Sketchercise #73

Here's a scene from last week's Sketchercise, I titled 'Celestial Anomaly'; & here's my piece from the previous week... Before I had any idea what I was going to paint, as usual I did a quick search through some of my categorised reference folders; but found nothing that sparked my imagination off... I did a quick Google image search for "epic scenes" & came across this image as a thumbnail, a few rows down... At that size, I wasn't sure what it was or where it was from, but from what my brain interpreted of the image, the scene below was what suddenly jumped into my mind... at least an idea of it anyway...

Vers 01...

Vers 02...

I knew I wanted our view-point to almost feel as that of someone (... say a shepherd) stumbling across & secretly being witness to some sort of celestial anomaly taking place in the still of the night, on his way back to his village.

This 2nd version is really just the same image, but without the dark, sinister-looking wispy things; which originally were a slightly off-white colour & represented 'gusts' of wind... Decided not to go with that (which may or may not have been the right choice), & opted for 'tentacles... No, you're right, let's just say they're dark wispy things, same as before... Lastly, I wouldn't necessarily say this is a hostile event... I actually imagine the suspended megaliths & debris are just gently floating there, slowly circling the light-source... What do you think?

Line-work...

-M-

Sketchercise #72

Here's the scene I came up with for last week's Sketchercise #72. "Silent Scouts". And here's the previous one... I call them "silent scouts', but I'm imagining these crafts would give off a single-note 'whistle' sound as they enter hearing range... I think that'd be pretty cool... and eerie.

-M-

Sketchercise #71

Hi folks! Late to make this post, but here's what I worked up for, not last week, but the week before's Sketchercise...

Final piece...

Again, as with my last piece,  I really wanted to get away from structures I was more comfortable rendering, so I chose to have the location be a city-scape of high-rise buildings & some sort of ledge... I'm not gonna lie, within about a half hour of roughing out several compositions, I was already gritting my teeth in frustration (not a fan of drawing city blocks... you try it!). Anyway, after a little while, I managed to nail down something I was happy with & could see working... (Line work done)

Linework...

Mood-wise, I originally went for a twilight lighting setup, but then decided I wasn't getting any or enough impact from it; there was no drama & no suggestion of what kind of city this was... Had a little play around with the contrasts & found the more I increased it, the grittier & moodier the scene got. At that point I could tell, to get across the atmosphere I had in my head, it would definitely have to be a 'night' scene...

Reference board...

Coincidentally, I'd actually been doing a little research on the BG artwork of BTAS (Batman the animated series 1992), as well as having just recently watched The 1990 'Dick Tracy' movie, staring Warren Beatty. Both are clearly set in the same period & I found I was able to draw inspiration from each for the 'look' I was after.

I've been a HUGE fan of BTAS since it first started airing over here in the UK, & still am.
Loved everything about it; the engaging stories, the dynamic character personalities, the character design style, & classy Art Deco architecture/ period... The general lighting & 'moodiness' given to Gotham, which was actually dubbed, "Dark Deco" was definitely something I was drawn to also, stylistically... Visually, there really was no other animated kids show like it at the time.

... I feel myself slowly getting carried away sharing my love of this show, so I think I'll leave it here for now & dedicate an entire post in homage to it & it's creators another time... Look forward to that soon!!

Below is the incredible Harrison Ellenshaw (legendary matte painter) adding the last little touches to this matte for 'Dick Tracy'  [...this is either him or his dad... the other legend!].

-M-