Crimson Daggers — Art forum

Having a decent day with enough energy has been a rare thing this year..

anyway here's my latest thing.
for the October Proko challenge
Jumped in because it seemed like a fun one and I like E.M.Gist's work
so might be cook to get some feedback from the man if it makes the video

and since it's the sketchbook section here's some of the working up
After browsing the provided reference images this composition came to mind immediately and I just ran with it

Nice work with the Zombies, love the variety of figures and expressions, very well done!

Thank CG!

So I got 2nd place in a Proko Challenge again 
Was kinda hoping for 1st cos I wanted the sketch from the Judge E.M.Gist, his work is great
but 2nd is still something and I'm quite used to getting 2nd place in my life, for the most part that's ok
I don't I've ever been that naturally competitive.. but I digress



also got my 2nd daily deviation for this piece



When so few people around you understand what you do for a living and as a result don't end up showing much support, sometimes the little milestones and such help you through a bit.

I've been fairly busy with client work,
quite a mix of small to medium jobs, couple sizable ones
few logo designs and more vector based stuff
Some pencil portraiture, book images and a tattoo design are on the list at the moment

Here's some commissioned images I did a little while ago that I'm ok to share now.



Have been doing some mentoring
here's a new students portrait progression in one month
He's doing well, will hopefully get him leveling up strong in a far shorter time than it takes when I was trying to work it all out on my own.



I'm turning 33 this month 
I'm tired

Congratulations on the second place as well as on the Daily Deviation! I still dream of getting one of those one day! May end up to be just a pipe dream! :)

Also, happy early birthday! I really dig your sketchbook! Lots of cool stuff in here!

I really love the Proko-zombie piece, the level of detail in it is insane. Congratulations on winning 2nd place on it!! Even though you didn't get the sketch, receiving an hour long mentorship for it is an exciting prize all the same (perhaps even more useful haha).

And a big ol early happy birthday, Andrew!!! I hope you have a great day when it comes around

yea, you really knocked that one out of the park! congrats man! Happy bday when it comes : )

Hey, thank you guys!

@Zorrentos
If you just keep working on improving the quality of your work, lots of things follow before you know it. Don't count yourself out. You gotta believe in yourself first when it comes to this stuff.

@chubby_cat
you're right, the mentoring session might be good.
I've just been on a small originals and prints collecting tip and was hoping to add to it but it's all good 

@JyonnyNovice
Thankyou, man doing art is frustrating but I love it..

Here's a couple recentish things.
a pencil portrait I did from some just ok photo reference,
was a bit of a challenge.
I bought some decent paper today to prepare for doing some long form pencil renderings and gouache painting
want to see how much the expensive stuff changes the experience and result. 



and here's a Dark Souls 3 piece I started months ago and I don't think I've shared yet.
Was trying out drawing in clip studio
think I'm gonna bring it over to Photoshop and paint it up whenever I get around to that..
So many projects waiting for the space and time to complete them...



Some of the recent client work has been kinda fun stuff though. thankful for that and hope that trend continues.

That Dark Souls piece is amazing, I can't wait to see that painted! Looking through your sketchbook is making me want to kick myself into gear, haha

(11-24-2020, 09:08 AM)leviktt Wrote: [ -> ]That Dark Souls piece is amazing, I can't wait to see that painted! Looking through your sketchbook is making me want to kick myself into gear, haha

thank you, if my work is motivating I'm happy about that~
I'll try to make the dark souls piece into something decent.

I'm spread a bit thin at the moment, so many pieces to work on.

Here's an early work in progress for an Oni portrait
I'm mentoring a guy, and this is one of the projects I've got him on, but I'm also doing it at the same time for fun

and 5 hours later I'm back

and at least for the moment, done with this

Awesome work as always man - your rendering really blows me away - on the zombie piece, I love how you rendered some of the faces to a photo realistic finish but left the peripheral characters in a looser finish.

Good to have you on the forum sharing your time and knowledge with us dude - thank you.

Great work on the recent illustrations! The 'Dark Souls' piece is ridiculously good in terms of line work, striking detail with an excellent composition! The One came out great as well, really solidly drawn with some great choices in colors and lighting. Keep it going! :)

@Artloader
Thanks for the kind words, much growing to do yet! I like the idea of Crimson Daggers so I at least want to do my part when I can. I benefited from the free content produced by people like Dave and Dan so I do hope to pay it forward 

@cgmythology
Thank you, I hope I can pull of a good finish for the Dark souls piece.
The Oni was a bit refreshing after a bunch of client work, I think I could push it more.. but for the time I'm ok with it for the moment.

heres the next in that series of yokai
the Death yokai, the Shinigami



Here's a bit of the process
Did this image in one sitting to challenge what outcome I could get with one sessions worth of concentration power.



As always.. much to do..
hope to get through at least 10 client images and fit in some personal work during December.
Planning some art/work direction for 2021. Still allot to figure out.
Writing for my graphic novel is going very slowly but I'm enjoying it.

here's a Kappa..
myyyeeaaaaaa~

Interesting painting! I had to read a bit of the wikipedia page about Kappas, I remember their mention in Harry Potter but didn't remember reading they had water on their head. Actually very cool mythical creature. I like how you have the water running down its face, definitely adds to the effect.

@JosephCow

thanks! yeah they've got some interesting stuff to the mythology, something about tricking them into bowing so they spill the water cupped in their head. Pretty interesting and Japanese sounding ha
I still have some impulse to slightly nod my head when meeting people sometimes. residual effects of staying in japan for some time..

I like this kind of adaptive study, looking at a bunch of reference to pull from but making something new.
I also think more direct 1-1 studies are good but something to be said for the skills you can develop by having the added problem solving of having a less directly related final product.

had a good look at snapping turtles for this one, they're pretty cool animals..

Quick dragon bust just to paint something casual as I've been doing more time consuming work lately..


here's what I had up for reference
just grabbed a bunch of pics from my animal reference folder and came up with what i came up with..
good excuse to casually take in some animal anatomy and texture information.

A nice creature right there maybe just a lil bit of fold and wrinkle in the skin to get that extra depth since it a side view.Maybe the issue here is not enough though of the use of contrast to help the form read more. It as if the light is coming from all direction.

congrat again for 2nd place and the daily deviation, it's those kind of small( or maybe big ?) successes that halpes you to push through the hardship ! keep it up !

Concerning my critic, i'd say that you'd need a bit of training for blocking out your light and shadow and keep them separated ! it feels like you're actually loosing the solidity of the form when you start to render, your values become scattered and not organized anymore ! Did a quick OP to better explain what i meant, hope it helps, if it's not, feel free to ignore it ! 

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(12-09-2020, 05:13 AM)wld.89 Wrote: [ -> ]congrat again for 2nd place and the daily deviation, it's those kind of small( or maybe big ?) successes that halpes you to push through the hardship ! keep it up !

Concerning my critic, i'd say that you'd need a bit of training for blocking out your light and shadow and keep them separated ! it feels like you're actually loosing the solidity of the form when you start to render, your values become scattered and not organized anymore ! Did a quick OP to better explain what i meant, hope it helps, if it's not, feel free to ignore it ! 

cheers for the over paint.

yeh, I know the far horn was bit janky placement, got a bit blind to it while working on the piece.
lighting, especially dramatic lighting, one of the many things I need to practice.
I was pretty sloppy with the rim lights, was just trying to get it finished but my brain was slowing down by that time

learning is burning fuel, and can definitely feel the difference when not eating/sleeping well.
trying to get on top of that in this last bit of 2020 

and yes.. the little things do help sometimes!