It is a great exhibit this year and I am really honored to have been included.  It is totally nuts that a Winterbottom image is going to be exhibited next to work from Halo:Reach, Mass Effect, and the soon to be released Epic Mickey (which coincidentally I was actually really close to working on….but that is another story.) The Odd Gents and myself are really excited, congrats to all the other winners!  If you are at E3 this year check out the exhibit.

One of my favorite projects on the game was making “movie –style” posters to represent each of our game levels. Being inspired by silent films we wanted to introduce each game level with a new movie posters (to reinforce that they were their own bottled story as part of a larger serial) . This allowed me an opportunity to explore ways to iconically represent PBW in a variety of different situations; with color and in a style that could be different than the rest of the game art I generated for the project.  So it was great (and fitting) that one of these posters was chosen for the show.

“Savory Salutations” my winning entry in the 2010 Into The Pixel show

“Savory Salutations” was the first poster I did and set the tone for the rest of the series. The goal of each poster was to represent in an iconic way the main mechanic, or theme, of each level.   “Savory Salutations” had to stand for the first level of the game where you were introduced to: the main mechanic (cloning and time challenges), the locale (a crazy crammed city with a prominent clock tower) and the main character, (Winterbottom himself.)  I chose to make the imagery based on silhouette shapes to closely represent screen-printing or paper cut outs. Also the directness of a silhouette can carry a louder clearer message ( and it would not compete, but rather compliment the more rendered look of the rest of the game.)

Study your art history kids, it can win you acclaim!

The primary real world inspirations were vintage cabaret posters, Russian Avant-garde film posters, Saul Bass and generally all things Brecht or Dada. Some examples are below:

I loved the way these images could tell their own story using stylish graphic imagery.  Modern posters are typically floating heads or hero shots that are just letting you know which actors are in the picture.  However these vintage takes are so fun and vibrant ( alluding to the story while also being visually exciting as stand alone images).  We wanted to capture a nostalgic vibe with Winterbottom and using these posters as a springboard for our own helped us add to the games visual style.

More posters than you can shake a stick at!

To celebrate here is a selection of some of my favorite posters from the series of 10( which you can’t see if you don’t play the game and it’s bonus levels.)

In Clockwork capers levels you have to get all the pies in sequence and within a tough time limit.

In Baked Blue follies only Winterbottom Clones (colored blue) could grab victory pies.

Purloined Pastries had you trying to collect as many pies as you could in within a time limit.

The Trial was done as the intro poster for the games Demo. It was the last poster I did and had to introduce the general theme of the game to prospective buyers. So i focused on the seductive quality of the pie itself.

Spelunking for Sweets took place in these crazy sewers and although it involved red evil clones, I chose to focus more on the locale.  These levels were really a turning point for the in game art. The 3D guys hit it out of the park and ended up going back and reworking other levels to match what they did with this level.  I was so inspired by what the 3D guys did I wanted to capture some of that in the poster.  ( probably my favorite poster of the lot.)

Circular Conclusions was the final game level and story wise focused on PBW reflecting on his mischievous selfish actions, while also having to fight all his clones.

For those interested in such things: I would make all the image shapes and layout composition using vector shapes in photoshop.  I would work out the  on the finished composition color theme.  I then added paper texture and, where applicable, drop shadows and patterns to the colored shapes.  To finish them off I would add the type treatment for each.

I made small thumbnails for some of the designs, but I mainly jumped into the final image right away.  With most of them my first impulse for design and composition is what I ran with (which is what happens when you are under tight deadlines).  All the posters were made in a 3 month window ( in addition to working on all the games illustrated title cards).  To answer your question…yes I was a total wreck after….but I am much better now.

Also Check out Dave Kang’s badass Lego piece.   I met him at the panel  last night and his entry was really killer (Plus he is a cool dude to boot!)

That’s all kids!

-Vincent

The cover to the actual Issue (not my design, but a cool cover)

The only directive was “I need spooky stuff”.  Contrary to recent activity i don’t have a ton of “spooky” images.   Most are bright and cartoonish so I had to reach deep in my archives.

Here are the actual Spreads:

The illustration was originally a T-shirt design I was asked to make that never got produced.

There is a good story on this one, it was actually an old sketch I got to redo ( see below.)

They cropped my floating spooky dude for the final page. he was officially spooky

It has been a while since I have done magazine work so it was cool that I was offered the chance from a video game mag.  My worlds are colliding!

Revisitng an old idea.

I like the idea of going back and redrawing an old image. I like to see how I have grown as an artist, and what better way than to cover familiar territory.  However I try not to do this because you have to move forward, no sense in beating yourself over how you could have executed an idea better.  With this new project though, I got the opportunity to go back and play this exercise out.

About two years ago I laid this idea down in my sketchbook and colored it in Photoshop:

I liked this idea, but I was just getting into coloring images digitally.  Looking back it is really sloppy. The ghosts weren’t as well designed and the sillouettes of all of them could be stronger( too many details for a graphic piece). It was only really intended as a sketch for a more polished thing illustration.  However time gets away form us and the idea was shelved.

Skip ahead ,Skip Ahead.  When I was asked to submit “spooky” images to Game Dev. Mag I threw this one at them thinking I could finally polish it off.   Game Dev Mag really liked it but had no time to give me to tighten it up.  This whole assignment lasted 2 days and was a rush, which was why the were asking for existing work rather than seeking originals.

Well i couldn’t let this illustration out the door ( it being 2 years old and unfinished.)

Originally I asked for more time to do this and they said no (“Just send us the Hi-Res files we can work with it”).  I figured I could push an email response by two hours and that might give me enough time to fix it ( with the mission impossible music blaring behind me).  So I took it into photoshop and digitally recreated it in the span of 1.5 hours.

That’s right Mortimer an hour and a half.

I have gotten used to working fast, but this was madness ( in fact at the end of the process there was a big explosion i narrowly jumped away from).  This was an anomaly project, making fast shouldn’t be a mark of it’s quality( that is just gimmicky.) To be honest this was sitting in my head for 2 years i just needed an excuse to strike.  However I think it is a good example of working confidently and reactively, without getting hung up in the idea of a piece. I tend to be very in my head and overly process focused, so it was cool to have that striped away so I could just make something.

Funny how these things work out, I think this is one of my strongest pieces (and favored) to date and it happened in between emails.

till next time,

Vincent

Short Story: I began working on the game officially in October 2008.  As a precursor to this I had been doing illustrations to aid the game whenever I could.  A print design here; a T-shirt design there.   All the while bending the ear of Matt Korba and Paul Bellezza any chance I could( telling them my ideas for how to progress the game forward to the next level , visually speaking.)    After months of pestering and working for free, they got their deal with 2K worked out, and the stars aligned in my favor.   So in August ‘08 they asked me to come on board as their concept artist and illustrator ( a role which grew much larger than all three of us imagined at the time but that is for a later post).

I should also note that: All images contained are property of 2K Play and as such copyright 2002-2009 Take-Two interactive Software inc.

Step One:  PB gets a makeover.

The original game was built in flash and as such was heavy on vector art, with some 3d models sprinkled in.   Because of the new platform we transferred almost no art assets from the original to the new game.  We wanted to start fresh and make the game we always knew Winterbottom could be.  With this intent in mind our first task was redesigning the little pie thief.

We first started by  looking at the style differences between the way I drew him and the way he looked in game.  The Winterbottom character design was spectacular in theory; fat little body, big protruding  head and nose, gigantic hat, crazy mustache.  The design is versatile as long as those elements are represented ( this is true for characters like Mario, or Mickey Mouse… you can draw them in a variety of styles as long as the core design ques are there.)  Korba had hit on such a strong design early on, that our job was to improve it without loosing the charm.

PB Student Bottom -  he used to have high heels and no ears, but volume, volume, volume!

When I came on the scene and started drawing him I didn’t stick to what the student model was, but what the design could be.   It honestly took me a while to get my own version of him down, but what I was essentially trying to do early on was refine his shapes and build him a stronger silhouette.

PB Illustrated Bottom – All the elements are still there but I illustrated them differently with more focus for how they read as shapes

The biggest difference between the then 2D and 3D versions were the way the noses were shaped. In my drawings it was more of a triangle slopping down, but the game’s version had it protruding out like a rectangular platform( which wasn’t just a design choice since you can use his head as a platform.)

To work out how to combine  both versions; I started trying to paint him based off my 2D designs.  This gave me a sense of how the flat 2D shapes could translate to volume. It also helped show me what worked and didn’t about the way I drew him versus the student model.

PB Scary Bottom – I tried giving him more texture and “realism” by adding shading and folds under the eyes and terrifying, terrifying cheek bones.

After much drawing I settled on a direction. I drew this ortho for the 3D artists, but we felt although it had more polish, it lost that character the original had.

After this Korba went in and edited the drawing in Photoshop to reintroduce the long blocky wedge head( which I went in and polished up again in the drawing below).  This helped me wrap my brain around his face which had been a struggle,   everything in me was trying to rain the length of it it in to make things unified.  But the charm of the original was the disproportionate nature of his body.  After this my drawing style changed to accommodate this face and we had a direction for the 3D artists to follow( this model I would even refine in the way i drew him, good by triangle nose).

The model would get refined beyond this image but the below image was a test in post processing the PB model in Photoshop ( Like we did with the environments, but that process is detailed in the future a few paragraphs away).

Step Two: Environments

From the get go we had the challenge of making the world look like it had depth and clarity using only black and white.  In a game this is difficult since color helps denote distance and interactive elements,  and we only wanted tinted colors used at key points.    So our gray-scale had to be really solid for the game interactive assets to shine.

Here are a few quick tone studies in how to show mood and distance using gray-scale.

One of the things we wanted to capture with the game was that look of a set built on a sound-stage (the way they used to make movies in the silent film era).  We wanted certain things to look solid, where as  others would be clearly flat paintings with painted depth and shading.   The best example of this is George Milles “Trip to the moon”

Flat backdrop painting, Foreground pieces with “3D” elements.

More madness

Another inspiration was “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”. They would build sets but paint in extra shadows to increase the drama of the composition.

See right there to the right!

Crazy rooftops from Caligari.  The buildings force the composition, their forms twist and lean to it’s mighty whim.

We tried a number of things, but toyed mainly with combining 3D assets with 2D “painted” pieces in Photoshop.

In some early tests, I started painting a full flat background using animation vinyl on watercolor paper.   But the endeavor took too long and wasn’t editable enough for video game production.

This next series shows the evolution of how we would treat just about all of our game backgrounds.  The 3D artists had started putting together assets for buildings and the like, including the clock tower I designed( more on that later).   So we set up a scene in Maya and exported out the objects on three layers.   I then compiled these 3D chunks in Photoshop and painted in all the light, mist and shadowing.   The game runs in 2D, but by using 3D assets as our base for background assets we could make the visuals have greater depth and character.  By treating these assets as 2D post renderwe had more control over the shadows and lights we could paint in ( which is a trick we learned from German Expressionist films like “Dr. Caligri”).

In a nut shell this is the process used to make the game levels, however Matt Clausen the 3D Art Director on the game would go on to refine this process beyond my wildest expectations.

This next setting was epic, and it had to be as originally it was going to be the first meeting place for PBW and the Chronoberry pie. Originally that moment was supposed to take place in a dreary abandoned bakery.  The pie steam would lead you there and I had drawn out this sweet looking furnace.   Although the scene wasn’t ultimately used the spirit of it is there in the tutorial level.

More building assets – 3D models processed in Photoshop

The house of PB Winterbottom

Exterior of the abandon bakery which became the burning bakery.

An assortment of objects

Clocktower concepts.

We wanted the clock tower to be really unique as it would iconically be the most important building in the city, given the game’s time mechanic.   The main inspiration for it’s design were cuckoo clocks, since those things are so damn funny looking.

That’s all for now, I leave you  with a look inside the clock tower,

VP

A sampling of the many images Victoria delivered to me.

I did all this to kick off a series of posts that will featured selections from my sketchbooks.  I am going to shoot for pulling images from one book per post.  There is  no time-line for this series really, but it struck me as a goodway  to update the site when I have nothing to say or plug.  Check back in the near future( where we will ride rocketships and the internet will send data to your brain)  for updates.

This post contains entries from two books: The first set are from  a Black Moleskine( 5” x 8 ¼”) and the other is a Muse Touch Landscape (w/ Water Color Paper)  . I am terrible at dating my sketch pages but by I recall these were all completed from 2008-2009.

Spooky dude first sketched as an intro page and later became a painting.

Paulette Goddard

Chickens in Taiwan.

Caricature of Stephanie and a goblin she speaks too…I dunno

Another Chicken different style same great taste.

This should be in the Winterbottom page actually. As these were my first Drawings of the big boss evil Chronoberry Pie that taunts PBW in the game.

Stephanie Fishing

When in doubt I draw crocodiles/alligators.

Masks in my room, for real.

See what I mean.

-end-

As you know by now (if you have read any number of press articles) the Game began in the mind of Matt Korba while at the USC School of Interactive Media.  The company of strange souls to make it was gathered by him and rock star producer Paul Bellezza while both where in their graduate studies.    The journey started in school and eventually led to the formation of “The Odd Gentlemen” a story which you could…and SHOULD follow over at  IGN 2K Winterbottom Blog ( hope I  get mentioned “wink wink”)

Here is the official website: http://www.winterbottomgame.com/

and here is a small selection of awesome articles:

G4 Preview

Gamespot preview

IGN Preview

As for my part in this affair…

The Beginning: Whiskey, Video Games, and Disney Princesses

About 3.5 years ago I met Paul through mutual friends. We became fast pals based on our loved of Whiskey and Video Games.   At the time I was working for Disney Interactive Studios on every game they were currently making for girls (no joke).  I had joined DIS as an intern in their “Think Tank” . There we worked on creating new video game concepts for them to vet and consider.   It was a sweet gig and I got to work on some great stuff.   After the internship was over I stayed on and worked in the Art Dept.  for a stretch.   It was a good time, I almost even moved to Austin to work on Epic Mickey, however that is a whole other story.

A crazy Disney thing that never saw the light of day.

I did this stuff all day, painting over DS levels to make them look better.   I was determined to make the best damn Disney Princess DS game EVER, hell be damned!

When Paul and I met Winterbottom was just an idea; This was 2006 and 3 short months after meeting we took a road trip up to San Francisco to attend GDC.  It was on this trip that I first heard the name of PBW.  If memory serves me Korba had to find WiFi in a Jack in The Box in order to email his paper containing the thesis for Winterbottom.

They told me about the game and asked if I would be into helping after I expressed interest.  They accepted all hands at that point, as they needed lots of hands to make such a game.  Korba had already been set on what would become Winterbottom’s visual direction (Black and white Edward Gorey-esque)  But initially I was trying to wrap my brain on the character and what my own illustrated version would look like.

Early on I was resistant to his crazy big nose…because I was a fool

Although Sketching at random I was wrapped up in Disney work , so the game moved along with out me. Around the time the next GDC came about they were feverishly trying to get their build finished and looking good.   They had about 9,000 Student “designers” but only about 2 or 3 programmers and Korba basically doing 90% of everything (including all the game’s art).   So one crazy weekend I pitched in and helped build them some vector backgrounds for the game (as it was built in Flash then) a few other support graphics, and then did a few illustrations to help them promote.  I tried to springboard and tighten up the general look of the game in everything what i did.

In these sketches I started getting more comfy with his crazy nose, still a ways to go with his honker though.

The first illustrated iteration of the tower of Winterbottoms, a motif we used a few times since.

In Limbo: A Lesson In Not Leaving People Alone

I desperately wanted to be a more dedicated member of the team at this point.  However it was still a student game and I couldn’t commit full time. But post GDC I just hung around, and any time they need the services of an illustrator I jumped at the chance to offer help. Interest in the game started to ramp up at this point, and it slowly started to become a real thing that could have a real role for me attached to it.  I wouldn’t leave them alone, I was always bringing it up with Paul, or raving at Korba about my ideas for the game’s visual direction.

Thus began 2008 and at the beginning of that year I left DIS.

Although I enjoyed my time at DIS I wanted to have a more personal impact on a project.  So after almost two years with Disney I left to do freelance work.   Which ultimately enabled me to work on Winterbottom.

At the end of the student project the asked me to do a screen print as a thank you for team members, which is what you are looking at above these italics

Truthfully it was a huge Gamble, they wanted me to work on the game, but were still shopping the title around. Official work didn’t even begin until October of that year.   As I worked on other projects I did a small number of things for the team, illustration type stuff. With each new thing my own image of Winterbottom grew and evolved, and in August/September they signed with 2K and production was set to start October 1st.

Some little watercolor sketches I did right before begining production, getting started thinking about other characters in the world of PBW.

The Production Begins, and This Post Finally Ends.

In October of 2008 The Odd Gentlemen was officially formed and I started full production on the game.I didn’t know how far we would push the look, and how challenging it would all be.

I got to design their logo, so i envisioned a guild of strange fellows. Each “Gentleman” has their own strange origin that they brought to the group, much like the crazy diverse members of the actual team.

All the production images to share are currently on lock-down, but I will say looking back at these old images it is fun to realize how far we have come.  Not just in my own Interpretation of PB but the whole look of Winterbottom is something I am in complete awe of.  I am really lucky to have worked on the project and proud of our work.   As I can I’ll share more concept art and illustration.   Big Big Thanks to Paul and Matt and everybody at the Odd Gents,  Let’s do this thing!

- VP

For me personally I have been working digitally in my professional life for a few years now.  However most people only get to see my traditional media work since those pieces aren’t bogged down by N.D.A . contracts, and project timelines and Blah Blah Blah.  This site was a chance to challenge those skills while also making something that could carry my imprint and be seen by a lot of people.

Concept Phase.

Here is a piece of the official MOC Case Study on DPC:

“The Disney Environmental Affairs team was expanding Disney Planet Challenge, a contest that invites 4^th, 5^th, and 6^th grade classrooms to create solutions for environmental challenges in their communities. The Disney team contracted Midnight Oil Creative to redesign the website, expand registration nationwide, and create an application that allowed teachers to create a digital portfolio. “

“The challenge of this project was significant and multi-faceted.  Disney’s Planet Challenge site was more than just a simple re-skinning project, as the original Website was flat, content-heavy and not easily navigable.”

Due to the nature and audience of the project I knew I wanted the site to be illustration heavy.   Early on in my exploratory sketches I made this spooky little thing.

It was too spooky to use in DPC but I liked the tree popping out of the hole in the ground.   I wanted the world of the site to feel like it was constantly being recreated.  In addition to that I wanted each thing in the world to feel like it was made from unexpected items (Leaves would be paper, hills would be fabric etc…), much in the same way a scrapbook is made.

Incorporating these concept I presented the below sketches as my first comp to the client.  MOC presented three to four potential looks to the client. After focus testing (my joy of joys) and deliberation they ended up going with my illustrated world comp.

Initial concept ideas that I presented to show off this “scrap book” workd where trees pop out and frighten you with content.

Further exploration into  figuring  out how this would be a website and a drawing.

Building the site, or how to get a lot better at digital painting really fast.

Having to now run with the look I proposed, I started building out the design for the final site.  I have been using Photoshop for years. However this was really a challenge since I had to generate all the art digitally, where as in the past I relied on hand drawing with computer coloring.

This is the illustrated backdrop of the DPC site.   The Fabric hills were a holdover from my scrapbook world idea, but it made more sense to make the trees and leaves feel in a more painterly style than the hills.

A further developed concept for the wood modules appearance.

For the art enthusiast: The two images below show off my technique for creating the textured look of the site.  First I would illustrate the structure using vector shapes. I would then lay photos of real textures warped to fit with the shapes perspective (or volume) and set them on multiply or overlay layers above the vector shape.  Finally I would go in and paint gradients and finer details to overlay the texture to create a look of depth and dimensionality.   I used this technique to create the hills, wood modules and nav bar as well as the birdhouse.  This technique is reminiscent of actual painting where  you start by flatting in color, than add details and tone on top of that structure.

The birdhouse is also call back to Last years’ DPC Winners who built shelters for ducks.

The DPC Bird, which started as kind of a lark but ended up more of a bluebird.  Get it.? A lark !

Disney Sites have a really tight content area. So my designs had to account for everything readable and important to fit within a 994 x 700 pixel space.   To make the “world” of the site feel bigger I designed the site to have a flat background with a lot of illustrated depth that would continue beyond the restricted area.  Then I created wood modules to house all  the site content. These modules would always live on the foreground hills (appearing to pop out of holes in the ground) so that their information would fit within our restrictions.

The final site, had numerous pages as well as overlays to display more content. MORE CONTENT!

Getting Lucky.

Call it megalomania, but I have dreams of making such a stunning piece of art that it shakes people to their core. These fictional clients will go so ape-shit that they want to use it as the springboard for their companies identity, throw it on mugs, plaster it on buildings and other such delusions of grandeur.   I used to send out postcard promotions and had the similar fantasy that an Art director would see it, instantly call me to compliment my awesomeness, and offer me tons of work. (p.s. this never happens)

But when it actually does happen it is awesome but also a little nuts and overwhelming.  The client loved what we at MOC had created for them on DPC.  They enjoyed my crazy little candy colored hills so much, that the backdrop and blue bird became part of the Disney Planet Challenge brand.   The MOC Display department even created a full size version of the site for a convention DPC attended.

Walking through your own art is a surreal experience, especially when it is locked in a gray void.

All in all it went well (for me at especially) and it was a super fun, and challenging project to work on.  Thanks to Midnight Oil Creative and Disney Environmental Affairs for the creative freedom and support!.

- VP

You can’t resist:

For the low price of 20 Bones/Clams/Green Backs you can own one of these three Sweet prints!

“Brightly Colored paper” – Digital Print on Watercolor Paper – 20 Bones

“Pals” – Digital Print on Watercolor Paper – 20 Clams

“Speechless” – Digital Print on Watercolor Paper – 20 Green Backs

Furthermore:

I also have 5 drawings available from a recent figure drawing sessions with the good “Dr. Sketchy LA” kids.  These were all created in a 3-hour session, using a brush pen and Col-erase Pencil on cream colored drawing paper.

Here is an example of one of them:

“Dee Dee Reclining” – 2o Minute pose – 40 Bones/Clams/ or Greenbacks

Go check my shop out and as new stuff becomes available I will more than likely push an onslaught of notifications upon you.

Cheers,

VP

To Download each simply click the image and when redirected to the file right click and choose “Save as”  or “Save Image As” depending on your computer .  Sorry for no Auto Download maybe that will happen in the future…only time will tell really.

The Parchment Set

These three are collection of images with a warm parchment tone and a vintage look.

VP Wallpaper Set 1

A collection of two detail shots of my watercolor paintings along with one screen of my new colored water drops branding.  That’s right I said branding mofo.

Thats all for now,

Vincent

]]> http://vincentperea.com/2010/pixelcraft-is-customizable/feed/ 1 http://vincentperea.com/2009/dr-sketchy-figure-drawing-look-at-them-gams/ http://vincentperea.com/2009/dr-sketchy-figure-drawing-look-at-them-gams/#comments Wed, 18 Nov 2009 02:11:38 +0000 Vincent http://vincentperea.com/blog/?p=52

Deedee reclining (20 min) 11/14/09Well hello there.

Yes it has been a while.   I know I said I was going out to get the paper and I didn’t return  …but well that was a test and you passed… hurray!

I have been bothering enough people over at my Twitter account (http://twitter.com/VincentPerea)  with my current exploits So I have ignored this avenue for a spell.  Also I have been working on The Misadventures of PB Winterbottomfor the past year or so in addition to working for Midnight Oil Creative…So I been busy.  I will write a whole long blog about my last year at some point, but for now there is little I can say about the work I have done until the game comes out.

Now that I only have one job, I am starting to get a little restless.  To fill the void    Last week  I attended an event hosted by  Dr. Sketchy’s Anti-Art School .

The lovely ladies Deedee and Click of the Dr. Sketchy Roadshow

The LA Branch ( Run by the kids of Baby Tattoo fame) was at the tail end of their great experiment: the California Dr. Sketchy Roadshow (.  I was lucky enough to attend the last two events at  some  of my favorite arty places Gallery Nucleus and Wax Poetic.

It was a really great time, the show is a mix of flirty burlesque and traditional figure drawing.  The conceit was that it was a show and not a drawing session.   Something about this made it more fun and relaxed than your normal figure drawing session. Also  when you spend an entire year drawing poignant narratives or concepts about a fat man who loves pie, drawing some sassy ladies is not a bad change of pace.

Below  is a selection of some of the drawings I completed there. I am going to try an experiment.  I am going to offer some of these drawings for sale on my Etsy account.   These pieces are very loose and done in one sitting so I am going to offer them up as is for a cheap rate.

Deedee seated recline (20 min)  11/13/09

Reading Deedee (10 Min) 11/13/09

Sassy Pirate Deedee (10 min) 11/13/09

Deedee Hand on Hip #2 (10 min)  11/14/09

Deedee Hand on Hip #1 (10 min)  11/14/09

Thoughtful Deedee (10 Min) 11/14/09

Click with Parasol #1 (20 min) 11/13/09

Click with Parasol #2 (20 min) 11/14/09

Till next time ,

Vincent

This week’s theme was the Howard Pyle Pirate.   Here is my offering:

The pose was for a full 3 hours, and I was really happy with the results.  I have done a good amount of figure drawing since I was a teenager, but not a lot of figure painting.  Especially since I work with watercolor, and my method with the   medium isn’t conducive to painting spontaneously.

However I love the quick decision making process that a time limited pose forces upon me.  Water color and ink are so fluid mediums it is nice to work fast with them because the  drawing feels more playful as a result.

Til next time,

Vincent