Always do thumbnails

So i uploaded each save I made for a few of my more recent pieces.  I can not emphasize enough how much I learned about the importance of thumbnails.  For the first two I didn't use any thumbnails and You can see that I wasted a lot of time playing around with elements and composition.  

For the space painting, the final result looks just like the result and I produced that one waaaay faster than the other.  It was way less stressful also, seeing as I could focus on the painting aspect alone.

you can view the larger images and the final pieces here
http://hizi.deviantart.com/gallery/

Sketching Zelda and Mass Effect Art

I've been wanting to do some fan art since I'm done with my thesis stuff.  Here are some sketches I messed around with.  More later prob with some value thumbnails.

Senior Thesis Paintings

I'm having some trouble with the third painting so I went back and did some thumbnail sketches to get some different ideas with composition, lighting and slightly different environments.

This is where I got to before I decided I really wasn't into the way things were going and started doing the thumbnails. I should have done those in the first place. This is what happens when you rush things...

Study

I was having some trouble with something in one of the current paintings I am working on.  So I did the best thing one could do, look at somebody else's painting and try to copy what they did.  I grabbed one of Feng Zhu's recent digital paintings and did a study of it.

My goal wasn't to make an exact copy of his. The study was to figure out how to make a convoluted gritty looking structure that is stacked with smaller ones without trying to detail every single piece. 

It is refreshing to do copies once in a while.  All I really have to think about is the mark making.

Here is a link to the original painting.

http://fengzhudesign.blogspot.com/2012/04/junk-world.html

Character Sketches

So this is my first blog post and I'm just going to jump right into things.

Instead of working on some environment paintings I did two character sketches.  It's been a while since I've worked on something other than an environment so this was a refreshing for the whole hour it lasted.

Initially I was going for a sci-fi look with some aquatic inspirations on the body.  Then it turned into something else completely.  I had this crab/octopus thing on this back that transformed into some spikey looking objects.   I like how they all kind of point in the same direction rather than in every direction.  For the female I had vines wrapping around her that just turned into vertical pointy edges.  My process is very deductive.  I start out with a lot and then I simplify as much as I can.

Back to environments...

P.S.
I'll update my page's aesthetics real soon to give it a more presentable appearance.