'Legends of the American Old West' Art Book!

Hi folks! Here's the finished painting for the 'Legends of the American Old West' Art Book I'll be contributing in, titled 'Belle Starr' (Bandit Queen); & here's the official post I made some weeks back for more details on the project. The book is basically going to be a compilation of artworks by over 30 different artists from around the globe all working under the same theme of 'Legends of the American Old West'.

As well as Mike Collins (the host & organiser of the project), there are some other amazing people featuring in this book also. Just to name a few, there are the talented Jez Tuya, Rhys Byfield, Gillian Reid, Justin Rodrigues + much more! Here's a great post over on Mike's blog showing how the book's looking so far.

Will post up a WIP breakdown over the next few days to share my thought process on working on my piece. I went in several different directions in the beginning & couldn't quite decide where to go, but thanks to the help of my friends online who threw in their thoughts & opinions, I was able to settle with something... One thing I did manage to agree with myself on was to present the piece as a movie poster for a classic Western you might have seen back in the late 40's or so... Stemming from my Vintage Movie Poster project, it was actually more of an experiment to try out a few new painting techniques & compositional style (combining studies of a little Frazetta & McGinnis)... Was definitely pleased with the results, & the response from people on the final piece was amazing (very surprising actually). I also decided to give some shout-outs in the "film credits" to some friends too =)

Hope you guys like it also!

-M-

Speed paint #35

Today's Sketchercise... I've now come o the realisation I have ZERO skill in the art of conversing whilst drawing... too much yapping/ not enough focus; I know that now. Although, somehow she did actually turn out a lot better than I'd hoped...  Probably flesh her out later in the week... [hold onto your wallets, she's a tricksy one].

-M-

Speed paint #34

Thursday's Sketch-ercise... *thud thud*.... *clink*.... *tsssssssssss*

-M-

Speed paint #33

Wednesday's Sketch-ercise... [worked up a little more after my session].

-M-

Speed paint #32

Today's Sketch-ercise... So this week's theme is a continuation on character exploration, but with the sub-theme "story behind the character"... In this exercise, the task is to generate character concepts for a fictitious animated series. The genre must be a Western & only one character per session... Focusing on the characters background, personality, who he/she is & how they relate to the other cast members; I think this is a great exercise in developing more substance, authenticity & dynamism in your designs...

There was a quote I once heard off either Greg Manchess or George Prat... [I forget] where he stressed, "every stoke you make with a pencil or paintbrush has to mean something, every line has to tell a story"... I totally believe this & try to keep it in mind whenever designing... As I'm developing a character I try to ask myself questions like, "why does he stoop like that? How did he get that lazy left eye? Are his hands this jacked up because he's an auto-mechanic?" & so on... I say "I try to keep this in mind" but honestly I still feel I could push this a lot more.

At the end of the week we'll compile all the characters together, giving a loose synopsis of the series & a short breakdown of the characters/ names etc... by the looks of it, mine'll end up being more of an 18th century 'rogues gallery' haha. Well, here's today's piece folks.

-M-

Speed paint #31

Today's Sketch-ercise. Spent a few minutes after the session to roughly flesh this guy out a little more... Pretty tired so I'll save explaining this weeks theme till tomorrow. Here's Tee's, Chris' & Nathan's pieces... Nite folks ; )

-M-