Illustration Master Class 2014

Hello Everybody!

I'm back on Blogger. Decided to make this blog my place to post my insights and process.
My tumblr will exist mainly to share images with little text.

This summer I've had the honor to attend 2 amazing workshops. First up,

Illustration Master Class

If you love picture making, there is no reason why you shouldn't go. It's the rare opportunity to hang out and work along side with professionals and amateurs for a week. Everyone is friendly and willing to give insightful information about art, their process and life. 

Above is my piece, titled "Garuda Rider".

It all starts with thumbnails. Manchess gave a wonderful lecture on composition and thumb-nailing.  The first one from the lower left was chosen

The instructors told me to insert more culture into the dragon, and establish a definite connection between the creature and the rider.  I decided to mess around a bit with the Garuda, a mythical Indonesian creature. Above is a rough concept sketch.

 I nailed the head with the first go. But that rider was feeling awkward.

It was time to gather some reference for the rider. I got my friend, David Keen to pose for me.

Mignola showed me how he'd mount the figure.

Iain McCaig, (click here for the exclusive interview), told me about rhythm.

With his drawing above, he showed me how to make a line drawing follow a dynamic flow. The render should following the same tempo. 

 Scott Fisher told me to start making my drawing stupid; spell out each form to know what you're drawing. Above is my construction sketch.

Started to finish my line drawing.

I asked Dos Santos to show me how to he'd do color comps and wham! He did in less than 5 minutes. The great thing of going to this workshop is having the access to illustration masters at your fingers tips. Their answer comes from their years and years of experience.  Dos Santos's color comps are on the left, mine are on the right. I went with the upper right one.

IMC was a truly wonderful experience. I didn't sleep much and put myself under a lot of stress. But I met wonderful people. It re-juiced and reminded me how much I love drawing and painting. If you're thinking about going and you love narrative art, do it.

(Photo Credit: David Palumbo)