mmmmmmmmm Sketchbook (updates just about daily)

[J]

Roll up, roll up! Welcome to the most glorious things to pierce your gaze.
Help point me in new directions and give me constructive crits. It all helps.
Enjoy,
J

[humanNature6115]

Are these poses from ref.
If so, keep workin hard.
If not, good stuff.



=================================
:mittenbop: :mittenbop: :mittenbop: Sketchbook:mittenbop: :mittenbop: :mittenbop:
http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=120761

[J]

Thanks humanNature. About 75% of them are from reference. The first 10 and some other random ones throughout are all from inside my head.

Here is what I did in the last hour. A little idea I had.

[Hexokinase]

Not a bad start. Now keep drawing and welcome to CA :)

[KingCobra00]

Looks good so far! One thing though, at the top of the liquid in the last image, maybe shade the background inside the head above the liquid so you can distinguish the highlight a little bit more. Just a suggestion.

[J]

Thank you both. I made some changes to my Cheiken, gave it some colour. What do ya think?

[Hexokinase]

The form of the eyeballs doesn't seem to read too well. Also, I'd worry about edge control, for the edges are too uniformly crisp and sharp. Elwell has an edges tutorial in his sig - check it out sometime.

[dchan]

welcome and good start!

[Hive_minD]

You need a floating brain in there ;)
Great stuff, take care

Chris

[J]

Thanks for the comments.
Havoc-DM - Cheers for the crit. I'll make sure I think about that in future.
Man I'm frustrated. I just don't seem to be able to get in the mood to draw.
Here are some sketches I did today.

[J]

got some photographs of some recent pencil sketches :

[J]

Did this one a few months ago.
Creepy alien that actually looks like genitals. Ha.

[Peter_K]

Nice work. Your faces are especially well done. You seem to have a good grasp of proportion. The shading could probably be a little more subtle though.
And I have to say, nothing I like better than a good old-fashioned hermaphroditic-genital-head-alien-thing.
...um, maybe substituting "creeps me out" for "I like" might be closer to the truth.
Keep up the good work.

[J]

Peter_K - thanks mate. I'll definitely keep the shading in mind in future.

Here are some more sketches. I don't have a scanner so I photograph them. The values aren't always portrayed very well.
First is a line drawing from life. Second some random stuff while free drawing. And last is a small study with shading technique. I'm trying to think about planes a bit more and use line and hatching to achieve form. More practice is needed.

[ditchman]

that portrait from life is good. i like a lot of the portraits. that chicken creature's head looks a bit skewed try flipping it and looking again (unless it's meant to be skewed, in which case ignore me)

[J]

ditchman - Thanks man. Personally I think the portraits and pencils need more work. I'v just got to practice more. Believe it or not the chicken is meant to be a bit lopsided. It doesn't read all that well - I probably could have exaggerated it a bit more.

So here's 50 more gestures for this week. Started thinking about making them more dynamic. Showing some movement.

[J]

quick robot paint - trying to get some feeling in my work through colour.

[J]

OK, I haven't posted in a while but I have heaps of stuff to pose. I'v been doin lifedrawing classes. These are just the beginnings of great things to come.

[J]

ooooohhhh sketches sketches sketches. Lookin more at my mark making and trying to put in less strokes to describe the same thing. I still need more mork but I can definately see improvement from my previous posts.

[J]

more more more. Some more life drawing. I just started reading the book by Henry Yan on charcoal drawing. Amazing! I got to apply some of his techniques to the last two which I did last night. I like charcoal now

[ditchman]

those life drawings look really good to me especially the last one,
the first girls neck looks to be a little thick though.

[algenpfleger]

Kickass gestures man! Wish mine were half as fluid.

[J]

Thanks algenpfleger and ditchman. I have been trying to get more feeling in my work through gesture. A teacher told me that a piece will be much stronger and says a lot more if you can nail the gesture. I'm really enjoying using charcoal now. I've been reading more of Henry Yan's Figure Drawing book. Here's my latest done last week.

[RandAlThor]

Nice pencils dude, and i love those creature heads... but don't do what i do and never give them bodies, lol.. ;-)

[J]

Thanks RandAlThor. I'm definately keeping that in mind whe i draw now. Gotta draw more bodies.

Here's 2 more pages. The second is my favourite thus far.

Thanks for looking

[J]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmore!

[J]

Some alien city sketch I'm thinkin of painting

[ditchman]

I like it, maybe some big rocks in the foreground would be cool?

[J]

thanks ditchman for the idea. It's still really rough but a few fore ground elements will help give it depth.


sluggy quick sketch

[madhatter106]

Great stuff in here. I especially love the little quick gestures - I could look at page after page of them, they're all swell. The "genital" alien looks great, too - great color and painting. Keep up the good work :)

[madhatter106]

Great stuff in here. I especially love the little quick gestures - I could look at page after page of them, they're all swell. The "genital" alien looks great, too - great color and painting. Keep up the good work :)

[J]

madhatter106 - Cheers, I have to get back to doing those each week. Been a bit slack lately


New portrait I'm working on. Need to improve my painting skills

[luciano kassa]

great work!
you are in the right way....
good luck!

[J]

update on that fat portrait. Just detailing the body. I feel the head is just about done. Any crits are welcomed

[ditchman]

looks good, maybe the eye looks a bit too white?

[J]

thanks for the crit ditchman. I have changed the whole picture into an eagle hunter. I am going to leave the eyes the way they are at the mo and possibly change them at the end. I'm kinda happy with them at this stage. Still needs a fair bit of work.

Crits are welcome.

[J]

finished this one today. Took way too long. I have to get out of pushing the paint around in circles. More ref too.

Eagle Hunter

[D@niel]

Great work on you studies!! THis last painting turned out well too!!:)

[RokasButkys]

The Eagle guy looks great ! I especialy like the colors :)
Bring some more.

[J]

Thank you both very much.

I have been practicing my charcoal drawings as well. Here's some of my latest.

[J]

Another charcoal this time a portrait study and a photoshop study using a big soft brush. Thinking of stroke economy.

[J]

Some pencils I've been meaning to put up for a while.
The third page has a Dan Milligan gesture copy in the bottom left, and a face from shakeyourface[dot]com. If your looking for crazy faces I suggest you check that out. Fourth page, top right, another copy but I forget who the artist was. I thought it used line pretty nicely. The last one, the cosmonaut, started out as a copy off James Gurney on his site the gurney journey (full of usefull info) then I mixed it up, changed the head, added legs, and changed some of the decals.

Thanks for looking. I'd love to hear any constructive crits.

[ditchman]

love the cosmonaut. though he is about 10 heads high, and the knees look a bit low (though I suppose they could be anyware)

[kelly x]

you have mad skills!!! like baby bird and the vile/head the best - figure study stunning and carries through to your characters!

[thespianmonsalvo]

Phenomenal work! The gesture drawings are really great, and your faces are amazing. I feel like the last one - the guy with the hawk - has too much color? Almost as if they're competing with each other too much?

[J]

ditchman - thanks, I can see the flaws in it now. I agree hat the head is too small. I also think the feet could have been made a bit larger too.

kelly x - Thank you, I must revisit that creature at some point and add the body etc.

thespianmonsalvo - I'v been practicing my faces/heads quite a bit lately. I'm glad you like them. The guy with the hawk is definitely over saturated. It's all a learning curve. Thanks for the crit, each one helps.

So I have started doing the challenges in the challenge forum.
The first is "the clockwork heart". Kind of my first stab at industrial design. I would have liked to include a top view to clarify it a bit more. Also put an ornate grill over the gears and a pattern etched into the brass. Might re-visit it soon.
The second is a design for Dr. Watson, Sherlock Holmes' sidekick. I just wanted to stick with a younger more traditional take on him. He feels a little boring to me. I think it would have worked better if i put him in some situation that illustrated his character better. Lessons learnt and progress made.
The others are WIP's for Watson, some silhoettes etc.

[J]

this weeks COW, thought I'd give it a go. here's a WIP. final should be done tomorrow. Trying some new things like low perspective and 2 light sources. Happy so far.

J

[J]

finished this sucker today. Stoked
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[Max Martelli]

When I came into this thread, I saw the words genital alien and I needed to look further. The stuff looks pretty good. I like what you've been doing. The eagle hunter looks good. I can't help but think that the tatoo looks a little wierd. It's probably the perspective but it almost seems like it isn't a part of him.

I like the strange walker as well. I like how you have someone riding him. The legs are very interesting, very finger like. I imagine that could be a bumpy ride. Keep doing what your doing.

[J]

Max Martelli - thanks for stopping by and giving some input. Appreciated.

Some new ones done for this weeks CHOW, I think I missed the deadline though. Stilgar, one of the characters from Dune. Thought I'd take a different approach on this one. In total including the silhouettes, about 8 hours.

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[J]

Painted this butcher today, just used ref for the facial expression. Trying to get some movement and emotion into it. I reckon it was pretty successful.
**updated - defined the hand and back leg a bit better

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[ditchman]

yeah, it looks good - stilgar is nice too

[J]

50 gestures in silhoette form. Starting to capture more movement me thinks.

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[loveandasandwich]

woaahhhhh love that butcher.
good stuff, keep it up. :sungod:

[bouroune]

yo
excellent stuff, your pencils are great, definately love your gestures and nudes, really like the butcher too, keep it up!

[J]

here's some life drawings I have completed over the last couple of weeks. I'v got some sketches to post just need to get them ready.

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J

[Clochette]

Good charcoals here! The portrait with few brushstrokes is really nice! :)

[J]

new Sketchbook stuff
the soldier is originally by Dan Milligan. He's got some really nice work.
The last one I want to render out nicely in photoshop. We'll see if that happens though.

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[Lakka]

Nice sketchbook, keep it up!

[J]

Right some new stuff I've been doin over the last month. Trying to learn some colour theory. Looking at everything with new eyes. I have been looking at a lot of artists and trying to understand how they use colour, value form etc. If you can see something I'm missing let me know, I'm always open to critique.

C-Walk Polar Bear - just a real quickie but it has something I like.
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colour study of the old wacom pen holder
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Colour study from a photo of an old man
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I also tried some more character design trying to focus on colour and all that. I think the first was more successful than the second.
Silhouettes
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and the last is a dwarf heavily based on a character done by Cannibalcandy. If you haven't seen this guys work I recommend it. It was originally a study to see how he uses colour so well. I mixed it up a bit and turned it into this.
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[J]

More sketches - got my hands on a moleskine - so different to sketch in.
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Stoked how this one turned out -
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[J]

I've been messing around with my camera lately, especially while I was on holiday in the South Island. Got a new lens that takes nice portrait photos. Here's are a few. I've got more to come later.

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J

[J]

more photo's.

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This kid did some awesome poses by the swimming pool.

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[J]

quick head study looking at color. Used one of coro's portraits as reference.
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[J]

some more studies. Looking at color and trying a Alla Prima kind of thing with Photoshop.

tree
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selfportrait
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[bouroune]

yo man, thx for the words, the last studies are really nice and i love your pencils, i'll come again!

[serio]

What can I say watching so many awesome works. I wish to have so softness and flow in paintings like yours. Eh..

[J]

started oil painting last week. Haven't touched any since high school 5 years ago. It's so much fun, relaxing. I just want to paint and paint and paint.

this one I found kind of hard because I couldn't determine the temperature of the light/shadows. I found it really hard to make her look 3d. Just a study any ways:
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This one was really fun. It just kept flowing. Felt really good throughout the whole thing. Still had a bit of an issue with temperatures. Can't wait to do more.
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[BlightedArt]

Hey mate, awesome sketchbook you have here. I just flew up to Wellington from Dunedin to study, where abouts in NZ are you from? :)

[J]

Thanks BlightedArt, I'm actually based in Wellington as well, you should come to life drawing on tuesdays and thursdays in town. PM me if you're keen.

here's some life drawings from the other night. Haven't done any since last year.

5 minutes
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10 minutes
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20 minutes
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J

[towy]

impressive pics, and your line an oil are really good too :)
keep up

[J]

thanks for the comments

new one for this mornin:

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[J]

and another hot of the lead

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[J]

life drawing last night. Mixed results, but I learnt stuff to apply next time.

5 minute poses
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10 minute poses - pencil for a change, concentrating on planes and stroke direction.
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20 min - I'm liking the butt but I made the arms too short. Better next time
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20 min - Ran out of time on this one. I think I need to define my shadow side from the start and then work from the darkest darks. Good practice any who.
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J

[J]

So lately I have also been doing panorama's with my camera. It's great when I'm in a tight spot and my lens isn't wide enough to catch what I want. Here's a few to show, nothing amazing yet but some good reference none the less.

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I'm pretty pleased with the way this one turned out
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Did this one lat night with my tripod at hand. This is my favorite for now. Need to go and explore more things at night.
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[Stephen Mason]

loving the charcoal drawings. Very energetic. love the photography also. x

[The Crazy Dude SRD]

Awesome stuff here J, just awesome... I really enjoy the portraits (don't matter the medium) and you have just helped me out with preparing panoramic pics, thanks!

-Shawn

[J]

new study from today ~ 1 hour. More life drawings to post but I'll get round to that some other time.

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[doncam]

Nice SB mate, love your figure work. Keep posting

[KidApe]

Hey there, I'm glad I opened up this sketchbook because you handle colors quite well, I'm really enjoying your painted portraits. Your latest update is very nice so keep me updated=D

[J]

wa wa wee woo, thanks for the encouragement.
New study for today ~ 2 hours, bit more sketchy than the previous.

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[Josef K.]

nice studies! like the portraits! the last one's great!

[J]

thanks for the appreciation.

new one. Rock monster.

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[J]

some more sketch book goodies.
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[donalfall]

Hey, great SB. Really like Post #72 - from Feb 9th - the girl in the coat. You have a nice line in Life Drawings as well. Nice work dude.

[J]

environment sketch

[J]

mark making practice
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[J]

another environment. Gunna start to do more of these and figure the ins and outs of environment design. Wooop!
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[J]

Long time no post,

quick study from yesterday.
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[Cerasela]

Some good work in here ,especially i like the expressions of the character faces , keep posting
want to see more pencil work ;P

[J]

Thanks Cerasela, I have a bunch of pencils and charcoals that I need to photograph. I'll get round to posting them eventually.

Heres a study for today. Concentrating on less contrasting tones to explain form. Pretty happy with the results.
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[J]

New one for today, quick study/environment.
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[J]

two more for today.

first is a quick sketchy environment.

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the second is a clown that just popped out of me 'ed.

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[J]

so I'm thinkin about entering the new born contest 'cus of the fame and glory. Wurd. Been mulling over an idea for over a week now and I think i might have something worthy. So I put together some thumbs of what I want to do, my aim here is to get the readability of the image working as well as possible then I'll move on to some other sketches for it. I'm favouring 14 at the mo with 16 being my second choice. It has nothing to do with "New Born" literally but it kind of relates to "bringing something into the world". I'll explain when I get closer to a finished product.

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[ditchman]

14 was my favourite too - I didn't read It was yours till after I decided ... I think 4 is second place for me though - good luck anyway

[J]

cheers Ditchman, I think I'll need some luck.

New one from my sketchbook:

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[J]

one for today, self portrait in oil.

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[J]

here's an update on my competition piece. Just did a more detailed sketch to get ideas down and look at value etc. I think i might explore some other ideas as well.

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[ditchman]

that self portrait is ace... I always thought that your avatar was your face...


...naw, just kidding (though mine is me)

[J]

new one for today:

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[ATAnderson]

Been a busy boy eh? Still really digging that city one man. Would be cool to see other parts of the city in the same mood/pallete.

Keep it up mang!

ATA

[J]

cheers brotha!

Here's an update on my new born piece. Keeping a lot of the ideas I had before but putting them into something quite different from what I originally planned.


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[J]

alla prima alla prima alla prima

I got this one out today. Took about just under 3 hours. It was really nice to use my new big brush to get some nice thick strokes and be a bit more expressive.

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[J]

update on my newborn. Not a whole lot of change, just tweaking the composition and now i'm onto rendering and adjusting values to get everything in harmony.

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[RokasButkys]

The skull painting looks great, i like to mess with big brushes too, makes you wild :D
In my opinion the newborn needs more colors, nevertheless composition and hands are great.

[J]

cheers doctor pencil. I'm trying to keep the colour pretty muted in the background so it has that sense that it is further away. It still needs work.

Speedy for today:

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[J]

quicky for today. Inspired by Black Frog:

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[Jesus Food]

nice sb man, i love ur abilities. that pic of the dude with the black eye-holes reminds me of coraline for.. some reason

[ditchman]

that last one has a nice atmosphere. Also I only just figured out that the newborn guy's halo is a traffic crossing thing, funny.

[Ana Diella]

The new born piece is astonishing but i cant get my finger at it, is he evil or good D:?
Reminds me of those people that seem very sweet on the outside(and are desirable by everyone) but on the inside they are black...or maybe i got it all wrong.

Care to ellaborate :D?

Ill watch your awsomeness.

[J]

ditchman: Thanks man, Yea the halo is a crossing light. I used that because I wanted to give a reality to all the elements in the piece.

Ana Diella: I wouldn't say awesome but it will be one day. The subject in the newborn piece is supposed to be good. I'm trying to show his eyes opening to the world around him hence the big black pupils. It's all about realizing truth and the way of life. There are a lot of other ideas in there that relate to that as well.

Here's an update on the New Born, is over on the contest forum as well.
I'm in two minds about ripping it apart and trying to make it better or just
persevering and finishing it.

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And just a quickie for tonight. Spider bot:

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[J]

denanananananana FISH MAN!

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[safesheep]

digital stuff is looking better and better all the time, but I have to say I'm really loving your oil paintings, more please?

[blexano]

Cool stuff in here.
I like that clown character!

We seem to have the same face expression book by Mark Simon! ^^

Keep it up!

[theories]

dang man, awesome stuff! keep it up

really liking your colouring and your colour schemes

[J]

thanks for the comments,

here's an update on the new born piece. Totally revamped the face. It's almost there.

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[ditchman]

loads better, perfect expression on his face

[J]

Cheers Ditchman

here's the final piece.

"We"

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[Cavematty]

Hey man, really great stuff.
I can see you've been working at it lately, and it's really paying off.
Great newborn pic. Good move on repainting the face. The final is stellar!
Really cool stuff, and glad you are in the headspace that the picture implies. Great way to be. Will join you guys for lifedrawing one of these days!

Matty

[zou]

this last one is simply great !

[J]

Cavematty - Cheers man, I quite enjoyed doing that piece and infusing it with as much meaning as I could. I think it works way better than most of my other stuff for that reason alone.

zou - thanks.

New photo for today. Got this one down by this garden pond. Just captured the right moment. The textures on him turned out really nicely as well.

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[J]

quick sketch, playing with textures and a few new techniques:

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[J]

quickie for today:

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[J]

Another photo:
"Zodiac"

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[J]

Here's some photo's I did a few months ago for a couple of hair dressers. It was for the Wella Trend vision competition. Hired a studio so we had way more control over the kind of image you get. I'm pretty happy with the way they turned out considering I've never used studio lights before.

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[J]

For the past month I have been working hard on getting my portfolio website up and running. Finally I have got it to a stage that I would call it finished. The aim is to keep it as up to date as possible with my latest work in each category.

Here it is:

http://www.jpaice.com (http://www.jpaice.com/)

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[ditchman]

nice website... is it wrong that I thought the injured cat was a bit funny?

[J]

ditchman, cheers man, you might wanna get that checked out though. hahaha.

So new one for today, a robot man man from the not so distant past:

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[J]

Here's some photographs I did a while back.

Low Tide:

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Seal:

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This is actually a photograph straight off the camera and cropped. No Photoshop. Flash photography can produce some awesome images.

Spirit:

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[J]

Study from photo:

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[J]

New one for today:

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[Cup_of_Tea?]

Great sketchbook. Now, I feel like I know what I should be doing, thanks

[J]

Woah, it's been a while.

Here's a study:

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And a mock up for a painting I want to do in oils. I've been looking at Kim Cogan's work. It's amazing. Hopefully I will do a whole series like these.

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[J]

here's another mock up for an oil painting

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[J]

and another mock up just done.

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[J]

Sketch for today. I'd like to keep going on this and make it a good quality piece.

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[J]

forest study:

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[J]

Even better forest study. It started out as a study of Fallen Monarch's by William Bliss Baker then evolved from there.

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[J]

Quick face study, super fun!

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[Kambei Shimada]

Hi man, Really nice sketchbook!

Youve got a great variety of stuff here. I'm really liking your sketching style.

Keep Posting!

[J]

Some thumbnail sketches for a job I'm doing at the mo.

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[Janos]

Hi there,
The first thumb feels the best to me. Its not as static as the other ones.
Also your environments haev a very nice feel to them. Good job. I would love to be at your level of environments!

[Parsakoira]

Nice work there! Do you mind if I use some of your photos as references? thank you :)

[J]

Janos - Thanks so much for the kind words. I quite liked the first one as well but the direction has changed now and I'm focusing more on the fisherman.

Parsakoira - I don't mind if you use my photo's as reference as long as it is not used for commercial work. I'd love to be attributed as well.

Here is an update on the piece I'm working on at the mo. I have changed the focus to Maui, who is the main character on this legend where he fishes up the North Island on New Zealand. Added some symbolism and culture to make a more meaningful piece. I'd love some feed back.

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[Jamie Romoser]

Beautiful sketchbook :yum:
keep it up ill be staying tuned
-Jamie

[paperX]

great sb man! surprised I haven't posted here before, btw why is everyone in wellington *sigh* :P

[J]

OmertA - Cheers.

paperX - Thanks paperX. I guess most NZ people are in Wellington because it has quite a large art community. There's not a lot of work here at the mo so I am probably gunna head off somewhere else soon so I can actually earn a living.

So here is the final of the Maui piece. I ended up painting around in circles on the last one I posted so I simplified everything, got some proper reference and put this one together. Just goes to show you need to feel good about what you are doing and you have to have reference. I have been looking at Jon Foster's work quite a bit lately and he has definitely influenced this piece. I am quite pleased with the result and as a bonus I get payed.

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[J]

Civilization on the sky. Quick sketch for today:

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[J]

So I made some changes to the last sketch. Added a bit of texture, played with the colour. I can see this being some sort of civilisation that orbits very closely to an old dying sun, turning at such a rate that the cities are always on the shadow side.

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[soros]

Nice pose sketches! Thanks for the two ripcage-photos!