now in Digital HD color

And just in time for the governments scheduled conversion to digital! The textured version of the below model.
Sorry to visitors that are not interested in 3D modeling.

Sculpted Royalty

I was hoping to post a new oil painting but here is a sculpture based off of a painting I did a little while back, which you can find here. I would love to do a sculpture in clay and actually bronze the thing. This one would be nice to have on my desk.
This was all done in ZBrush, again thanks to Danny Williams for his mentoring.

sketchbook #34

I found this picture of Caroline Kennedy as a child, I guess I am too young to know how cute she was as a child. Very interesting eyes.

One, in my opinion very important, art tip is learning how to throw away what you've done and being confident that you can do it again. A lot of artists are way too hesitant to start over if they think something is pretty good already but maybe one portion is off. Don't be afraid to erase it and start over. These drawings are usually the second or third attempt, consider it as 3x the practice.

sketchbook #33

Today's drawing.

I've been breaking my cardinal rule lately which requires me to draw constantly. Luckily today I did. Don't worry this drawing is not a jerk I saw on the street, he is a jerk that I saw in a catalog. While drawing from photos, especially not my own, is not preferable to life it does give me a nearly endless supply of good subjects that don't take breaks.

3D model - Pirate

I did this model while experimenting in Mudbox. It was modeled in a flat gray but I wanted to see what it would look like colored and got a little carried away. So this is a full painting done entirely in overlays over the rendering. He definitely looks like a pirate so I was inspired to give him tattoos, the mother one is cool but you can't leave him without a Koi fish. I'm sure all pirates had at least one Koi fish tattoo, it was practically a ticket onto the boat.
Actually, I was initially trying to just learn by copying a brilliant model done by Daniel Williams (the first in his gallery). But as it developed I could tell I was failing and going way to realistic. You can see some similarities if you look closely.

Painting painting - step #4

So here is more of the meat of the painting after a day or two of drying time. Again kind of a rougher process then usual but I've enjoyed the more straight forward approach. Similar to my drawing style the face is were I like working, I like the challenge, and the background is more of an afterthought. That's why with this of any other painting the face is done first.
I've laid down an extremely thin layer of walnut oil (non-alkyd) to give the feeling of painting wet on wet but without the messy mixing colors. The colors and draftsmanship are being tightened up at this point. And I am building up the lights, one thing I really like about painting in layers to build the hi-lights over 3-4 stages because it gets a really nice glow especially in good light. I've pushed the sky toward blue but wasn't comfortable with it so it will change.

My mind is muddled so if you have any specific questions come to mind please ask. More to come.
Also note, the step #3 image is awful, this is much better.

Pomposity

I found this cool picture of an art critic, started a painting a while back then never really got back to finish but the face is nice.

Base painting - step #3

Don't worry it gets better.

So this is step #3 in this painting. If I remember correctly I was in a hurry to get painting so a rushed value under drawing, a quick spray fix, wait 5 minutes and time to paint. I slapped on a burnt umber thin layer with turpentine to thin and painted into it with no medium except more turpentine if needed. That explains the dark colors because anything you paint picks up about as much Burnt Umber as it adds new color. I used a lot of quick loose strokes to get the face and was very proud of it when I was done, only to return the next day to be disappointed (was obviously staring at it too long). I did like the way the brush work looked but not the details of the drawing, no matter there are more steps to come.
Excuse the blown out light values, I'm also still learning to use a camera effectively.