R.I.P. Christopher Lee

From wikipedia : Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, (27 May 1922 – 7 June 2015) was an English actor, singer and author. With a career spanning nearly 70 years, Lee initially portrayed villains and became best known for his role as Count Dracula in a sequence of Hammer Horror films. His other film roles include Francisco Scaramanga in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Saruman in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy (2001–2003) and The Hobbit film trilogy (2012–2014), and Count Dooku in the final two films of the Star Wars prequel trilogy (2002 and 2005). Lee was knighted for services to drama and charity in 2009, received the BAFTA Fellowship in 2011 and received the BFI Fellowship in 2013. Lee considered his best performance to be that of Pakistan's founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah in the biopic Jinnah (1998), and his best film to be the British horror film The Wicker Man (1973). Always noted as an actor for his deep strong voice, Lee was also known for his singing ability, recording various opera and musical pieces between 1986 and 1998 and the symphonic metal album Charlemagne: By the Sword and the Cross in 2010 after having worked with several metal bands since 2005. The heavy metal follow-up titled Charlemagne: The Omens of Death was released on 27 May 2013. He was honoured with the "Spirit of Metal" award at the 2010 Metal Hammer Golden God awards ceremony. Lee died at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital on 7 June 2015 at 8:30 am after being admitted for respiratory problems and heart failure, shortly after celebrating his 93rd birthday there. His wife delayed the public announcement until 11 June in order to break the news to their family. He will be missed and remembered for all of his amazing roles. Below is my homage to Lee in the form of a caricature of him as Saruman from LOTR and The Hobbit films. Thanks for stopping by, Enjoy !!!!

Droids and Vehicles

Here are a couple of "Kit-Bashed" droid and vehicle designs put together quickly using some old silhouette thumbnails and Oleg Vdovenko's cheat packs.  It's a great and fun way to concept anything that needs techy greebles to give the illusion of details.  I will be painting over a lot of it and placing them in environments.  This is just a good jump off point to start thumb nailing ideas quickly.  Below are some of the designs followed by the silos that I used as shapes to build off of.  The first pic are just silos made with brushes, then I build on those with Photoshop shapes, then build further with the line work.  The shapes were inspired by bugs, Star Wars, and anime movie Robot Carnival.  Thanks for stopping by, Enjoy !!!!

Final Frontier

Having fun messing around with Photoshops shapes tool. I'll be doing a series of these Sci-Fi environments soon. This one was inspired by one of my favorite Science Fiction artist John Berkey. Berkey was probably best known for his on the Original Star Wars posters. Thanks for stopping by, Enjoy!!!

Spidermech

This is a quick speedpainting I did while watching the original Star Wars and John Carter movies. Trying out a few things, I used mostly a pallet knife for this one. Enjoy!!!

Concept Sketch Painting

This one comes from a galaxy not too far away. From the parking lot to be exact. I got this idea from Artist Scott Robertson of Design Studio Press. He calls them wallscapes. By laying your camera on a wall or ledge and taking a picture, then using that picture to paint over. My photo allowed me to come up with a Blade runner/ Star Wars style environment. It's a cool technique as the snap shot dictates the perspective for you. Below is the art followed by the original picture.

DARTH LUCAS DA WISE

George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film producer, screenwriter, director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. In addition, he established his own effects company, Industrial Light and Magic (ILM), to make the original Star Wars film. The company is now one of the most successful in the industry. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. He has inspired generations of artist of all genres, including myself.
Here I envision Lucas as a Sith. Perhaps he is using his "Dark Force" power to make sure you go see his films no matter how many versions are released. lol

Old sketch revisited

I always liked this drawing, so decided to revisit it and paint it up mainly in Corel painter and some photoshop. It gave me an opportunity to familiarize myself with some of painters brushes. This guy was originally drawn in ball point pen, then scanned in and painted. He was influenced by the Aliens in the Disney cartoon; Lilo and Stitch. I also gave him a Stormtrooper belt buckle. Guess who's side he's on.

Jedi Master

I did this one for fun. My main man Yoda, Here's a few process shots. Hope ya dig it. Try not, Do or Do Not, There is no try.

FAN ART

So, I decided to dedicate my new Fabriano Artist Journal to stylized versions of my favorite cartoon, comic book, and movie characters. These sketchbooks are awesome, they come with multi-colored pages and the quality of the paper is top notch in my opinion. These are drawn using different colored prismacolor col-erase pencils, and inked with Esterbrook pen nibs, and a japanese brush pen. Drawing this way, really frees up my mind, and allows me to have fun exploiting shapes and mimicking a variety of art styles.