Monday 7 September 2009

Art Monday: steampunk trilocopter sketch

My last day before returning to school tomorrow. Had a bit of time to monkey around some more with ArtRage and I loooooovvvve it. For the first time in my life I have a new computer; triple-core, 4MB ram, 750MB hard drive and magic elves. I know this may sound ridiculously provincial, but the screen is awesome. And it takes my digital tablet strokes beautifully.

I used my Intuos 3 tablet to sketch out this rough idea in the amazing ArtRage. I cannot recommend this digital painting program enough. The interface is so close to using real paint & pencil (but with an undo key!) it's stunningly elegant for a greasy oil painter like myself to use.

Steampunk flying trilobites: I've had this idea kicking around since my first year online, and I figure with the technology upgrade in my art I might as well give the little critters an upgraded mode of flying. The big one in the middle is a dirigible (I love that word.)


Here's the first one, sketched to simulate pencil. This is a digital sketch, not something I scanned. Obviously I'm happy with the software simulation of graphite.
Here's a duplicate, transformed and re-worked, this time adding some digital paint to it. Again, this is just me goofing around.Tomorrow I'm back at York U, and this term I'm taking Drawing & Narrative. Seemed like a wise thing to take in this portion of my semi-illustrator career.

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Original artwork on The Flying Trilobite Copyright to Glendon Mellow
under Creative Commons Licence.

Flying Trilobite Gallery *** Flying Trilobite Reproduction Shop ***

8 comments:

Sean Craven said...

Man, that looks like fun. Artrage is a new one for me - and it looks cheap enough so that I might wind up checking it out myself.

And hey -- a new kind of flying trilobite!

James Gurney has an instructional book out on doing realistic fantasy art. I'm feeling a yearning...

traumador said...

i'm onboard with sean, a new flying trilobite is always welcome... though have to say its probably the most environmentally unfriendly one yet! (especially given the steam comes from coal most likely :O )

i'd love to take the narrative course. that's one of the many things lacking from many of my pics. the story i'd like it to tell... i'll have to pick your brain for pointers :P

Glendon Mellow said...

Sean - it is fun. And cheap too. I didn't realize James Gurney had an instructional book out. I love his blog.

Environmentally, this one is just fine, don't worry, Traumador. It makes the steam be desalinization of sea water, and deposits little salt cubes every couple of miles over farmland for horses.

As for the narrative course, I'm sure I'll be sharing my progress right here, so pick away! I'm really not sure what to expect, this is a fine art degreee, not an illustration one, so the narratives will be less linear, I am guessing.

Anonymous said...

Have a great first day back and enjoy being a student again.

Annasbones said...

Sweet drawings! :)

Glendon Mellow said...

Thanks Peter!

Thanks Anna!

Leslie Hawes said...

Love the trilocopter! Love love love!

Glendon Mellow said...

Thanks Leslie! I'm determined to find time to finish this piece.

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Posts over 14 days old have their comments held in moderation - I've been getting an unusual amount of spam for a guy who paints trilobites. I'll release it lickety-split though.

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