Godzilla Revisit

So almost a year ago I did a Godzilla painting where he is fighting Mecha Godzilla. Well I went back to that painting and did some digital work on top of it, making Godzilla more rough and scaly. So here is the new painting, below is the original.

Figure Paintings!

So this last semester at Watts Atelier I took a figure painting class. Now I haven't done figure painting in 4 or 5 years, lots of portrait and still life, but not figure. These were done in Sir Erik Gist's class, yes he has been knighted by the unholy undead, scary stuff... Anyways the class was quite the challenge and a lot of fun. Paintings wouldn't have come out as nice if it wasn't for his help. The girl sitting was done in broader range palette and the other two were done in Zorn palette. Paintings were done in 6-9 hours.

More Arms

Arm studies from today.

Anatomy - Arms

Some anatomy studies I did today. I wanted to focus on doing just arms. I have been slacking on my anatomy studies and I need to do more of them. I am waiting for one more painting to dry and then I will post some figure paintings from class.

Anatomy

I havent posted in a few weeks mainly due to the fact that I have been in a drawing rut. I feel like I cant draw well and the last several life drawings I have done I have not been happy with. I haven't done any anatomy studies in some time, so I thought I should do some and finally update my blog. I do have some life paintings that need to be posted as soon as I get the chance to photograph them I will do it. I probably should shave my face too, I haven't done that in awhile as well, maybe that's why I feel like I cant draw lately, cant focus cause of the itch.

Sketches From The Zoo

I went to the zoo today with a few friends to do some sketching. I felt like I had a real good zoo sketching day. First one in a long time. A bunch of these sketches are from previous trips. The monitor lizard is one from today that I am happy with.

Figure Drawing Fun

Figure drawing I did last night at Watts Atelier. As hard as figure drawing is, it has never been anything that I have stressed over. Its usually fun and relaxing for me. Anytime you are faced with a short drawing session though you should never beat yourself up over it, just be happy if you render out a cool eye, or just get a strong foundational lay in. In the end its just practice and it should be fun.

Costume Figure Drawing and Anatomy Study

Costume figure drawing I did on Friday at Watts Atelier. I spent the whole 3 hours trying to figure out the forms and structure of the drapery. Right now rendering is not a huge concern for me, but learning how to analyze what is going on in the figure and trying to draw it 3 dimensionally with just line is. Rendering can often be a crutch in an attempt to make your drawing look better when in actuality it doesn't. The drapery was very difficult to capture, while I like what I did here, following the folds was tough, especially since they changed substantially after each sitting.

Mas Anatomía

More anatomy studies. With the 2nd piece I wanted to try to get a more anatomy feeling to them and less of a diagram feeling while still trying to retain the 3d look to them.

Yesterday's Figure Drawing

Figure drawing that I did last night. I am real happy with the way it turned out. I just wish I had more time to spend on the feet, the only part I don't like. Next time I am going to make sure I have a more solid drawing down first, so if I don't get the chance to render it, at least the drawing part of it will look good.

Drawn in Black Interview

I did an interview about my art on the web site www.drawninblack.com, here is a link to the interview, http://www.drawninblack.com/2011/01/the-drawing-is-the-most-important-part-interview-with-matt-k-smith/

Anatomy and Structure Studies

Here are some tracings I have done over old master drawings. Basically taking their drawings which tend to be ambiguous and trying to find the anatomy and structure to give them a more solid 3d look to them. This is a very good way to learn anatomy and structure, it is like solving a puzzle and gets the brain thinking.

Figure Drawings

Here are 2 new figure drawings I did at Watts Atelier, one from yesterday and one from last friday. I think this semester I am going to mostly work on linear figure drawings really to to nail down 3 dimensionality of structure and form with mostly lines. I feel that this is much more difficult, it forces you to really analyze what is going on when drawing the figure. When you have a stronger understanding of the forms, rendering will become much easier and you will have a better idea of how to pull your lines and strokes.

Ochocinco

Here is an oil painting I did of Chad Ochocinco from a photo I found online. I have enjoyed the commercials he has done this last year, especially the one where he is playing the NFL game on Wii and he gets beaten by some other guy playing the game. This painting was also done with the Zorn palette as well. The Next painting I have in mind I will be moving away from the Zorn palette and probably be painting with 10 or so colors instead of the 4 used in Zorn. I am doing a few "warm up" paintings before I tackle a bigger personal piece I have been working on, just practicing painting more refined images that life painting doesn't allow for and concentrating on creating interesting brush work.

Portrait Drawing

Here is a portrait drawing I did last semester at Watts Atelier. Class starts next week, cant wait for it to start. I will be taking a figure painting class, haven't done that in ages.

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.