Laura

Twos, fives, a seven, and twenty-fives. Most of the time I have subpar drawing nights, but every so often, I get a mostly decent one.

Jee

Four hours.

Mike

Fives and a twenty-five.

Michael

Fives, tens, and fifteens.

Adair

Fives and a two-hour pose.

Sara

Fives and a two-hour pose.

Leslie

Four hours.

Speed #2

Two hours from reference. Backlighting is pretty tough to paint since the values get compressed in such a narrow range and saturation goes out the door. I'm not really all that used to painting a full figure either. People tell me it's easier than painting a head, but I don't believe them!

Speed #1

Two hours from reference. One thing I realized after doing that last illustration is how terribly slow I am with painting digitally. My current rate of production is totally unacceptable for professional work. I need to make a concerted effort to change that.

I also am trying to let go of the tendency to work so tightly and just enjoy the feel of a carefree sketch. I picked up Sargent's Figures and Landscapes the other day and I was pretty amazed at how loosely the guy worked. Seeing his art, as well as those of Chinese artists like Benjamin and Zhuzhu convinced me that I need to start doing speed paints from reference as a way to get used to the digital process, understand color relationships, and experiment with how efficient I can be with the default hard round brush in Photoshop.

I'll try to do at least one a day, and aim to spend no more than two hours on a study. It won't be that hard to fit in the time for these actually; I usually have a couple of hours to kill before heading to bed, so I'll dedicate that block of time for these exercises. Gotta get my hours in whenever I can.

Loss of Innocence

A bajillion hours. This was done for the Battle of the Sexes (Gentlemen vs. Ladies) Thunderdome competition over at conceptart.org. The guys and girls were given different topics - the blokes got "Loss of Innocence". I'm not sure how the voting is supposed to be tallied, but to be honest, who wins and who loses doesn't really concern me too much. I just wanted to push myself to my very limits and get a decent portfolio piece out of the process.

I'm going to start doing more illustrations from now on for the simple fact that I need to be doing more of them. In order to become a successful concept artist and illustrator, I need to get used to pumping these out as often as I can. Sure, studies are vitally important to my growth, and I will continue to draw and paint from life, but unless I test myself with these more creative endeavors, there's no way I'll be able to break into the field I want to be in.

I learned so much doing this piece... working out a composition, developing an effective coloring process in Photoshop, learning how to use different types of layers, experimenting with rendering different surfaces and textures the list goes on and on. I feel like I'm ready to tackle an even bigger and better piece... in fact, I'll go get started on that one right now!