Value Study: New Hair

Here's a random study that I did about two or so months ago. Had a little bit of fun with this one, and decided to make her face kind of look like her two GIGANTIC pearl earrings. She's a magazine model, so her hairstyle was on the fluffy side.

Stephen Silver's Character Design

Just a few rough sketches of some early ideas for a Jekyll and a Hyde character that we had to create for Stephen Silver's Character Design class. Also, a REALLY quick study of a guy wearing a bowler hat. This class is definitely worth every second and penny invested. If you're really serious about learning how to CREATE, then character design is definitely a great place to start!

Jedi Liam Neeson

I'll definitely have to work on more Jedi pics pretty soon because this one was pretty fun! His tunic took FOREVER to finish.

Hair rendering is something that can really add that extra little touch to a character. I kind of worked on his hair a little bit more just because ... he's a JEDI. Jedi need good looking hair styles. You can go the super precise route, or more abstract depending on your style. It definitely doesn't have to be PERFECT, though. As long as you get down the basic ideas and placement, you should be good to go!

...Liam Ends.

My version of Liam Neeson with his superb nose structure. This took forever to complete, but I've learned a lot of new ways to render certain things. Especially from working on his HAIR...

Liam's hair has GREATLY humbled me!

edit:
Here's a quick little process anim.

Liam Begins...

Just doing a quick block in of the colors for my sketch of ordinary Liam Neeson. His hair is pretty crazy and all over the place in this one!

Jedi Liam: Chin Beard Hair Test

Quick hair rendering test.

Jedi Liam: Values and Composition Test

Just a really rough values placement/composition test. It's far from finished, but doing a really rough painting like this helps you TREMENDOUSLY when you're trying to visualize the final piece.  I also put down some really quick colors above my black & white layer just to test things out. 

Liam the Jedi: Likeness Sketches

Just a few sketches of a Liam Neeson caricature that I'm working on. He has acted in Batman Begins, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, Schindler's List, The Chronicles of Narnia as Aslan's voice, and MANY other films. He has a great nose structure, so I'll probably go that route when exaggerating his features. I'm going to work on both of these sketches, but the Jedi version is tugging at me the hardest. This should be FUN...

Bruce Willis Process

Here's a quick animation showing the creation of my Bruce Willis painting. I do wish that I would have kept the layers for his jacket instead of FLATTENING ALL OF THE PHOTOSHOP LAYERS. *sigh* Oh well, maybe next time!

Quick Study: Dave B.

Here's a quick little study that I did of Mr. Dave B.  His nose is much longer, so I'll probably have to fix that later when I FINALLY paint him.  I may just go the value painting route with this one...

Bruce Willis

This is the first time that I've ever worked on a caricature of Bruce Willis.  I did a value painting first, then added color, and finished it off by painting details on top of everything. I'm really liking this painting technique!

Mr. Yang

A quick monochromatic value study using Jason Seiler's sketch of Mr. Yang, one of his earlier art instructors.

Kathy: Value Study Process

A quick little process animation showing the creation of my Kathy value painting.

Kathy

This is a caricature and value study of a little lady by the name of Kathy. I did this for Jason Seiler's online art class. If you want to increase your understanding of some basic painting principles, you can't underestimate the "value" of doing a value painting. Value painting is LIFE!

Jesse Jackson & Mr. James

Very, very, VERY fun sketches to do.  I'll definitely have to work on these two more in the future, especially James.  Love that hair!

Value Study of Gary

This was painted for Jason Seiler's caricature class.  Value painting is a really great way to improve your ability to "see", which is a very important skill to have as an artist of ANY type.    

Quick Studies: Suzane & Chris

These are 2 sketches that I did of Suzane & Chris. Sketching in Photoshop feels pretty natural. I really have to try out Autodesk's SketchBook Pro someday!