Monday, November 12, 2007

Scale(s)


(click for larger view)

As of late (and that being the summer on to most of this year) I've viewed the IF topics and done thumbnails but never really got around to the finals. I should have the process for this posted shortly (and it now is). The entire piece was done in Prismacolor...I learned my lesson with watercolors on illustration board...too heavy and you get peeling illos if you aren't careful, so I just bit the bullet and ran with it...


First step was doing some sketches on the back of envelopes, napkins, bulletins...whatever was around trying to work out general design issues of angles and such...then I went to locate some skulls of the dinosaur I was wanting to use...Once I located the appropriate critter I did a sketch of the skull and started fleshing out and working on the composition...my first thought was to have two dinos fighting but I thought that if I did a slightly battle scarred dino (the white eye is meant to be blind and there is some tearing around it)facing off against a turtle defending his turf I might be able to have at least a touch of sarcasm...


After getting the basics lined out I started doing the detail work of the dinosaur. I had to do multiple drawings to get the pose correct. I then transferred the finished drawing onto illustration board. This was detailed in an earlier post and kept me from having to redraw the same elements over and over or overworking the image on the illustration board.



My first big traditional media dino was my Yuck! pic. I left off the background intentionally on that pic as I wanted to have a clean focus on the dinos. My next traditional media pic was Blue T-rex...at first I was going to leave the background blank but decided I needed to get back in the swing of working on the composition as a whole. So I used watercolors to fill in large areas...of course I forgot to leave it flat and weighted as it dried so I got a nicely curled illustration board that is now seperating (my framer loves having to fix my errors). During the summer Steve of Flying turtle fame posted an item about drawing outdoors and I knew it would be a good idea at that point to do some studies to use one day...well this was the time to work on my most ambitious full scene...I knew there was going to be water involved (and had messed with distortion some on the earlier Gravity post) and had already purposed to use nothing but Prismacolor. I drew all the other items using light blue (see the Thin Blue Line post for the coloring process). I finally did some study of reflections and started throwing in items to help lead the viewer through...included is a rather obvious turtle and perhaps less obvious lizard in the foreground. The hardest part was reminding myself not to get wild with heavy burnishing on the trees so that the tooth of the illustration board would show through...and not overworking the items as they headed to the back in dealing with a bit of atmospheric perspective.

27 comments:

studio lolo said...

Wow...Prismacolors only? This is wonderful. Great textures and feel overall. I'm hearing Creedence singing "Born on the bayou." Awesome!

steve said...

Brian, this is nothing short of astounding!!!

A: how large is this?

B: are you selling it at all (or at least prints ?)

consider me floored

JO said...

Really gorgeous.

fortwertz said...

The time alone, knowing the medium, must have been some dedication -- not to mention the detailed handling of this double meaning. Both size comparison and texture intensity is so thorough, and yet I'm drawn inward with the use of zig-zag reflections in the Everglade tundra. So very well executed. Scales off to you!

pati said...

Wow! This is too much! :O It's AWESOME, Brian. I love colors, technique, water's transparencies... everything is gorgeous!

Say hi to my dear friend Sarah. I bet she is very proud of this illo of yours :)

Manelle said...

Ya gotta love prismacolor. Bless the people that came up with that idea. Very nice illustration. You use the medium well. Great composition too.

Alicia PadrĂ³n said...

Wow amazing work!!

Anonymous said...

That is sooooo amazing! You really know your way around a prismacolor pencil, and that dino, (one of my favorite subjects) is so expressive and so menacing. I feel like he's coming right at me.

Susan said...

Great work with the prismacolors!
Fantastic illustration!!

princesstomato said...

this is really great! i suddenly miss using primsacolors!

you use them so well!!!!!!!

t

kdhamel said...

Wonderful illustration! The color and depth is just wonderful - I love how the turtle looks scared!

Dan Shultz said...

Wow!

Amy Zaleski said...

Brine, nice to hear from you. I really appreciate your visit to my blog. I actually do have the next letter in my series, "M", underway and should have it posted in the next week or so. Thanks for your kind words as well. This work is astounding! I use Prismacolors quite often, and know how hard it is to get such dramatic effects. The reflections and textures are so realistic!

Kstyles said...

Holy Canoli!!! That is colored pencil only? Wonderful artwork. Truly inspiring!

The Unknown said...

Wow. All I can say is wow. Great work. Really amazing.
love

Michelle said...

Really nice work! Nice and scaley too! I love the colors you've chosen.

Digital Scott's Illustrationblog said...

Absolutely spectacular piece! Everything is just perfect. Very powerful.

Laurel Neustadter said...

I love the detail on this. Amazing. Thanks also for sharing your process with us.

Cathy said...

Gorgeous piece - love it, love it, love it!

Anonymous said...

This is awesome! The depth and layering were so nicely done that everything in this drawing looks so much alive!

Eli said...

That's intense! What a great piece, attention to detail is just crazy!

Honor said...

This looks great, thanks for posting the process... it's always so interesting to see the working project!

Anonymous said...

Brian, exceptional work. Inspirational for us all.

Random York said...

Man, what a treat for us dino lovers! Great stuff!

Nicole Florian said...

Impressing work!

HARDWAX said...

Fan-tas-tic!
Wow, just the overall beauty of this piece, and the perspective, the gorgeous detail, and the level of skill, and I could go on-WOW!

get zapped said...

It's gorgeous! I love your sensitivity to color and white space. I appreciate you sharing your process. Very impressive piece!