Color Pencils Studies - Artist Alley training!

I am working on my colored pencil techniques for this upcoming art illustration project. 

I decided that each week or every few days I will do a color pencil study of my favorite comic book superheroes. 

I am timing myself of these. Right now I am giving myself 2 hrs a sketch, I want to get my time to 30 min sketch. Then I can start hammering them out in artist alley and make a profit!.

ILD130 - Project #1 - War of the Worlds - WIP

We were tasked with creating a revised cover for The HG Wells Classic War of the Worlds. Since I am a pulp art fanatic, and desperately want to be able to create and paint in that style.

The first challenge was to come up with a layout and design. I want to have the Pulp Magazine elements while still giving my own spin to it. I chose to change the setting of the story to the 1700s to start with and focusing on a the Negro folk hero Hi John the Conqueror   as the main character. My concept behind the story is that the Martian's attacked during the American Revolutionary period for ever changing world history.



I came up with the working title  War of the Worlds RETOLD! It’s was a working title people.....



For this project the piece has to look dated. My initial sketches were too dynamic, too modern and not 50's enough. I had the logo splitting the Face of Martian and of Hi John, there is another one where We see Hi John facing off with a tripod, and then on with Hi John's silhouette over Mars. Thought these would make nice promotion pieces today, they didn’t fit what I was trying to communicate in this project.

So I reworked them. I came up with a nice mix. Having Hi John Standing victoriously over a Martian who  he just scalped, with his Sidekick Big Liz (yeah I know... she is a civil war hero but this MY story!). I gave the perspective of looking up at Hi John so that the viewer sees him as in power and control over the situation. The initial design element treatment (logo placement and design) again was TOO contemporary. (Reaching back on the tutelage of Tracy Hawkins' art history lectures, this).  But there is a twist, HiJohn is carrying a M4 assault rifle.



I did my initial sketches, set up visual reference and then took some reference photos

I chose to put the War of the World's logo with the subtitle below and a tag line on the bottom and teaser to the side. I settled on using the Aldin for the main logo font. It looked the most time accurate for a main title mast head, with Anderson Stingray as the secondary and subtitle text font. I chose, America Purpose as the accent font for the legal details (date, credits, price). The final tile was War of the Worlds. With the sub title "The Rise of Hi-John" and the teaser note of "H.G. Well's Literary classic retold in the American Revolution?"

 Now I was pleased with the layout and cover design.



 I am now starting the initial pencils

Stay tuned for more...

ILD 130 Color Pencil Study

I am now taking ILD130 - illustration taught by professor Dan Henderson.  I am learning that in my journey to become a better illustrator is starting to shift focus from tight line are to color. It was a frustrating migration at first. I have to thank David Moyer's for him pushing me to learn and explore hue, tone, tint and shade using watercolor. At the end of painting for illustration the proverbial creative light bulb turned on in my creative mind. Painting and Flatting are two different things.  

Let me break some things down here... 

• Flatting - which most comic artist do, is the rudimentary filling in if negative white space of an image with hue. This works well in the graphic medium. Depth, texture and life can be done through flatting but the art is forever depended on tight and talented keyline, wireframes, or inks  
• Painting - which most fine artist do, is the precise creation of an image using hue. Line art is a base, guide or a guide for the final piece. Thought the line art is a piece of art in itself.  Depth, texture, temperature, power and emotion are brought to life through this process. 

I started noticing this when I started to color my line art for other projects digitally. I noticed that the color layers (flats, shadows, highlights, and effects) gave a realistic view and image when the inks layer was removed. I saw that my art was looking more like a fine art painting instead of a comic art piece. Hence I was starting the basics of painting vs flatting.  

I noticed that shapes were objects in space. The color was the reflection of light from that shape. The shape was 3D and color neutral but the lighting determines the color (hue). I also learned another serious lesson... there is no line art for serious fine classical or pulp art painting. (OUCH! BECAUSE I LOVE LINE ART... VIVA PATRICK NAGEL!)  

So after the initial lecture we got our first assignment. Creation of a color study using colored pencils. I have used colored pencil as a kid. And it was pretty much glorified crayon smudging and flatting. But now I am going back into utilizing what I learned in color theory to make this medium work. I spent about $80 at Hobby Lobby on Prisma Color pencils, blenders, etc...  I also picked up a stack of books for reference and hints, as well as watching a few decent Youtube Videos, here is the link to the YouTube vids I am watching as reference . 

Maffett's Colored Pencil List 

Digital Illustration MidTerm - The Soul of a Hero Poster in VECTOR MESHES!

 Final Vector Art

This was my midterm project for Digital Illustration. Believe it or not this was done completely in Adobe Illustrator using Vector Meshes....

Initial Concept Sketches

 

Painting for Illustration Mid Term - BAM PAM!

Pam Grier Water Color #1 - D.L. Maffett

Here is my midterm for Painting for Illustration. I chose Pam Grier! WHY? If you have to ask... then you need to have the taste slapped outta ya mouf! This was a fun piece too. Hell they all are fun pieces. I am happy because I am learning to paint. Imagine that? ME a painter. AND WATERCOLOR? I used to hate watercolor, thinking of the old art kits that were dollar store christmas presents. 

I Most people know me for my stylized illustrations. My professor (David Moyers) is AWESOME. I respect him as an art instructor because he hold no punches and tells the student when improvement is needed. I went into this piece thinking it was all that.... Prof. Moyers brought me back down to earth, and I love him for it! He showed me the areas where i need to improve and areas where I have grown. I EARNED a B on this. I am thankful, but not satisfied. I say that because I want to get better. My final will be posted in a few days, I still have to finish up.

line art

color studies

original photo

Digital Illustration Final Exam

Here is my digital illustration final. This was a fun project, because I love Stormtroopers and always wanted to be able to draw the helmet. As a kid, I sketched and drew them from photos and from my action figures but could never get it right. I also was a BIG FAN of wireframe graphics. I tried to draw wireframe graphics by hand using grid paper but it never came out right. But with the magic of Adobe Illustrator,  I was not only able to draw a kool looking wireframe but also making a darn good stormtrooper helmet. I chose the color scheme because it looked dated for 1970s / 1980s star wars graphics. I used Marvel's IronMan's HUD as a reference also. I got inspiration from Jason R. Murray's art piece

(http://www.jasonrmurray.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Storm-Trooper-Blaster_Aged.jpg).

What was most irritating about this project is that it was the final, and I didn't realize that it was due. I spent most of my time working on a kick @$$ Soul of a Hero poster. (see the SOAH blog for it). When the course instructor advised me that I was missing a project I was like "oh SNAP!" So I tried to figure out something that would be fun, quick but able to show my skillset. The info graphic is HIGHLY vector graphic intensive, while very simplistic looking. 

I may make these into mini prints to give away at cons with a stormstrooper illustration.

You can never have too much wonder woman!

women come in all colors, shapes and sizes but they are all have one thing in common...

They all are secretly WONDER WOMAN deep down inside.

get your commission sketch today!

Solar storm is a GO!

 R&RJ Solar Storm page 21 - top: final color composition, bottom: left breakdown, left: inks

R&RJ Solar Storm page 10 - top: final color composition, bottom: left breakdown, left: inks

I just finished another issue for a client for his ongoing project. I had to take over because unfortunately the colorist had to drop out right at the beginning of this issue. The blessing is that I learned how to do digital colors quickly and accurately in a short period of time. I found out that penciling, inking, coloring and lettering as well as editing content are all involved and hard jobs on their own and overwhelming when placed on one person!

Here are two unlettered pages for the next issue of Reagen and RJ in Space: Solar Storm. In this issue I put the visual development items from the first 3 issues into play. The characters are a little more refined and are starting to develop visual personality. Such as, Reagan is gone from stoic with small smiles and hints of grins to being more of a pre teen and who is happy and animated. RJ has more of the "guess what i just did" vibe to him instead of the basic heroic super-kid poses. What I really liked is how the backgrounds and colors brought this thing to life!

Also what is even more cool, is that the 3D models i created for this series are going to be used in the animated version, slotted to appear on TBN later this year! 2015 is going to be a GREAT YEAR!

First Responder's Supply

I was blessed by this company and they trusted me to create a logo for them. I like the way it came out. For those out there, a new police / fire / emt supply store is opening in the Lawerenceville, ga area. Check them out! First Responder's Uniform and Supply!

working spread eagle in the dark...

shewwww.... 3/4 of the way finished with SOAH issue #2 pencils and inks. Here is a snippit of the Luck Lady Bath House scene. This is a 2 page spread where things are getting a little steamy between our main bad guy and his one of his hench-women (Koi Dragon) . I am trying to get a feel of creating environments more than backgrounds. (a term and trick I coined from Jason Cheeseman-Meyer in his Book Vanishing Point: Perspective for Comics from the Ground Up. )

I want a feeling of steam and darkness for this room. I am relying on the colorist (Dony Armstrong) to help bring this out by adding some sweat beads on the characters, with some steam haze and shadows as well as moister beads on the frames for the final render.

It is taking WAY longer than projected to get this issue up and out. The reasons are good, bad and indifferent. The Good - I have been SWAMPED with other projects. The Bad - There is only 24 hours in a day and this thing takes ALOT of time. The indifferent - all kinds of personal issues around the job and home.

Stay Strong, SOAH fans!

More characters for issue SOUL OF A HERO 2

Taking a much needed break from working on other projects to knock out some The Soul of a Hero development stuff. Here are two characters that you will see in this next issue. You will be seeing more of these two the newer episodes of the webcomic.  The Koi Dragon and The Luck Lady Madam. This is the final concept and development for Koi Dragon. For those faithful blogfans you would have remembered her from the initial concept and design sketches. If you are a new fan check here. It was a challenge designing an elderly asian female as a character. I didn't like how the arms turned out and they look way too long. I really like how Koi came out. I wanted her to have a Anna Mae Wong vibe but like most of my characters, once I started drawing... the pen took over and she took on the persona that she wanted. The tatts took a lot of work too. But now that they are designed, I have a great reference and and high resolution images to use. Don Armstrong did a great job in coloring these Yakuza Styled tattoos for the special edition prints that were given out as IndieGoGo perks.

Dorina Green... Broz Grimm Ol' Lady

meet Dorinda Greene. She will be featured in this upcoming episode of The Soul of a Hero.  Dorinda started out (as her name sake) as a hommage to Nichelle Nichols. (you know Lt. Uhara from Star Trek) in her role as Dorina from the Movie Truck  Turner. Now Dorinda was off the damn chain. Ms. Nichols went totallyout of  her normal refined, regal and classy character and acted a damn fool as this female pimp gangster. I saw this movie as a kid and thought "Who is that fine foul  mouthed chick!?" I never realized until I became and adult it was Lt. Uhara. I then found out that the Gene Roddenbergh original name for the Star Trek series was "Dorinda in Space Runnin'  Sh!t" but the networks were racist and were not having it so they changed the name to Star Trek. I think that is why Star Trek conceptually sucks compared to Battle Star Galactica, but Battle Star  was not as successful as it could or could have because  make it because it failed to cast Nichelle as "Dorinda, Bad B!tch Space Cylon"   also in that series. But I digress enough about my Uhara stories and back to the art at hand. 

The SOAH version of Dorinda has the same sass and fire and its hommage but I wanted a challenge, so chose to recreate the visual look of the character. And since Dorinda in SOAH is supposed to be a Bad Ass, the role needed someone who was cool, tough and looked like they could take a punch, all the while gussing up well. So I thought  hmmm? While watching Orange is the New Black episode where they did the back story of Cindy "Black Cindy" Hayes (played by Adrienne C. Moore) I thought, THATS IT! she is from pittsburgh AKA Steel CIty. She is defiantly a hard ass, and she gussies up well. It was a plus that she rocks the lady of rage afro puff from time time. So Adrienne C Moore was the new inspiration for Dorinda Greene. And there you have it!

Chinese Take Out

working on page 10 of The Soul Of A Hero Episode #2. 

As you can see the page is not finished. I wanted you guys to get a view of what it looks like when the pages is rough and raw compared to the final inks. I so love blue line pencils! I might just do an entire issue no inks, no colors just blue line pencils. If I do, it will be a side story.

This is a fun issue because I am pushing my limits. (But those who know and love me realize nothing else is new). In this scene Steel City's dirtiest cops Detective Okeefe and Johnson are taking bribes. The story is coming together and flowing after a yeas worth of development and work. Like what you see? Read the comic for free at www.thesoulofahero.com