The eyes have been really difficult. I changed the colors, the shape, added veins, a highlight, and ridges on the bottom lids. What makes them so hard is largely the ornate bat nose which bisects one eye. I want partially obscured eye’s pupil to show, but getting it to line up with the other eye…
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The rim lighting is difficult for me, and almost seems perfunctory. It’s a sort of cheap trick often used in comics. But it is also a really effective way to articulate form in shadow, which works for this sort of subject. Note that I’m not an expert at this, I’m learning it as an exercise,…
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This stage is all Photoshop. I’d almost consider it cheating if it weren’t such a pain in the ass to pull off; if I weren’t going to paint over it; if I hadn’t done everything by hand under it; and if this weren’t an exercise using professional digital painting for illustration techniques. Here, one has…
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The much more clever way to do shading is to make a 3D model, and then move the light around to find the perfect angle. But doing it the clumsy, old fashioned way is good practice, and this piece is just about honing my skills. The shading made the bat lady more 3D, but it…
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Think I’m gonna’ go for blue skin with pink details, yellow-orange irises, and a dark red/purple ball of the eye. It’s a bit saturated right now, but after I add modeling, lighting, shading, and texture, it should be pretty cool. The gif animation has nothing to do with it. It’s just a snappy way of…
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After taking nearly two months off this piece in order to finally finish my SFAU series of 36 images, I finished the line drawing stage. I used my orignal, front on, concept sketch to create a 3D version. The hardest part was the weird, ornate nose. Very difficult to place it so it comes out…
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These are just curiosities for entertainment, folks. You aren’t meant to assess them as serious works. They’re my kid stuff! When I was growing up my favorite things were sci-fi shows I could see on TV, frogs and lizards, and drawing (not to mention girls). Fortunately, I had the foresight to document most my early…
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This might seem an unexpected departure from my self-portrait series (I’m taking a break from it), unless you already know me or my blog, in which case you might think, “Here we go again!”. I’ll grandfather in (not sure if that’s the right term here, but you get the idea) several pieces that fit nicely…
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This one’s a good mix of horror, sci-fi, Francis Bacon, Expressionism and an obvious nod to Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” in particular (though that has never been one of my favorite paintings). This is one of a series of a dozen 3X4′ acrylic paintings I did when I was in my early 20s.
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Communication from Mars! At first I was intrigued, then surprised, then shocked at what I heard!!! OK, it’s another one of my PRANKS!
Read MoreVideo version of the original article from “Frontier Science Report”. The original has been taken down, but I haven’t been asked to remove my copy. Maybe because I live outside of the U.S..
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Originally posted on Frontier Science Report: April 28, 2014 An organism resembling an arthropod has been conclusively identified in one of the photos taken of the surface of Mars by NASA’s Curiosity rover. NASA and the Smithsonian Institute jointly created a program using something similar to the technology for face recognition software to scan thousands…
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Robot and monster battling it out to destruction.This started as a brushed India ink drawing, which I executed on the spot in one go. This was difficult because I had to invent simultaneously with drawing. Next time I think I’ll sketch it in pencil first. I added color with watercolor pencils, but eventually moved to…
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