Tribute

Finished Piece, after many many hours of work:

The Dragons and the Mermaids coexist and help each other. The dragon goes to the surface and sinks ships for the mermaids, and the mermaids pay tribute to the dragon by providing pearls that nourish it. A nice, happy collaboration =)
Except for the sailors I suppose.

I changed my mind a lot of times on what I wanted to do with the linework. Ended up going with colored lines. The past two years working with lines on my day jobs have made me a lot more comfortable with them, and trying to eliminate them felt strange, so I went with them. Still rendering everything else a lot though.

IMC 2014

Hello everyone!

So yet another few months of silence on my part... But I am back to posting for now =)
After working for the past year on 'Chozen' at Floyd County, the show has been cancelled and I am back adrift. Which doesn't stop me from doing amazing things.

Last week I went to the Illustration Master Class... and it has been one of the most amazing experiences in my life.
It's a week-long class where students get to spend a week creating an illustration with help and advice from some of the top sci-fi and fantasy illustrators in the industry.

Meeting the faculty was incredible. This year it included Boris Vallejo, Julie Bell, Donato Giancola, Greg Manchess, Rebecca Guay, Dan DosSantos, Scott Fischer, Ian McCaig, Brian and Wendy Froud, Irene Gallo, Mike Mignola and James Gurney
But for me, more than that, meeting fellow students was even more rewarding. The faculty was incredibly helpful with the feedback they gave me on the illustration I was working on, but being slightly shy and intimidated, I don't feel like I was able to make the most of it. On the other hand, I absolutely loved meeting all my fellow students, meeting people that are in the same space as I'm in, talking about art and other passions we have in common, and partying together at night. We even got to play a few rounds of Magic =)
Not everyone there has the same goals, as there are fully fledged professionals, aspiring illustrators, other artists diversifying their skills and amateurs, but we all share a passion for the faculty's work and fantasy and sci-fi art in general.

And here is what I worked on during the week. I chose the topic 'Dragon Rider' from the ones available, and here are the thumbnails I came up with, as well as my final sketch:

I am still working on the final painting... Hopefully I'll be able to post it later this week.

It has been almost a week since I came back, and I'm still processing all the information that was crammed into my brain at the IMC. It was a slightly surreal experience, and a lot happened in very little time.

I will do everything I can to go back next year, but it's a pretty pricey experience. Incredibly amazing though, and if any of you artist readers have the funds and the time, I would highly recommend it.

I just hope I'll succeed in keeping in contact with all my new IMC friends, and hopefully see many of them again next year!

Ooh Garrus

 So there's this fanart piece I have been working on for MONTHS. I think it might have started about a year ago when I started playing Mass Effect. And finished it very shortly after. In any case, I fell in love with one particular character, and sketched him a bit in my sketchbook. Got a thumbnail I wanted to work on at some point.

Left it alone, did other things, didn't come back to it until weeks or months later. Which pretty much defines the whole process of this particular illustration. Working on it a bit/a lot, forgetting it, coming back to it. Eventually, many months later, it got finished though =) I am just happy I pushed through. Here are a few steps:

 

It changed somewhat along the way. And the final. I hope you like it: