Hamerheads circle Wakefield’s house
Todays quick iPad painting is an underwater take on Wakefield’s house. In the story Wakefield and company drift around the ocean followed by a growing assortment of sea creatures, sharks being the least of their worries.
Just finished Scanning my last sketchbook! There is a lot in here so I will have to follow up this post with a few more on this subject.
My parents newly landscaped back yard.
Made the long drive up to Cloverdale today to have a father’s day BBQ with my folks. We picnicked in their newly landscaped backyard which was a huge improvement to the dead grass and clay which once resided there. My dad had put in a pond which he was proudly showing off to us.
Between bites of chicken and BBQ’d corn I documented the virgin landscape with a quick iPad painting. Oh man was it hot and dry though. I struggled to paint with all the glare on the tablets screen. The whole landscape bled together in washed out grey tones, faded by the hot sun. My eyes strained just to look at it all. The space is quite nice but after about an hour we all opted out to go swimming.
It was a pretty fantastic father’s day.
A lazy sumer afternoon on the Healdsburg Plaza.
This afternoon I found myself with the rare bit of free time on my hands and decided to make the most of it by making this little painting. My toddler had fallen asleep in his bike seat while we were ridding around the Healdsburg plaza so I sat down on a shady bench with my iPad. It was a lovely warm summers day and the plaza was full of tourists up for the weekend wine tastings. A trio of local kids were jamming blues riffs on their guitars and kids were playing in the fountain. I couldn’t be happier, it was a really nice day. Silas and I got ice cream after he woke up and then rode the long way back home through the vineyards.
Sea serpent attacks boat.
I was up late the other night and made this sea serpent Photoshop drawing. I wanted to use it as the background of my twitter page but now that its done I don’t think it fits well over there. That said, I will probably take it off-line in a few days to put something better up. Still, for what it is worth this is a fun little drawing. I always liked sea serpent stories and they are a pleasure to draw.
Inside wakefield’s underwater house.
I just got off a flight from Hong Kong to San Fransisco. I had the iPad, Artrage, several long hours to kill. This depiction of Wakefield’s living room was the outcome.
One problem that I’m running into while painting on the iPad is color quality. Most of the time can’t tell where I am in color space. Is it blue or is it turquoise? It’s rather impossible to tell for instance when the lamp behind you is yellow or the walls are red… that sort of thing seems to happen a lot on the iPad. When the brightness slider is adjusted making color choices really is nothing better that a wild guess. Back home I had to readjust this painting in Photoshop to more closely match what I thought I was seeing on the plane. I wonder if the ipad screen can use the camera to detect lighting conditions? That would be pretty useful when you move between different environments. These problems aside, its still pretty amazing to have a portable digital canvas.
Wakefield sails his bathtub to the white city
Above is an painting I have been working on for the last few days. Not Steadily but in short little busts. It is exceptionally nice to have the ability to paint anywhere I go. I think over the last few days I put in a minute or two on this work in all sorts of places; On the train, in the car, restaurants, shoe stores, shopping malls, children’s parks and of course cafés.
I must say I do like ArtRage, It’s so handy to be able to paint on a whim. The Ipad still doesn’t replace the power of a sketchbook but I think that day is steadily approaching. Pressure sensitivity and a some sort of precise pen is greatly needed but until that day comes it does the job pretty well.
The one thing I that has been puzzling me is saving files for the web. Surprisingly, I haven’t been able to find an apps that can optimize .jpgs so even though I can create art on the ipad I still have to process it all through my desktop computer. This is rather annoying to say the least. With book you just have to close it and keep it dry but all these digital mediums come with the ball and chain of file management, ugh. Its a real time waister.
Below are some exploratory character designs from the “Dragon” project. Most of this designs are about four years old and where made right after I finished up my time working on Space Chimps. The script was finished by then but because of Space Chimps reception all of Vanguards projects were put on hold or outright shelved. It was a frustrating time for me so I started drawing Dragon art whenever I could, hoping that some fresh designs would help push the project forward.
This didn’t really work but it did open the door to a bigger movie and what was once just a little tale began to grow into a romanticized epic adventure.
Here is a collection of concept paintings I made for the Dragon project. All were painted in Photoshop.
I had a pretty clear visual idea of what i was going to make and jumped straight into the animation. There were a few pieces that I did make, some colour tests and a few character scribbles.
