Practicing a new Style

I was inspired by Lightbox Expo this year to try out some portraits in a new illustrative-paperlike style. I wanted to practice color and light. 
They made it look so easy - but I have a long way to go - So here's to practice!

Art'd Me 3: Back again

Aaaand we're back and going strong again. This year has been an interesting challenge for this exercise, and it's been fun, as always :)

Art'd Me: Spiderverse

Art'd Me: Don Bluth

Art'd Me: Mike Mignola (Black and Color Version)

Art'd Me: Bob Montana

Art'd Me: Dr. Seuss

Art'd Me: Studio Ghibli

Art'd Me: Adventure Time

Art'd Me: Borderlands

Furiosa (Mad Max Fury Road) - Badass women in film

Finally finished another badass female character! Furiosa from Mad Max - a movie that surprised the socks off me :) She is committed, skilled, compassionate, focused, and most of all, a fighter for those less fortunate. She is my inspiration for the month <3

Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse

I'm so proud of the work our team put into the new Spider-Man movie! This was a concept I submitted for crew t-shirts, inspired by the film. The art was mind blowing. I am so grateful to be a part of something I believe will change the course of main-stream animation. Here's to the films that push the envelope! <3 

Zoe (Firefly) - Badass women in film

Today I finally finished a digital drawing that saw me through my art block. I'm so glad to finally be done. And hopefully she'll be the first in a line of strong female characters I want to draw. I present Zoe Washburne, a badass second-in-command aboard Serenity. A character I love for her strength, her humour, her loyalty, down-to-earth nature, and compassion.

Art'd Me 2

It's been a while since I've posted these. Between moving countries and jobs, I ran out of time to complete 7 more :( But here are the remaining Art'd me projects that we managed to complete before the break!

Bill Watterson style - Calvin and Hobbes

This wasn't my best piece, but it was great to see everyone's ideas. The style is a lot more challenging than it looked, and I might try it again in the future.

Juanjo Guarnido - Blacksad

This project was a little more challenging. If you aren't familiar with Blacksad, it's a graphic novel drawn in a film noir style, containing anthropomorphic animal characters. We had to envision ourselves as an animal, usually human body with animal head.

Game of Thrones

This followed no specific art style, but with Game of Thrones season 5 starting around that time, we thought we'd all have fun trying to do concept art self portraits in the Game of Thrones world.

Avatar - The Last Airbender style

This one was a lot of fun. Many fans of The Last Airbender were present for this one and it shows. We would have to pick a faction and draw our self portraits with their powers.

Art'd Me

So we started this fun new project that has both helped me study the various styles of the human form, as well as made me grow immensely as an illustration artist.
The idea behind the project, is to do a self portrait every week in the style of a famous artist. When we started off, we would release the topic on a Monday, and have until that Sunday to complete it. Due to work getting busy, we've extended that deadline to a fortnightly piece. We seem to have gotten a lot of interest from a large group of very talented artists who join us every week to have some fun with the topic. This is an ongoing process, but since we've now done around seven entries, I feel like I can start to post them here. I will post both my own pieces, paired with the grouped Art'd pieces, in case you are curious as to how everyone contributed :)

Jin Kim Style (modern Disney - Tangled/Frozen)

Our very first project was to do a self portrait in the Style of Jin Kim, a modern Disney designer who was involved in the character creation of films such as Tangled and Frozen. Still finding our footing here, we don't have a group one for this. But this is my self portrait in that style.

16-bit Street Fighter Style

Our second week included 16-bit characters in a fighting stance. At this stage, the group images began, creating a really fun group dynamic. The cool part was, all the images were kept secret from everyone, and then compiled and revealed to all at the same time.

Laika Style - Paranorman.

The third week included conceptual design styles from Laika, specifically concentrating on Paranorman. The instructions were to draw ourselves in a terrified pose, as if we were looking at a monster.

Katsuhiro Otomo Style - Akira.

Week number four was a tribute to Katsuhiro Otomo, best known for Akira. This was one of my favourites, with everyone seeming to hit some badass streak, the group photo looked epic in the end. We were instructed that we were in some neo-80s Tokyo gang.

Jamie Hewlett Style - Gorillaz

Week 5 brought a cool style: Jamie Hewlett's Gorillaz. Instructed only that we were waiting on a concert, people really nailed this style.

How To Train Your Dragon concept art style

Week 6: How to Train your Dragon concept art. It was fun to see everyone include some form of pet dragon, which is nothing that was asked of the artists, but seemed to be a fun inclusion done by everyone individually. Our instruction was that we were all running from right to left.

Genndy Tartakovsky Style - Clone Wars with an Aliens theme

And finally that brings us to the present: Week 7 - Genndy Tartakovsky Style, best known for his art on Clone Wars, Samurai Jack and Dexter. We were out to see what it would look like if we drew ourselves in the Aliens universe, using this style. Needless to say, this was amazing from everyone, and one of my favourite ones to draw.

And that's all of them so far. I'll send through another update once we've gone through another 7 of them. Hopefully this exercise will last longer, and help me grow more.

Dream Time

I've always been a fan of monsters. It's about time I get practicing my own designs. I'm using these as a portfolio of sorts to see if I can get an opportunity to do a piece for a horror themed calendar for Horror etc. Hopefully they like it... And if not, hopefully you can enjoy them here instead :)

Inspired by my nightmares....

UPDATE:

 These images were submitted to the Horror etc. podcast for a calandar as part of an initiative to raise money. Both of them were selected to be used for the month of July as well as the signed back cover (Woohoo!!)
And here they are in the flesh:

Mad Kudu Character Sketch

We've started a fun way to practice some creature design. Initially it was meant to just be animal studies. But the challenge came in when trying to give the study some kind of character design (an emotion/personality). This was a fun way to practice, and this is my first attempt at it. I'll definitely be doing some more in the near future! 

This is a study of a Kudu, an antelope indegenous in my home country, South Africa. They are pretty grand animals... So I turned mine into a mean looking alpha male :)

Skull Studies

Due to being rusty at a lot of illustration techniques and the intense need to learn how to draw monsters one day, I thought it a good idea to start with some skull studies. Building up a library of shapes for me to grab onto when I attempt a bigger project in the future. This is my first batch. At the moment they're only front and side views. In my next batch I'll attempt some 3quarter views :) 

Portrait of Tiana

Just to practice faces (in 3 quarters of all things!!), I drew a picture of a friend of mine.

Her picture I referenced from :)