Mass Effect 3 - Commander Jessica Sheppard

BioWare recently announced Mass Effect 3. Now I am a big fan of the Mass Effect series, definitely one of my top favorite games. Even though the game doesn't come out until next holiday season, I decided to do a drawing Commander Sheppard to get in the mood. I am also a fan of Jessica Chobot, host at IGN, and she is also a big Mass Effect fan as well. So I decided to draw Commander Sheppard as Commander Jessica Sheppard. For those that don't know Mass Effect you can create your own "Commander Sheppard" you don't have to play as the one you see on commercials and other videos. I don't know if I capture her likeness as well as I wanted, but I still like the drawing.



Here is a painting of Thane and Grunt from the series I did as well, I posted them awhile ago on my blog, thought I would re-post them again in the spirit of ME3. I will probably do another painting of one of the characters sometime shortly after I get some other work out of the way. Maybe one of Legion?

Wednesday Zoo Drawings

My friends and I went zoo drawing today. I almost wasn't going to go, I over slept and forgot about it because I was up late last night painting and have tons of work to do today. But I got myself up and out the door. I haven't done much zoo drawing lately and it shows, sketches are not as strong as they used to be. I am hoping after the holiday break I will get back into it more, its always fun to go to the zoo and sketch. The takin I sketched was from last week or so when I was there and the rest are from today.

Ho Ho Ho!

In painting class on Tuesday we had a model that dressed up as Santa Clause and yes that beard is real! I haven't painted in over a month and probably several months since I have done a portrait painting, got to say that I am quite pleased with how this turned out, had some help from Meadow of course!

Life Drawings

I have been slacking a little on updating my blog that last couple weeks. Here are some recent life drawings. The portrait I did last night. I hadn't drawn a portrait in awhile now so I thought it would be a good idea to do that. I also haven't used the conte pencil in awhile as well. I have been using wolfe carbons recently and I got to say after using the conte again I miss it.

2 New Still Life Studies

These are 2 still life paintings I did when I was back in upstate NY for a wedding a couple weeks ago. These are also done in the Zorn palette. This time though, since cad red was so expensive, I pick up a random red color that I thought looked similar. At first I was unsure of how this new red color would work as I was used to using cad red light. This new red turned out fine (I think its called Grumbacher Red), basically what I am getting at is that you don't necessarily need an exact color palette to paint with, as long as you have basic colors, just paint and practice.

King Cesar!

Here is a drawing of King Cesar (from a photo) one of Godzilla's buddys. This originally was going to be 3 hour sketch like the Godzilla sketch I posted earlier but turned out to be a 15 hour or longer rendering. Unfortunately I couldnt get a good scan of it, did some digital touch ups, but still doesn't compare to the original drawing. I got to say that I am really happy with this drawing.

Godzilla Sketch

Here is a sketch of Godzilla that I did from a photo I found online. I believe it is from Godzilla 2000. I used to love Godzilla when I was growing up. Unfortunately I have only seen a couple movies after Godzilla 1985, so I am not familiar with the "newer" stuff.

Figure Drawings

Here are 3 figure drawings. The 2 female drawings were done at Watts Atelier, from life and about 3 hours long. The male is from a Russian book, about 6 hours.

Happy Halloween

Skull sketch. I really want some candy right now.

Unfinished Skull

Had to take pic down, the image got bought.

Like I have mentioned before I have been doing work for Remetee, drawing skulls and such. Since I can't show my work, at least for a long time, I decided to do one for fun. Typically I do them on bristol paper with pencil, for this I wanted to do one on black paper with white pencil for fun, but this should give you a basic idea of what I do for them. I also had my friend Kathy sketch a little on it for the head design, she sketched something abstract and I took what she had and turned it into the pattern on the forehead.

More Bridgeman - Torsos

Just some studies I did from Bridgeman. I will probably head back to doing more Master study anatomy trace overs for the next few studies I do.

Bridgeman Legs

Just a few anatomy studies from the Bridgeman book.

2 More Paintings

Here are 2 more paintings don in Zorn Palette. I am so glad that new classes start this week at Watts Atelier!

Sea Shell Painting - Zorn Palette

Small painting I did the other day. Got 2 more paintings to post but they are wet still. I don't think I have mentioned this yet, but I do most of my still life paintings and many of my portrait paintings in Zorn Palette. The Zorn Palette comes from the artist Anders Zorn. It consists of Ivory Black, Titanium White, Yellow Ocre, and Cad Red Light. You can also use Blue Black in place of Ivory Black. Sometimes I have both blacks out, I like the blues I can get with Blue Black, but I also like the warmer dark's I can get with Ivory Black. For this painting I used just the Blue Black. Anyways the reason I like to use this palette is because for me I just focus on value and warm or cool. With only 4 colors, you will not be able to color match, you will only get within range, but it is still amazing what you can do with only 4 pigments. I also feel like working this way has helped me see color better, so when I have to use more pigments, I have an easier time figuring out what I have to mix and make my judgments more on warmth and value rather than a specific color.

Gorillas and Takins

Just got back from the zoo with a couple of friends. Today we drew takins and gorillas. I got to say that I had a good time drawing and pretty happy with all of these sketches. Most the time I am lucky if I get one I feel good about, but today I like them all.

Skulls and Anatomy

I haven't painted much lately so I decided to sit down and paint a couple of funky skulls from life. I will be starting to work on a personal illustration piece soon and I want it to be all done in oil. So I had to pick up the slack and do some practice, even though painting from life is a completely different process than painting an illustration, I still find that doing life studies to be very helpful. Probably will see a bunch more studies in the coming weeks. Also here are some anatomy studies that I have done recently for the anatomy thread I have going on The Illustration Board. Right now I am the only one posting, feel free and participate its always more fun when others do. These studies were traced over from old master drawings out of the Anatomy Lessons from the Great Masters.

Remetee

So I have been doing pencil illustrations for the clothing brand Remetee. They make designer clothing, mainly shirts which have a lot of grit to them. This has been a lot of fun for me because I get to draw cool looking skulls. But besides just drawing cool skulls and what not, something that this job has helped me improve upon has been my design skills. There are a lot of ornamental design shapes within the shirts, which is something I normally don't draw or think about. So what I am hoping is that when I go to create a fantasy painting now I will have a better design sense and create more interesting looking armor, props, weapons, etc., but also create a more interesting flow to my compositions. Here are some of their shirts which have my skulls on them, unfortunately I am not allowed to post the actual drawings.

New Figure Drawings

Figure drawings from this last semester. Range from an hour and a half to six hours. The 2nd one down is from a photo from an unknown source.