Sketches

I'm still trying to get this 'fast Photoshop sketch' thing down. Here's Bill Nye. For no good reason. :)

Vampire Chica

Special thanks goes to Laura Schneider, my lovely model in this piece. She didn't know what I would turn her into (heck, I didn't know what I'd turn her into) but she was gracious and helpful. I think this is a fun little quasi-vignette. I'll probably play with it some more and I'm sure a month from now I'll be tired of it, but a month from now I will have plenty more where this came from. So until then, enjoy.

Oops

Finally I know where this piece is going. Morbid to be sure, but I am currently trying to net sci-fi/horror/noir freelance jobs. All of those subjects tend to be a bit morbid, especially the horror genre. This is a very generic piece which, for once, I think is a strength. I need to get bread and butter freelance work before I start trying to tell my own stories. My portfolio from a year ago suffered from a chaotic originality. I had western pieces, I had octopus women, I had period piece grayscale paintings, and I had old-timey robot illustrations, many of which were based on my stories. The portfolio said that I knew how to paint, and that I didn't like staying on subject. Only a few of my illustrations were easily explainable. It didn't mean my work was smarter, it just meant that my work was less approachable. By no means do I intend to produce increasingly generic work. But everything I've done is so far off the reservation that no one can connect the dots. So I did a piece with Link in it. I did a piece with a lightning wizard. And now, we have the beginning of a vampire chick. See you soon with updates!

There

All that talk about werewolves. Here's a sketch. Maybe it will go further. One way or another, I just need to relax. Not every painting I do needs to change the world.

Frustration

I am feeling discouraged. The move from traditional to digital has been more or less smooth, but I find myself constantly shifting: looking aimlessly through the web, standing up with no real purpose and sitting back down, feeling like there is something else I can do. It is like some weird art depression, where I feel stymied by the lack of a tangible piece of work. I come up with ideas and toss them or change them or fail to act on them at all. I look at all the amazing work being done out there, by random strangers and former classmates, and sometimes I think: I can do that. Other times I stare in dumb amazement and wish the idea came to me first. In between commissions I tried doing a quick promotional piece. I went from werewolves to vampires to dragons until I just started working. I just had to do something. And the sad part is, I still don't know what the hell it is I am making. Here she is, in all her unfinished glory:

If I could tell you what it was I was trying to achieve, trust me, I would. I'm shooting in the dark, even as I stare at the illuminated far wall, targets and all. I want desperately to finish this piece, and yet I'm stuck with an image that I have no idea where it is going. None. It is a polished piece of gravel. Pretty and useless. Hell, it isn't even polished yet. I can't design myself out of a sock. I want to produce work freelance. And I know I have the skills. Give me a face, and I'll paint the bajezus out of it. But some idiot inside of me keeps whispering when I work on personal projects. 'No, David,' He says, 'It needs to be more epic.' 'No, it needs to tell more story.' 'Less story' 'Show your strengths' 'Try something new' 'Be original.' That last piece of poison, yes, that kills me. Look at the painting I just posted. Can you tell it started as a werewolf concept? Can you tell who I looked at for a color palette? Would you believe Jon Foster? Would you believe that my inner idiot keeps telling me to stop making it look too Fostery? That idiot is there every time I try a werewolf piece, telling me to make the werewolf different. 'Make something a publisher has never seen before.' But I know just as well. They're werewolves. They are relegated to a specific time of day on a specific time of the month and they are wolf men. How will I ever produce something they haven't seen? And so instead of just trying to paint a badass werewolf painting, like I know I can do, the idiot inside tells me that unless I can produce an original werewolf piece, then I shouldn't do one. And then we have this mess. A girl and her giant pet lizard. Which isn't sci-fi, or really fantasy, and certainly not a f*cking werewolf. This tells me one thing. That idiot I blame for my failures? That idiot is me.

There's a werewolf.

Grabbed!

Final:

Final on this one:

Promotional so far:

I have two other pieces that I finished this last month that are under wraps. Whether or not a great awesomeness goes down will determine when I get to show them now, unpublished, or much later published! Count me excited. I really can't contain myself, though, so here are two teasers. If I find out I'm not allowed to do this, you won't have long to look at them!