Not Bad, Not Bad At All

Well here it is, my final gift to 'Specialist Study 1'. I've had a great time this module and i'm so happy with my choices. I'm way more confident then when I started this thing and hopefully it shows. Can't wait to get stuck into 'SS2' and push myself even further. Heres the big finish.

Anticlimax? 

Well I assure you she looks pretty sweet printed out on A3 and mounted. Im really pleased with how this turned out. I think the poses capture her personality which is what this whole thing was about but also she has a very striking, memorable look. I'm happy with how the whole page is put together as well, i need to work on my complimentary colours but i love the variety in rendering.    

Here we go...

The end is nigh end i've started work on my final piece, I'm sticking to the plan i've had all along of one page with a main pose fully rendered with an alternate pose, probably shaded, and one or two head shots just sketched. I'm really starting to feel like i wen't in completely the right direction with this project and i'm so glad that I spent time practicing stuff that will hopefully make this piece come out swingin. First things first i needed the main pose so once again prepare for me to look incredible.

 As you can see I'm not getting much information about the female from these but these are just for general stance ideas and hopefully my previous training would fill in the gaps. Heres the initial sketch then the fully rendered one.

I'm a pretty big fan of this, I think it fits in with all the feedback i got about her looking to "American", i've taken back some of the colours but with some variation in there. I also think the hoodie works really well to create a more defined silhouette. I painted this all by freehand this time and i think the work really shows through. My god i'm gunna have to get faster though. 

Procrastination Station

With all this figure work i wanted to make sure my head stuff wasn't lagging, probably not the best idea about a week before deadline but hey, it's all art right? I thought the best way to get people to look at my stuff was to do pictures of the people I wanted to look at my stuff, you know, really appeal to everyones egotistical side. I think it was a good idea, definitely the way to moneys in future i think. Anyway heres the three pages of caricatures i did, If you're not in my class you most likely won't know anyone, i suggest you get over it.

I was very happy with these, obviously they ain't perfect but i've always had a problem with creating radically different faces and this really helped, especially with general head shapes and noses. I feel like i've got a whole library of noses stored away in my noggin now. So helpful. 

I wanted to colour some but I didn't want to spend to much time veering off course with these so I thought back to the research I did and the two-tone shading technique and decided there's no way it could take that long.

Now these i like, it only took a few minutes to do each one and it makes such a difference. I will probably use this method for one of the alternate poses on my final piece.

Let's copy me some styles!

One of the main things I really wanted to get at least slightly, kinda, sort of, a little bit competent at was rendering. I've done a bit in the past but it's always come out quite bright and very cartoon like. I wanted to have a look around and see how the big boys are doing it. And no, I won't be saying "big boys" again.
I found a couple of pieces, well pretty much several websites full, of work I loved and because i'm a sharer let you in one it.

A very different take on 'Robocop' here, at a glance this looks so detailed but if you look closer it's very sketchy and probably took around half an hour. He's using large brushstrokes but with shading in all the right places. And again. there's only a handful of colours here, It's almost just shaded with blue but it looks perfect. Gunna have to get a bit rougher with my colouring for more effect perhaps.

Here we've got some semi-detailed sketches but looks how much depth is added just by using a couple of tones to separate the different areas. Sean Galloway often uses a similar technique and i think I may give it a bash myself.

 I'm not that drawn in by the subject matter of this, little but too "destroy the ring" for me but that speaks for the rendering. Again as soon as you focus on the robe you can pick out almost every simple stroke but the colours are so complementary that it takes a while to hit you. Oh yeah and the background is ace, the sketched figures in the background would probably take me around 3 days.
So basically i'm gunna try and loosen up a bit for my final piece and hopefully avoid that 'happy american' feel.