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Here’s another commission I finished last week and am only now getting around to posting it.  Inks, acrylics and colored pencils.   Thanks for looking.

I’ve finished another ink with color commission.  This one is of the mighty thunder god Thor from Marvel comics.  Here are some process shots and the final.

This turned out to be a lot of fun and Thor is now one of my favorite characters to draw.  I love his new costume.

My favorite assignment to do is a cover illustration which is why I was thrilled with the project I’ve just finished.  The subject was to illustrate the cover to a short story called The Voyeur.  The material was slightly racy in the vein of Fatal Attraction and that’s fine with me.  Fatal Attraction was a good movie and The Voyeur was a good story.  My client forwarded me the story with some suggestions as to the illustration and after also reading the story  I had a pretty good idea of what would make a good painting.

The initial idea was to do a scene from the book where our villain is creepily peering through a window at a blind woman who is in the midst of undressing while her German Shepherd looks on.  The problem I kept running into was that I wanted the blind woman to be the most prominent part of the image but the window frame just kept getting in the way.  I ended up going back to the thumbnail stage and coming up with a more collage type image with elements from the story.  I just really ended up loving the composition and after getting approval from my client (YEAH!) I was ready to move on.

Gather reference & board prep!

From my thumbnails I  gathered all kinds of reference from photographing myself to photos of bedrooms until I had everything I needed to draw my image.  I put my image together in Photoshop and transferred it to my board.  Using my composited/drawn/painted Photoshop reference I used a grid to aid me in redrawing my image to my board.  My board is a 20″ x 30″ piece of 500 Strathmore illustration board coated with three layers of acrylic Gesso and mounted to a piece of foam core for added support.

Next, I cover the entire piece with some burnt sienna to get rid of all the white.  I also take some time to do a value study to help map my way to the paint.

Time to paint!

I begin by painting large easy shapes or my favorite part.  This time I start with the background because it’s going to influence the way I paint my figure.  I usually paint in large layers painting the whole thing, then going back to add a second and sometimes third layer building as I go.  Sometimes I’ll paint something all at once like I did the German Shepherd here.

This is where style really comes into play.  I can paint wild and loose or refine everything to a degree of realism the would surpass a photograph.  I’m definitely into realism but I have no desire to just paint a photo.  I’m aiming for a comfortable balance between the realism of the figure and abstract elements that create a lot of visual interest.

Photography & Digital Finish!

After finished my painting I use my Nikon D80 to photograph the image and do some Photoshop tweeks.  I adjust some color levels and add a few elements that are far easier to do digitally than traditionally such as the circle pattern behind the blind woman’s head.  Now that’s it’s done it’s time to send it off to the client and hope he loves it!

I’m just trying to keep it real.  I don’t even know if that phrase is still relevant but Shawn Anderson, aka, Substance certainly is.  I had the opportunity to do all the artwork for his upcoming CD, “Black Market.”  The guy was a pleasure to work with and even if I hadn’t done the album cover I’d still buy the CD.  The guy has a lot of talent.  I was commissioned to do the front and back CD covers along with artwork to be printed on the CD and two illustrative inserts.

The work was done in pen and ink and colored in photoshop.  He wanted it dark and gritty so I didn’t hold back on the ink splatter and stayed far away from my pure intense colors.  At the same time I wanted to keep that watercolor painterly look even though I worked digitally.  I hope everyone likes the artwork and go out and buy the album coming out in Aug/Sept.  Click on the link below for more information about Substance and the upcoming album.

http://www.sonicbids.com/substance09

The CD art is the man lighting the cigeratte.  The back cover is the Black Market warehouse.  The two inserts are the backroom and the tickets.

I wrote and drew a one-shot horror comic a few years ago called “5 More Minutes.”  I would tell you all about it but my fine friends at “From the Tomb” Magazine have done it for me.  Check out the review and if you missed the comic the first time around you can still order it from indyplanet.com.  Click HERE to read the review.  Click HERE to order from indy planet.  They’ve got the first few pages online to check out too.  I even got a write up in the art magazine Imagine FX which was really cool.

I’ve got a bunch of cool content and post coming up.  Everything from new art to a series of posts on the basics of creating an illustration, so stay tuned.

Enjoy! I know I did.