Pretty Much Finished

Here we have it! I think we're pretty much done here. I'll probably look at it in the next couple of days and make a few adjustments to whatever bothers me at that point. But from where it started to here, I'm extremely pleased.

In about a month will be the Spectrum Live! Show in Kansas City, Missouri. I've got the hotel and the ticket, and I can't wait to go! The hotels in the near vicinity are all booked up, so it should be a really fun event with lots of fellow illustrators to meet! I plan to make Lancelot and Guinevere a postcard I will be handing out along with my business cards. I may get to one more piece before I go though, and if it's good enough we can update the website. I'm also hoping to get into the portfolio review section of the event, but we'll see, as spots fill up fast! But I'll be right there waiting by the computer to press enter and get to hopefully have a good talk with Irene Gallo, the art director of Tor Books, and John Schindehette of Wizards of the Coast. Totally stoked. And I'll be sure to bring my camera and show you guys what it's all about. I'm just excited to get excited about illustrating. Conventions are always such a rush that way!

Lancelot and Guinevere - More Progress

Sorry for not posting sooner. The day job has been very busy recently! But here's some more progress, and luckily it's the weekend, so there will only be more to come!

Lancelot is looking a lot better, and we added some arm gauntlet things which I think are helping the whole chain mail debacle quite nicely. Well, not a debacle. I just haven't decided how to go about giving the chain mail enough detail to be chain mail, but restraining myself from rendering it out completely (because that's unnecessary, and it's not my main focal point, so I don't want to even go there sister!). I like how the pattern on her dress is behaving, and I think it adds to her royal appearance. Lastly, I'm not too sure about those leaves in the foreground, so we'll have to play with that. I'm lovin' it. Now we just have to take it to the finish! Bring her on home!

Lancelot and Guinevere continues!

More progress! We're aging in the right direction, we've fixed the size of some things like hands, and given our Lancelot a stronger jaw and bulkier arms... all good things. I'm pleased with the direction it's going. Sorry Arthur- look: this is love. Even Merlin probably can't deny it.

Lancelot and Guinevere progress (Day 2)

Progress...

Lancelot and Guinevere

Hey! Guess what? Lancelot and Guinevere are going digital. I described my initial idea for the painting here. I thought I wanted to do this in oil, but as I working on the color and value studies I said to myself, "Self- why would you draw this over again when this is looking so nice?" And so I've decided to do it digitally.

It's moving along SO FAST. Lightning fast. I can't believe it. I'm loving how it's looking, but there's still a lot to do. I want Lancelot to look a lot older, and Guinevere too. Also, I'm not dead set on the background situation, but I do know that I want it to be ambiguous and keep all of the center and interest on our very personal, close moment here between our dude and dudette. I also need to do some more research to make known their individual connections to Arthur: I'm thinking she needs a wedding ring with a dragon symbol on it, and his clothes could have the same symbol, or something similar.

Below are some photos of my initial thumbnail ideas.


I'm also including some of my initial reference that helped the idea to form into what it has. I won't show my photo reference as a courtesy to my reference model, and to myself because we both looked fairly ridiculous, and that's just not something I need to extol on the internet, haha! But here are some other photos that got the brain juices going. Perusing the internet, reading King Arthur stories, and viewing real 14th and 13th century medieval art at the Detroit Institute of Arts are how I went about collecting my stockpile of images. These are just a few. I also looked at other works of art done on Lancelot and Guinevere to give myself an idea of what else has been done on this well known subject. All in all, progress is good, I think it's gonna be a good one!

Edmund Blair Leighton - The Accolade (Guinevere and Lancelot)

John Collier - Guinevere going A-Maying

Pulp Magazine

I did it! I got a painting done in one day and submitted it to the ArtOrder pulp magazine challenge! Now, there's always room to improve before the deadline of the real call for art, but for now, this is what I was able to accomplish.

For this post, I thought it might be interesting for me to walk you through my thought process as I show the painting progress. Without further ado...

I decided to do this slightly differently, and follow the method I saw Donato Giancola use in his most recent video, which I blogged about here. I gessoed a board, drew directly on it, then sealed the drawing with matte medium.


Then, I layed in some color with acrylic paint to get a basic feel for the color I was going to lay down in oil.


Beginning stages in oil. Things are left blurry so the edges I want to be crisp and clear (around my center of interest) can be snapped in later.



A whole general feel is visible now in oil. We're headed in the right direction, but the darkness needs to be bumped up and the saturation brought down in the shadow areas.



Mmhmmmm! Do you love that warm floor with the light coming in? Do you love how their shadows are red, and her dress is red so that we see they're in cahoots? Do you love her purse on the couch so that we don't think she just pulled the gun out from behind her back out of nowhere like a cartoon character? Me too.


But now, and you can't tell in this shot, but now he just looks like he's looking down at the shadow, and for some reason that just doesn't give the glazed over, "oh no" look I'm going for. Also, I've dulled back the top of her red dress to help her lean back into the shadows. Before, with the red all the same on the dress, she just looked weirdly un-proportional, and kind of like she just had purple skin.


Uh... but them's crazy eyes. Not going for that either...


Mm, enough "oh no my life is in danger", mixed with anger. Maybe not enough anger, but eh.

Pretty good. This is what I sent in. There could definitely stand to be some real dark darks. So there will be touch ups before the deadline in April. In the meantime, keep your fingers crossed that I do well on the ArtOrder challenge! You should check it out, there were lots of different interpretations!

Pulp Value

The idea is coming together after the reference I took. The struggle I'm facing is to make the story I'm trying to tell instant. That there's no figuring it out, or discovering pieces along the way... nope. I've gotta make this puppy read now and completely. This value study is ridiculously fleshed out, but I was enjoying myself after a brief time away (due to a bruised nerve, but the right hand is back in business, no worries) and I was also thinking it out more. What I need to do now is to adjust the different compositional elements and lighting to tell the story and not follow my reference so religiously. These are the goals. I have until Sunday to submit it to the Art Order, so there's some work to be done! But it's possible. Let's do this.