@Flo Thanks a lot man! It’s highly appreciated even if I wasn’t here for a long time^^
@smrr Thank you!!! I think realising what I did wrong and how to improve it is somehow more important then the actual painting itself. So much about making great art happens in the head before even putting a line on paper. Still lots to learn. But I enjoy the road! :)
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Hi guys, it’s been a long time. Nearly a year. There is a reason for that. Not the best but still. Last year February my freelance business started to get momentum. I had work continuously through 2014 and finally was able to pay my bills with it (not able to afford much else yet though). Amazing! And I still can’t believe it happened.
Due to that and starting a YouTube Channel (in German) I didn’t find much time for personal paintings. And I missed it. So know I’m back and I hope I will finally learn to update more regularly.
It happened a lot in the last year. My sketchbook is halfway full by now and I did a lot of client-work. So I will now show you some bits and bobs of what I did. To show everything would kill the post^^
Any feedback is always welcome and much appreciated! I still have a long way to go :)
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Back in February 2014 I decided to work on a personal project, because I didn't do so in quite a while. The challenge I put myself up to, is to paint a picture in an art style I really like and try to figure out what makes this style special and how I can apply it to my own art.
Last February I took part in a contest over on ArmorGames and wanted to include it here as well. Task was to create a 100x100 avatar with the topic "Valentins Day". So here it is!
Story: I'm sure everyone realizes that Amor himself must be quite old by now. That said it's impossible for him to take care of all the high expectations people have on Valentins Day every year. So he started to think like a business man. Now he has a lot of employees which do the work for him. How does he pay them you ask? Easy. Companies like ArmorGames want to spread some love and give back to the community. That said they asked Amor to send someone appropriate for the job. Someone who gives a hint, who we have to thank for all the love
PS: I hope the little helper manages to give all the love before he drops out of the sky of exhaustion.
Based on a simple idea: Amor + Armor = A®mor
Friends of mine are got married in September and they asked me to design their wedding invitation back in April, which I absolutely loved to do <3 It was my first time doing a full fletched illustration and quite challenging. But I really liked and still like the outcome. :)
Back in June I did a business card design for a games company called "Nuts". I'm sure you see the relation between the name and the design. The nuts represent the company owners with their specific features. It seems later on they want a nut for everyone of their employees to let them stand out in their forum, so that users instantly know when they are getting answers from the game creators.
I really love drawing female characters and I have quite the hang of drawing the body. But as soon as it gets to faces I never felt comfortably and they just looked flat - missing their volume/ 3d form. That said I felt really lucky when I met a good friend and fellow artist of mine back in July to sketch together. She looked at my drawings and drew over them to show me what they lack. And it's so incredible with what kind of small changes you can turn everything around! :)
PS: The single eyes drawn in pencil - not the colored ones - are the ones she corrected for me again and again until I got the hang of it. And now there is nothing I rather do then draw colorful faces all day long!
A lot of the time last year I spend working on a digital card game. I did over 20 illustrations for them and designed the look of the cards as well. For now I’m only able to show you three of the illustrations I did without the card design. The rest ist still under NDA.
I learned a lot while working on this project. For once I had to imitate the art style of the other artist on the team so that everything would be cohesive. Also I mostly draw characters and eventually a landscape here and there but not much airplanes and buildings. I would never have chosen to do those on my own but it was a great learning experience and I’m excited to see the final game.
Besides that I’m again redesigning my portfolio like every year around that time. I like to keep things fresh and implement what I learned about design throughout the year. It’s work in progress so the old page is still up. Presentation for me is at least as important as the artworks themselves. That said I jumped into the whole mockup scene and try to make my work more presentable through it. For example here an image you will probably find on the home screen of the new portfolio which is w.i.p.
I also started a
tumblr in the hope to motivate me to do more of my own stuff again and don’t loose myself in work to much. I choose art because I love it and it shouldn’t be just work for me.
For now there are two things I want to tackle. First my fear of painting/drawing over the stuff I already did, because I could screw it up. That way I will never have finished traditional drawings/paintings and can’t improve. So now I’m going over my sketchbook again and try to improve everything as much as possible and just accept if something gets “screwed up” because I at least learned something.
—> Sketch from January 2014
Final in colored pencils from January 2015 including the better presentation^^
Secondly I will start on a perspective class I found here on crimson daggers. I would love to start right now, but work still needs to go first. This weekend is perspective time and I can’t wait to start :))
![[Image: sig_vas.png]](http://www.vasburg.com/sig_vas.png)
