Jon Jones - draft

Immigration Foliage

Spending a few hours at the Immigration Office in Tokyo gave me more than a few hours to get out the sketchbook and pen.

 

 

Nothing mind blowing, but prepping for the foliage on the Sekaido canvas seemed a good idea.

 

Didn't have time to apply the deterioration concept to each piece, but did get a visa renewal.

 

Fishnets and drippings (and whiskers on kittens)

I'm still failing to capture the essence of deterioration that I was looking for.

Using a dripping effect might complicate what I'm going for but it'll help convey movement.

Contours seem to be the most logical approach, creating a fishnet effect and working outwards.

Some flowers.

Deadlines looming mean I'm going to have to go under cover for the next two weeks and focus on the final canvas.

Sekaido Sketching - Ideas

3d pixel deterioration. Just some preliminary ideas.

Deteriorating visuals like this should be easy, but I've been struggling a bit.

Undercomplication is where I'm at currently, knowing that complex isn't really my forte - looking to experiment a little more before going to board.

Sketching

Haven't had much time recently to get paints down but managed a quick sketch for later.

More Pigeons

I legit saw a pigeon land on its head like that.

Love drawing pigeons, and the single line works a great for them. 

Just some ideas but I'm liking the crowds a lot. As a simple study but also as a kind of pattern too.

Pigeon stuff

Pigeons rock.

 
Drawing them should be easy enough but I'm still struggling.

I'll look into their anatomy a little this week to strengthen my bases.

Maggie Smith

Last year my buddy Zan introduced Downton Abbey. I resisted. I was dreadfully wrong.

Now Maggie Smith has drolled her way into my heart and into the site!

I'd taken off a few months between my last work and this one, but a fun way to kick off the year.

Homage

David Downton has been a personal hero since Uni. Phenomenally technical and methodical selection of colours and brushes in his work. Descriptive but simple. I love beautiful simplicity.  

Here I used his pieces to replicate on the IPad. The brush and color selection seemed perfect for SketchPro plus..

Tetris Pixelation

Applying Tetris inspired work to portraits was much more difficult that anticipated.

I missed a good chunk of drawing in perspective classes as a youngster and it shows.

Although I would like to look into robotic anatomy more thoroughly in the near future, at this point I'm going simply. Super simple, until competent with geometric shapes.

Brian Blessed - drafting

A British icon and legend, Blessed has a booming personality, something I'd love to capture.

Previously, I'd been struggling with smooth skin tones and had moderate success. 

Focused more on complex features such as wrinkles and beards now.

Sekaido work - week deadline

The previous canvas debacle left me with just 7 days to create a new piece in time for the exhibit. Recreating the same visual on a smaller canvas would've been much simpler but where's the fun in that.

Time restraints led to a limited pallet, meaning black would be taken out of the equation. Initially I wanted a more vibrant bubbly piece anyway since the last had been pretty morbid.

The yellow sky was a base layer to motivate a lighter mood whilst working, but eventually needed to be darkened to balance the shading on the plants.

Sekkaido - Final Sketch

The previous sketch seemed a little too simple, so decided to build more layers and textures.

Also insects are going to break up the colours a little, as will the sleeping women.

 Composition was tough, but once the sketch is there, it's a huge weight of my shoulder. 

Sekkaido entry .. or was..!

The past few weeks I'd been focused on the annual Sekkaido competition (which always seems to sneak up on me somehow).

Still about 12 hours from completion I was quite happy with the direction and colour coding, unfortunatly realised 2 weeks before the deadline that I'd been too ambitious and had been working on an F5 piece when it should've been an F4.

No biggie. It's pretty rare to get the chance to work on something that size, and it was a heck of a learning curve.

 So back to the drawing board!

Jigsaw concept

Pizza last night had me feeling guiltier than usual.. Let's see what we can do with that greasy box!

Using the card as a template allowed for plenty of mock ups of the jigsaw character. 

Working with shading to create a more vivid environment.

Keeping in mind the idea of a childrens story book, at this point keeping it simple is best. Flesh out the story or theme, then build the environment to fit this lil guy.