The Monument

Many of the ideas for my illustrations are driven by a mood or feeling. I had an idea in the back of my mind for awhile for an illustration of some kind of monument. I remember a war monument at Soborna Square in Chernivsti, Ukraine that kind of inspired me in this regard. Having lived there for several months, I walked past that monument in all sorts of weather. It was the wet and misty days, though, when the monument seemed to really tell its story. Those were the days when you wondered about the old Babusya who’s father was taken in the war, and how it must have been for her widowed mother so many years ago. That was the feeling I wanted to convey here.

I sculpted a little angel 7 or 8 months ago and started gold leafing it right before we moved. The process was kind of tedious and when it was halted for the move, I ended up setting it aside until now. So, when I finished the gold leaf I wanted to do more than just have a gold angel laying around and I thought I might be able to use it as part of the monument in this dimensional illustration.

Below is my original thumbnail. I sometimes wonder if I should even bother showing those—they are often just a pile of scribbles that allow me to think the image through better.

With a basic idea of the composition and the angel already sculpted, I proceeded with planning and building the other components. Everything had to be scaled with the angel in mind, so I did a lot of measuring and looking through my lens (as usual). I cut my cobblestones from the chipboard on the back of a big drawing pad and glued them down to a sheet of foam-core. I did a radial pattern where the monument would sit and a sort of path leading up to it. This I sprayed with a stone texture, then painted with acrylic and doused in model building “water”—you know the stuff they use in rivers by tiny railroads. Same process for the monument pedestal, except for the star which I made from super sculpey and covered in gold leaf. I painted the background in oil over the top of the background for my crashed spaceship illustration. Why stretch another canvas when you already have a big one that will never be displayed in its current state anyway?

The woman was also made from super sculpey, onto which I glued the tiny clothes that I made for her. I also made her hair from deconstructed yarn and put new fabric on one of those little cocktail umbrellas.

Here is more detail on the Angel:

As with almost all of my dimensional illustrations, the final image  (top) is composited from several shots from the same angle. I’ve learned some good tricks for studio lighting, but I always try a few different things with the lights so that I have plenty of data and detail should I need it in the final. For example, I could only get the kind of wet reflections on the ground by having a diffused light source directly behind the monument. Obviously, my background is directly behind the monument, so in addition to my standard shots with the background, I took a couple shots with a piece of white foam-core.

This last image just has an artificial tilt shift effect on it. It kind of brings back the miniature feeling that I work to avoid when shooting my photos 🙂

Hope you enjoy!

Crash Landing: Dimensional Illustration

I’ve finally finished a dimensional illustration I had started several months ago. I find it is a lot easier to finish something when you have a deadline. This piece was a personal project, so it was easy to delay or get distracted by other ideas. Well it’s done. Hope you’ll enjoy seeing some of the process that brought it together.

I started with the basic idea of a spaceman climbing from the wreckage of his ship. I did some sketching on the idea and some designs for the ship and came up with this:

I then proceeded to create a 3D model of the ship with Sketchup. I would use this model as a plan while building the physical model. Here is a printout onto which I have written the dimensions. When I was a kid I hoped and expected never to use math in my career. Well I mostly don’t—except finding ratios, which I use all the time.

I started building the fuselage from foam, which I coated with a clear acrylic to protect it from the hard resin that I added on top of that. Well five coats of acrylic wasn’t enough. The foam melted and shriveled—I started over with wood.

The original sketch had the spaceman right next to the ship, which is why I spend so much time on the detail of the ship. I later decided to move the pilot forward. I am not sure which I would have liked better, but once I built the pilot at a larger scale, there was no going back.

Here is a new comp that I worked up as a guide to painting the background,

I always paint my backgrounds in oil. I usually end up with narrow enough depth of field that the background blurs a little, so I don’t worry too much about the little details when painting.

After shooting, it was on to digital cleanup and adding the smoke.

I hope you like it.

Don’t Give Up On Your Fairy

Finally photographed the fairy I started working on a while back. She’s been finished for around a month. But rather than buy fake leaves and blossoms, build branches and paint a sunset, I figured I would just wait ’til spring and use the tree in the backyard. Was it easier? Maybe. Building your own scene takes a lot of work on the front end, but it means you have a completely controlled environment when shooting. That means you don’t have to worry about the sun moving, the wind blowing, standing on a bucket or bird poo.

One of the first shots… terrible.

I got a few good shots, though. And the real blossoms and real sun worked out nice. It didn’t seem like it would when I started. I hesitate to include it, but I am going to post one of the first shots I took to prove how bad it can seem when you start. Don’t give up till you’ve got ‘the one’—I had to move to the other side of the tree, rig her up with wire instead of thread, stand on a bucket and knock over my camera before I was satisfied.

 

Taking the photos isn’t the only part where solid effort and perseverance is valuable—I’ve learned from experience that if you want something to look human outside it’s clothes, it has to look human inside too. A wireframe covered in clothes and stuffed with fluff just doesn’t do the trick. This means I sculpted the whole body even though most of it was going to be covered in a dress. It seems like extra work, but it is definitely worth it.

I cast the wings from clear acrylic using a silicone mold that I made with a polymer clay original. Again, seems like more work, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get the translucence and form I wanted.

Hair and dress? You bet—hand made and carefully applied.

 

Dimensional Illustration Finished Series

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally decided to post the finished series, as I promised. If you haven’t been following along, I have various posts documenting the production of these illustrations. The series tells the story of an adventurer who signs aboard a seal hunting schooner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The_vessel is out too late in the season and strikes ice. When the schooner begins taking on water, the crew abandons ship–all except our hero who was rendered unconscious by a blow to the head. He awakes to discover that the ice has closed around the vessel and locked it in place. After gathering supplies, he strikes out, knowing that the schooner could be lost at any time. Unfortunately, I had to pick and choose my scenes. I wasn’t able to illustrate many of the adventures he experiences on the ice. 

 

 

 

However, I did one of my favorite scenes—when he finds the Ship with the angel figurehead just as he is about to give in to exhaustion and cold. After resting, resupplying and weathering a storm in the Angel ship, he strikes out again. Eventually (five months after the original shipwreck) he sights land and struggles ashore.

Shots From “Five Months on the Ice”

These are images from my recent show in Gallery 303 at the Harris Fine Arts Center. The project illustrated the story of an adventurer shipwrecked and stranded on arctic ice. All of the images were created by building miniature models, sets and props to photograph scenes from the story. Each prop and set was designed and built specifically for the scene in which it was used. I have included a few individual pieces as they were hung at the show, but I will be posting individual images of the whole series later too. Hope you enjoy. It was a lot of effort, but a lot of fun to spend five months on the ice with my character.

Lighting in the Gallery was a little harsher for my models than would be optimum, but their primary purpose was to be photographed in my studio for the illustrations and they looked great like that, so I won’t complain.

Two Little Heads

The title says it—I’ve been working on two little heads. Behold.

These are both for part of my current dimensional illustration project. It is the same character. One is for a portrait taken before his adventure begins, the other is after months at sea and surviving on the pack ice.
I cast resin copies of the original sculpey model to use for different scenes. I’ll be making some little clothes soon.

Finished Ship Hull

The hull for the ice-bound frigate is finished. I stained it with special walnut, put a layer of thinned acrylic over that, and weathering was done with 220 grit sandaper. I sculpted the figurehead with sculpey and made the wings out of wood. Both are gold leafed, sealed and painted with a little acrylic to age it. I am not an expert sculptor and making a face that small proved a challenge.

Drift Ice Bow Mini

This frigate is taking so much work that, I thought it would be a shame to get only one image out of it.  In its final form it will be a ship that the character finds locked in the ice and uses for shelter. It will have some weathering effects and a figure head. I am using the same handmade model here to represent the character’s original vessel as the drift ice closes around it—no weathering, paint or figure head.

Just like my other models, it’s built to be viewed primarily from one side.

Frigate Miniature Progress

One of my first posts on this blog was a concept painting I did for the shot I am working on now.

 The character in this story has been trekking across the ice after his own vessel broke up and sank below the pack. He is out of supplies, exhausted and on the verge of hypothermia when he sights this ship locked in the ice. With things always shifting on the ice it is miraculous that the ship is even there, much less in a state to offer shelter or supplies. The figurehead is an angel, kind of symbolic.

I carved the hull out of styrofoam and then glued the planks in place. Like every other part of the project this frigate is coming together too slowly—but it is definitely coming, as evidenced by these photos of my progress.

Painting Backdrop for Mini Icebergs

Since the icebergs are finished, I’ve been painting the backdrop. Unlike my previous image with the dock, this backdrop will play a greater visual role in the scene. It includes the seal hunting schooner from the story.  There have been some challenges painting it.  The backdrop is 18″ wide, and therefore, decently sized for a portrait or something.  However, the ship turns out to be a little small for my painting style.  I think it will do, but it got pretty uncomfortable at times.

Below is a quick test shot with the icebergs. I still have to work out the lighting, the snow on the bergs may need some cooling.  If I can’t do it with light, I might just have to whip out the paint.

Update!

Writing that made me want to try overlaying cooled versions of the bergs over the originals in photoshop. I only spent a couple minutes at it, but it definitely comes closer to my vision.  I’ll be keeping that in mind for the final shots.