Concept Art: Disgustingly Valuable

Over at ConceptArt.org they have a Creature of the Week (COW) contest. I've never participated, but thought I should give it a shot. The prompt was to design a creature that is disgusting to look at or be around, but has something very valuable about it. In my case, it's the glowing orb tucked in around the exposed rib-like bones of it's back.

Woman in Chair speed painting

Another speed painting based off of photo ref from Ten Ton. Not sure if speed is the right term since I did put about 40 minutes into this one, but it was done with the mentality of working fast and not using tons of layers and blending modes like I would in a finished piece.

Speed painting

Ballpoint, over on the Ten Ton Studio board started a speed sketch thread with some reference pics and instructions.  (Check it here.)  I thought it was a good idea.  Here is my first attempt.  I got camera shy and made some odd mistakes that I wouldn't do if I wasn't recording and focusing on speed.  Still, it ended up about 20 minutes long.... way over the 10-15 recommended, but I'll get faster.  I sped up the video 500% so it only takes 4 minutes to watch.  Lucky you. :)

Cintiq fun

I've been trying to spend more time with the greatly creative folks at the Periscope Studio in nearby downtown Portland, OR.  I go on most Thursdays now and have spent my time sketching at a small central table soaking in the creativity and camaraderie of  the crew there.  Today was a little different.  There were some Wacom employees there talking product, taking pictures, and just interacting with their customer base.  Most of the artist at Periscope Studio have a Wacom product of some sort, mainly Cintiq 12WX's and a few 21UX's.  They also have a computer room that houses a few Macs attached to more 21UX's. Yes, it is a truly awesome sight.  Which brings me to today's art post.  Since I'm not a member of the Studio I thought I'd bow out of the interviewing area and went to play on one of the open 21UX's.  A few minutes of getting used to the glass thickness of the monitor and quite a few more minutes getting used to a Mac (I use a PC at my studio) and I was up and drawing.  I've never felt anything like it.  The sensation of working on screen was so natural I'm not sure how I'll go back to my old model Intuos 2.  In about 2.5 hours this is what I came up with.  Not the greatest drawing, and evidence that I really should thumbnail first, but it was so much fun working on the Cintiq that I wanted to post it.

Done in Photoshop CS3 with Cintiq 21UX.

Agents of Atlas colors

Khoi Pham posted his penciled commission over on the Ten Ton boards.  I thought it was a great image and rendered in a way I'm not used to seeing, so I took a shot at coloring it today.  Lots of fun and educational, too!

Monster #2

Trying out some new techniques in Photoshop.  I love drawing monsters!

Monster of the day

I watched part of Steve Firchow's Gnomon coloring video last night.  While our styles couldn't be farther apart, I liked what I saw and still learned a lot of concept stuff more than technical stuff.  I pulled his pallet file and one of the texture files and tried them out today.

Quick sketch, more for experiment than results.