kauai DS Sketch

Ok. So there's a little behind this one. My wife and I went to Kauai about 2 years ago and fell in love with Hawaii. Cecil Kim stirred up some up some of the feelings I have for the islands when he mentioned that he worked in Hawaii at Square. THEN I went to a massage therapist for a get-away that my wife bought for me awhile ago. So this is where I went when she was working out the knots out of my neck and shoulder blades. The image stuck in my head so vividly that I subsequently painted this right afterwords. 

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The Chase DS Sketch

Halfway through this one I realized that the greyscale studies needed to end and that I need to move on and "man up". This will be the last greyscale for a while. Time to have some fun with color. 

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Arch DS Sketch

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Misty Mountains DS sketch

Saw these while at lunch one cloudy. The clouds were trying to hide the peaks of  the mountains. Very cool to see in Arizona.

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Africa DS sketch

Painted while watching 24: Redemption.

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Tired Magician 2 DS Sketch

Just painted this one as fast as possible. Decided to make it into another tired magician painting. What is with me and this tired magician wearing the big hat?

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Junk World DS sketch

I was inspired by Raxus Prime from the game "The Force Unleashed". Painted on my DS.

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Landing site is 2 clicks away DS sketch

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Another beam DS sketch

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Cliche Beam at Gates DS sketch

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Tired Magician DS Sketch

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first major colors! sketch

FINALLY. Got a DS and an R4 card so I could paint with Colors! on my DS. This is my first major painting with it. I have certainly felt myself get better by using it almost every day. 

snow mountain pass wip

Not really sure if I'm going to finish this but I feel like it's an improvement on my work. I studied a demo of another artists methods and work and I feel like it helped. I also felt frustrated that my work didn't look as great as his but I only put in half the time that he has and he's a professional concept artist. So I shouldn't have any shame.

dark towers wip

Not sure if I'll put any more time into this because I think I might just want to leave it and move on.

New wacom 6x11 and first sketch

Just got my new wacom and this is my first sketch. I worked supersmall. and really went "too" small, but it was a blast and the new wacom will improve my skills by so much. It's so much easier to get the right kind of stroke that I want and It actually changes my perception of scale. More to come.