It's hip to be square......apparently

A Grand Entrance

Castle Garden

Artistic Stamina

Right, first off as you are probably more than aware I'm not into wordy posts on am 'Art' blog but there is quite a valuable lesson I'm learning currently and I've never seen it mentioned anywhere else. Trust me I read alot of art blogs, forums and publications.

Now to be a successful artist you have to have the talent, you have to have the desire to learn, and you have to push yourself constantly (to name but a few things) but nowhere have I heard anyone mention "mental stamina'.

Picture it, you've been working 4 or 5 hours on a piece, agonise over it and get it to a point you can feel happy with (for now at least), most of us then feel spent, emotionally drained. We may coo over it a while and post it on a blog nobody reads...., then go and do something else safe in the knowledge that you did your bit today. Now imagine the same scene but as soon as its done there is no time to admire your handy work, oh no, its on to the next one. This is where the test comes in, you've just given everything you have to your previous piece but now you have to do it empty, as it where. The artistic version of the vinegar strokes if you will, okay sorry there was no need for that.

Learning to work for great lengths at a time one piece after another is the difference between doing something and thinking "yeah thats pretty sweet" or using that as a base to go on a put another 4 hour shift on something and make it great. It's then you can focus on the subtlties and the finesse. I guess thats the irony of the guys who work at places like disney, you have to pretty useful to get in there in the first place but then you must just go stellar.

It sounds glaringly obvious as I type it but just think of it in "gym terms" you can be happy benching your standard weight but then someone doubles the reps and after a struggle you come to terms with it and hey presto in no time you'll be upping your workout weight. This has very little to do with talent or flair but just sheet mental commitment.

Some of you may be reading this and thinking hours? geez dude more like days, well I guess then you're the artistic beefcake and I'm still to grow into my vest.! just dont kick sand in my face just yet

Getting All Environmental

Well you've seen the Knights but now they have to have somewhere to live!

The Black Knight - with a Japanese flavour

Times are hard for a bounty hunter

Here are some other versions of knights. The aim is to use the same proportions and still create different characters. The coloured ones are just brain dumps, they are not the intended colour schemes

Look like a certain Mr Boba Fett has crept in for an audition.

Medieval Madness

Here are some horse designs and more thumbnail realisations. I feel like I should talk more but dammit my brain is fried at the minute.

Honestly they're like freekin' buses

Here's an illustration test for some freelance beer money. This was a nice task as I had a style to adhere to. To my mind all a style is, is a set of rules once you can read the rules you can interpret the style and apply it yourself.

This is definately a feminine style and not one I'd ordinarily try myself but I think it makes for more interesting work and in the end better art.

A knight to remember??? yawn..

Here are a few fleshed out

Insert your own knight gag here

Here are some quick thumbnails exploring shape and proportion. Apologies for lack activity of late work has been crazy and i've been, well, living and doing house stuff.

More New LG stuff

Here are some redesigns (Apollo) and an addition of 'Pan' there some rehashes of older work for a the character bible document.

Li'l Gods - Cerebrus

A little bit of a break from the paints due to alot of work on, but in the meantime...

More Character Stuff

Again, no speedpaints but hey, at least it an update!

Not speedpaint number 11

The speedpaints have stalled a little this week, I just need a break from them to get some ideas again. In the meantime I had to do this at work and I'm suprised by how much fun I had with this. More retro stuff soon perhaps

Speedpaint Challenge 10/20

WOOOT half way there, man, its taking longer than I anticipated but its proving its worth I think.

Speedpaint Challenge 9/20

This was the inevitable slump after the success (i believe) of SP 8. Always happens, perhaps its misplaced confidence or maybe its the need ot lack there of, proving something to oneself. Oh well, its a little early to get existential . Nearly at the half way point and I must say its taking longer than I expected. Good job I never plumped for the 50! speedpaints I initially considered. I am finding the numerical commitment very motivating though and Im sure I'll use it again with different subject matters but smaller more focused numbers though.

Speedpaint Challenge 8/20

Something a little inspired by assassins creed, I must stress I didnt copy this was dont with some first hand ref of muslim streets

Speedpaint Challenge 7/20

This was just an hour and half, its pretty uninspiring but I was/in a dry spell so something is better than nothing and all that. I think it has a more controlled palette and the flow and composition is working okay. Hopefullt something a little more inspiring next time.

Speedpaint Challenge 6/20

Right, more pseudo sci fi .... sorry

Speedpaint Challenge 5/20

Hey! here is the fifth. Quarter of the way through now. I'll try and make a point of critiquing the work so far in order to take positives and lessons from them. Afterall there is little point of practising if you dont learn from them.

Speedpaint Challenge 4/20

and another, at speed paint 5 i'll critique them.

Speedpaint Challenge 3/20

....And another

Speedpaint Challenge 2/20

Here's another....

Speedpaint Challenge 1/20

Right, In order to get some confidence and more importantly a method to speedpainting and general colour work I'm going to try and do 20 paints in the next few weeks. The max time limit for these is 2 hours and I'm going to try and make it all up on the fly in order to learn to be more spananeous and to sometimes let the painting evolve rather than me forcing it. Some/most will be dodgy but thats not really the point. Hopefully there'll be a couple of gems but its for development purposes.

Here's the first, I was going to have some some air craft in here but I ran out of time. Stay tuned for another by the end of the weekend.

Speedpaint

Here is hopefully the first of quite a few speedpaints. I need to get my groove back where painting is concerned so here's to a few more

More pages from the little black book

These are more from my mind than life but thought id share seeing as I have a scanner handy on my desk at the minute

Sketchbookery

Soz for the lack colourful musings, but here some pages from my sketchbook to tide you by ..tsk like you care...

Work in Progress

Im trying to break down my work process in order to clarify certain things to myself and also to see where my skills fall over. So this is the 'value' sketch, hopefully I'll colour this bad boy up. Im on hols to Thailand and Malayasia tomorrow so I'll be taking my sketchbook and try and keep doodling just to keep my eye in. See you in a coupla weeks!

New Paint

This may not be the final version but it'll do for now. Not really sure how I feel about it really.

Space port type thing

Sponateous Design

Here is a speedpaint design of a creature. I like this as it was completely off the cuff which isnt something I normally do.

Hmmm

Well I did something, It's oookkkaaayy I guess but kinda looks overworked, which I guess is natural seeing I was trying quite hard.

Help!..

I am suffering from chronic 'subject matter ideation disfunction' yeah that's right I dont know what to draw, well not to the extent that I persevere with something to a near complete state. I have tried for what can be about 5 hours on and off to come up with something more spontaneous be it a creature or vehicle design and I just cant come up with anything at the minute and god knows I've stared lots of things only to bin it, That indeed maybe my problem. But I am trying and I rekon once I get over this 'hump' I'll get back into the zone baby.

40 Min lunchtime sketch

'Invasion'

Hi Peeps, sorry for the lack of action in the last couple of weeks, I've been doing ALOT of drawing and crayoning pretty pictures but alas, cannot post them up at the moment due to the project not being announced. Normally I'm not one to tow the party line on such matters but knowing my luck this one would bit in the arse (or ass for our american cousins).

Anyway, my daily stuff is a little cutesy, vibrant and quite clean so in typical knee jerk reaction I am trying to 'up' my 'concepty' stuff and add more Sci Fi subject matter. Hey it may not be original but it does tick boxes on a portfolio!

"There's somebody at the door...."

Okay, all that's missing is Rod Hull and Emu .....enough with the TV Cream style editorial!! Here is a Stylized windmill.

1 Year on....

Approximatly a year ago my wife just had eachother in Australia. We were marking time until we came home to England. We'd made up our mind that Australia wasnt for us for reasons I wont bore you all with, though feel free to read about it here .

http://jaycedownunder.blogspot.com/

though its not exactly the most uplifting of reading. You have been warned :)

It was on the quiet boring nights that I picked up the virtual pencil and paper (wacom and laptop to you and me) and started redeveloping my 2D skills. Afterall I had time of my hands and thus this blog was born. I quickly found that my real passion lies with 2D work. I'm a fairly accomplished 3D artist and still enjoy it but I think that 2D requires a real talent and flair that couldnt be learnt rather than the technical nous of modelling which can be achieved with little artist ability.

So a year on and my wife and I are back in England and I've been flirting with the freelance scene for a few months. As much as I like the ups, I cannot enjoy them for fear of the inevitable downs that accompany them. With this in mind I began a search for the dreaded fulltime job. I start my new position on Monday. Its a concept art position but doing 3D work when there is a lull in the 2D stuff. Fingers crossed this should keep me busy and interested for some time to come but as my wife will testify I can be quite pedantic when it comes to my work life.

So in short, after year of posting stuff on this blog site I am now of a standard where I am employable for my 2D work yay! I'll still keep my hand in the 3D work as I like to keep my options open and it moves so fast I have to stay current.

Its a week until I start my new job and sods law has struck. I'm trying to do some doodles to get me back in the 'zone' and for some reason I cant draw or paint for toffee, also somewhat ironic as seeing as its a year on I wanted to show some new cool work to say 'hey! look how I've improved' and I have a block.

Anyway here is my doodle, didnt know what I was gonna draw until it happened. Its some kinda a 'concepty-robot-alien' thing.