Monday, November 19, 2007

New painting finished

Here we go again! Another finished painting. I wanted to get going on this because I was painting it for a friend, and I finally put the final touches on it this morning:





I call it, "Mountains at Dusk." That's what the kanji says as well. A lot of people really dug the graphic style and the red tones used in The Killer painting. Not sure what else to say about it.

As for everything else going on, I've got to work more on my portrait for class, I've done a bit of work, but I really want to jump on it so I'm not behind. I'm also trying to fit in that Retroware commission, I should have time to finish an illustration or two by Wednesday.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Paintings

I wanted to share some photos of my paintings I have done for my Acrylic Painting class so far. Unfortunately by the time I woke up, it was already dark (No, I'm not lazy, I just work all gravyard), so the photos are slightly off color. I'll redo these photos probably tomorrow on my day off:


This was our first painting assignment, the technique used is called 'glazing'. Basically you work up a black and white image of your piece, then you water down your color acrylics and 'stain' the black and white image with many layers to bring out beautiful and vibrant colors. I'll be using this technique on my final project.



This assignment was our chance to mimic a painter's style and painting, but we had to introduce our shoe into the subject matter. I decided to try Roy Lichtenstein. He was a part of the pop art movement, and painted comic book panels on large scale canvases in oil. It is actually quite harder than it looks to replicate, especially the lettering.


Besides school paintings, I have a couple I'm working on for myself:


Some of you might remember this piece from older Myspace blogs. I finally pulled it out from the pile of unfinished pieces and started working on it again. I'm like 99% done, so I'm pretty happy about that. I actually want to do several of these with different cartoony characters fighting, pirates, robots, boxers, lucha libre, etc.



Lastly, this is a project I'll be doing two of, one with a red color scheme, another in blue. Its of mountains and a Japanese Tori gate.

I'm also working on my final project at the moment, but I want to keep that under wraps until its complete. It will be the largest painting I have ever done.

P.S. - I think everyone should try Apple Jelly, its great stuff on toast in the morning. I never had it before, so when I went shopping for some breakfast goodies, I just had to pick it up.

Thursday, November 15, 2007

A day in the life...

So, a few things are going on in my life. To begin with, I'm working on some illustrations for RetrowareTV on Youtube. I need to get them done relatively soon so they can use them for their upcoming dvd, I'm very excited when my work actually gets used for projects. Here's a preview of what I have going on:

click this to see the full image



I still have a few more adjustments on this one, and then I have two other illustrations to work on. Shouldn't take too long, I just need to use my time wisely.

Secondly, I'm now working on my final project for my acrylic painting class. Its a 'Rockstar Self Portrait'. We had to dress up radically different than our usual selves and do a photoshoot to get a good photo to work from. I initially wanted to do an 80s metal/black metal thing, but that is just to normal of a choice for me. So I decided to swing in a completely different direction and chose R&B/hip-hop, particularly in that Justin Timberlake direction. Here's one of the photos of me playing my bass:




I like this photo a lot, but it isn't the one I chose for the project. You'll have to stop by my blog again to see the finished work to find out. If you want to see more of my photos from the photo shoot, check out my myspace page: http://www.myspace.com/nomadikk/


Lastly, I wanted to mention that I just read Scott Pilgrim Vol. 1. For those of you who don't know, Scott Pilgrim is a hit indie graphic novel by Bryan Lee O'Malley. If you read one comic this year and you are not interested in super heroes, I highly recommend Scott Pilgrim vol. 1. You can pick it up at Oni Press or ask for it at your local comic book shop. Seriously, I believe this guy hits the nail on the head with his dialogue and sequential art, because it mimics my life to the tea. I swear, he must be following me around, because a few of the things that happen in here are straight out of the pages of my own life. Here's one sample page of Scott Pilgrim, on a first date with this girl he really digs, it reminds me of me:


Seriously, read the whole thing, looking back on just that page, I don't think it gives the whole book justice. I just felt that page was a recent event in my life :)

Okay, I think I've done enough jibber-jabbering, I'll leave you with this photo of me, doing what I do best:



Yes, that is Super Mario 1 on a big screen tv. You interested in joining me as Luigi, on my endless quest to save the princess who always happens to be "in the next castle, not this one"? Message me for details!!! :D

Tuesday, November 13, 2007