New Topic: The Wizard of Oz

Knock yourself out!
We'll review two weeks from now: Monday Feb 12

When men were men!

And if they didn't like ya, they SHOT ya!
Nowadays, we just dream and paint such things.
Geddiup!

New Challenge: COWBOY

Alisa gets the Gold Star for being the only one to finish the Spectrum Entry. Superstar Alisa!

New topic, and a fast one - due next week.

COWBOY

due Monday Jan 29

happy little bird

I thought I should toss this out there. any suggestions?

bumble betty beatles - wip

um. i didn't get very far with mine. The idea is that the bad guy is made up of beatles, and Bumble Betty is squishing one before they realize what's going on. Two versions - bad guy in background, bad guy in foreground. Decided to go with the Bad Guy in the background.

Edit: Uh... not Beatles... BEETLEs. sheesh. can't spell. And a nefarious oozing force of pure evil made up of tiny Ringos, Pauls, Georges and Johns... huh. I'll have to think about that...

Here's my work in progress.

A whole mess of anatomy things to figure out on that giant... let alone his little beast friend there. All in all it's great fun though!

mac in progress

this is in progress of my Macquarium octo trying to sneak a gulp of my coffee....

Topic: More Spectrum

The challenge is still to work on a piece for Spectrum (after this we'll do smaller challenges). Here's the schedule:

Mon Jan 8 - show what you have so far. Everyone should have *something* by this point, even if it's only the final sketch.

Jan 22 - Final due. This should give us time to review them and make any changes in time to send for the deadline Jan 26.

Good Luck!

New Topic: Entry for Spectrum

From the Spectrum Entry Form:

All art works in all mediums embracing the themes of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and the surreal are eligible for this show. Fantastic Art can be subtle or obvious, traditional or off-the-wall, painted, sculpted, or photographed: there is no unacceptable way to create art and there are no set rules that say one piece qualifies while another doesn't. Imagination and skill are what matters.

The challenge topic is to start a piece to submit to Spectrum 14. The deadline for entries is January 26, 2007. We'll be having the in-office critique for our WIP December 22 (the friday before Christmas break) - but it would be nice if y'all posted the WIP to the blog as well.

Paper Pixie

I was experimenting with style on this one. I did the initial sketch on paper and used that as a template in Flash to create the shapes. I then imported each shape into Photoshop and applied the cast shadow effect, some noise for texture, and some finishing color details.

Warning: Paper pixies will break into your home at night and finish your scrapbooks.

mythical creature/bigfoot

Here is my entry for "mythical creature" challenge.

I'm done... or moreso... I give up.

I don't know what else I can do to ruin this one!

More than anything it was just fun to paint something... else.

I approached this like I do most all my other stuff, and then got bored with that.

I really admire how Jim cranks out these fabuloso black n' white paintings, so I started to try and do that with this one... then copied the color layer below and set it to hard light and the result is a little grungy which I kinda like, you can see the color layer and the black and white layer and their differences as I started to render quite a bit into the b&w.

Bah! I'm ramblin too much now. Basically this was a lot of fun and I'm excited to start on the next one!

Like Maryn said above, likewise with this one... shoot me your crits!

Christmas Elf

Here's my mythological creature. I was trying to think of ideas for a Christmas card, but ended up just doing some little elf doodles instead. I think I may do another one before this topic is over.

Nothing super fancy or experimental. I just scanned in the sketch and then cleaned it up in photoshop. I mostly used the default soft round brushes, and that blendy finger thing. Oh! And I put some subtle textures over the top when I was finished.

Critique away!

First Topic: Mythical Creatures

Here's the first topic for the Official Imagine Learning Art Challenge: Mythical Creatures (thanks Alisa). The idea is for this to inspire us to use training time to better learn software or experiment with technique. It will also be a good place to get feedback from each other about what works and what doesn't.

The Mythical Creatures topic will run through Monday December 11. A new topic will be given on Mondays that are not the start of a new Age.

Send me (maryn) any ideas for future topics.
Let the posting begin!