Finished Digital Painting - Last Command

Today I finally finished this month's challenge entry for the ImagineFX monthly challenge. Entitled "Last Command", here's what it ended up like: (ArtRage3 with post adjustments in Photoshop)

Finished Digital Painting - Eyes in The Deep

My latest challenge entry for the "An Illustration for a Role-Playing Game" challenge. Call it "Eyes in the deep" and went for a traditional fantasy dungeon crawl setting:

Eyes in The Deep (2010)

Work In Progress - Battle Tide (WiP2)

An update on the piece from the previous post:

Work In Progress - Battle Tide

Yesterday I joined another online art challenge. The theme is "Battle Tide" and here's a first draft:

Work In Progress - Sunrise Kata (WiP3)

Here's the next WiP for the "Far East"-challenge at ImagineFX:

(ArtRage3)

Join The February Challenge at ImagineFX - I've Picked The Theme!

My life keeps revolving around the wonderful ImagineFX forum. Yesterday I submitted my entry for the January challenge. Today I was asked to pick a theme for February. After some thinking I decided on: "An Illustration For A Role-Playing Game". Should be quite fun and give many opportunities for artists to pick the genre they enjoy the most.

Do come and join the fun at http://community.imaginefx.com/forums/thread/275140.aspx. All artistic levels are welcome and it's both fun and instructive to discuss the works in progress.

Finished Work - Naiad

It's finished! My challenge entry for this months ImagineFX monthly challenge is signed and submitted. Here is what it finally ended up like:

Naiad (2010)

From the Sketchbook - Frazetta master study

Yesterday I finished yet another study from a drawing by fantasy art grandmaster Frank Frazetta. It was another sketch for the Sketchstorm thread over at the ImagineFX forum.

(0.7 ink pen on standard office paper)

(Nudity!) From The Sketchbook - The Night

(This post contains artistic nudity!)

A sketch of Van der Schardts sculpture The Night that I recently did for the Sketchstorm thread I've started:

From the sketchbook - Hot Air Balloon

Just finished drawing and posting another sketch for the sketchstorm thread at ImagineFX. This time it was supposed to be a particular vehicle - a hot air balloon:

(0.7 mechanical HB pencil on standard sketchbook paper)

Work In Progress - Good Vs Evil

Here's a little update on the Good Vs Evil piece I'm doing for the December challenge at ImagineFX. Done in ArtRage 2.5 this far.

Have made a new transparent layer and begun adding some thicker color using the oil paint tool (thinner 50%). Only had time for parts of the background and some of the characters this far though.

How many fairy tales can you find? (it's supposed to be more than 5 there).

Good Vs Evil - ImagineFX December Challenge Entry

The other day the monthly theme for the ImagineFX december challenge was revealed. This time the theme will be "Fable, Fairy Tales or Nursery Rhymes".

My first idea (and sketch) is a battle between good and evil fairytale characters. Quickly sketched in ArtRage, here is what it looks like. So far I have only used one layer for the sketch (using the pencil tool) and one for adding the pale colors (blend mode set to "colors"), using oil paint tool with thinner on 50%.

Good Vs Evil - Work In Progress

Sketch of The Day - Wagon

Welcome to a new week here at Fantasytree. Yesterday it was Father's Day and my sons gave me the latest Dan Brown book, The lost symbol. Although not fantasy per se, his plots are usually imaginative and intricate. Really look forward to reading it.

Anyway, let's start this week the way most paintings are started, shall we? Today's sketch is another one for the Sketchstorm thread (do join in if you want to!) I'm running over at ImagineFX. This time the subject was a wagon. Here's an ink pen sketch from a painting by the illustrator Colbus.

Hope you'll all have a great week.

Finished Work - Moonrise

After some changes to the previous Work In Progress, my entry for the ImagineFX October Challenge ("Witches Moon") ended up like this:

(After painting it digitally in ArtRage, the final tweaks were done in Photoshop)

Moonrise (2009)

WiP of the day - Moonlit Landscape Close to Completion

Latest update of my moon landscape for the ImagineFX challenge and I have made some big changes since last time. Also decided to try something the legendary illustrator Arthur Rackham used to do: Suggesting some faces hidden in the image. Can you see them?

Concerning what this image really depicts, it is up to the viewer to decide. So far I've only used ArtRage working on a single layer. For final tweaking I'll probably transfer it to Photoshop though.

October ImagineFX Challenge Entry - Work In Progress

Sketch Of The Day - Gwyneth Paltrow

Another monday morning and a new week has arrived. Let's start it off with an ink sketch that I drew this weekend for the Sketchstorm thread at the ImagineFX site. It's the actress Gwyneth Paltrow, from the movie "Shakespeare in Love":

(Revised!) Learn to Draw, Lesson 3: Fantasy beast/animal introduction

Learn to Draw, Lesson 3: 
How to draw a Fantasy Beast - Introduction


Time for another part in the "Learn to Draw" series. First, have you gotten into the daily habit of drawing ANYTHING yet? If not, I suggest you go back and review the first and the second lesson and try establishing a drawing routine. Don't give me the "I don't have time" excuse. Grabbing your sketchbook and filling one page with scribbling doesn't have to take more than a minute a day!

One minute drawing every day is better than not drawing at all.

"But honestly, I work all day and when I get home all I want to do is sit in the couch and watch all those awesome TV programs", you might say. I hear you and I do understand - have two toddlers of my own - BUT most awesome TV programs have commercial breaks, right? There, a golden opportunity to turn off the sound and doodle for a few minutes. Surely you could skip ONE commercial break in order to practice something you want to learn? (otherwise you wouldn't be reading this in the first place, would you?).

The reason it's so important to draw something continuously is that:

By drawing something every day you familiarize yourself and the muscles in your hand with the media (pencil, ink pen etc.) you have chosen. This will lead to a much better control when trying to make those lines actually work together in order to construct an image.

Ok, I assume you are fed up with my preaching, get the point and really feel like drawing now? Great, let's take on a grand, challenging and fun project then: How to draw a fantasy beast/animal. Be aware that this is a real challenge. "How to draw an elven boot" or "How to draw a tower" would be much easier for you to draw and for me to teach. But, although figurative drawing (any drawing including a living creature) is the most challenging of all subjects, it is also the most popular. Finding a finished fantasy painting without any figures is actually really hard. We will make it a somewhat less daunting by drawing from reference however.


How to learn to draw a fantasy beast or animal

Note: This is just an unfinished example from a recent project of what such a beast might look like. For these lessons I will draw a completely new beast, starting from scratch.

I figured we would use the following approach to arrive at our goal for this first project: To do a finished drawing of a fantasy beast or animal. (This time only focusing on the creature, that will be quite enough as you will see).

Here is how I'll teach you how to draw such a creature:
1. I'll pick a reference (for this one probably a plastic model of an animal) and do a first, very rough sketch. The reason we use a reference is that as a beginner it is much easier and instructive to try to "copydraw" something and make it look good instead of trying to come up with something from imagination that looks right. Another reason is that I will use this reference as a foundation when turning the animal into a more fantastic beast.
2. I'll make a finished sketch of the reference as an ordinary animal
3. I'll distort and exaggerate features of the animal, turning it into a finished drawing of a fantasy beast (no background/scenery drawing in this project. One step at a time...)

Ok, by then we will have arrived at a finished fantasy beast drawing. This is where the real teaching starts:

4. I will break down the creature into the basic forms (sphere, cube, cylinder, cone) it consists of

After that:

5. I will teach you how to draw those various forms (including basics in line drawing)

6. I will explain how basic perspective works
7. I will teach you how to use knowledge of perspective in order to construct and shade those various forms in order to create a sense of volume

8. I will apply the same approach in order to explain how to draw and shade the entire figure

Told you it would be challenging, didn't I?

Yes, in order to draw fantasy - which is arguably one of the most challenging art forms - you must be prepared to put in quite some effort in order to learn the very basics. The good news is that:

Once you know the basics (basic shapes, perspective, shading etc.) you can apply that to anything you wish to draw, that is - you can draw anything you see (or can imagine)!

So in the next lesson I'll present a first, rough sketch and talk about how I got there. After that we'll break down the figure into it's diverse building blocks, learning how to draw them from scratch.

"Nooo!!!" I hear you scream. "Have I been reading all this and now he's just referring to the 'next lesson'. I want to draw something. Show me something to draw. Now!" Ok, I know that feeling, that frustrating desire to just skip ahead, past all these foundational stages and just start drawing. The problem is that you don't know what to draw (if you do - by all means, stop reading and start drawing. The only way to improve!) Therefore I have also begun writing a more practical series of simple fantasy drawing exercises, in order to get you drawing that elusive SOMETHING right away. At the same time approaching the more complex shapes that will be demanded in the figure drawing. A "Learn to Draw" Light. I call it Simple fantasy drawing drills and the first exercise can be found here:

Simple Fantasy Drawing Drills, exercise 1

I do encourage you to eventually read the entire "Learn to Draw" series though and actually making sure you have fully understood and tried the suggestions/exrcises of a lesson before moving on to the next one. Remember: 

First get into the habit of daily drawing before trying to tackle more advanced subjects. Or be prepared to deal with quite a few frustrating results as the house collapses due to not being built on solid foundations. That's ok - mistakes is what you learn most from - but it can give you an unnecessarily unpleasant start on the way to learning how to draw.

By the way, as soon as you're ready I strongly recommend you to join an online art community and upload your work for feedback. One great, friendly place is the ImagineFX forum. There you can also join the Sketchstorm thread I've initiated in order to provide suggestions on drawing subjects, as well as download great tutorials for free.

If you are already an experienced artist, I can recommend art communities such as ConceptArt and Epilogue .

Best of luck with your practice, don't forget to post comments and feedback so I can improve/change/clarify these lessons.

Happy Drawing!

(This lesson last updated January 2010) 

WiP of the day - Witches Moon update

Time to show how the work on my ImagineFX October challenge entry is going. Here is the latest version (ArtRage):

Still a lot of moonlight waiting to be added, but I think the composition has been improved compared to last time. Also beginning to feel satisfied with the look of the basic shapes.

WiP of the day - Witches Moon Work In Progress

Promised you some eerie imagery, didn't I? Here is the latest update of my entry for the ImagineFX October challenge, "Witches moon".

Much left to do, but I feel like the overall composition is working and is rather balanced. Not too happy about values or light though. Anyway, here it is:

Sketch Of The Day - Meteora Monasteries

Latest sketch that I've done for the Sketchstorm thread over at ImagineFX, is of the Meteora monasteries in Greece (pencil, HB):

Today also the next Monthly Challenge theme was revealed: Witches Moon. Be prepared for some rather eerie imagery for the month to come...