Saturday, August 31, 2013

834 - More Loungetones


More work on the tones.  I still have some work left to go.  Most of the picture is starting to look balanced, but the flat white areas remain, and they need attention.  I am looking forward to adding colour.  This project is taking a lot longer than I had anticipated.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Tuesday, August 27, 2013

833 - The Loungetones

Tangent time. 
 
As I make iterative saves on my work, I group them into categories.  The sketch phase gets one set of names, the clean-up another, paint yet another, and so on.  Since I am working on tones here, and this is the lounge of the U.S.S. Enterprise, I am naming this series "The Loungetones". 
 
I thought that would be a hell of a name for a musical band, The Loungetones.  I avow a preference for lounge tunes, the ultra-cool, wildly cheesy music that was popular when Star Trek first played on television.  Along with jazz, it's what I prefer to listen to as I work. 
 
An internet search shows up alarmingly few entries for "The Loungetones."  Notably there was a band from the 1990's fronted by the velvet-voiced Mondo Tom.  I doubt they are looking to add an overweight, myopic ukulele player who knows the C Major scale and five chords, though.  I'll stick to painting. 
 
 
 
 


Monday, August 26, 2013

832 - Work On Kirk


Yup, more Captain Kirk iterative artwork.  Here I am adding grey tone.  I am trying out some new techniques.  I am hoping the tone will underlay colour, eventually. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 


Saturday, August 24, 2013

831 - Hottie

 
 
Hottie Von Hottenhiemer, to be precise.
 
 
 
 


Wednesday, August 21, 2013

830 - "The Cosmic Staple"

 
 
From the archives: The Cosmic Staple.  I've been trying to come up with a decent explanation for it, but I cannot.  Ask my friend Earl, he knows much more about it than I do.  I also have a sketch of this thing somewhere, but I'd have to tear the house apart to find it. 
 
 
 
 


Sunday, August 18, 2013

829 - "How Two-Year-Olds Spread Love*"

Click picture to embiggen.

* Where I mention "Love", please substitute "The Flu." 
 
Hopefully - very likely - my friends who have children won't read this JSVB entry.  If they do, they very likely won't bother following JSVB any more. 
 
Too sick to care.  Maybe when I feel better, I will make nice. 
 
For other JSVB entries on exactly this same complaint, but which perhaps are not quite so on-the-nose, please click here.






Friday, August 16, 2013

828 - Kirk & Rand Clean Art

At long last, the cleaned-up version of Captain Kirk and Yeoman Rand playing a card game during leisure time.  Next: a laborious colouring step.
 
 
 
 


Tuesday, August 13, 2013

827 - Eyeball Pie ("Pie Eyed")

The thirteenth of every month on JSVB is traditionally "Ungood Art Day".  I feature something that I made that just did not work out the way I had intended, and for the worse.  People love artistic blunders. There's something deep in our culture that makes us all feel better for looking at ungood art, something akin to walking through a country field in flip-flops while avoiding all the cow flops.  Look at what I almost stepped in. 
 
This was supposed to be cherry pie, but I had to keep it black and white.  I wanted to show that the cherries were shiny with syrup, but the cherries ended up looking like eyeballs instead.  Eyeball pie. 
 
Talk about pie eyed.  Here's looking at you, kid.
 
Here is a link to the somewhat more successful final version, please click here.
 
 
 
 
 


Monday, August 12, 2013

826 - "Glory To Arstotzka"


 
"Glory to Arstotzka!"  Some fan art for the smash hit videogame "Papers, Please" by the mad genius Lucas Pope.  Some items may have not been used with permission.  Font is freeware "Typodermic" by the amazing Ray Larabie. 
 
Click on the image to see full size, right click and use Save As... to put a copy on your computer for free (as a hypothetical what-if scenario).  Although it is precisely the dimensions required for a splash page on a Windows Phone, this exact usage is absolutely forbidden, especially by Stickytape11. 

Here is a link to another fan art banner on JSVB:  click here.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Sunday, August 11, 2013

825 - Cleaned Up Kirk

Here is my most laborious clean line art for Captain Kirk.  This is going so slowly, but so far it looks all right. 
 
 
 
 


Friday, August 9, 2013

824 - Border Flowers



The white blossoms are Cornus canadadensis with smooth leaves, while the pink blossoms are Rosa acicularis.  Both are extremely common flowers to my region.
 
This photo was taken precisely on the border between British Columbia and Alberta, both neighbouring provinces in Canada.  The white Dogwood is the official flower of British Columbia, while the pink Prickly Wild Rose is the official flower of Alberta. 
 
For a good example of how well these two neighbours get along, please click here.
 
 
 
 


Wednesday, August 7, 2013

823 - More Kirk & Rand

Kirk and Rand get things like legs, chairs, a table, and a background.  I think it's fitting together okay, although I have to fix a number of details:  Rand's head is slightly too large, Kirk's left hand is a massive flipper, and a number of lines need straightening.  Making the changes by hand would be tiresome but not impossible using a light table.  Doing them in Photoshop should be easy. 
 
After I make the corrections,  then it will be time to do the fine line work. 
 
 
 
 


Tuesday, August 6, 2013

822 - Kirk & Rand Sketch

 
I added Yeoman Rand to my Kirk sketch from yesterday.  That turned out to be improbably difficult.  I must have drawn everything over three or four times.  My poor wife was concerned by all the swearing.  And now, I'm not happy with the perspective or Rand's  body shape.  Well, they aren't so tough to fix... I hope.  Fingers crossed. 
 
 
 
 


Monday, August 5, 2013

821 - Kirk Sketch


 
Here's a preliminary sketch for a project with a Star Trek theme.  Lately, I've been getting a lot of Trek influences, so I am finally going to go along with them. 
 
I wrote "braid" on Kirk's arm because I forget what his captain's rank insignia looks like. It's gold ribbons or something.   I'll look it up.
 
 
 
 


Saturday, August 3, 2013

820 - The Birders


During the sunny spell, I took the old bicycle out for a spin into the country.  A few kilometers from where I live is a spot along the Pitt River where bald eagles like to congregate.  Sometimes, the sky turns black on account of being so thick with them. 
 
Of interest to bird watchers is a large stand of elm trees that always has an active eagle's nest.  The trees grow well within the bounds of private farmland, but there is a good vantage point in an elbow-loke crook of the river.  It's a certainty to find birders there with the best cameras and lenses money can buy. 
 
Sure enough, I came upon a very experienced duo, the young man aiming a lens as long as my arm, while the older bearded fellow acted as spotter with a pair of high-power binoculars. 
 
Niether saw the adult male eagle glide silently behind their backs, not twenty feet away.  It was so close, I could see its golden eye fix all of us in its gaze. 
 
Of course, I didn't have my camera either, so I missed taking the picture I have sketched, not did I take a picture of the dozen bear droppings I had to steer around in the next kilometer, nor the bear herself gorged on blueberries, nor the completely believable sign saying that the path was closed on account of bear activity (there were droppings right under the sign). 
 
Here's another picture I had to draw because I had left my camera at home, possibly of the very same bear, since this was also the same spot:  please click here to see that. 
 
What do bear droppings look like? Please click here for further enlightenment.