Been a long, long time

Help the Hodges Benefit Auction

For an old friend. It's been my honor to know and learn from this man.

If there are any industry artists out there that haven't heard or been able to contribute, the deadline for submissions is coming up very soon: http://www.helpthehodges.com/

It's the first acrylic on canvas I've done since ...possibly high school? I'm struck by how much easier the predictable texture of the surface makes things. I don't have to worry about any of my previous acrylic issues. I've been painting on smooth surfaces for too long. It begs more playtime.

This is such a bad idea

How does he always get talked into these kinds of things?

showdown

Just playing with some custom PS brushes.

Gogogo!

PS

Time to paint

been too long

roughly how tired I am.

Live demo Nov 5th in Bellevue WA

unused illo for a WOTC D&D project from last year.

If you are in the Seattle area, I'm going to be doing a demo next Thursday in Bellevue.
Even better - BROM is going to be there giving a talk. It's an opening for a new school called 3d Training Academy. I'll be teaching a couple of character design/digital painting evening classes there soon. See their site for the demo location http://www.3dta.com

out for a stroll

Been so busy lately. Lots of partially finished stuff that's just not ready to post.

huntsman

Photoshop.

acrylic + photoshop

zbrush "PaintStop" doodle

Downloaded it today. Just playing w some of the tools. It's not one of those things I was hoping or expecting from zbrush, but I found it kinda fun.

Shoe Salesman

Photo"painfully slow"shop CS4.

No idea where I was going with this. It's really hot here.
Can anyone tell me why this plays so fast?! It's 13 minutes @ 30fps on my machine and plays just fine til I upload it.

Digital Painting 01 ~ Shoe Salesman from Mark Behm on Vimeo.

the pass

Friday mug

It had been a while since I last used painter. I needed some down time at work and had installed painter 11 some time ago. Now I remember why it was so fun.

landscrape

I feel dirty painting waterfalls. Like a lens flare.

tradigital

Started as a an oil over pencil. Painted over it and added more color in PS. I haven't done that in a long time.

'nother

Another, same light conditions. Working through some of the things I learned from the last experiment.

To top it all off

Bernard's breath was bad too.

wipeout

Another Nightwork interior. Alkyd over fixed prismacolor. For those not familiar with the idea this was done entirely transparently. A loose value drawing, then a quick wash of black and burnt sienna, then lights wiped, scrubbed and/or picked out with a dry cloth, dry q-tip, or brush with turps. I used to love the luminous quality, textured feel and raw speed of this over-done technique.
See Bernie Fuchs, C.M.Dudash and David Grove

Bad white point, first 2 steps.

Face Study

Waiting for a meeting this morning.
Every once in a while I'll do a few sketches just to find out what I'm missing. What muscle insert have I been faking? What would the light really do? For this one I just tried to keep the light position fixed relative to their face directions. The temptation to reference photos was pretty bad. Then I goback and check against photos/mirror with similar light. These are pretty off, but (and always) it's worth every minute I spent on it - just to take away a couple things I learned.

Nostalgic

I sometimes miss the little patch of woods next to where I lived in Northern California - on a huge bluff above the ocean. It didn't really look like this but it had a similar personality to it.
The place could be breathtakingly beautiful and scary at the same time. My favorite times were the crazy red light it often had about it at sunset and the absolute darkness and roar of the ocean at night.

TrollGeeks

For Drawergeeks this week. PS.

Exercise

Painter. More quickie palette knife randomness.
I'm aggravated by the lack of decent angle control.
Tilt is useless to me. Bearing is confusing. Direction doesn't work (spins).
Rotation with my 6d is more or less random (only seems so w pknife) and only seems to want to read the pen's angle when it chooses to.

palette knives

Painter. Loaded palette knife and a soft airbrush.
Love that knife for blocking.

sketch

A late night 42 minutes. PainterX. Here's the image.

Emerald City Con 2009

OK, who here has stalked a campfire?....Hello? This started from the same abstract goo the last one did. I feel it might have a dozen other compositions locked in there somewhere.

I won't be at the Emerald City Con in Seattle this weekend (April 4 & 5) but my co-worker Wade Schin (site)(book) and BrandStudio Press will both be there and my Nightworks book will be available at one of those booths. Stop by both and say hi!

old wreck

Nap

Photoshop over pencil sketch.

Another shot: Golden Opens

On the advice of Erik I decided to give Golden Opens another go but without water. I used only a gloss medium I had, only enough water to barely wet the brush to start.
I have to say that it was better - no ugly 2 stage drying that turned me off last time- but still very stiff. I think I need to find a more fluid (and thinner) medium for them. Maybe that would do the trick.

Yarg. Pan Pastel

2 days before the con I was in the art store and found these panPastel things. They are little trays of pastel that have so little binder in them that they don't hold together in a stick. You apply them with what look like makeup sponges on sticks. This is my first shot, done during Wondercon. Extremely fun stuff. I'm not a pastel guy, but I can see why painters are drawn to the medium. This stuff in particular is as much paint as any wet medium I've tried.
There's a quick guache wash for a base and prismacolor under, over, etc. It's all done on this great Wallis pastel paper which is really expensive sandpaper.