Hercules V. Zombies, Camulus Model Concept, & Old Gauche sketch

So here it is, the painting that took way too long. I don't even know what to say about it at this point. Its the same size as the painting I posted in the last entry, 24x16 and completed entirely in gouache. I used a process on this that I hadn't used before which was doing a drawing, scanning it, then printing it out the size of the stretched paper and using a transfer marker to get the drawing onto the paper. This seemed like a good idea at first, but the first time I tried I had already primed the paper and put a layer of matte medium on. Because of this, when I used the acetate based transfer marker it fused the paper to the matte medium. When I pulled up the paper, it brought some of the matte medium with it and gave my nicely primed paper a nasty roughness to it. So after re-stretching the paper, and transferring the drawing pre-prime, I finally had a good base to start the painting with. I will probably never use this process again, at least not on something this size, as it used multiple markers just to get the job done. And it took waaay too long. I could've just redrawn the thing in the same amount of time.

So after all that was done, I went into painting it. Which with gouache took me about four to five weeks. But with my schedule at the time, I was only working on it one to two days a week. I could've maybe done it quicker. Who knows, I just know that I got a lot better at painting with gouache during the process.



This next piece is the concept I did before I started modeling Camulus in 3d. I realized I hadn't posted it yet, and thought it was about time I did. Its just done in pencil on bristol. Hes a big dude. I mean, he is celtic got of war and all. And those Scotsmen loved their war. Hes got a really big sword, which still needs to be modeled in 3d.



And lastly heres a gouache piece I did during class a year ago, but never got around to scanning until now. Its pretty small in real life, maybe 10x4 inches. I still really enjoy it, which is why I'm posting it. It was done for an inclass assignment where we had to illustrate droplets. And I do enjoy a good spray of blood. So I decided I'd paint a samurai, blood splattered across his face, roaring into the sky. He was fun to do. Maybe I'll do more with him in the future. Only time will tell.

On a side note, I took a bunch of reference photos for my comic I'm working on now. Expect penciled pages for that to be up this week, along with sketches for the 3 paintings I'll be completing in the next 4 weeks. Super intense deadlines as always. Until next time


-Zachariah

Japanese School Girls, waiting to go home & Big Huge Open House

So I told myself last week that I was going to try and update this thing daily, but then realized theres no way I would be able to keep that up with the schedule I'm currently on. So, instead of that I am determined to keep this thing updated at least 2 times a week, which doesn't mean just two times a week. I mean that at very minimum. I'll keep you updated with sketches I'm working on, paintings that are in process, work thats completed, and anything in between. Nothing out of the ordinary to what i've been doing so far.


Ok! So last semester I did a couple paintings for my Advanced Illusionism class that got put on hold from when I was hit by a car. One of the paintings I did was of four Japanese school girls waiting in line. I don't really know if it was about anything or not, I just wanted to do a painting that had multiple figures in it, and would look nice. So I produced this one, It was my first real dive into painting with gauche on a larger scale. The dimensions are 24 x 16. I like working at this scale, though it takes a long time, I really enjoy the freedom i have in my brush strokes. This isn't very obvious from this piece since its all flat colors, but believe me its fun. It didn't show up very well in the scan, but the white on their clothing is actually super textured. I painted it with thick paint on a tiny brush, it looks nice in person. I used ink for the black line and the black in their hair, it gave it a nice rich black that I enjoy. I wish I could've posted this piece sooner, but it wasn't documented until only last Wednesday. Here it is:



Speaking of last week! On Thursday I gave my seminar presentation on the work I've been doing this whole time I've been at school. I thought it went over pretty smooth in the face of choppy waters. I say this because as I proceeded through my slides, only the first two were in order. After that it was random comic book page here, painting there, sketch book page next, maybe some character work after that, etc. Even after I spent a good amount of time getting everything in order in the folder all the images were in. It kind of jostled me a bit in the beginning, but you just have to keep going in these situations, and I gave it my best. My business and post cards weren't in on time, and still aren't. Here's hoping for Monday! Speaking of a lost opportunity for those business cards!

I went to the Big Huge Games open house on Thursday right after my seminar presentation. Even though, after a few hiccups my car-full and I arrived late and missed their demos, which were probably fantastic, but arrived just in time for portfolio reviews. I managed to get a personal review with Dave Inscore which went pretty well. Though it would've been nice to have a leave-behind to give him, I think future discourse will be promising. I also had a review with two of the BHG 3d artists, that also went pretty well. They checked out my in-progress Zbrush model and had some positive things to say about it. I'm still working on him, moving my way down the beard, getting the rest of the model prepped for Zbrush.

Expect the long awaited Hercules V. Zombies painting to be posted tomorrow. It would've been in this post, but I didn't want to overload it. Plus its past my bed time. Until next time.


-Zachariah