5/31/11

Some good advice

I'm always looking for advice, whether it's from professionals, teachers, or my peers. I like learning from others' experiences and trying to better myself. So when those artists who have "made it" in their careers tell me that though they are happy to share their wisdom, I sit back and take it all in. With that in mind, I stumbled upon this little gem written by Phil McAndrew: "Super Obvious Secrets That I Wish They'd Teach in Art School" I found it to be filled with insight and just tons of great advice. You might recognize Phil McAndrew's work from his epic mustache comic that made its way around the internet.

(Panel from www.philintheblanks.com)

5/26/11

It's finally done!

(Hey look at that, it's done!)

Hey everyone! Just finished putting together my website. I don't have much else to say other than take a look! Check it out - www.victorpreato.com

5/24/11

It kind of looks like the letter "n"

(Watercolor and Ink - Sketchbook Page)

Well I know I just put up the sketchbook tab, but I have another addition. I just finished this little guy a few minutes ago and for some reason I'm extremely happy with how it came out. For those interested in how this little dude came to be - I started out by laying down some paint and paint splatters in no particular fashion. I just sort of did it in a "this feels like this color should go here" sort of fashion, and once some semblance of form shaped up I tacked up the arms. From there I grabbed my trusty brush pen and added in the lines. The whole process, including waiting for the paint to dry, took around 20-30 minutes.

5/23/11

The Sketchbook

(Ink and Markers - Sketchbook Page)

I've been buried in my sketchbook for the past couple of weeks - drawing everything and anything that comes to mind. It helps keep me involved when I'm not working on a project, and it's a lot of fun to try new things out. I've become pretty attached and I don't know what I would do without one. Now this wasn't always the way I used to think, I used to hate the idea of having to draw and write in an empty book, I don't know why, but it just never clicked with me until a few years ago when I was in school and became more serious about everything I do. For those of us who have adopted the "I NEED TO HAVE ONE" mentality, our sketchbooks are extremely important. Ideas are born there, ideas die there, and nothing is better than a blank page to express yourself upon. It's a very personal thing, and at least to me, the drawings in there hold more weight and value than any words I could write. I know some some artists who are completely willing to let people flip through and view their sketchbooks, and others who cringe at the thought of letting someone get that close to their personal work. I'm a little in the middle, there's some ideas that I'm not ready to share and others I am, so I've created a new page on this blog, located in the tab "Sketches" above. So if you're at all interested in seeing a small sample of what I like to draw in my free-time go ahead and take a look.

5/17/11

Taking commissions!

Hey all, with school over and some more free time coming up I am currently taking art commissions / freelance work. If you're interested, just send me a message detailing what you are looking for at: victorpreato@gmail.com. We can discuss specifics. Thanks for your interest!

5/10/11

Hit Girl Sketch

(Digital Media)

As promised, here is the Hit Girl sketch. I kept this one quick, somewhere around 45-60 minutes I think. I had some fun doing a different approach on each of the characters, so as you can see this sketch focuses much more on line than color. You can see the original image I used for reference HERE. For this sketch I quickly drew the outline in blue (because I'm used to the blue-pencil sketching in traditional media), followed by a more refined sketch in black. From there I lowered the opacity of the layers and drew in the final black line work you see in the final image. After that I quickly added color (nothing fancy here - I was trying to keep it loose and quick). Take a look at the previous posts to see some of the other Kick-Ass characters.

5/6/11

This is the greatest and best book in the world. . . tribute.

So is it ironic that the title of my post is a tribute in of itself to Tenacious D's song "Tribute"? Which was a tribute to own of their own songs? Well enough of that, no new work from me right now, though you can expect to see a Hit Girl drawing in the very near future. Today we had a little bit of tribute art for my book, Favorite. Take a look below, I was pretty excited to see it. The work is by fellow illustrator, Jacob Anderson. You can see his original blog post HERE. For those of you who don't get the reference, you could take a look at the listing on indyplanet HERE and check out a few preview pages from the opening of the book. Well that's all from me right now, take a look at Jacob's drawing!

(Courtesy of Jacob Anderson: jacobandersonart.blogspot.com )

5/2/11

Red Mist Sketch

(Digital Media)

Well I figured a little more practice couldn't hurt, plus it's a lot of fun. So in keeping with the theme, I decided to sketch out a Kick-Ass villain, Red Mist. This time I limited myself to an hour for drawing, so it's pretty rough. Like the previous drawing (see post below), I sketched out the outline first, but this time I decided to keep them in. You can see the original source file I used as reference HERE. The process was pretty much the same as it was in the Kick-Ass piece (but done in half the time), take a look at the previous post if you haven't checked it out already.

5/1/11

A Kick-Ass Time

(Digital Media)

I decided it was about time to brush up on some photoshop painting skills. It's been a while since I've really sat down and hit the tablet to get some practice in. Above is the result of about 2 hours of work, so it's still pretty rough, but this was just a practice run. And after re-watching Kick-Ass I was feeling inspired, though I did take a little liberty and remove the mouth-hole that's present in the movie but absent in the original comic. It was nice to sit down and do some more involved drawing on the computer after a hiatus. I have been working more traditionally recently (mainly just sketch work), but the inability to "edit - undo" in real-life influenced how I worked on this piece. I won't say I didn't use any undo's, but I kept it to a minimum, which was important because it's so easy to get caught up in little, unimportant details digitally (at least for me). For any of those interested, below is a work-in-progress of how this kick-ass piece came together.

(Sketch Progression)

I started out with a quick sketch, outlining the basic form of the figure and began to block in local color. I worked in local color filling in some basic shadow shapes and then added some complimentary color for the shadows, and followed up with the highlights. After the initial blocking in, there was back and forth working with the colors. I ended up deciding to eliminate the initial sketch lines from the final piece (which was hard because I have an affinity for line work), but because I usually work with a lot of line, I pushed myself to shape up the form without the outline. I duplicated the layers, merged them, and masked the excess marks and then added the background. Ta-Da!

***Disclaimer*** This is not my own image, this is just a sketch practice using a reference image (found HERE) from the Kick-Ass movie.