Sketchbook and zoo

I have renewed my zoo membership and purchased a mini watercolor set that is easy to carry and use over there. Here are the results from my last trip:

 

 

Well The panda and leopard were practices at home from photos taken there on a previous trip, and the komodo dragon and warthog were done on the spot.

And here are more random hand practices from my sketchbook:

Knights

For a while now I have been studying various visual aspects of medieval knights armor in order to reprodruce them more convincingly. The first ones I am showing here, in pencil, were done a few months ago and really helped understand how the different pieces were put together in order to keep attached to the human body. The other one is more recent, and I'm mainly trying to understand the reflectivity of the metal. I'll probably do more of those, my metals look terrible when rendered from imagination.

And the drawing that prompted me into doing that metal study (admire my 'beautiful' armor from imagination, no references):

More Warhammerz

ATC

I started doing ATC recently (Artist Trading Cards). For those who don't know, these tiny cards (2.5x3.5) are eagerly traded and collected amongst some artists.  I really enjoy them, they're a great way for me to practice various traditional materials without feeling like I'm wasting materials. I have even been doing some exchanges. Once I'm more used to the format, I might even make a few originals for sale.

Here is my personal favorite so far:

It's a watercolor Anders, from DragonAge II 2.5"x3.5"

Anyway, if any of my visitors is interested leave me a message or an e-mail, maybe we could do a trade :)

Gurney Demo and Show

I have had a very interesting past week! First I was able to attend an amazing talk and demo by James Gurney at my former college, and then I was featured in a show in Atlanta.

For those who don't know (where have you been hiding?!) James Gurney is an amazing illustrator who is most famous for writing and illustrating the books 'Dinotopia', has received multiple awards and holds an amazing blog which is incredibly instructive for all artists. The name of the blog is Gurney Journey and can be visited here.

Anyway, here are some photos of James Gurney's demo in which he showed us his method for sketching in watercolor and watercolor pencils:

 James Gurney working

 

 Final sketch

I also sketched him as he was working. He agreed to sigh my sketch at the end of the demo!:

And here are some photos from my show:

I enjoyed the show a lot. I brought my sketchbooks, and for me the most interesting part was watching people flip through them. It was interesting, I would have thought that they would just look through them quickly but instead they looked carefully at every single page. I guess I didn't realize there was so much to look at.

Ganga

An old illustration recently reworked and published for the first time:

 

It's a personification of the Indian river Ganga, who's mount is a crocodile. I kind of like it, but I think no one else really cares for it... It's somewhat weird how artists respond differently to their own work than other people, and makes judging our own work so hard.

DragonCon

I have been living in Atlanta for a few years now, but this year I went to DragonCon for the first time! Previous year different circumstances prevented me from doing so, and I am glad to say it was an amazing experience. I'm only posting about it now, as I enjoyed the week to digest the event.

I attended a lot of panels, mainly in the artist and the video gaming category. I got to meet various interesting people and had two amazing portfolio reviews, one by Andrew Silver, who is one of Riot's splash artists (and I will simply call him Jayce, as he was the model for that particular champion and everyone had a blast out of that), and Dan Dos Santos which is one of the most amazing fantasy oil painters around. Both offered me great, helpful critique.

I am sure no one is overly interested in my personal experience there, so I will directly jump into the pictures:

Riot's League of Legends cosplays

More League of Legends. Fiddlesticks! This guys was huge, he was walking on something to make himself bigger, it was impressive.

Alistair from DragonAge! This made me so happy! He's one of my favorite characters ever created, and touched me in a way few have. Also, his romance arc was very well written.

This was during a panel on sex in videogames, which had more to do with sexism in videogames than anything, and was held by the person who wrote Alistair's (amongst others) romance arc. It made me so very happy, as being a girl gamer, it's a subject which I'm inevitably affected by.

Various random cosplays:

 And some sketches from life drawing sessions at DragonCon:

The colored ones were made on my iPad using ProCreate. I'm a bit too slow with it compared to with a pencil, but being able to capture colors without having to set up and paint is invaluable.

It was amazing, and I really hope I will be able to attend again next year.

Show, studies and more

I feel a bit bad it's been so long since my last post. But it turns out I will be featured in an Art Show in Atlanta! It will be on September 21st, held by RAW: Natural Born Artists. Tickets will be 10$ each, and I am required to sell 20 as a contribution for them showcasing me. Please come! You can purchase them on RAW's website here:

http://www.rawartists.org/annick

And is a study, as well as I concept piece:

 I wouldn't touch him, he looks poisonous.

studies and the art of freelancing

More studies, one of Hawkeye from the Avengers, the other of random models from google:

I'm trying to understand better how clothes work. I love drawing naked people, and I love the human form, which leaves me in need of more practice when it comes to clothes. also put a fair amount of time into Hawkeye's face.

I've been thinking about writing about some more art resources on this blog, such as art books, tutorials, audio, things that might benefit fellow artists passing around. Lately I have purchased an audio lecture called The Art of Freelancing by Noah Bradley. His purpose is to inform young artists starting out in the freelancing world strategies to successfully start a career. Most stuff that can be found out there concentrates on how to make your art better, so Noah Bradley is trying to talk about a different part of being a freelancer, he focuses on marketing, presentation, how to put yourself out there, networking, etc. It's 6 hours long and I'm only two hours into it, I believe that it was definitely worth getting, and it's allowing me to take a lot of notes for steps that I should take in the near future. Anyway, better reviews than mine have already been written, and you can learn a lot more by visiting the website. I'll most likely talk more about it once I'm done listening to it. The first 30 minutes of it are available for free.

And here's another video by the same person, you just have to share the link on facebook/twitter to get access to it. It's just Noah Bradley painting, offering advice and replying to questions as he's sketching on livestream: link

Anyway, here's another sketch, done from imagination this time. Originally it was supposed to be Katniss, from the Hunger Games (the book, not the movie), but I'm not sure it still looks like I wanted it to:

Study :

 

The reference used is a shot from the TV series Merlin. I was concentrating on recreating textures (fur, embrodery) with a basic brush, as well as lighting.

plane

More ipad art, done on the app 'Brushes' while at a bookstore with my friends. I don't know if I prefer Procreate or Brushes yet, they're both great.

Hawaii Trip

I just came back from a pretty long Hawaii trip. Here are some ipad sketches, both done with the Procreate app:

Graduation and lots of stuff

Hello!

So a lot of things have been happening to me lately. I finished my finals, graduated from SCAD, got addicted to League of Legends and will be going to Hawaii for holidays shortly. I have also been applying to a lot of jobs, and while I wait to get a positive responds (which might take months, hopefully not years ;p ) I will be looking for freelance work.

Anyway, pictures:

The Orc Shaman I promised quite some time ago

 

A random study

 Life Drawing

 Last quarter's final

I want to do a lot of studies soon. I love doing them =)
And I have lots of time right now.

Warhammer Chibis

 I enjoy tabletop gaming a lot, although not quite as much as some of my friends. So I made these Warhammer chibis for them, since there is a lack of cute Warhammer art:

 

An Orc should follow soon. I just love orcs in these universes.

Daenerys

Daenerys skin study. I mainly spent time playing with the photoshop mixing brushes. Used the same technique I would use with oils.

By the way, I'm a Game of Thrones fan. If you haven't, you should jump on the books. The series is great, but it's so far behind.

Chris Schweizer sketch

I bought the sketchbook of one of the teachers at SCAD, Chris Schweizer. He made me this amazing drawing on the first page in 5-10mn. I'm so happy!

 

His Website

So, here is the final of the Morgana drawing, and a few comps for my next one... Those are only some of the colors comps I did. I can't help it, I have to try absolutely everything before deciding.

Also, feel free to visit my revamped website: http://annickhuber.com

Costumed Model Session

Today at SCAD we had a costumed life drawing session. I really enjoyed it, we don't get to draw most people with clothes from life that are kind enough to stay still. Also, the model took some really cool poses.