Creature Sketch

I enjoy digital painting.  was sketching and ended up with this creature head, possibly a by-product of having Star Trek on in the background. It might not be amazing but amazing is not the point. Keep working towards your talents and goals and rewards will ensue.

Illustration Work

 

Here's an illustration I did for an announcement for my sister-in-law. The theme for her baby shower was to be woodland. I decided to create 3 woodland creatures and then make them look female specifically. I started with the line work. I worked very light, kinda the usual for me.

 

Next, I jumped in with the coloration at full strength if I was illustrating it myself. I built the colors up using layers and then softening them as needed to achieve the desired degree of hue or chroma.

Last, I added the touches of femininity as bows and eyelashes. For the use as an invitation, I subdued the boldness of the colors to achieve a softer appearance. I'm pleased with how it turned out. What do you think?

Sketch and Resketch

For several months, I've had the goal of sketching quick faces as my computer saves and processes. All of these were done in under 5 minutes. This page had a particularly rewarding lesson. You'll see two sketches circled in red. After doing the first one, I realized I hadn't captured the expression, which is the main goal with these. So I quickly did another focusing on just the emotion, which means I exaggerated it further than I usually would. The result was lovely and communicated clearly. Sketching often, quickly, and re-sketching are among the fastest ways to learn.

Speaking of sketching, I'll be posting rough sketches and concepts for characters every day in December. This is an effort to generate multiple ideas for character driven stories I plan to explore and animate. Please stop by daily and feel free to contribute your own ideas and sketches if desired :

CharacterDrivenStory.blogspot.com

Contest Results - Pets!

Congratulations to both Kristi and Scott! After all the votes came in by comment or email I could see the results would be close. It ended up being an even tie so you both win as this contest was determined by a community vote. Your prizes ($10 gift cards to Blick Art Materials) have been ordered and should arrive by email shortly (within the next 3 business days).

Kristi, your work sure has improved and your talent grown over the last year+. Scott, I'm glad to have you still here and contributing although you have a job using your art all day long, I've liked watching the direction your work has taken and see where you are more willing to go bold.

Congratulations to the both of you. And if you read this blog and haven't contributed, please do. Let someone you know that is interested in drawing, illustration, or other types of art yet doesn't know how to get involved: well, please let them know about this blog and to just try it out. We welcome talent of all levels, after all none of us are ever really done growing.

Stay tuned and see what is to come, this Shoebox of Dreams just keeps on rolling (as good as a box can roll)!

Illustration Contest Entries - Pets!

You'll find below the entries for the illustration contest that centered around the theme of pets. Thank you and congratulations to our participants, Kristi and Scott. Great work. I finished one but I don't have an internet connection at home yet (as I recently moved) so I'm having to work on anything blog related in class...not working well. Sorry for the delay everyone that follows the blog, I'm working on getting an internet connection this week.

Please vote for a winner of the contest in one of two ways: leave a comment on one of the two entries below to vote for that entry or if you cannot log in (as I think there isn't an anonymous way to log in) send me an email at shoeboxofdreamsentries@gmail.com and put the illustrator's name in the subject line. Thanks everyone who participated in various ways and that has for the life of the Shoebox. I'm going through a hard patch of life as far as being able to maintain the blog (as I am currently buried in the second year of pharmacy school) but it is a priority for me to not bury my shoebox of dreams again. I may have to rethink the blog but I feel like its a part of me and needs to live. Please send me your thoughts if you have any ideas you'd like to share.

Please vote for Kristi or Scott below or by email. Thanks everyone!

Voting deadline: September 14th, 2011 (one week).
(Winner will be posted September 16th)