May 2015 Art Challenge - 'Ancient vs Futuristic'

Here is my entry for Draw with Jazza's May 2015 Art Challenge - Ancient vs Futuristic.  The idea is that they are a kind of secret service MI5 (or Men In Black) top secret government agents in Victorian times, fighting Aliens and Futuristic Robots.  Hence the lady and gentleman on the left, are fighting a spider-like robot from outer space, in a Victorian sewer tunnel.

This is my first artwork in quite some time, I think it might actually have been a couple of years since I last tried to create some colour pencil art.  I still doodle in pen and pencil, but I've not tried to create some real art in ages.  I was really rusty.  But I really enjoyed doing this, and even enjoyed sketching out and colouring in bricks in between ad breaks on the TV.  

I joined this Art Challenge late on in the month, having only a couple of weeks to come up with the idea and create it.  If I'd had a little more time, I would have liked to have continued darkening the background, and just had a light glow around my heroes, and from the robot's laser bolts.  But as it is, I still enjoyed it.  And I want to create more!

My Artwork:  Colour Pencil, on A5 Sketchbook paper.

New Sketch - ''Glamorous Singer''

Here's a new sketch I did today of a singer. I'm trying to improve my figure drawing skills, I think my figures are improving slowly, I just need to challenge myself more with these - I fear doing figures because I know I struggle with them!

I'd happily welcome any constructive criticism!

Sketch #4 -- Fashion Catalogue Girl

Today I sketched a Fashion Catalogue Girl. She appealed to me because she reminded me of a Vampire, a real cruel and evil one. I ended up spending over an hour on this sketch, and I think I might have overworked it a bit. I ended up shading away most of the detail in her hair, I had some gorgeous strands and movement showing in there, but she does have really dark hair and it wasn't dark enough in my sketch.

I'm still happy with how she turned out, as people are probably the one subject I find the hardest to do, and this is a learning curve for me!

New Sketch - Lady Hawkmoth

I've started my 'Lunchtime Sketches' again! Here's a new sketch I've just finished of a fairy. I've been looking at Amy Brown's art, and thought I would have a go at emulating her style of doing fairies and see how I did at it. So I thought about doing a sketch of a fairy dancing, I expected to do Amy Brown style clothing on her, with the striped tights that I love so much. But as I started drawing her, she seemed to take on a life of her own. I started thinking more and more how my fairy would dress, then how I wanted her wings - I've now discovered how difficult it is to draw the wings, trying to get them even in size and shape, and as symmetrical as possible. I've now decided that if they aren't symmetrical, not all things in nature are, so it makes her look more natural! :)

I love Hawkmoths, so used them as inspiration for the decorating of the wings. At first I was going to have the wings behind her, so you would only see the tips, but then I thought as she was dancing, she would probably have them out on show, a bit like a Peacock does when trying to impress a potential partner. So maybe this is the dance of love, and she is trying to impress a potential fairy partner?

I'm having fun inventing my own fairy world to play with!

Today's Sketch - Blair (Terminator)

Continuing my daily sketches, I tried something a bit more taxing today - a figure study of the character Blair Williams from the movie Terminator Salvation. Yesterday's sketch was completely easy and lots of fun, this one certainly strained my meagre art skills! I enjoyed doing the details on the clothing, doing zips and curves in the clothing is fun for me, but getting features right, the hair, and especially the hands, is really hard work for me! Just shows what I need the most practice with! It's only now I look back on it I really see how big I've made her nose - it's actually smaller than her mouth! Ooops! Perhaps I should aim to do at least 1 - 2 portrait/figure drawing sketches a week, that way I will make progress on my people and make them more realistic - and easier to draw!

Any constructive criticism would be gratefully received!

Art - Teaching Myself

"Frozen in the Moonlight"

I am a self-taught artist, and still in the process of improving my skills. You can see a sample of my art in the header of this blog, plus some of my works I have uploaded here. Just click on an image to see a larger version of it.

"Gargoyle"

"House"

"Spider"

I haven't done much drawing in a while, I like pencil and colour pencil art - that's what I do best. I'm just not skilled with a paintbrush, probably due to a little too much playing and paint fights in school for me to learn much!

I want to be a fantasy art, I was first inspired by Boris Vallejo, I got a calendar of his back in the 90's, and it kicked off the fantasy art bug in me. I've since sought out new fantasy artists to add to my inspiration, I moved on to the works of Chris Achilleos, Luis Royo, Clyde Caldwell and Greg Horn. I would love for my meagre art talents to reach these standards, then I would be so proud of my work!

So what do I need to do to improve? All the above artists tend to focus on people in their artwork, very realistic figures. My figure drawing leaves a lot to be desired (in my humble opinion), and I want to be able to do amazing and realistic figures. I also don't have a lot of experience doing fantastic creatures, monsters or dragons. I would also love to do more backgrounds to my images, so landscape, and most especially cityscape, I would love to improve on. The simple answer to this - Practice! Now I've figured out what I want to imrove upon, I need to find reference images for these types of images, and practice them over and over again until I improve! So here's a simplified list of what I want to improve:

- Figure Drawing
- Fantastic Creatures, Monsters & Dragons
- Landscapes (Greenery)
- Cityscapes (Buildings & Architecture)
- Still Life (Weapons, Fantasy Objects)

For the fantastic creatures, monsters and dragons, I will need to collect reference images of animals, both furry and reptile animals, to be able to draw fantasy creatures. Once you can draw realistic normal animals, you can learn to draw fantasy animals really well. I've added still life as it occurred to me I don't have hardly any practice of drawing weapons, and the few I have done, have not been very good at all. So it's time to improve on them as well.

If I stick to this plan with my art, and work on these various subjects, by the end of this year I should be able to do these subjects with much greater ease, and be much more able to produce high quality fantasy art of my own. Wish me Luck!