Back in milk business

I've been trying to get that feeling that you're really in the scene. I began working on the car and especially how the car feels when you're looking at the house alongside when you're standing in the shadows in front of a big mansion.
If you know what I mean. Again, first draft. Below, previous version, above, new version. Also, somewhere I have to make a decision which part needs the most detail, contrast and/or saturation; What should attract my attention? I think I'm going for the house right now. Or at least the entrance of the house. The front door.

In Between Jobs

I wanted to do something more stylish for a change. Comments are welcome.

MILK!

Next version.

My Animated Life

This morning I got "My Animated Life" by Floyd Norman in by mail. This guy worked at the Disney studio from Sleeping Beauty until ToyStory2. This must be one inspiring story!

MILK!

Even without the logo on the bus, this is more like it. It's still not finished yet and I think it's great fun; Painting without having to worry that it's not done in half an hour. I'll just take my time. Spring will be around for a few months more.

MILK! doodles

Last night I did some doodle work on the logo. And I say doodle, because after doodling for an hour, I came to the conclusion that doodling doesn't get me anywhere.

Apart from coloring and lighting I have a story that envolves a milkman that goes to 'visit' some big mansion (That's why he's parked his car in the shade and not right in front of the mansion). Maybe the milkman goes visiting the lady of the mansion while whistling his favorite tune (without milk bottles-and with his hands in his pockets) or maybe his just leaning against his milk car and smoking his cigarette.

Anyways. If I give the logo such a prominent position I'd better think twice about the name in the logo. So, it's back to the drawing table...

MILK!

I don't know if I'm happy with it -maybe I'll change a couple of things- but here's a first draft.

more color sketching

color sketching

Some golden oldies

skin color sketch part 1

Lady and the Fox revisited

I did some adjustments on the dress. First of all, her dress has 2 components. The dress itself and the top layer. The top layer had 2 different functions. One was to make the dress less static by underlining the 'frightened' emotion (like it is blown up and back at her because of her encounter) and the other was to use it as an arrow towards the fox.


In the second place I made the left line of the dress a lot stronger than it was before. This line also emphasizes the 'frightened' emotion. It really pushes her back more than in the original.

Compositional reading

There are a few reasons why I flip my artwork horizontally during the process of creating a painting. In this case I wanted to share my thoughts about compositional reading. Or in other words: Do I tell the same story if I flip my painting and secondly: Does it matter?

If I'm 'reading' the picture from left to right, the original top painting would say: 'The fox frightens the lady' or in the flipped, second version: 'The lady gets frightened by the fox'.

The thing with this painting is that I want the lady to be the protagonist, the eye-catcher of the painting. Should the lady then be also the first one to see? Should I've positioned the lady left from the fox? Now it seems that I want the story of the flipped version to be the story of my original painting. Does that even work?

Francis Glebas talks about compositional reading in his book 'Directing the story'. Which by the way is a fantastic book. According to Francis compositional reading is very important if you think of an image as a joke. Then you would want the punchline to be last. Not the first thing you see.

Lady and the Fox!

No it's not a new movie...It's a painting I did for my oldest daughter´s fifth birthday. It was her own idea so the credits should really go to her. She's hasn't seen it, because she hasn't turn 5 yet, but if you like it I bet she will too.

How to become awesome!

...and 5 reasons what blogs have to do with it.

• The first reason: You get to see tons and tons of inspirational and extraordinary artwork from artists around the world, when that same inspirational and extraordinary artwork can really get you down. It’s too overwhelming. There's so much really great talent out there but the amount and speed at which it comes at you, makes it hard to analyze why there are so many amazing artists out there and you feel you are not one of them.

• The second reason: Institutes like Bobby Chiu deliver such a huge amount of information on their blogs that I personally feel it´s hard to see the wood for the trees. Even if it’s valuable information. There’s sooo much that it keeps me from focussing; The key issue in growing.

• The third reason: Then there’s the fans on forums and blogs. And the time it takes for you to realize that “I love your work” never gets you anywhere if you need constructive criticism. And believe me, a lot of people do.

• The fourth reason: Another thing I've noticed is that if you (like I do) have a few bookmarked blogs you visit everyday before starting your working day, the attention and time you give to the art presented, is brought back to a minimum. Like you treat the artwork with disrespect or something, like it becomes some sort of disposable. Just think about how fast you scroll down a new blog in search for something great which makes you pause and be amazed. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can stop reading now..;)

• And last but not least, even if you have a succesful blog, with a lot of followers it's hard to focus on the right thing. It maybe even harder...

That's why we, at the ZylomGameStudio, decided it was necessary, in order for us to develop our skills in a structural way, to create a plan that breaks down your artwork into smaller aspects and with that helps you focus. A plan that gives you the tools to understand how to develop your artistic skills and tools that help you analyze afterwards. So basically how to become awesome and better yet, how to create awesome artwork!

Therefore we (the talented artist Dirk van Dulmen and me) developed a -theory and guidelines- which we use for the studio’s Master Assignment. A very complicated assignment described in two simple steps.

Step 1: Write a story.
Step 2: Make sure every aspect of your drawing supports your story.

In the months to come I’ll write more about this on my blog. If you want to follow our artists Master Assignments check out the ZylomGameStudio blog.

If you are interested in working with these steps and want to know more, let me know.

sketching in color part 6

Just a moody setting for a swampy story!

New Children's Book part II

A small glimpse of my main character.

sketching in color part 5

A fish a day...

By the way, great sketch by Dirk van Dulmen. An in-between exercise in our studio.

just a quick paint

There's a story in everything.

I started this exercise with just some basic tree shapes. Nothing special, but I wanted to go through this process for two specific reasons.

I felt that it was too easy to lose myself in painting the foliage and at the same time losing the basic shape. I often found myself creating all these smaller areas that only made the foliage and tree shape unclear and weak.

Also, I often drew the tree starting with the branches. This sounds weird maybe, but I did it. Probably without thinking. Starting with a basic shape helps me to define where branches are and why.

This time I added a little bird house just underneath the top foliage to help focus, giving it some character, purpose or meaning.

New Children's Book!

ALthough I think that I should focus more on one particular subject, I constantly find myself working on several projects at the same time. This one is a color study for a new children's book I'm working on right now. I have a story outline, I have a character and some sort of direction for the art. The thing I'm struggling with at this point is: How do I turn night time into colorful illustrations and at the same time create iconic and recognizable artwork?

You maybe thinking: Why don't you make it daylight? Well, the story can only exist in the night time.

Siberian background

A Russian Soldier is living and working on an outpost on the border of Russia and Siberia. He has been isolated from the civilized world for almost 4 years.

I started working on the background already, because I had a clear view on how his house and cabin should look like and wanted this to be leading in style design. Although I'm still considering to make it less realistic.

Bop & Belfi and the Goggly Goblin

It's been 7 years since I finished working on my first book "Bop & Belfi and the Goggly Goblin". I should say, a wonderful children's book that I produced together with Marck van Dooren. I'm still very proud that we sold the concept and the book.

What’s it all about?
Bop & Belfi are going to stay with Auntie Myopy in Clearview Village for the weekend. They are looking forward to eating pancakes and playing hide and seek in the villa’s many rooms. But a monster lives in the house of Belfi’s aunt. It is a mean and nasty beast. A beast that crushes glasses with its feet! And that is a real problem, because Auntie Myopy has a special hobby. She collects glasses... Can Bop & Belfi save her collection?

Who is Mr. Camel Hick?
Mr. Camel Hick is a pseudonym for the creators of this exciting book: Michel and Marck. And of course this sounds much more exciting than their real names.

The book was a premium at Het Huis Opticians and truly is a collector's item. It hasn't been in stores and it probably never will be...or will it...?

Emperor's New Clothes

This is a personal assignment we decided to give ourselves at work together with Dirk van Dulmen. Something completely different than I am used to do, but some interesting things came out of this one. One of the most important things I've learned in the last year is to concentrate on a specific subject. If you're interested in never getting anything done, you should try to work on everything at the same time. (I have to work on that one...)
So I've been reading and studying Walt Stanchfield's "Drawn to Life" and working on gesture drawing for a couple of weeks now and this is the first colored attempt.