Further Tower Views

I thought Lorey's idea of series based on the tower I designed was cool so I went ahead and did two more pieces today. Unfortunately my scanner is just barely smaller than the pages in my sketchbook so some of the edges are cut off. Anyhow, here they are.


I think I got a little too drastic with some of the shadows in the "Tower Beyond" piece, and the shape is not quite the way it should be in the "Tower Above" piece. Besides that I'm pretty happy with them. What do you think?

Here is a photo of the "Tower Beyond" piece so you can see the tower better. The colors are not as true, however.


~Adam

More Tower Work

I did a more finished work of the tower I previously designed with the "333" door. I didn't realize until after I was done that it's not layed out all that well. But it still looks nice with color. What do you think?

~Adam

Kudzu

I don't know why, but as I was driving home from my friend's late last night this idea popped into my head so I began drawing once I got home. I decided to call it "Kudzu", for obvious reasons. This morning I made a copy of the drawing and colored it with ink. I'm not completely satisfied witht he way it turned out, but I'm not sure what medium would be better to color it with, or if I should just create a fresh version of the work.


Feedback is welcome and appreciated.
~Adam

Here's some interesting links related to Kudzu:
Wikipedia - Kudzu
Kudzu-The Vine
Kud-Zoo

Site Updates!

Well I just spent most of the day adding a bunch of neat new stuff to the site. You might notice the new title bar, as well as a couple links on the side to a store and a gallery! Woohoo! I have to thank a Chris Wahl for the ideas. The new images are based on this design I did a few months ago. As for the store I don't really make much money off the products, $1 each that's sold, I just figured it would be a neat thing to have.


I also spent some time working on a very large version of my "333 door". It's about 6 feet high, in case you're curious :) Here's a couple shots.


~Adam

Today, From Adam's Head

While at my local comic shop recently I found an interesting book, The Fly Chronicles. The illustrations were intersting so I picked it up to look at more later. It's basically "The Far Side" in a new light. The character design was neat though and inspired me to want to work at some of that sort of thing in the near future. If you're curious at all, check out the website. The cards section has some nice examples of his work and they are pretty funny.


Natalie
Over the weekend I had some family over for father's day and my ousin who just graduated high school started talking to me about art and school and that she was planning to study digital illustration. I suggested she start a blog like this one and keep doing art work on a consitent basis. So, please, check it out and see what you think.

Me
And lastly, here's a few sketches of things that I've done recently. Nothing major, just a snapshot of what's been in my head.


I guess I got on kind of a door kick, huh?
~Adam

Bonus!
Here's a drawing I did a few weeks ago in the same style. Since you asked for it :)

Real Sumie Practice

I bought that book that I linked earlier so I could try to learn Sumie for real. It's much harder than I realized. It takes a very steady and controlled hand. I guess that will just come with practice. The book recommends practicing at least 15 minutes every day, so I'm going to try to do that much. I spent a little over an hour today trying to get down a good bamboo leaf. Some of them are getting there, but can be better. Here's what I eneded up with along with an example from the book.





I know it's not really much to look at, just practice, sorry. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can put together a reasonable piece using this medium.

~Adam

Hail to the King Baby

Inspired by this past week's Illustration Friday topic, Jungle, I decided to do a suite of lion portraits, each using a different medium. I did not accomplish what I'd hoped to, I ran out of time, but here's what I DID get done. (Hopefully I'll get back to it to finish them all up)



~Adam

The View from Up Here

I did these today. I did the pen & ink drawing first, I think it turned out pretty well.

I then wanted to try the same thing in sumie style, didn't turn out so great.

I wanted to have a decent looking sumie painting so I did a plant (in a spoon), they seem easiest in that style.

I ordered the book the other day to teach myself. Maybe that will help me get the style down better.

~Adam

Portman Portrait

Well, I'm sorta finished with the Natalie Portman collage/mosaic portrait I started the other day. Made entirely of pictures of scantily clad hot chicks cut out of men's magazines. Here's what I ended up with.

I was thinking about throwing some washes over parts of it to smooth out some of the color. Can't decide if that's a good idea or not, though.

~Adam

Tuesday is Art Day for Adam

Over the summer I'm working full time and between that and the many nights I have obligated myself to other things I don't have as much free time as I'd like to just do art. (run-on much?) But I'm taking off every tuesday just to get things done around the house and work on whatever project I have in my head at the time.

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Portrait". So I decided to do a mosaic/collage portrait of Natalie Portman, because she is hot. I got started on it today, it's much harder than I imagined and I'm afraid it's not going to turn out all that great, but, what the hell. Here's my progress so far.

In the middle of working on this I got distracted (never!) and ended up doing a digital speed painting inspired by Mathias Verhasselt.


Just wanted to put something up for the day. I should get bad to work on the collage.
~Adam

A Shot at Sumi-E

After watching Andy Lee work his magic for a while yesterday I decided to take a shot myself at some sumi-e painting. I picked up some ink and and did some practice paintings on newsprint. Here's what I ended up with.



Well, it's certainly not as easy as he made it look, but I'm satisfied with what I did, it was a first try after all. I decided I should get this book. Who wants to spot me?

~Adam

Wizard World Philly 2006

Yesterday I took a trip to Philadephia with my friend, Joe, to attend the Wizard World Convetion. I spent most the the day in the "Artist's Alley" area talking to illustrators, looking through thier portfollios, and watching them work. I had a handful of them do do a sketch in my sketchbook.

First I talked to an indie comic artist, Jason May, who I had sketch a neat spider looking robot.

Next I found a couple of guys that work on an indie horror comic, The Corpse, and had one of them, Ken Heaser, draw what seems to be their major icon.

The next couple of artists I didn't really talk to much, just asked them to do some sketches. I didn't even catch the girl's name that drew the "girl looking back" for me. She was very cute, though. I guess I got nervous. She had a website but it doesn't show much of her work, more her partner's work.

I asked Tom Ryan to sketch me his favorite character, and I'm not sure who it is. Maybe Mr. Freeze from batman? Tom doesn't have a website and is not affiliated with any comic books.

I spent over an hour watching Any Lee do his work. He calls it "Modern Zen Art", it's a mixture of Sumi-e style painting and comic illustration. Original and very fun to watch. I asked him to sign my sketchbook with his brush, to help me remember his style so I could look him up later and he instead did a sketch of me, it took him about 15 seconds, I was very impressed. I later asked him to paint a dragon for me and he gave me a free print along with it.



Last, but by no means least, Andy Macdonald of NYC Mech, did a very impressive drawing of one of his mechs for me. It was really amazing to watch the page go from nothing to this in just 20 minutes.

It was a great day and I can't wait until next month when I'm going to the International Comic-Con in San Diego to see even more artists.

I plan on doing some sumi-e style paintings of my own soon.
~Adam