A Sun Experiment

Just a quick experiment in Photoshop with some paper textures.

Sleep Deprivation . . .

Ugh.  To think I spent all that time updating last week and I go back and look over my updates and my actual drawings and I've color corrected everything WRONG.  I hate indoor lighting.  But, really, I cannot figure out how I justified the choices I made after I scanned them in.  I must have been extremely sleep deprived or something.  Good grief.  Why did no one say anything?!

Some Sketches to Tide You Over

I'm working on updating S&C; I'm reorganizing my thoughts and trying to lay in a solid "game plan" for what comes next.

In the meantime, here's a couple of sketches I've done.  Nothing special or significant as pertains to the story, just a couple of pictures that came to mind that I wanted to keep for future reference.

I'd gotten a new sketchbook to keep all the drawings for this project consistent (the top image).  I was using Tuscan Red and a Cream Prisma for the drawings, but I don't like the way it scans in.  The bottom three images were done in a separate sketchbook on Velvet Grey Strathmore, same color Prismas, and you can see how much of a difference the paper makes.  

I had a few other colors that I was testing out.  The Dark Brown Prisma that I used with White in the drawing below looks a lot better, I think.

Capt. Marcus

Here are some other colors I was considering.

More about S&C

This is a continuation of what was written here. If you would like to read everything story-related, go up to the The Story so Far tab and you can read from the beginning.


And just so you know, I have art to post, it's just a matter of getting it scanned in and editing it.

Once Marcus has Cate and her team signed up, he runs into a little bit of a problem.  The military transport he had lined up is going to be delayed for a month or more.  With the fall storms building, a months delay could make traveling north completely impossible.  Fortunately, Cate has a solution.  A friend of hers owns an airship, and she and the crew have been in town for the past few weeks on the off chance that Cate’s funding would come through and she could hire them to do the tracking, reconnaissance and general shipping and traveling of her and her team.  They’ve been pulling the small odd job here and there to make ends meet while Cate waited and have found themselves with time on their hands and not enough of anything to rub together in their pockets.  

Marcus jumps at the chance, only to discover that the “friend” is actually his sister - or sisters as the case may be.  Sisters who are kind of ticked that he and Matthias missed the last few (or six) family get-togethers.  But he turns on the charm and manages to squeeze himself (tentatively) back in to Elle and Sun’s good graces at least.  Sydra is another matter altogether, but he figures two out of three sisters on his side is better than none.

Besides, it’s Elle’s ship.  And it’s the ship that he needs.  

So despite Sydra’s protestations at the vague and undefined ulterior motives of the expedition, Elle prepares her crew for the trip.  

The trip north is as uneventful as might be expected; they weather a few early storms but arrive at their first destination in one piece.  While Cate and her team do some initial research forays, Sydra reaches out to her northern contacts to get a lay of the land.  Strange rumors abound.  Outlying shepherds and farmers and farmers have been steadily retreating back to the safety of towns and villages along the coast, chased away by some unknown creature that killed their flocks and destroyed their storehouses.  

Random Introspection

A really hard thing about all of this visual development stuff is pulling out of your imagination all of the nuances and story that you feel, but don't necessarily see.  I know that's vague, but hang in here with me.  When I am trying to tell a story, visually, there are certain elements that I want to capture; sometimes it's not necessarily a space as much as it is an idea.  Like when Silkwood and Co. head north to investigate the creature - I don't necessarily have a picture in my head of what the north looks like; I know that it's grey and vertical, a lonely and demanding country.  There's steel in both the land and the people.  So when I sit down to try and draw all that, my goal isn't to draw any particular space - the drawings, the sketches are successful if they capture and clearly convey the idea that I'm feeling about a place.  Then it starts to become about design and composition.

I think that's why I like drawing people so much.  People are there in real life, there's no need to try and figure out what they are supposed to look like; I already know what they look like!  All I have to focus on is capturing the essence of who they are in the portrait.  I'm rarely satisfied with what I achieve (what artist is?), but part of the drive is the hope that someday you could find it, someday you can capture in a painting whatever it is that you are wanting to achieve in your art.

Merry Christmas!

I've been having a crappy kinda week so far - I know it's only Tuesday, so I guess it's been a lousy couple of weeks, but anyway.

To cheer myself up and try and banish this overly dreary mood I've been in, I decided to have some fun and threw together this little piece.  

My little gift to all you who have been keeping an eye on my progress over the past few months.  I love you guys!

These were done in Illustrator - I've been working on a Christmas card with a similar "cartoony" theme and started messing around until I had all of these.  Anyway, I hope they make you smile.  I did when I was making them.

Happy Hols!  

We're on G+

If you are on G+ (and you should be!), you can add S&C to your circle and get notified of all the updates to the blog!  So head on over to the S&C Google+ page and say hello!