Airbrush Technique

Compiling my airbrush work thus far, from most recent (top) to earliest work (bottom). So far it's proven to be very time consuming, but extremely enjoyable the whole journey through and totally worth it in the end.

Aztec Antics

More Mexicantics! This time, an Aztec version of Zylix. He'll never look like this in his canon universe, but that doesn't mean I can't draw it anyway.

I've been listening to flamenco chillout, and don't ask me how, but it's always brought this idea upon me. Said idea wouldn't leave me alone for over a week, so I finally got it out of my system.

Mexicantics

Ballpoint pen sketches.

Raw Sketches

Well, I've had these doodles sitting on my system for a few months and since their conception I haven't really had the energy to go back and do much with them. The top is a sketch of my character Luka; he's a vigorous workaholic with a hole in his life, yet he's afraid to let even the prettiest stranger in to show him how to love again. The bottom is a sketch of Ramando (aka Zylix) in his slave uniform when he was under the command of a very wealthy man. I've yet to revamp the male slave's costume design, though I really look forward to doing do after the holidays.

A couple updates

Here are a couple of doodles I did and decided to spruce up a bit to make them presentable. Both were originally sketched with pen, and all the color is done in Photoshop CS5. The top is a sea turtle version of an alien race I've developed, a happy accident this sea turtle. The second are two chibis of a couple characters from the graphic novel I'm developing.

The Good King

This isn't something I would normally showcase, but I am very happy with the painting I did for the portrait on the right, so I thought it would be good enough for the blog. Metal, particularly polished metal, is one of my favourite materials to render in paint. I'm probably still not doing it 100% right, but the way light and shadow interact with its surface is just so mesmerizing and pretty.

Still working on my anatomy.

Speaking of costume design concepts, I don't think I ever put this one up on here yet. It's on my deviantART, though I must've been so busy at the time that I couldn't get around to updating here as well.

The Hunter

It is done. Progress shots are on my DeviantArt.

-Ali

Snow Beast Update

Opening up the canvas a little more. I'm learning not to be afraid to paint over, even at this point where I have already developed details.

Snow Beast

          Some progress captures of my latest sketch. Here we are with one of many designs of a yeti-sort monster I was assigned during a game project for a class. It was a lot of fun coming up with monsters and boss creatures. This one here lacks the more extreme fantasy elements that were implemented into some of the other concepts for the yeti. I might take up painting one of the others later after I finish this.

          Wish I had taken intermediate captures when I was fleshing out the fur details, but so often one gets into the rhythm you forget to pause a moment. Oh well, that's always a good sign anyway, now that I'm slowly getting back into drawing and painting. Not that I haven't been sketching, I have, but for a long time - since about March it seems - I never felt truly productive with my work. Now it feels like it's coming back. It's a very, very good feeling.

-Ali

Time is Running Out

          Updating as often as I can. Here we have my latest little fascination: clockwork arachnids. They were inspired by a rather obscure line from a song: "Time moves like spiders" I still don't know what the song writer meant by it, but this is my interpretation using clocks and spiders.

          It was a lot of fun learning about a few species of the widow genus that previously I hadn't known about. The Southern black widow and the brown recluse spider are most common in the area I live in, but a whole plethora of wonder opened up when I read a bit about the Northern black widow and the red widow. Such a beauty, the latter.

         I digress, to the sketch. Here we are with a humble old pocketwatch presenting his deadly siren with a prized, polished watch battery - because only one so vintage as he would think a mere battery is prized. Clockwork and the steampunk genre that encases all related things is still a little foreign to me as far as art is concerned, but nonetheless it's an intriguing one at that. More practice with gears and the like are in store.

Dragonfruit

Steps for this one are as follow. I changed her hairstyle last minute because I thought short spiky hair looked cuter on this particular girl, and went with the dragonfruit theme. I also continued to adjust that darned fruit hat because I wasn't sure if I wanted it to break the line of action or go with it. Obviously, I chose for it to compliment the gesture rather than counter it.

Into the Galaxy progress

Hello my pretties! Above is the finished piece. The time for goofing off and having fun is closed and now it's back to work. Hurrah. Below you can view the steps I took to get to the final piece. Enjoy loves!

Hello again, back to post some in-progress shots to show the steps I take in a piece. The above is still unfinished, waaaay unfinished, it's just what I have so far. The subject? Why, the Doctor of course! I'm always jumping around with methods of stylizing, partly because I don't want to get stuck in one specific style (if I haven't already) and partly because. . . well, I haven't yet found a style that feels right to me. Sometimes I feel like I'm wasting . . . "time".

In the meantime, I had a ton of fun drawing everyone's favourite Scotsman. His lanky frame proved challenging at the very least, considering I'm so used to putting actual meat on bones, thus making my characters fairly healthy if not beefy; and in all the irony I actually dislike the typical steroid muscle man, just doesn't appeal to me as fun to draw or attractive to look at when you've finished. Overly beefy figures like look like a pile of rocks methinks.

Any"Who" I digress. . . (Haha! I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.)

Progress shots of some good old fan art - something I don't make much of these days. I apologize for the small image resolution as these were taken from screencaps rather than saving the image and going back to shrink it down. Besides, all of you will get to see the end result in brilliant resolution once I'm finished.

Thumbnails first to figure out my composition. It's funny, being that art always has a mind of it's own. My original idea is nothing like what I ended up deciding on. Then it's off to roughing out gestures and blocking out the figure.

Again, thin spindly figures are challenging, but rather rewarding. Ah, before I forget I did work out how I could possibly stylize Tennant in the same document as a bit of a warm up so I didn't run into any dead ends.

That was fun, I still need a ton more practice on hands. So as I finish lines for our Doctor, it's time to conceive that pesky, technical, tedious TARDIS. I sketched the first passes by hand, but used Photoshop's help to draw perfectly straight and technical lines.

Aaaand then as I started putting the composition together I started to think. . .

Wait a minute. . . Now Tennant looks like he's really falling. Tragic, and not my intention at all. And what better way to see the picture than to turn it up side down?

There we are, much better. Now he looks like he's having fun listing off into the great depths of the universe rather than falling to his doom into the pit of vacuum blackness. I slapped down some color, constantly testing my palette to make sure the colors looked right against one another. I think I adjusted Tennant's skin color at LEAST seven times to find the right hue against all that spacey purple and blue. Color theory is a beautifully disastrous thing, and I love it.

Anyway, that's what I have for now. I'll probably put it aside to work on other things that need to get done. (And if it's of anyone's curiosity, the stars in the verrrrry top work in progress shot are courtesy of Nasa's snapshot of the gorgeous galaxy, Andromeda, though these are the stars and distant galaxies cut from the surrounding background in the shot.)

Ciao!

Time and Relative Dimension in Space

So first, and foremost, my first doctor. I jumped into the series a few years back and only got to catch the season 3 finale. Yes, the fifteen or so glorious minutes somewhere at the very end of the season 3 finale was my first taste of Doctor Who, and to say the least I was hooked almost immediately. However, as circumstances would have it, I couldn't compete for the TV when Doctor Who would air, so I waited until time would turn in my favour.

What is it. . . four years now? It certainly feels like four years, I can finally sit down and watch the entire series, as well as reap what I can from the older series from documentaries and summaries. Doctor Who has been my Avalon the last month or so while I get through a really stressful time. I've been hitting nasty art blocks, and there are just too many ideas that are missing out on being conceived while I battle blocks. So today I decided to slow things down. I've never drawn quite like this style before, but I'm beginning to like it.

Next, another Time Lord my sub-conscience whipped up one night when I was trying to sleep. It's whipped up two, actually, the second I've yet to rekindle the memory of what he looked like. Now mind you, this guy is not a regeneration, he's a separate character all his own, who had his own dimension that the Doctor stumbled across. There's so much more to the story but in short this guy mistook the Doctor to be a threat to his dimension and essentially bloodied up his mug. My mind is violent.

Wish I had more to update with, but like I said. . . art blocks galore. They're like mosquitoes, honestly. Where there's one there are bound to be more.

Housemaids

I have a few personal projects I'm working on. These two are examples of what one might find in a wealthy family's home in the 23rd century. In the story, people live in fear of the corrupt Empire, which terrorizes the planet and has made a new world market on human trafficking far greater than ever before.

In wealthy homes, slave owners can afford organization for their servants. This includes dress uniform unique to the owner's liking, and for one home in particular, you can see what sort of uniforms those might be.

More is yet to come. You can read the prologue to this story here. It's broken down into short chapters for the ease of reading now and then. It is still in the works of being completed, just one or two chapters left to go now, then I'll get to work on the next installment.

Kneel

      Shots of a sketch I'm working on in between other projects and work. I'm still playing with line quality and variance, but I think Photoshop isn't the problem. I might have to go in an adjust my pen pressure sensitivity settings in the hardware to get the nice sweeps I'm used to with traditional pens and inks.

      I want to tell you all about this sketch, but I can't yet. If you're interested in the story behind this character, I encourage you to read my short short novel, "Of Myth and Mendacity" which can be found on my deviantART. Click here to set forth on your journey with our desert slave, Ramando, as he risks his own life in search of the rumored safe havens - "underground railroads" of the Arabian sands, with only alleged stories as his guide.

So another update, look who's back! Aye, Zylix (or Ramando as some may know him).

I wanted to try out a coloring technique inspired by modern American comics.

I'll admit, Zylix is a bit out of character here, since in the story, for a fugitive slave to reveal his brand is certainly a deadwish upon another deathwish, on the finest cheap china in the cabinet. But I couldn't resist! I had to make a visual connection between Ramando in the past, and him later when he takes on the name Zylix instead. (And that my pretties will be explained in the graphic novel he stars in).

Below is my process. I didn't get a snapshot of the entire body, but oh well, these will do methinks.

Red Riding Hood

I finally found some time to finish this. Now to print it this weekend and send it off to New York!

Anonymous Art Trade Progress

I've been super busy with a storyboard class and a 3D animation class, but now that I am finished with them, I finally got some time to work on an anonymous art trade I joined on DeviantArt.com. We submitted private messages to the host of this whole art trade, and she paired us up, sending back our art trade buddy and their general interests. For mine, I received a buddy who would like to see Red Riding hood, Sci-Fi, and a good-looking body ;) hehe

So I whipped up this quickie. This is still a work in progress, I intend on getting it polished before I print it and mail it off.

The Empire's Slave

At last! It is finished! Now I can go back to working on my classwork, heehee.

When I first laid down the black and white tones, I had a feeling I wanted to go with something dramatic, and certainly something to add to the irony that this guy is so calm with a scorpion on him. (For the arachnid nerds out there, you may notice it happens to be a deathstalker scorpion; only the deadliest of it's kind. Good for you! )

So here we are with a little baroque influence.

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Quick studies to get in the rhythm and also have a better understanding of the neck when the head tilts back. I got my reference images from DeviantArt. Up at the top are work-in-progress captures.