Studies

Some more studies in oils for my life drawing class. About 45mn spent on each of them.

And a longer oil study from life that took many classes to do. This painting is 40"x30".

All are photos, as I don't have a scanner big enough for it =(

IlluxCon 2011

So this year I went to the IlluxCon convention for the first time. For those that don't know, it is a convention on fantasy and sci-fi illustrators. It is targeted towards artists, art directors, collectors and people that love the genre. The number of tickets for the convention is limited so that the experience remains intimate, which gives the opportunity for about everyone to discuss with the big names of the industry.

 It was an amazing experience. There were a lot of original oil paintings. I tought I liked the images I could see of them on internet or on posters. Let me say they reproduce poorly. Seeing those originals was mind blowing. I got to see paintings from Donato Giancola, Dan Dos Santos, Petar Meseldzija, Boris Vallejo; and I got to talk with the artists. I also discovered new artists I didn't know about like Sam Burley (which had a painting I absolutely fell in love with) and Didier Graffet (which was french, and I had a great time speaking my mother tongue with. He seemed happy about it too).

 The show is divided in various parts, first the main showcase which is up all throughout the show. Only top-level artists there. Then there are lectures on various subjects relevant for artists, and workshops with artists going on at the same time on friday and saturday (I had a 3h30 workshop on concept art for films with Bob Eggleton. It was amazing, The groups are limited to 10 people). On friday night there is a smaller show open to different kinds of artists, and the Illie award ceremony is on saturday night. On Sunday there is a sketching day with models. Througout the convention portfolio reviews with art directors are going on for which we have to sign in in advance. I got one with Zoe Robinson, art director of Fantasy Flight Games (she was amazingly kind).

 Without further prolonging this, here are the photos of the show (I only took photos of the main showcase):
 

The Showcase in general

Bob Eggleton, with whom I had a wonderful time at his workshop

Dan Dos Santos, who's red picture practically shined in real life. Dan Dos Santos can make pictures look better by using Lens Flare filters (which he demonstrated in the critcast lecture).

Didier Graffet. He had more giant sized paintings before, but I guess they were sold.

Donato Giancola, who won the illie award.

Jesper Ejsing. You'll probably recognize some magic cards among his paintings.

Petar Meseldzija. I think he's my favorite painter. It's hard to say though, there are so many amazing ones.

Sam Burley, who gave me a portfolio review. My beloved painting is the one you can see in full.

Ralph Horsely who does amazingly detailed acrylic paintings.

and Thomas Kuebler, who does realistic fantasy sculptures. Just look at the detail in that arm! Of course there were many more artists, but I think it's enough of a picture overload. I hope you enjoyed them :)

First oil drapery

A quick post to share an oil drapery study finished last week.



Tomorrow I'll be making a long post with a lot of photos on illuxcon 4, the convention where I went.

Cafe Istanbul

Quick ipad sketch on ArtRage as I was out, aprox.15mn




Sadly, people left as I was drawing =(
Maybe sometime I'll find the crop tool in artrage... If there is one.

Location:Cafe istanbul

Oil Portraits

A continuation of the last post, this time the oils. The two first ones are monochromatic portraits.





The next ones are done with the 'alla-prima' method. First I did a monochromatic underpainting with either Burnt Sienna or Terra Rosa, and after letting it dry overnight I started working on the rest, starting with the darks and then going to the lights. I have very little experience with oils, so all this was kind of new to me.









I enjoy oils, the possibilities they offer are amazing. However, I must admit that I do not enjoy the smells, nor dwelling with potentially hazardous liquids. And it's dirtying.
So in conclusion, I'd like to explore some more with these, but my main medium is unlikely to change from digital. I really enjoy the lack of mess.

New home and Charcoal Portraits

Back on internet... again. It feels like I spend half my life without internet easily accessible nowadays.

We finally got settled in our new apartment. Part of the furniture lost was replaced, and are still dealing with our insurances. In the meantime, the rest of my life keeps going, and I'm fully enjoying my life painting class. We spent about the first half of it doing portraits in charcoal and oils.

Here are the charcoals. Still don't have a scanner, so most of these are photographs. These are or 18"x24".














All done with models. There is definitely room for improvement but I'm practicing.

Flood

I have been silent for a while...again.

My apartment got floodedwhile I was away for a hollyday at my uncle's. It was pretty bad. So bad that the roof collapsed, and that most of my furniture was ruined. Some workers came in the house to evacuate the water in our absence, and while they found one of my cats and blocked it in the bathroom with furniture, they never saw the other one. They left the door open as they were working, and my cat being terribly scared of vacuums, he ran away. Luckily, after two days of crying and calling him he came back and seems happy to have constant food and clean litter. He lost some weight too.

We got moved to a new apartment since the other one is too damaged, and we get to move all our stuff to the thrid floor. At least, no water will fall from the roof in there. In the meantime, I don't have internet for a few days more, and have been too busy to draw much.

I've been drawing from my ipad in my psychology class. I'll post the rest when I figure out how to turn the pictures around on this.

Location:Panera

desk object still life

Came out worse than expected. The colors are not satisfying. I'm better at this traditionally, but I think it touches the hearth of my problems with digital coloring...
I'll keep doing these.

Harry Potter studies

I still managed to finish my study for today



Emma Watson, from the Harry Potter movies. Not much for the movies themselves, but I used to love the books, and it's a theme to keep me from wondering what to draw next all the time.
The resemblance is not completely there, here nose is too long (I tend to do that) and her eyes are a bit weird (strangely shaped, a bit too high). I noticed that a bit too late though.

Aside from that, I might have found something to motivate me to keep up these studies more often. We'll see how it goes.

digital values and color tutorial

No drawing from me this time. Just a quick post to share a great tutorial I was showed.
I hope you enjoy, I certainly learned from it. view it her

Internet and suff

It's been a while... But I'm not dead yet.

Finally got internet in our new apartment (A bit less than a weak ago). It feels great not to have to go to school just to check my mail (yeah, I don't have any of that 3G technology. I'd rather not pay the monthly bill for that).



I have a lot of traditional real-sketchbook sketches, but I'm too lazy to scan those. I need a scanner, but good ones are really expensive...

So here's one of the only digital sketch I have done in this time







Our illustration professor had just given us a bunch of his brushes to play with. Some of them looked exactly like pencil, so I got carried away playing with it.



And another illustration for class. A gig poster design.







I've had comments on the bad types I use. I just don't know how to deal with type =( Practice makes better I guess, and I have very little in the matter.



That's all for now. Will try to approach a scanner soon hopefully. And I need to go to the zoo again too.

Illustrator work

My poor blog has been half abandoned lately. We have finished moving into a new apartment but sadly don't have internet yet, and it can be annoying having to go to school in order to post.

I haven't been idle though, and do have some things to show. I have been taking summer classes, one of them electronic illustration. Here is one of the projects, done in Illustrator. It's vector art, but it feels a little awkward medium to me. I like raster graphics much more.



Hopefully, I'll be posting more often once I get internet at home again. 5 days to go.

break and studies

Took a break from drawing these past few weeks. After finals I found myself dreaming very often that I still had things to finish, that there was one week before finals, that it was finals and nothing was done, and various other things on the same theme. But I'm back to it, and I have studies to show.
I have been doing a lot of quick sketch portraits lately, but I'll probably post them later when I have a scanner. Tried to take photos, but graphite definitely doesn't reproduce well in photos...
So just one page for now



And some photoshop studies. One is unfinished, from a photo of Michelangelo's David, the other one a random fawn.





Next week I'm back to summer classes. Tought I wouldn't be taking them this year, but it seems I just can't avoid them.

New Website!

www.annickhuber.com

Not everything runs perfectly well, but it's the best I can do for now. I used wordpress and a free theme available online.

and because no post is complete without a picture, here is my last class assignment:



Not completly finished but it was the best I could do with my time constraints. It's an imagined Gameinformer cover, with an article on DragonAge II. I will probably go back and work more on it.

LucasFilm

Haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd share an illustration done for one of my classes.



This one was made for Electronic Illustration. We created illustrations for a competition held by Lucasfilm. Each school was to send some of the best results over to LucasFilm. Mine was selected among others (although I was never told which others), so they'll get to see it, even if nothing else comes from it.

ipad painting

So I recently got an ipad, which I've been enjoying very much. One of the reasons I wanted it was as an electronic sketchbook. I don't have a stylus yet, but I've been enjoying it already. Here's my first try on it with the ArtRage app:


I must say, drawing with just my finger is hard and clumsy, but kind of fun. Can't wait for my stylus though.

And I've tried another self-portrait, although this one looks more off than the last one:

Self-Portraits

Here are two self portraits, done in about 1,5 year interval
They were both done in around 45mn:

2009


2011


Improvement!
I enjoy going back in old works and comparing, makes me feel good about myself (sometimes...)
I have files with drawings as old as around 2002, where I decided i wanted to get serious about drawing (around 13-14 years old).
They are terrible.

Zoo

I recently got a membership to Atlanta's zoo and have been going there to sketch. There a class at SCAD that has a weekly field trip there, so I just kind of joined the group without being in the class. Here are some of my sketches done there.









Sorry about the crappy quality, but I just have a camera at home, no scanner. They were all done with a ballpoint pen (the cheaper the better). I must admit it can be really hard to draw moving animals, but it's definitely fun.