Christmas Gifts and Fanart

 I made some acrylic paintings on canvas board as gifts for my sister's friends. Each one I was given the general theme of the painting and then I created the composition and finalized the look. Now to be clear, no I do not own the copyright to Minions from 'Despicable Me' or Ariel from 'The Little Mermaid'. It belongs to their respected owners which are in part Universal Studios, Illumination Entertainment, Disney, and all others who put work into it.

So the painting to the left, I was told Minion dressed in a vampire costume. From there I thought of what minions would do as a vampire. One idea that came up with him attempting to fly, which then gave me the idea to have the dog. It works both as a recklessness of the minion and vicious nature of the dog.

The full moon and roof just became a good and natural setting for this. I had a lot of fun realizing how much my painting technique has change over the years. I've always sketch with paint on the canvas, but never did I pick random or bright colors usually I would go with a burnt sienna or a subtle color such as ultramarine blue. Instead I picked like bright reds, purples and bright blues such as phthalo blue. It was a great experience to see my confidence and the fun in having like a red under a blue sky or a blue under a yellow minion. So both paintings had a higher than usual layering of colors.


 I did create the initial rough thumbnail idea in Mischief for my sister's approval before I proceeded on, which you can see below. The other painting is the focus of Ariel on the coast; it also had the requirement of something to represent Belle from 'Beauty and the Beast'. I gave some different ideas such like yellow earrings Belle has, shell with a rose imprint, and the one that was chosen, the mirror from Beauty and the Beast.

So I created Ariel having lots of fun with reflective color hints in the water, fin, shells, etc. It originally didn't have the seagulls in the sky, but that changed after I sent a picture to my sister who mentioned the sky seemed too empty. Which is why it's good to get a fresh perspective either by walking away from the painting or getting someone else to look into it.

Hope you enjoy looking at these fan works. Sidenote: Sorry on the day late. I forgot that I hadn't scheduled it. 

Drawing: Cranial Unit

There are many approaches to drawing the human form. The one most people know is the head counting where you compare their proportion by number of heads. If this works for you, that is great. But for me it left a lot to be desired. Most of the chosen spots are things that change a lot from one body type to another such as the navel, nipples, etc. It gets even more awkward with multiple characters as their head size will vary and trying to keep them in proportion to each other. However the skeleton structure tends to stay much more similar than the skin.

That is where the Cranial Unit comes in. Instead of measuring the entire head, you measure just the round part of the skull, the cranium. Where the head unit is about 7.5 for a person height, the cranium is 10.5 and hits more consistent landmarks, such as where a bone ends or begins. It also has the advantage of if you can't see the head you can still find the cranial unit for proportions using the clavicle, sternum, or scapula bones, which are all a size of a cranial unit. Also I find a square is much easier to use for perspective than a rectangle. To learn more read it on Studio Incamminati's post on the 'Cranial Index'. It has great detail images and general text overview. There is also a video by Proko that can help you with the concept.

Some practice on finding and using the cranial unit

I'm always working to know more and improve my art techniques. There are places that create gesture practice lessons on this site which has one for Figure, Animal, Hands and Feet, and Faces and Expressions. I find it a great way to warm up or practice when one feels little out of practice. For new artist, it is a great way to learn. So as a sum up, if you find a method doesn't work for you, search for a different one. For me, heads didn't work, but cranial makes much more sense to me and helps a lot more. Sidenote, all gestures was done inside the program called 'Mischief'

Face gestures and some expressions

Cauldron of Lost Ancestors

The sequel to 'Masks of the Lost Kings' is out now. Been out for a while on Kindle, took longer for paperback this time around. For those who are new, I did the cover for Tom Bane's first book called 'Masks of the Lost Kings' and now I've done the cover for it's sequel 'Cauldron of the Lost Ancestors'.

It stars the same main character, Suzy da Silva, going on another adventure. For a general idea about what type of series it is action, history mystery with some conspiracy theories. I think of it like a National Treasure on a global scale.

The first one had elements from Egypt and Mayan with the secret connection of those. This one focus on Avalon (Think King Arthur) and Celtic Druids.

Mask of the Lost Kings can be found here on Amazon as ebook or paperback.

Cauldron of the Lost Ancestors can be found there  as well in both formats.

Painting Shoes- Christmas Theme

As promised a post for the week. This is an older project. I had a client who loved to have custom painted shoes. So I decided to post one of the Christmas ones that were inspired by her favorite Christmas ornaments she own. She didn't like her shoes to match, but rather each to be unique.

The one with Santa Claus I had change the dog of the ornament to be her dog instead. The right shoe theme was mostly of her favorite angel series of ornaments, the right shoe was her favorite Santa Claus ornaments. I have a series of shoes I've done that will be posted in the upcoming months.

I made this post a bit late, but I plan to have future ones to automatically post on Mondays in the morning. I had debated on a day, but considering Sundays tend to be my catch up day. I figure it be good way to insure future blogposts to be regular.

Other view of the shoes below. Enjoy