It's been a while since I've posted something and so I thought I would share some closeups of a digital painting that I've been working on, both on and off during my moments of freedom between work and errands for the last few weeks. After watching the movie, Avatar - gorgeous movie, by the way - I was inspired to drop my study of anatomy and lighting for a while to do a piece just for fun! Little did I know that this would become a frustrating yet educational journey into exactly what I planned to avoid: anatomy of a creature (fashioned after a mix of animals) and an elf; and lighting (low light source, argh!). To make it unknowingly more difficult I thought, "Why not do it in greyscale and apply colour afterwards?" At this point I'm not entirely certain how I'm going to introduce colour or what colours I'm going to use but, hey, it's all part of the journey. I do think the piece is starting to come together though. :)

A while back, I completed a certificate in Animation at Sheridan College and afterwards noticed a definite improvement in my art. It was an enlightening experience for me and I would recommend that if you are unable to go to school full-time, that part-time studies can be quite valuable in terms of focused assignments and instructive feedback. One of the things that became abundantly clear to me is that I needed to concentrate more on the following areas:

Anatomy
Lighting
Perspective

As part of my journey, I will be doing self-studies in these areas and I will post some here. On that note, attached is a recent drawing I did of a female pubic bone referenced from a photograph. Lighting on the photograph was difficult to discern in some areas and that prompted me to look into getting a skeletal model but due to of a lack of space at home, I elected to instead get a good quality skull and I'll no doubt follow that by buying a pubic bone later.

Chalk Full of Dreams