Mind 2 Pixels

The Hulkster!

2010-11-17T14:23:00.001-08:00

Detail work...
Here's a caricature I did for a facebook caricature challenge page. Very talented artists there and it's fun to see artists from all over the world contribute. This was done all in Photoshop.

International Self Portrait Day

2010-11-02T12:36:00.000-07:00

Caricatured Self Portrait along with my process. I lost 2 steps tho...I'll do better next time with saving my steps.

Dwarf sketch Painting

2010-10-23T22:29:00.000-07:00

Sketch of a dwarf in my sketchbook that I added some color to in Photoshop.

I'll go on 3

2010-10-23T20:26:00.001-07:00

I realized that I don't have a good set of brushes for environments and that I kinda suck at backgrounds. Work on weaknesses is key to improving. So here's a sketch painting that started out as just an environment from my imagination.

Ratzinger

2010-05-24T08:42:00.001-07:00

Caricature of Ratzinger. His days post Hitler youth have been kind to him.

Grand Moff Tarkin

2010-04-26T10:50:00.000-07:00

Caricature of Grand Moff Tarkin from Star Wars. Fun painting and 100% photoshop. Once I really got to understanding faking oils in photoshop...well faking the artist oils brushes in Painter with Photoshop I didn't find that much use for Painter except for special effects that are uniquely Painter. Painter is still my program of choice for inking comic pages though.

Dwarf Madness!

2009-12-13T22:27:00.000-08:00

Here's some Photoshop/Painter work. Photoshop is really becoming my main program more than ever. The very opaque hard brushes in Photoshop are really working out for me. This was a pencil drawing that I scanned from my sketchbook. I lost some of the emotion in the painting though. No refs were used this time around except for looking in a small mirror to see the forms around my snarled nose.

Zombie Vampie

2009-10-13T19:35:00.000-07:00

Getting close to Halloween...drawing bad guys can be very fun. Mostly photoshop with a dash of Painter.

Bizzaro WIP

2009-09-22T17:43:00.000-07:00

Here's a work in progress (WIP) of Bizzaro Superman. No idea why I wanted to paint him. I received some critiques and made some changes. I've added some low chroma color and a background. I will now always start with the background before going into the characters. Corel Painter X and Photochop CS3.

Alien revisited

2009-09-20T15:56:00.001-07:00

Here's a revisit of an alien that I sketched some time ago. Still trying to work only in photoshop...I still love painter but I'm drawn to the stability of Photoshop. I'm never afraid to have10+ layers if I choose to...tho I rarely have more than 3.

Warrior

2009-08-17T19:21:00.000-07:00

This is a painting I did in about 3 hours or so. Some experimentation especially on the palette. Started out multiplying a redish brown color over some quick values then I went down to "difference" and got that hot red under glow...so I kept it. I like how this sketch to painting came out. Started out in Photoshop but I did most of the work in Painter.

Brad Pitt study.

2009-08-03T12:59:00.001-07:00

I found this photo shoot of Brad Pitt in high res with some nice shadows, wrinkles, and poses. In my continuing fight to become more adept with Photoshop here is a value study...there's a tad of Painter in here too. A few new brushes came out of it including a stubble hair brush, and a couple of "Dual Brushes" which I never even bothered with before.

Using Photoshop more than Painter...

2009-07-20T18:22:00.001-07:00

Here's a dump of a few images that I painted with Photoshop. I am still working on the ins and outs of the program in order to render well with it. These are a few attempts. I am not saying that Painter is not as good as Photoshop, but I will say that there are things that I like to use in each program.

Lancelot

2009-06-26T11:56:00.001-07:00

This is currently unfinished but close enough to post. No real references were used so I struggled a good bit on making the armor believable. Corel PainterX.

Armor study

2009-05-22T13:33:00.001-07:00

Armor study from a photograph. Corel PainterX with a little bit of Photoshop.

Warcraft Logo

2009-05-19T11:33:00.000-07:00

Another World of Warcraft logo for a friend's video. PainterX and Photoshop for the figure and Photoshop and Illustrator for the text.

Another Self Caricature

2009-05-14T21:16:00.000-07:00

These are always fun. Corel PainterX and Photoshop CS2. My wife was freaked out a little when she saw me like this..."scary" was all she said before telling me to take out the garbage.

Environment study

2009-05-11T22:06:00.000-07:00

Painting what I have trouble with...Environments! Though I should use reference I decided to struggle through this speed painting. I worked on this for about 20-30 minutes.

Elfien...

2009-04-21T23:53:00.001-07:00

Sketch of an Elf turned into an alien along the way. Grayscale study in Corel Painter X.

Self Portrait

2009-04-14T22:48:00.000-07:00

I was outside getting some shadow reference and I liked one of the pictures I took so I painted it. I tried to stay away from "rendering" like mad and kept it relatively loose. I even found a satisfying use for the impasto of Corel Painter...something that I normally shy away from. This took roughly 3 hours.

Noseforatoof [WIP]

2009-04-13T21:34:00.000-07:00

Early grayscale of an image I am working on. Done mostly in Corel Painter X.

Schoolism final assignment.

2009-04-02T17:36:00.001-07:00

I should've had this up a long time ago. This is the final assignment for Bobby Chui's digital painting class. Bobby gave us a sketch and we had to paint it using all of the knowledge from the past assignments. When I was in art school, Photoshop was literally 1.0. and wasn't thought of as a method of illustration.

I kept the image as is when Bobby critiqued it. I learned quite a bit from Bobby on "basic" photoshop techniques that I still use on everything I work on.

Mech?...

2009-04-02T17:08:00.001-07:00

I realized that I suck at "vehicle" type images. So here's an attempt at some of that. Took longer that I should've but I learned a lot along the way. Made some more brushes for the "hard" edges needed for this type of object. I almost gave up on Painter for Photoshop on this one. The opacity and hard edges make Photoshop very nice for these sort of objects. Making paths then turning them to selections was a common technique for this. The design is rather a joke but the execution is what I focused on.

Slovan

2009-04-02T17:01:00.001-07:00

Great mage that I was lucky enough to have on my side. This is my favorite out of the four that I did. I will probably take this further and add a body and paint out the black lines. Looking at this makes me want to get back into the game... Corel Painter for the most part with some burn/dodge Photoshop used.

ChinaFarm

2009-04-02T16:53:00.001-07:00

Undead without the jaw. I never had the guts to make an undead like this...scary. More Corel Painter X. Basic round modified marker and Airbrush make up the image.

39 Troll Priest

2009-03-31T13:59:00.001-07:00

Icon created for a buddy of mine. Character was created with Painter. Text was created using Adobe Illustrator.

BoostZ

2009-03-03T22:25:00.001-08:00

Image of one of the best 39 Rogues. A buddy of mine was gonna make a video that would host some of my art...sadly the video has been scratched but the art will continue. I used a little of everything for this image. Painter for the main portrait, and Adobe Illustrator, CorelDraw, and Photoshop for the text.

Apple

2009-01-29T21:54:00.001-08:00

Here is a painting of an apple on my desk. I worked Ala Prima as much as possible. Painter's Mixer pad is really a great tool.

Buddy.

2009-01-24T16:26:00.000-08:00

This is a portrait of my one of my best friends Justin "Buddy" Calvin. I had to use multiple references for this image and pieced them together. A picture of Justin, a tuxedo on a rack, a picture of Brad Pitt, and a planar head were used to make up the shadows for his face. 100% Corel Painter X.

Skull on my desk.

2009-01-14T19:08:00.000-08:00

Here's a monochromatic technique that I use when I paint traditionally. Trying to make it work with Corel Painter doesn't translate 100% but it's pretty close. I recently worked on blocking out the glare from my monitor. I found that Painting digitally during the day time was a lot tougher than painting at night time. So I purchased some foamcore board and cut it to the size of my windows. Now its nightime all day in my studio.

Wizard

2008-12-08T20:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted. This was painted from a sketch I made about 2 years ago. Great thing about digital art is the ability go back in time like that. Value study for the most part. I'm still working out a few things but it's getting easier and faster. I was going to add color before posting but I wanted to get started on my next project.

I really like the artist oils in Painter. Feels pretty much like real oils especially with the 6d stylus pen. The real world color paint swatches are really helpful when you have the same names as real tube paint. 100% Corel Painter x.

Blademaster

2008-10-30T20:25:00.000-07:00

My favorite hero from Warcraft 3 (ROC). This was a comic book ink drawing I created about 6 years ago and I decided to paint it...well part of it. The original drawing was a full body but I didn't want to get too deeply committed into a painting that would never get finished. This was a lot of discovery for me. Basically just trying out as many brushes as I can find in Corel Painter X and trying to work with them. Oils, Artists' Oils, Chalk, Glow, Airbrush ,and a Blender pretty much makes up the entire painting.

Self Caricature

2008-10-13T19:35:00.001-07:00

This was a pretty tough painting for me. It was hard for me to keep it exaggerated. I wanted to keep hacking away at the shapes early and it started to look too much like a portrait. I watch Joe Bluhm's Tom Cruise at work and got inspired to do this. This one I did all in Corel PainterX.

I ordered Don Seegmiller's new Painter book last week and I'm pretty excited about it. There's so much about Painter that I really don't "tap" into much. The pattern chalks is my new step I think. Watching Andrew Jones work them has me in the mood to add it to my list of tools.

Lord Death

2008-10-05T16:38:00.000-07:00

Back when I was about 13 years old I used to play a roleplaying game called "Champions". Basically it was a superhero version of dungeons and dragons. My cousin Kevin and I were pretty much the only ones in this exclusive "club" and this image is a redesign of his character named "Lord Death". This started out as just the helmet that was sitting on my computer for about a year. I then just drew the body under it. All the painting was done in Corel painter with texturing done in Photoshop. Roughly 7 hours up to this point.

Sketch painting

2008-09-28T17:12:00.000-07:00

Black and white painting done for practice. 100% Corel Painter. I really enjoy the 6d pen with Painter brushes, especially the palette knives. Though I had to use a European wacom driver in order to get it to work.

Bruce

2008-09-22T22:11:00.001-07:00

Bruce Lee painting I did for fun. This is fairly old and it was tough to resist going back in and reworking the color and some values. This was done with 100% Painter I believe. I might've did some thumbnail sketches in Photoshop but all the value work and color was done in Painter. Oh I did use some Photoshop Color Balance on it though.

Methman

2008-09-22T21:59:00.000-07:00

I was looking for face reference on the internet when I stumbled onto a site called "faces of meth". It showed the affects of meth on peoples faces in short time spans with monstrous results. This guy was one of the better ones but he had one of those heads that I just had to paint.

The tools I used were Photoshop 20% and Painter 80%. Nothing really fancy in regards to brushes. Just a normal default dry media brush in Photoshop for the sketch and default "oil" brushes in painter. Spent about 6 hours on it.