Adam's Sketchbook

[AdamStolterman]

So i thought it's time i added a sketchbook. Right now i am working as a storyboard artist for short movies and commercials, but i want to get in to illustration work and hopefully game art. Hopefully i will show improvement here.

Critique is greatly appreciated. I am here to learn and do hard work and i am not afraid.

To quote that llama from Disney's Emperors New Groove:
- Don't tell me, we're about to go over a huge waterfall..
- Yep.
- Sharp rocks at the bottom?
- Most likely.
- ..bring it on.

[AdamStolterman]

A quick sketch. I'm trying to learn not to do everything with line work, and it's hard. (ignore the horns on this guy).

[JonHop]

I really like the second image, you painted it without linework and it has an air of realism while keeping expressive brush strokes, i feel working like that will really help you improve, this is something I need to work on also so I will probably do that today :). Keep em coming, I'd def like to see more of your work done in this way!

[AdamStolterman]

I had an idea about a culture that worship some kind of animal that in the beginning are larvas, and the people freely give themselves to the larvas as a kind of host. This painting is going to be of the statue of the first woman who did that.

Now i have always just done line work in the beginning of a painting but i am trying to learn to start with just forms and values. So this is the start. I have still just blocked in the main lights and shadows. I am having real trouble with the placement of the different values of the shadows. It kind of feels like i'm just placing them at random so far. If you have any ideas please tell me.

[AdamStolterman]

Started to render and stuff. But i feel that when i get to details i kill all the different values and just fade the contrast in the painting. In the fear of not being realistic i turn it into mud and just a very pale shade of green or something. Damn you illogical fear!

[AdamStolterman]

This is something i haven't done. I got challenged to paint something using one random texture brush. It was fun and very interesting. This is the man who finds the faeries and proves their existence.

[Thomas Mahon]

Hey man, I think you should work on your anatomy and fundamentals a little. Work hard and good luck :)

Here are some PDFs for Andrew Loomis books: http://alexhays.com/loomis/

[AdamStolterman]

This is a painting i did based on a very crappy cellphone photo i took of a friend. I am trying to learn how to come closer to realism, while still forcing myself to use more color. My comfort zone has always been very washed out colors. And i realize that for a lot of people this is still very washed out but for me it's still a step in the right direction =D Please give critique! Anything that helps me out! Also i am still having problems with avoiding blurriness. I still can't seem to get sharp edges.

[AdamStolterman]

This is a painting i did for a contest on CA. I also added it to a story i am writing that's called Betula. 

Betula is a city in northern Sweden, surrounded by a dark forrest that goes on forever. If you drive south from the city for about 20 minutes, and then step out of your car when you get close to Dry Mountain, and walk straight in to the forrest you will soon notice that you are standing at the edge of the marshes that surround the mountain. In there you will probably find more than a few remains of what people call Old Betula. No one really seems to know what exactly Old Betula was. One of these remains is The Elken Altar. At the top of a hill that seems partly built, there is an altar. Held in place by two giant moose antlers, that some stories say are real and left from a giant moose that lived when the altar was built, is a big white stone, and during moonlight is very easy to see through the darkness. It's said to have been used as maybe a light house at night to guid people through the swamp. Before, curious people could visit the altar by wading through the swamp, but now the water is higher, so now you need a boat to get there.

[AdamStolterman]

A super quick sketch for the Panel Of the Week on CA.

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For the IDW on ca. The theme was "the emperors library cart".

[jneumann26]

Last piece is nice! :)
I think you could really benefit from working from life more, keep it up!

[AdamStolterman]

Gestures. It starts now.

[AdamStolterman]

It's interesting how much harder it is for me to do gestures when i put them in any kind of perspective, planned beforehand. If you compare the gestures i did in the earlier post, they are much smoother and the movement is a lot more fluid. When i do gestures i usually don't think about perspective and just go by feeling. It's fine until i have to put the character in a background. I suck at painting people in an environment. So i thought i'd start forcing perspective into my gestures. It's not going well =D

[AdamStolterman]

[AdamStolterman]

I thought i'd post this because i keep finding it. It's a wip for a creature that seem to stay in the wip stage. If i post it i might go back to it.

[AdamStolterman]

This was a fun observation about how me and my brother are different from each other, and also it was practice. So are you more like me or my brother?

[AdamStolterman]

A portrait i did for a friend of mine. She's awesome and let me show it.

[AdamStolterman]

warm up sketch. i've never really done warm up sketches before. i'm going to start doing them. also i haven't really painted a lot of space ships or sci-fi in any way, and i want to start practicing that as well.

[AdamStolterman]

A sketch for practice and also for getting started on my summer pitch. It's a story for a couple of short graphic novels i plan to do. They are all placed in the city Betula. This is a sketch from a place in the city called "the Between Bridges" and the guy standing on one of the walls is Emanuel Spader, one of the main characters in the story.

[AdamStolterman]

random sketches