Portrait Practice 2

I've been continuing with these portrait studies for the last week, its been a good daily warm-up. I feel like the quality between this week's portraits and last week's is noticeably higher. That's the good thing about continued practice! I'm finding that for me personally, the greatest challenges are in overcast lighting (2nd portrait) and the extremely blown-out light sources (6th portrait). This is enjoyable.


These were all about an hour's worth of work, from reference, done completely in photoshop.

Portrait Practice 1

Well, its been about a month since my last post. I figured I was about due for another one. Here are some head studies I've been occasionally doing to try and keep on my toes. These are from photo reference and took an hour each.


I'm very happy now that I've changed the look of my blog. With a background that is essentially a mini-portfolio, I don't feel so pressured for every blog post to feel like it has to include portfolio-worthy artwork. I feel much more free to post sketches, practice paints, and works in progress. If I can manage to stay on track, I should have much more to post in the coming months along those lines.

QUESTION!!! What sites do you guys use for anatomy reference? Are there any sites that frequently have new images uploaded of the nude figure? Yeah, yeah, I can hear some of you chuckling with a snide remark to that last one. Really though, if you've got a favorite anatomy site then I'd love for you to share the link in the comments to this post! Thanks a lot guys!!!

15 Minute Speed-Paints 5

I'm back! Only a small batch today, I've got a lot of work to do. I'm going to start using these as a warm-up before working on other illustrations. Just something to loosen up and remind myself that painting is just putting down a lot of abstract shapes and colors, that only mean something relative to the other abstract shapes and colors.

15 Minute Speed-Paints 4

Surprise! King Kong! Yeah yeah, you know the drill. The two in the middle i spent a little more than 15 minutes on, but besides that, 15 minutes all the way.

By the way, thanks everyone for dropping in, commenting, and showing support in other ways too. It means a lot to me, I think when you're out on your own its easy to lose touch with your community of artists. Some days it might be tough to keep your motivation up, and I think when we all take a moment to cheer each other on, it does a lot.

Dragon Magazine (and more King Kong)

Hello all! I am so very pleased to finally share my first illustration done with Wizards of the Coast. They have the preview of the image online now, so I guess that means I'm in the clear. If you come back later and this post has vanished, well, that probably means I wasn't in the clear.

This illustration was done for the online incarnation of Dragon Magazine, issue 377. I had the privilege of working with the notorious Jon Schindehette. If you don't know about Jon, you should.

So I'm a pretty happy camper right now. I can stick this feather in my hat, and I've also got a couple different projects in the pipeline. Happy days! It feels like all the years of hard work is starting to pay off. Well, pay off with more years of hard work, but that's alright! I feel so very lucky to work in something I'd be doing anyway in my spare time. We artists are a lucky bunch, minus the recession.

Here are some more King Kong studies. 15 minutes each, as usual. I've posted a batch of these every day for the last 3 days. Go me! Doing these exercises has already gotten me thinking about ways to improve, its alarming how fast I'm making "color discoveries" off of the past 3 days doing this. I definitely recommend it to any artists working digitally. Its so easy to get started too, just grab your favorite dvd and you're good to go!

Thanks for reading, my faithful friends.

15 Minute Speed-Paints 2

More practice from this evening. I wonder how long I can keep using stills from this movie (King Kong) before I burn out and hafta switch. Well, I have the extended edition, so it might take a while to find out. Man, I love me some Peter Jackson extended edition dvd's. Naomi Watts is also very nice to look at, but you wouldn't be able to tell from these...yet!


I'd been using this blog like a 2nd portfolio site with a lot of words, but I think this is the start of me actually using a blog how its meant to be used. Here's hoping I don't fall off into obscurity after 2 weeks.

15-minute Speed Paints

I took a couple hours out tonight to do some speed-painting, because I want to get more comfortable with the Wacom tablet. Yeah, I know, I've been using it for 5 years now. But most of my process usually involves me drawing out whatever it is I'm going to paint, and then scanning that in. I also want to practice composition more, and I gotta say, doing these speed paints is like killing two birds with one stone! I'm definitely having fun with these. I've been talking with some helpful individuals about getting off my butt and really using my spare time to do studies and practice for myself, instead of only working when I'm being paid for it. I can't remember the last time I did any artwork that was just for me, just for the sake of practice. Its always this job or doing it for that annual, or so that I can have a specific something for my portfolio.

Well, enough talk. This is my venture for the evening, I spent 15 minutes on each of these.


I know. It'll get better. If you're an AD and this is your first time visiting, for the love of god scroll down! I swear I'm at least halfway decent!


I'll mail a postcard to the first person who guesses what movie this was from! I'll need your mailing addy to get the postcard to you, though! ;)

Also, I am available for more freelance work. You know. FYI. Just saying.