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!

ganesha concepts

My previous sketch got very fleshed out but never finished... I'll either finish it more before posting it, or just show its current state and leave it alone. In the meantime, I've moved on and have been working on a fighter Ganesha concept. Here is my current progress:

I will be fleshing out number 2 and I hope to finish it this week. If it doesn't happen, I definitely have other sketches to share before Monday comes around.

WIP

sneak peak of my current plaything

Late Post and News

Sooo... it's been a while. But I have a great reason! I got a job!
So I'm now an artist at Eyes Wide Games, and I mainly work on the Walking Dead IP.

You can easily find the game on facebook if you are interested.
But as a result, I haven't had much time to work on my own art, and I can't really share pictures of what I have been doing there...

But I have been working on other things! I participated in the Global Game Jam two weeks ago, and the current prototype of the game is available to play online. Here are some pictures of the game, as well as a link as to where you can play it

 

Play It Here!

And of course, I did not do this alone. The whole team worked on the mechanics of the game, I did the art with my friend Rose Peng , Vu Ha coded the whole thing, and Andres Villarreal did the music. You can find more information on the team HERE.

None of my posts are complete without some sketches, so here are random doodles to close this:

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:

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.

The Dragon's Nest

Another sketch for my book illustration class.



Yes, confusing. Color should help though.

The Supper is Singing

Here is a preview of what I'm working on in my illustration class. It's a series of illustrations for "How to Train your Dragon" (the book, not the movie, which has a quite different story). This one is at the sketch stage, still a lot to do before it's finished.
I'm enjoying drawing dragons, as usual.

Peruvian llama

My sister is currently living in Peru, the llama country. So when the opportunity came in class to illustrate a man/animal, well... this kind of came to me.

It's a refined sketch on which my next painting will be based. It'll be done imitating CF Payne's technique, which uses colored pencils, acrylics, watercolor, oils... and some other things.

We'll see how this turns out.