Castle in the Sky

Watchdog

Tock the watchdog fanart from The Phantom Tollbooth

Forest trails..

Environment study.

City by the Sea - Finish

Quick environment study... trying to work on lighting techniques.

City by the Sea WIP 2

Work in progress.

Surf's Up!

Sorry I didn't post any WIPs of this one, I am in overdrive mode trying to get all my school work done and this one I progressed on pretty quickly. And I have to say I think it's one of my favorites so far. I love it when the original idea in my head comes pretty close to the end result :) Now on to the next project!

Sorry...

Nothing warms a heart quicker than pitiful cuteness <3

LA Sunsets

I took this photo at Griffith Park the other evening... if smog is good for anything, it's sunsets :)

Enchanted

Not crazy about how the lights turned out, but I think due to poor planning I'm not sure if I'm going to fix it... might not be possible.

Adding color, texture, details...

What kinds of creatures may live here? We shall see... :) In this stage I set my values, composition and start to get a feeling for the atmosphere and light source.

Revenge

Never anger a guy with a dragon. This is done for now, I might come back later after not looking at it for a while and fine tune some things. This painting actually started from a 5 minute class exercise/value study here:

Im liking this a lot more now, I think I've fussed over the background enough to be satisfied with it haha. Now I'm adding some detail into the foreground and will start to paint in the robe. Then I'll go over the whole thing one more time with detail and color adjustments. Then I have the daunting task of fixing the colors so that it looks nice when I upload it.

frustration...

I'm not sure what it is, but there's just something that's not working in this image for me and it's soooooo frustrating!! I'm falling into the trap of getting stuck in one area aaahhhh!!! Might have to leave it and come back to it...

Detailed the dragon and trying to get the lighting right... I might be laboring on it too much because it's starting to get frustrating, but since it's the focal point I want to get it right.

I might make a few more adjustments, but this is pretty much done. If this doesn't scream "blah" I don't know what will. And of course I mean blah in a good way :)

Starting to render... next task: texture! and some color.

Here's a cleaned up sketch for my next project - I'm doing some concept visual development work for the book The Phantom Tollbooth for a class project. These little guys are called Lethargians and are the most depressing, indifferent, lethargic creatures you will ever meet, so that's the mood I'm going to attempt to really push here.

If Neptune had a pet, this is what I imagine he'd look like. I love how the colors turned out in this :) I'm really starting to get the hang of using color in my shadows. I might revisit this a bit later to add some more fish and bubbles to enforce the "underwater" feel. But I'm pretty happy with this one :]

Working on bringing out the form in the dragon and fine tuning the light source.

I whipped this out so quickly I didn't even pause to save some WIPs on this one. I like the atmosphere, I may revisit this piece and add some things... maybe some little creatures sneaking around who knows :) For a larger view check out my deviantART account: http://capriciousfish.deviantart.com/#/d4cjgd9

Here is the final piece! I might make more adjustments later, but it's done for now :)

Another Self Portrait

I'm working on another self portrait... I had a lot of fun with this one, the idea was somewhat inspired by looking at others' work just browsing galleries. I got the design for my hair from a line drawing I did. Still trying to work out color issues between photoshop and painter though.

Skull Mountain

Knocked this out in a day... I think that's a record, and I'm pretty pleased with it considering how long I spent on it. HOWEVER my color profiles between photoshop and painter did not match and I didn't catch it until I was finished so the colors are all over the place :[ I think I'm done fiddling with it for now.... Frustrating.

This has a ways to go yet... trying a different approach to laying in a painting and I think it's working out nicely :) I will need some color adjustments at the end.

Almost have the island finished! It's starting to come alive :) I also made the foreground subjects slightly darker to pop them forward and create more distance.

Adding more details to the island and strengthening the directional light source.

Steampunk WIP2

Starting to lay in color, value and create distance.

Steampunk airship landing - WIP

I've started by establishing the composition and light source as well as a blue undertone which will work nicely for the sky and shadows to create atmosphere.

More details please.

Adding more details, especially in the background. I also pushed the shadows quite a bit more.. and now I'm going to go in and start to really refine the background and start pushing highlights which will really bring out the atmosphere.

Cooling things down...

Unifying the temperature of light and refining shapes.

Hippogriffs!

This is for a contest which I will link to when I'm done. I'm working out the composition and color scheme first.

Final - Introductions

All done, and of course I see a lot I need to improve on... but improvements will be noted for future paintings, I'm constantly learning :)

Sooo close!

I'm almost done!!! I just have to detail the tree in the foreground (and pray to the art gods that it looks good in the end...) and then add some atmosphere and sparklies to the snow :] I'm contemplating a few snowflakes but meeeh I don't know... can't wait for it to be done!

...and I'm pretty happy with how Big Blue turned out :)

Big Blue

Big Blue is coming to life! (Yes I named the dragon haha... it's so much more fun when you can play out a story as you paint :] )... anyway, he still has a LONG way to go. At this point I have him molded out so I can start to work with his form and add the correct highlights and shadows. Next I think I'm going to drop in a light texture to give me a little extra something to play with. When I'm done I'm hoping to give him a real "icy" feel :) I'm excited yet nervous still because there are a couple things that are buggin' but I'm hoping they work themselves out with this guy.

I should probably detail the tree before I get too much further with the dragon... so that I don't run out of steam. The tree needs just as much detail and attention or the whole painting will fall apart :/ I think I can have fun with it though... pondering adding a forest critter in the foreground tree.. probably too distracting though.

...onward!

WIP 3 - Introductions

Changed the staging a little... I felt the girl was being cut off by the tree... I keep going between frustrated and satisfied with this piece, hopefully it turns out okay in the end. I'm going to work on the right and then start adding some details to the dragon yay!

Think cold thoughts!

Getting more values set and adding a little bit of warm color into the light coming from the left... I want it to have a burrr chilly feeling, yet still calm and somewhat whimsical. The colors may prove to be tricky, we'll see. I'm starting to feel more comfortable with how this is going now :)

Next project...

I'm not sure how I feel about this layout, I played around with tons of possibilities for a while but it was hard to fit it all on the canvas... I'm using myself as a model because I kinda wanted to do another self portrait but I also wanted to be interacting with something this time... SO I'm just going to keep going with this one and see where it leads... *gulp*

Fin!

Defined background and started on feathers

I'm getting excited about this one! I was a little frustrated with the colors at first :P

Working out color and clouds

Phoenix Painting WIPs

Here are some work in progress photos so far. I block in values first and then play with color... I was originally going for a more crimson red color for the phoenix but I'm liking these warm purples so I might stick with that. We'll see... onward!