first 3 paintings in oils... and lessons learned

Last fall, I got the call to do 3 half-page illustrations for the Pathfinder RPG.  Just as I was easing into the days before Illuxcon and trying to finish some ongoing projects, I had to do these images quickly.  When a client calls from a good company I hate to turn them down.  Inspired by Illuxcon, I also wanted to make some oil paintings so I decided to jump head-first into the unknown waters of painting for an illustration job.  I have been putting this off for years, but it finally felt like the right time to try it; the assignment being interiors and not more high profile, like a cover.  Paizo (the publisher of Pathfinder) is also known for being "artist friendly", and I felt more relaxed about experimenting with something new.

From past experience I learned that its better to say yes to a job and then compose the images to be less work by good compositional planning, such as showing the scene close up, or having alot of sky to minimize the work.  Having said that, I forgot these lessons and proceeded to sketch some fully fleshed out scenes with many figures.  I was in a hurry to just get started painting because of the unknown issues I was going to face, and I just did one thumbnail for each picture and went with my first thought.  In hindsight, being slower and more thoughtful at this early stage would have helped. I should have explored and chosen compositions that were far simpler and less literal!  The book was for a Pathfinder adventure called "Distant Worlds" where the characters are exploring different places in the universe...

Example of one thumbnail idea...

I spent about 1.5 days drawing time on each and drew them directly in Photoshop without figure reference.  Getting done the drawings fast allows me the time to hear back from the Art Director for approval and then proceed to the painting process, allowing for surface preparation and drying times. I really had no idea how long the paintings were going to take, so out of fear I just worked to get to the painting stage as fast as possible, not taking reference photos.

I did thorough color studies on the computer, which both gave a solid roadmap to paint from as well as serves as a backup and start for a digital painting in case things go badly in oils or you run out of time.  This is what happened on the third painting, as I only had one day to get it done, so I did the painting afterwards, and submitted a quicker digital version for the job.

One trick I had learned the previous Illuxcon was to take illustration jobs not based on the pay, but on the potential for the subject to make a nice original. (selling the original then becoming the main financial reward) For the third half-pager (ship one), I thought the scene had potential to be more "universal" if the Pathfinder character was replaced.  The pathfinder character, being a middle-eastern costumed adventurer just didn't go with the rest of the space theme and would make an odd painting.  I drew a spaceman holding a balloon in place of the requested character to turn the original into something better for that format.  My intention was to make a painting like the one above, and then digitally alter it to have the requested character before sending to the client.

Lessons learned from first illustrations in oils:

• Compose paintings that have the right amount of elements and complexity that you'll have time to bring to a finish quality.  Since I'm making an original that has a long lifespan, it needs to have the refinement to stand on its own as a wall-picture worthy of someone's money.  Generally, I need less elements and complexity with a higher polish.  Smarter composing, overall.
• I realized that if the goal is to make wall-paintings, you need to keep in mind what people will want to buy for purely decorative reasons.  They buyer may not know the characters and franchise of the original assignment, so a composition that reads more universally is probably going to appeal to more people.  While these things are not largely under your control, be mindful of liberties you can take with the art order.  Also, is your color scheme going to go with someone's couch?
• I need to better adhere to my color studies.  I tended to be undisciplined in sticking with the colors arrived at on the computer study.
• Bring each area to a finish while painting, as you'll probably not have time to go back and refine.  I learned its better to be disciplined and refine each area while the paint is wet and mixed on your palette.  Some areas (like the large cave walls in the first one) never got the detail they needed.
• Upon seeing the finals in print, I expected more of a "translation" of the image... meaning I thought it would look different shrunk down.  Basically, you can see all the detail and you'd better paint tight if you are expecting it to look polished in the end, especially next to smooth digital art in the same book.
• As an original, the viewer is going to look closely at the details over a long period of time; you can't get away with the image getting tighter (through reproducing smaller in print), so there's no fudging hands, faces and important details that you may otherwise be able to get away with on the computer.
• Take reference photos!  This is the difference between cartoony illustration and a more realistic "sophisticated" look, that probably is even more important for the painting as an object.
• Take proper photos at the end... know how to color-adjust and hand off a high-fidelity product to the client.  I made some mistakes and had to send the client sub-par photos this first time.  There's alot of steps to get ironed out, and that's why it took me so long to make this leap!
• Identifying subjects and assignments that can make sellable originals is key to deciding on when to put this effort into a project that could otherwise be done a little faster on the computer.  Do you really need to oil paint that spot illo of a potion flask??
• Oil paints, being inherently transparent are able to be their most crisp and detailed if multiple sessions/layers are used for an area.  While its best to attempt finishing each area as you go, crisp details will usually require another pass.  Budget your time accordingly.
• It took me about 1.5-2X the time to do a painting in oils than on the computer.  I would say the majority of that time was just preparation of the surfaces, palette and cleaning up.  The actual painting process was not significantly slower.  Factoring in the cost of supplies, I can accurately say oils is twice the time/money cost than computer illustration for my personal style and speed.  If I can sell my originals for the same price as the original commission, then I end up even.   Obviously this math will vary by artist, size, subject, etc.
• I'm not sure if my oils have the ability to equal my digital work at this point in terms of sheer fidelity and finish.  I'll have to do some more paintings and take longer on them to better assess if I can fully change my process over to paint for higher profile jobs.

In summary, the lessons I learned from my first fantasy oils:  Two words comes to mind: "Intelligent Crafting".  "intelligent" because you need to pick your subjects and compositions with an eye to the speed of painting on a deadline and sale-ability of the original.  "Crafting", because I found once I was working on a physical painting and not a computer file, I was beholden to the object and its' refinement to stand up to viewing 30 years from now, representing my skill as an artist, and judged as art outside of its illustrative function in print.  This demand by the original "art object" brought the results to be viewed with a higher standard... a good thing if you have the time to give it.

Card dump and upcoming events

Just released today is the new set of  the Warcraft card game "Crown of Heavens" which I made some art for: a goblin, vial and a half sheep/frog.  

Initially when I saw the vial in the assignment I was worried that maybe I was going to start getting cards of lesser importance.  Fear is always present as a freelancer, as you often don't communicate much with your clients and are always worried how your work is received.  My advice is to just to do your best on whatever assignment you are given, and don't worry about being typecast or labelled by your art director.  A great piece of art whatever the subject just instills confidence and puts you on good terms with your art director.  Subsequently after doing this job, my fears have been completely alleviated, as I actually have been getting better assignments with more important and complex art descriptions.

To understand how to render the liquid, I'm looking at orange juice...

I'm sure I will sell a boatload of print of this guy... ;)

Also recently released are 2 cards for Magic the Gathering's new set "Dark Ascension".  

These are the second cards I've done, and it seems like they are fairly important and getting alot of exposure.  This is a "red eye" female shaman who turns into a wolf on a double-sided card.

 I'm really pumped to do more and I hope the AD keeps calling! (there's that fear again)

Lastly, there are a few upcoming events I'll be at.  I will be teaching another fantasy character drawing workshop in Edmonton Sat-Sun Feb.25-26th. Details are here.

Also, I'll be in Calgary at the Calgary Comic Expo in April in the artist alley selling my stuff.  Come on down to cowtown and visit me along with Stan Lee, Buck Rogers and the entire cast of Star Trek the Next Generation!

New Pathfinder art and tricks of the trade

I can now show some art I made in the summer for the just released Pathfinder game module "Ruby Phoenix Tournament"  This book has the adventurers take part in a martial-arts style tournament in an Asian-type fantasy setting.

Making these half-pagers is usually a balance between providing exciting art for the client and planning where to put your efforts to maximize the results in a short time frame. Often an art order can be 5 images requested on a relatively short deadline, so you need to have certain tools and tricks to get the job done fast.  I happen to have a very literal, rendered style at the moment, so I'm constantly employing 3-d models and other bits of reference to get the perspectives and realism needed for a consistent level of detail.

Below we see a quick 3-d modeled "set" that gives me the correct perspective and lighting for this multi-tiered fighting platform.  This may take an hour or so to build in the computer, but its way faster and more accurate than trying to draft the structure out in pencil.

The structure is then worked into the drawing of the 2 characters fighting.

 Similarly below, I've got a character running at us drawn without reference just using comic book construction techniques.  Since he's mostly clothed, I just need some information to flesh the head structure out at this angle...

Which is obtained by holding up a foam planar head model and snapping a quick photo.  It just worked out the character was bald and fairly generic anyways, so my foam head does the trick nicely.

If you've got a more graphic, cartoony or otherwise efficient style, I salute you.  If you're like me and have to "get it right", then employ whatever tricks you need to get the job done as a professional in your allotted timeframe.

New productivity tools

Like many people, I'm somewhat addicted to surfing the internet.  I have a handful of sites, including Facebook that I peek at many times per day, usually interrupting my workflow and concentration.  Its just so darn tempting to have your friends a mouse-click away or to be able to catch up on sports or news.

With 2 young boys at home, its becoming increasingly more important to stay on task and use my time efficiently.  For this reason I recently installed a browser plug-in for Google Chrome that sets limits to my surfing habits and cuts me off once I've wasted my allotted time limit.  Called StayFocused, you can quickly install this into your browser and tell the program how long you should be allowed to view a set of sites.

As seen below you can set the time frame and days of the week when you want this utility to be active.  This way you can have it free before and after work.

Once your time limit has been reached, a simple screen pops up instead of the website you were looking at. You can click the icon on the top right to see a counter of your remaining time, and the program warns you at 5 minutes and at 60 seconds before you are shut off.

There are other options for more thorough blockage as seen below.  I've liked having this tool installed for the past week, and its come in handy a few times, keeping me on task and productive.

If you don't use Chrome, I'm sure there are other similar utilities out there for other browsers.  If you are on a Mac, you can try Antisocial as a utility that blocks social networking sites. 

Another tool that I recently employed is the Spyder 3 monitor calibration tool.  I haven't been confident in my monitor colors lately due to some card art that printed quite a bit lighter than intended.  I work with 2 monitors; my primary Cintiq, which I paint on, and a secondary Dell monitor for my reference.  My Cintiq is quite a bit warmer (more magenta) than the Dell, which is much more green and higher-contrast.  The annyoing thing is that I think the Dell is more accurate, but its not the computer I'm actually looking at while doing my work, and I don't trust its high contrast look.  I've tried a few times to adjust the Cintiq to look the same as the Dell, but its always somewhat different and it just feels wrong.  

As seen above the Spyder is a mouse-sized device that plugs into you USB port.  Below we see how you hang it from the top of your monitor (there is a counter-weight) during the calibration process.  The device measures the ambient light hitting your screen then goes through a process of measuring various colored squares displayed on your screen.  Once finished, it tells your computer to use a custom color profile and changes how your display looks.  I was quite happy to see that just running this tool made my Cintiq look much more like my Dell, which I thought was more accurate, based on my prints.  

We also recently released a new podcast on our experiences at the recent Illuxcon Symposium.  For anyone interested in attending, have a listen!

http://drawntodaypodcast.blogspot.com/

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Drawn-Today-Podcast/194395403926048

OK, time for some art!  In recognition of the holidays, here are some Christmas cards (I guess you have to just say "happy holidays" if you're corporate) I made when I was at BioWare.  Yeah, they're old, but shooting Santa in the face is always timeless.

New-ish WOW card

So I just realized this morning some Warcraft cards I made a few months ago had been released without me realizing it.  It's tough to keep up on when stuff hits the street.

One of the diffucilties in making Warcraft art is that the provided reference is in-game models, which are often times confusing to decipher from a screenshot.  Below I show trying to figure out what the texture is telling me the costume is supposed to be.  Usually the in-game assets are pretty good, and I have a great appreciation for the modelers and texturers at Blizzard making tiny game models make sense while being creative under technical constraints.

And below is the final card art... With a bit of experience you get good at assuming what the game artists intended, but it's sometimes difficult to know when to be literal and when to extrapolate.

Illuxcon 2011

Well, I'm finally home and mostly rested from this year's installment of Illuxcon.  Billed as a symposium of fantastic illustration, this event brings artists, collectors, students and fans together for an orgy of art awesomeness.  Since this was the third year in a row for me attending, I was prepared to get less from the experience and to just enjoy the art and socialization.  I'm happy to say there was actually no "dip" in the quality or amount of return I received from attending.  While the first couple years I was just breaking into this field, this year I benefited from an equal mix of inspiration, technical advice, new friendships and professional contacts.   I made sure to talk to the people whom I had questions for or wanted to connect with, and was active in searching out answers to a new set of career questions.

Below we see photos of the main hall; as you can see there are a few paintings being shown...

The presentation I was most looking forward to was a demonstration by Petar Meseldžija on oil painting with emotional content. I learned a few valuable tips that I'm itching to try out in my next oils.

Petar's table at Illuxcon... the painting in the top left was my favorite of the entire show.  The way he carves out form and balances the loose and tight is nothing short of masterful.

A few feet away Donato Giancola has his table.  How cool is that?!

I met a new friend and fellow Shadowcore member, Chris Rahn, who is tearing up the card art scene.  This photo shows me interviewing him for an upcoming Drawn Today podcast.  Stay tuned!

Finally, we have Chris Rahn, myself, Chris Burdett, Anna Cristenson and Tyler Jacobson showing our Shadowcore flyer.  I hadn't met a couple of these folks, but the rapport and friendship was instant.  Thus is the magic of Illuxcon.

The last day of Illuxcon saw a big and exciting presentation from Pat and Jeannie Wiltshire, the organizers of Illuxcon.  Starting in 2013, Illuxcon will be moving to the larger city of Allentown Pennsylvania, which is close to Philadelphia and only 1.5 hours to NYC.  In addition, Illuxcon will be now hosted by the Allentown Art Museum, an exciting change of venue which will allow for a wider public audience and acceptance.  Other initiatives aimed at supporting the show and genre are a new panel of judges that include both a museum curator and president, the editor of International Artist magazine and modern master Michael John Angel, founder of the Angel Academy in Florence (the system that I have personally received training in). 

 The convergence and acceptance of fantasy illustration into the wider fine art market in inevitable with today's new and younger art buyers being more savvy and otherwise weaned on the products, franchises and visuals we are crafting.  Illuxcon is at the forefront of this transition and I'm looking forward to attending and helping in future events.  

Now I gotta paint!

Panicked pre-Illuxcon preparations

Sorry for not blogging lately, but I'm up to my eyeballs in work.  Since I will be going to Illuxcon in less than a week, I'm finishing up 3 images and 3 logos a week early.  On top of this, I have to get my show materials together, do yardwork, get a haircut...etc.

The past 2 years I have gone to this convention I was just breaking into freelancing, so the convention was an intense few days of research into how other successful artists make this career work. This year, I have steady clients, a large network of illustrator friends and less stress to break ground.  It'll be more of a good time vacation (much needed!) and a chance to plan my next steps.

I just ordered some banners online (they were cheaper than doing locally), so I would have them for Illuxcon and future local events. They just arrived at my friend's house in the US looking awesome! Another year and I'll be ready for the big time. :)

Anyhow, the blogging silence will soon be broken by pictures, podcasts, interviews and thoughts on the Illuxcon experience.  Just wait. :)