House Cat Acrylic Portrait

 So I was given a new commission from a friend of mine to ask to paint his cat, so I used acrylic paints I still have needed to use before get a new set. So looking at the photo as the cure was mostly brown with stripes, I used mainly brown and had to get the pose right while having a blueish background, making sure the fire in different shades of brown blended together and did a tricky job for the detailed areas such as the ears and eyes. Previous mistakes of the body shapes so I painted over that part to make it into a shadow to improvise and like how it.

He was really pleased with how it turned out and worth the pay to know it was something he likes to hang up on display.

Portrait commissions

 Been awhile and got some new images I’ve been working in lately for awhile as I’ve been a little busy for course works and new ideas working on. So here are what I’ve been doing to show you all. Been taking commissions from a community and did some guinea pigs, chickens and a Shepard dog.

Heres what I’ve done for a commission Ive taken, it was a little slow with limited paint supplies but gotten much as I can get for this portrait for a bloke who wanted a painting of his dog so I thought o give it a go. At first at the Community farm I might have beeen rushing a little with the paint with limited time we had and get the image right by position while painting it, but luckily he gave me the picture of his dog to get the face do e. So i had to think of how to pull through and improvise, some hard time getting the shading right for the fur, but I think this looks really good and just some minor touches for some parts to complete it.

The farmer was very pleased with how it was made and shown it to others in the farm of my talent. I was happy of how it came about and be doing more work in the near future.

Master of Trade: Jessica Peffer

For research on the Master of Trade I decided to write about Jessica "NeonDragon" Peffer because I know a lot about her and bought her How To Draw books, also a fan of dragons which is one of the main reasons. So here is my blog presentation.

Background

Freelance Illustrator, comic book and fantasy artist

• She was born in Feb 1983 OhioShe's a freelance illustrator who publishes comics and illustrate fantasy creatures, mainly dragons from looking at her Dragonart books.
• Jessica's hobbies are playing games like World of WarcraftShe's a freelance artist but has made indie comics and books to sell. 
• She has made three How to Draw books. Even has an online store to sell prints and products featuring her artwork.
• Had her work printed since 2002 

Career

• She's a freelance artist but has made indie comics and books to sell. She has made three How to Draw books. Even has an online store to sell prints and products featuring her artwork.

Why is she a master of trade?

• Because she focus the target audience that want to learn how to draw fantasy creatures and big fans of dragons. So she publishes books, comics and online tutorials for artists to learn
• She uses a variety of media and does a lot of research on animals to build a mythical creature in her style of illustration.
• Jessica had made her latest new website for a new project called Flight Rising
• Obviously gets in touch with people she knows or fans when doing a streamline to show her working on her illustrations.
• Her work is favored largely towards fans of fantasy and illustration. 
• On her website she has a discussion forum to chat with people of certain things than just her art. Other social websites she can be contacted are Facebook, Twitter and Livejournal 

What I can tell is she knows her market and takes time to chat with her fans and followers of what they like to see of new projects and has a lot of contacts to help her projects being made .

                    

Looking at her work I have been a fan of her artwork, made an influence of wanting to get into illustration of fantasy and sci fi. She works well with the media and equipment, giving tips to the fans of learning new ways of drawing. Knows what her target likes and wants to attract their attention.

Mike Mignola

Mike is a comic book artist and writer who best known for creating the Hellboy series for Dark Horse comics. Also took part in the animation projects such as Atlantis: The Lost Empire that I later recognised as it was also used for the animation adaption of Hellboy. He described his art style as "German Expressionism meets Jack Kirby by some artists he may have talked to about. I find his work in gothic horror really interesting in the way they are drawn and made expanded his imagination of the Hellboy universe of creatures, monsters and demons from folklore and legends.

http://www.artofmikemignola.com

RJ Palmer

RJ Palmer, is a freelance concept artist and illustrator who specialises in character and creature designs, and really incredible work and effort he put into his drawings. I really liked how amazing his artwork is and even make realistic pokemon that are my favourite of his illustration when I follow his work on Deviantart, morphing them into actual creatures that interact in the real world and write stories about them. I have been a fan of the series when I was a kid and still remember some of them when I watched the series, and also really been keen of seeing realistic pokemon by artists but hard to find until I found Palmer's as he goes by the name Arvalis.

He studied living and extinct animals to get the Pokemon to look with real world influence and separate them from the anime version which is a useful resource of making up a strange animal by looking at the skeleton, physical form and texture, but it does show he's been looking at prehistoric animals and dinosaurs. The colour work is really unique, really talented on the scales, skin and fur for the creatures, the characters are well thought out They are really unique and very original which I can't help but admire them and made me want to do more thought of ideas and looking at his work I can't help but look at their appearances and look at more unique animals in the natural world

http://rj-palmer.com
http://arvalis.deviantart.com
http://techgnotic.deviantart.com/journal/Jurassic-Pokemon-495463998

Traci "Ulario" Vermeesch

Traci Vermeesch, also known by her nickname "Ulario" is a science fiction and fantasy artist who illustrates creatures, anthropomorphic characters, dragons and superheroes. She is also the creator of Azure Wheel universe. I find her art well coloured and well drawn, although I find most of the races she has drawn seem more from a fantasy verse but I don't want to judge even if some aliens could look like animals on earth or genetically engineered.

She clearly has thought out a lot of the series an can see a lot more to come. The series takes place in the distant future in another galaxy where in hundreds of thousands of years time, humanity would be extinct. Not just characters and creatures, but also star systems and planets that tell the information about them, along with the history, including references of the race, character and creature for readers to know about them which can be very useful.

http://ulario.deviantart.com

http://tracivermeesch.com

Wayne Barlow

Wayne Barlow is one of my favourite science fiction and fantasy author/illustrators as he took part in many projects like Hellboy, Avatar, Alien Planet, Babylon 5: Thirdspace, Harry Potter and other movies his work is recognised. I find his sketches really well drawn and the level of tone for the shading and his surreal view on fantasies such as his version of Hell. He also made novels God's Demon and The Heart of Hell. 


Worked on the details from his earlier sketches of creatures for projects, making them truly alien and monstrous to fit in with the world he creates for them. Much like the early designs of the Banshees and the Great Leonopteryx.

Keith Thompson

Keith Thompson is a professional freelance artist, best known for his illustrations in concept art for movies and games. He has also done illustrations for books and his work has appeared in magazines and online such as the Imagine FX and deviantart. Others he worked with for Guillermo del Toro's film 'Don't be Afraid of te Dark', the Homunculus for example were very creepy and easy to scare people from the shadows and very disturbing appearances.


Website: http://www.keiththompsonart.com/

Blog: http://blog.keiththompsonart.com/2012/08/homunculi.html

Here are some of his work and I found them really good and well thought out. I've read his art books and the way he thought of such creatures, vehicles and characters are well thought up and make doodles for his illustrations.

Vengence

Vengence

He's made two books so far which one of them, one of the two I know is the 50 Fantasy Vehicles to Draw and Paint. The second would be about the Undead.

Shawn McCauley

Shawn McCauley is an independent comic illustrator who is known for his work on the Shadows of Oblivion series. I've read his comics and find his work really good, even though the comic illustrations are in a black and white comics but find his work really good as I have looked at his artwork in some of the websites he goes on like Facebook, his homepage, DeviantArt and find myself a fan of his work. How he thought of the characters and the plots. McCauley has taken in fan artworks for commisions from Deviantart and artworks of his own. He makes video tutorials for artists to help them know how to make characters and to make comics by each step.

Known Sources

• Artist website: http://shawnmccauley.com/
• Comic book website: http://shadowsofoblivion.shawnmccauley.com/
• Deviantart: http://shono.deviantart.com/

Michael Whelan

Michael Whelan is an artist living in California who illustrated artworks for many careers in his early years. Illustrating book covers for horrors, fantasy and science fiction book; Michael Moorcock;s Elric series, Anne McCaffrey and Pern's Dragon Aboard. And also John Carter's Princess of Mars series. His artwork is more traditionally similar to paintings before digital illustration was common

Renegades of Pern

I find his work really good and how he pictured them to relate to the stories he's read to get the settings, characters, aliens and creatures as how the writers thought of them. I think it's good for the illustrator and writer to discuss ideas of how the artwork would look and what it could need then one person doing it themselves. He was one of the artists who brought a new world of fantasy and science fiction to many artists in the later years.

Health and Safety

Health and safety in art is the importance for artists to keep their work clean and organized. The main priority for this is that the artists would not have trouble and always clean up after themselves; paints, brushes, paper, pen and also pencil.

• For digital artists who do graphics art and digital illustration, they would have to keep their desk clear of food and drink if they spend most of the working hours on their computers.

• Avoid spilling any drink and damage the computers, costing them the amount of data stored within the computers and all their work.

• Keep a clean room so nothing can be left on the floor and stacked neatly on shelves, pencil cases, boxes and wardrobes so you would know where they are. People usually put pens, pencils and brushes in cups.

• Always have a comfortable environment in the area you work with, a comfortable chair, lean back so you would not always have to sit up straight. 

• It is most important to know what equipment and tools you need for your art, if some of them are sharp you would need to cover them with something so you would not accidentally cut yourself.

• Some chemicals are not easy to wash off from clothes and could stain them, best use old clothing material you don't mind using. When not used, always be sure to seal them up tight with a lid.

• Always make sure to check the temperature in the room you're working in, making sure it isn't too warm or cold, the seasons always change so be sure to keep a watch on the weather.

Websites about health and safety:

http://www.winsornewton.com/resource-centre/health--safety-data-information/
http://www.nsead.org/hsg/

Dragonart

 Dragonart is an illustrated art book published by Jessica Peffer, also by her given name "NeonDragon" who is a fantasy artist and drawn many creatures and characters. I bought this book as it had amazing tutorials that help give artists ideas how to draw creatures, finding ways to create new and stranger craetures by looking at other animals. I have used this mainly to draw creatures and ways to improve my skills of designing creatures.

Deviantart: neondragon.deviantart.com

Website:  http://neondragonart.com/

kaleb lechowski

Kaleb Lechowski is a digital animated art who had down many designs from Science Fiction movies, including other themes such as landscapes creating models, and mostly sketches of his own which later become a short film of aliens fighting an army of advance AI that turned against their creators, which parallels to us in familiar films.

I really admired the hard work he put into to make a short CGI film of an alien character, made a lot of effort to it. Watched the film and loved to see the feature length film one day.


Short Movie: http://vimeo.com/57148705
Website: http://kaleblechowski.tumblr.com/
Deviantart: kaleblechowski.deviantart.com

Gilles Beloeil

Beloeil is an artist who is known for his work on the game series Assassin's Creed. What I like about his work is how detailed and realistic the illustrations are and how much effort to create such excellant details. Even how Gilles had traced them from historic landscapes and knowing what period they belong to.

http://www.gillesbeloeil.com/

Guangjian Huang

 Guangjian Huang is a chinese illustrator of digital science fiction and fantasy art. His work are incredibly detailed and awesome, spending hours with the tools needed to make such pieces of artwork. His work can be found on these websites: http://hgjart.deviantart.com/ and http://www.hgjart.com

Arne Svenson

The sculptured facial expressions made by Arne Svenson are almost live-like with almost all the details. Possibly how this was done before computers become more of use for investigations on the skeletal remains of the person.  It must've taken sculptures like Svenson a lot of effort to get the faces right and also the bodies to know what they once looked like.

Michael Kuo

This one from Michael Kuo seems very interesting and how they look almost cartoonish by the way they look.  The proportions are unusual by their body shapes, but what I dont normally like is the bright colours more use than dark colours apart of the shadows and the greyish background, probably thinking of this gaining attention of children and family audiance.

Artist Research: Terryl Whitlatch

Terry Whitlatch is an illustrator that creates many animals with skills and talent that are known for such

works, such as the art books, strange creatures in many films like Star Wars, Brother Bear, Jumanji and Men in Black. Celebrated as one of the top creature designers in the art world. She had also drawn many illustrations in the Katarran Odyssey book. Studied and researched in anotomy of animals and also include extinct species such as the dinosaurs; bones, muscles and organs for research of how these parts function.

Creating new and strange looking creatures would require sourceful materials of the existing animals, working on certain things they need such as how they behave, eat, adapt to such environments.

Photographer Hal

One of things I find interesting, yet creepy in the same way is how the naked bodies of people blanketed in plastic sheets, sealed tight as though they were body bags from a crime scene. Although not all of them are bad to look at but still felt that people wrapped in vacuum-sealed bags is like something from a movie.

Ted Sabarese

After seeing several photos taken by Ted of people and fish, I found it funny how each of them look almost similar by their face, shape and color. One on the right having the mustache with the fish having whiskers for example. It's actually like seeing two opposites but having something in common. His photography skills were used for surreal adverts with people and whatever things that gives a message. Even took photos of fashion models as part of is career

http://www.tedsabarese.com