How about a lil introduction?

I'm an art student in the fields of design, print, painting, and illustration. I also enjoy spending my free time modeling creatures/characters, animating, and writing screenplays. I'm practicing my skills and aiming for a career in illustration and/or design while carrying my fine art career along as well. I'm far more passionate for the 'fine' side of things, but I enjoy optimistic work environments and being a part of a creative team. Ho hum, I guess that's about it for me.

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Funny day...

So, in the past few months, I have been investing time in Marko Djurdjevic's Character Idealization DVD, Alan Tew's online blog, and Dan Dos Santos's new oil Illustration DVD.

ALL OF WHICH ARE AWESOME.

I adopted a bit o Dan's process to a new painting I started for the Juried Student Exhibition show here at Truman State University. I had no real inspiration for an oil painting at the time, so I decided to paint President Truman.

I had no real plans for the painting, but I used cold press board, backed by foam core, with a high definition pencil drawing followed by a high definition acrylic under painting before finally turning to oils.

IT WAS A SUCCESS.

I completely understand why a man of Dan's ability would spend so much time on the 'underwork/reference image'. Though the painting was not chosen for the exhibit (my other piece was, surprisingly enough), I had succeeded in the exercise. The final 'drawing' of the painting matched the original drawing and photograph perfectly! I have had the problem with oil painting that my figures would warp a bit - using Dan's extreme work towards the reference material, I was able to keep it precisely the way I wanted it to stay.

Thank you Dan for that wonderful tutorial. I feel like my skills have grown greatly.

I'm now working on another tablet painting - a werewolf. My personal favorite of fantasy creatures. I'm also working on a cast of characters for a universe I'm designing all on my own. There will be about 10 featured characters with several character sheets for the typical people aside from the main cast. I'm also working on environmental designs for said universe and maybe two or three 'romotional' posters for the franchise, if you want to call it that.

With the economy as bad as it is, I decided not to go to Massive Black's workshop in Dallas. These are tough times, especially for the struggling artist.

Anyways, cheers mates. Artwork otw~