Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Old


Re-scanned this old image this weekend for conceptart.org. It was done about a year out of school. I was a real slave to my reference at that time. Also some "interesting" color choices.Brings back memories of drying times.

11 Comments:

Blogger Ryan Wood said...

It's good to see the old-school skills. The colors & brushstrokes on his face, really nice work. I like that blue light on his face in the detail.

November 28, 2006 11:04 AM  
Blogger <-<--esoder<---<----<----- said...

Mark Behm? Formerly sound guru at Zelos?

If so, I have but one word for you...

Hammurabi!

--Eric Soderstrom - formerly President of the Sarah Scharf Fan Club at Zelos

November 29, 2006 12:01 AM  
Blogger Anders said...

well Mark, old but really good!!
impressive piece man!!
I agree with Ryan for the light job
everything is perfect here, clothes, skins, mood...
one of my favourite of your works!

November 29, 2006 6:54 AM  
Anonymous robertc said...

hey mark, the cop in the back so looks like you! amazing details and colors in this illustration man.

November 29, 2006 11:55 AM  
Blogger Mark said...

Great picture. The style reminds me of the Robert McGuiness/Frank McCarthy James Bond Posters of the 60s.

Great stuff!

November 29, 2006 1:50 PM  
Blogger Alina Chau said...

LOve this piece!! WOW!

November 30, 2006 4:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great work! How did you get away from being a slave to the reference?

December 03, 2006 5:06 AM  
Blogger Mark Behm said...

Thanks everybody. BTW, no I'm not the guy from Zelos. :/
Felicity -> Good question. It was mostly getting over the fear of it. I was very much into the golden age illustrators who swore by reference, be it life or photographic. At one point, after years of painting from the figure, I tried it without a model and it seemed to work. This was a huge shock to me that I could get the lighting to model the form. The brain must build a catalog of similarities that occur with similar lighting situations. Now when I use reference it's to see "what does a Napoleonic Era foot soldier's uniform look like" or something like that. If I use a reference for lighting, I'll do what I can to study it and commit it's patterns to memory, internalizing it, thinking about what is causing what hi light or shadow. Then I go and paint without referring back to the image and I'm better able to handle that situation next time it comes up. I think it was very important for me to go through the stage of being able to draw and paint exactly what I saw, I think it's even more important to break away from that when it's time.

December 04, 2006 9:20 AM  
Blogger Andrew Glazebrook said...

Really great !!

December 05, 2006 8:20 AM  
Blogger marcobucci said...

Good words. I only began to explore what you're remarking on here from something you said to me a couple of years ago. To this day I can recite a few very poignant sentences from that e-mail that really strike a chord with me. Good thing for these blogs! Keeps us all sketching.

December 05, 2006 9:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for taking time to reply. I've just started figure/life drawing so I have a way to go but I do sense it is important. I'm still a slave to it so I really envy your freedom!

December 07, 2006 12:10 AM  

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