All New Year Old Sketching: July to September '14

Despite having quite a lot to post about, I do seem to have fallen behind on the actual posting bit.  This means that for the first time in a while I have quite a few pieces that need posting about, rather than just a handful of speedpaints.  I'm not going to be doing much catching up today though, instead I'll be doing some catch up a little on the other posts I've fallen behind on - the monthly sketch update.

From here on things will be done a little differently.  Usually I scan the sketchbook pages, and then cut out things of note for the month and compose them into a new image.  This has two disadvantages though.  Firstly, it takes bloody ages, and I don't think there's really enough feedback to warrant all the work I put into it (this time sink aspect is the main reason I've fallen behind so badly).  Secondly, it means that consciously or not I end up cutting out a lot of the stuff that's crap.  This gives a false impression of my current progress (actually, my progress about 11 months ago because I'm so far behind).

For Psychochronography, Turn to Page 5

Well, I'm writing this at the last minute because of things and stuff.  Not going into details, though I will say I'm writing it with cold hands because our furnace is out for the second time this year.  Fantastic! It's been that sort of week (as in the last 7 days, not as in the week beginning on Monday, because it is Monday, so I would say it's been that sort of day instead).

So, since it's so cold, and I'd like to go and do warmer things than type a blog entry I'll try and keep it short (Ha, like that ever happens!  Well, it did last post, so there).

Oh, this is a Phil Sandifer cover post, if you hadn't already guessed from the title.

Feeble Sketching - April to June '14

Far from catching up with my sketch posts, I appear to have fallen further behind given that the last one was in August <shudder>.  That's inconvenient, and not terribly well planned.  So in an effort to catch up, I'm just going to post some from the next three months (April through June last year), because there's really not that much to say about them (or, if there was, I've long since forgotten).

On the plus side, I did do a marathon scanning session recently, so I have everything up to last month scanned, I just need to compile them (or, if worse comes to the worse, just adjust the levels and post them as is - eek).

Though based on my current track record, I'll get the next batch uploaded sometime in July...

Just a Little Board With Pulp

No, that's not a typo in the title, I mean board, not bored.  I work, as you may or may not recall, at a videogame development company.  What you may not be aware of is that a shocking number of game developers are also lovers and designers of boardgames.  Not only that, but the city in which I live has an annual board game design competition, which is obviously popular with the staff.

One of my colleagues mentioned before Christmas that he was planning on entering a game, and would I be interested in doing a cover for the box?  Sure, sounded fun. And then I forgot all about it because Santa coming has that effect on me (or perhaps it's the copious alcohol).

Obviously I did end up painting the cover (or this would be a very short post), and you can see it, and the rest of this tale after the break below (unless you clicked through already, in which case it's right there, probably on screen already,  Look!  There!  Right there!).

Feeble Sketching - January to March '14

Well, I have no idea where the last 6 weeks went.  I know I've been busy, but it's not like I have a lot I can show for it.  3 speedpaints since the last speedpaint post (I think that's an all time low), so I need at least one more before I can post about those; a book cover - which was a fair time sink, but not that bad - and again it'll be a little while until I can post about that; and a whole bunch of work stuff that's off the table for years to come, if I can ever show it at all.  So I've been busy, and when I haven't been I've been spending my time playing video games and watching TV.  I have sketched too, but not in a terribly constructive way.   All in all it's been a bad few weeks for anything worth putting on the blog, and let's face it, it's not been the best year for it either.  Hopefully things will smooth out soon.  Until then, here are some terrible sketches I did between January and March of this year.

Sketching for July/September '13

With over a month since my last post, you'd think I'd have lots to show.  You would be wrong.  It's not that I've not been active (though I've not produced anywhere near what I should have - almost no speed paints for example), just that much of that I either can't show, or can't show just yet.  Mostly though this month (and the end of the last) has just been a fairly tough slog.  Long time followers will know that October 5th marks an unhappy anniversary for me, and  as such the two weeks around that date are usually a pretty horrible time for me emotionally.   This year though I also had two friends pass away in the time since I last posted.  The latter was very close, and died on Thursday.   I won't post my thoughts on that here - it's best left to other places, but obviously it's affected me deeply.

But on to happier things, at least for this post.  We've had a house guest for a few weeks, and he's likely to be around for a while longer.  While his presence is obviously a minor distraction from the art thing he's also the model guest, and we're very happy to have him. I do also have some things coming up soon - I'm taking a new painting class, and I'll be posting the results before long.  One of the pieces seems to be fairly popular, (though of course, being me I can't see why) and overall there should be three or four paintings by the end of it.  I've also been working on a new book cover for Dr. Sandifer, and that should be hitting the electronic store shelves in the next few weeks - I'll have a post about it ready when it does of course.  There are also another two covers that are essentially done, and just waiting on a final page count.  Those I'll probably blog about in December and January when the books go live.  So yes, things are happening, even if it's not quite in the places I would hope (anatomy practice, sketching, that sort of thing - I've had no mental time for it the past few months, but hopefully that will change soon).  For now though, let's get the sketching up to date...

Slow; It's the New Speed!

Okay, okay, I'll post some of that art stuff this blog is supposedly here for. Today it's speedpaints (sort of) as you may have gathered from the title. A while back I said I would post these speedpaint updates every four paints or so, but this time there's a couple more. I've also said that speedpaints generally take less than an hour and a half... Not so here, for reasons I'll explain with each paint. I'm cutting my preamble short this time (though there will be general update info at the bottom), so let's go look at 'art'!

Sketching For April '13

So first of all there was supposed to be a retrospective this week, celebrating 3 years of the blog.  No, that's not a long time compared to some, but for me it's a very long time indeed. Unfortunately the hard-drive with all the images for it, as well as some for my next post on optical illusions, died.  There was more on it than that of course (a terrible speed paint and vast tracts of my reference material - most of my art was backed up though), but those are the two that most have an effect on this blog.  So I still plan on doing both the Retrospective, and the other A Musing post, but that'll have to wait until I get my act together again.  I'm not sure why the drive died, but it's probably because of a static spark or getting jostled wrong when I was trying to transfer it over to my new PC.  Yes, I finally got myself a new PC; built it myself in fact. Other than a handful of small issues (and the large one regarding the drive) it's been a relatively smooth transition.  Far smoother than I thought it would be at least.

So other than ll that this has been a good moth for sketching, even though there are only two images in this post.  I filled about 10 pages in the last three weeks of April, which is rather more than I have been achieving.  None of it is directly from reference (although much of it is inspired by photos and the like, but not drawn until much later), and some of it I'm quite pleased with.  You'll note the lack of an image woth the worse sketches of the month - that's because while there were some hideous ones they were all ones that were mostly rushed.  Those below are ones I either spent a little time on or that turned out well despite being done very quickly.  OK, on to the images.

Sketching For March '13

I don't have much to say today.  Yes it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted, and yes this sketching post is a bit late this month, and yes I have yet to complete part two of the last A Musing post.  I could give reasons and excuses as I usually do but what's the point?  Sure, my wife was sick last week but since she spent most of that time in bed I could still have snuck off and written a blog post, but obviously I failed to.  No, I was far to busy playing video games (Bioshock Infinite and Tomb Raider mostly, I preferred the later, but they were both pretty solid, even if I preferred the original Bioshock to Infinite), and watching TV.  And sketching!  I did do a lot of sketching this week (though you don't get to see it until next month of course).  OK, more at the bottom, lets go look at some "Art."   I'll keep writing it to a minimum until the end of the post though.  Most of it would be what I say every month anyway...

Sketching for February '13

Yes, it's been a little while, and I'll be honest, this post probably wasn't worth the wait. Various things either prevented me from sketching, or just made me not feel like doing so much last month. This is not to say that I didn't, or that I sketched a lot of junk (well, yeah, a bit), just that I didn't get as much done as usual, and certainly not as much as in January (about the same amount as December, maybe slightly more). I also didn't really focus on anything, and discovered that the focus I did on arms a few months back was probably a waste of time because I've forgotten how the darn muscles go in the forearm, again (why do I have so much difficulty remembering this - I need to come up with a mnemonic or something. Seriously.

Outside of sketching I've been working on another book cover (It's actually pretty much done now), I recieved my copy of the Doctor Who Anniversary Special that I did a spread for, and it turned out looking far better than I was expecting at such a large size. The book has some wonderful work in it, both written and drawn. I was plesantly impressed :). In other news, I have family in town, so this month is going fairly slowly too. I'm really going to work on improving things somewhat once they leave as I've clearly been slacking since about November, and there's really no excuse for it. OK, on to the sketches...

Sketching for November '12

And here is the second sketching post this month, which brings us all up to date on that until January. I still haven't got much juice back for additional sketching/speedpainting, though I have manage a little of both - most of it appalling. You still get to see it along the line though, because that's the entire point of the blog, yes? I'm also hoping to finish the painting I was working on at my painting class this week. That said I've meant to sit down and work on it for the past 3 days and haven't managed to, so we'll see if I can manage it.

Really though, I don't have a great deal to cover in this post, so I'll cut to the chase and get on with the images.

Belated Sketching for September

It's been a while hasn't it? I skipped the first whole month since the blog began (actually closer to two months at this point if I'm honest), and I've not done much art in order to say "Well yeah, but check this out!" either. You may be thinking I've been resting on my laurels after that book cover, or that I've just been slacking. Those in the second group would be closer to the truth; I've totally been slacking, but not without reason.

Some of you already know that the beginning of October (and the end of September) is a particularly hard emotional time for me, and this year saw an anniversary that made it especially so. Before I could get over that little funk there was another emotionally trying time (Mostly for my wife, but obviously what effects her rubs off on me to some extent), and then my Son was sick, and then my wife was sick, and now I'm sick - but it's now more irritating than "feel like death", hence my finally writing a post.

So the emotional stuff basically nuked my inspiration and drive so I did very little for the month. I did enough to get some more posts, but no speedpaints and not much sketching. There goes my one speedpaint a week intent - I'll get back on it soon. Anyway, before all this I did scan in September's sketching, so I have that to show at least...

Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Speedpaints

Back once more with the monthly speedpaint roundup. A little different this month, but we'll get to that in a minute. I decided at the Blog's birthday to try doing at least one speedpaint a week for the year, and so far I've managed to keep to that; so I have another four for you to see.

In other related news I'm taking a break from doing the commissions for a little bit in order to focus on improvement. People still want them, and I'd like to do them, but I feel bad taking peoples hard earned when there's improvement to be had (plus, they're a lot of work), so on with that for a few weeks before the money raking (hah!) can continue.

I've also co-started a group at work dedicated to that very improvement. I'm very happy with the response so far as we have artist and non artist alike all wanting to improve. We're not doing lessons and such (so far), it's more like a Weight Watchers type setup where we all admit that we suck and give each other support to improve. Expect to see some of my results appearing in the blog in future - right now I'm drawing a page of circles every night for two weeks, I'm sure you can hardly wait to gaze upon those those now can you?

OK, enough preamble...

The Best and Worst Sketching of May and June

This one's rather late in coming, and for that I apologize (you're used to it by now I'm sure).

Since I last posted I've had another virus infect my machine, I've upgraded windows and re-installed twice (partly due to the virus), gone deaf in one ear due to allergies (which cleared up - but now it's happened to the other ear) and discovered my scanner no longer works (Windows 7 incompatible, there's nothing actually wrong with the scanner itself). There was probably some other stuff in there too, but if I don't remember it it's probably not important.

Thankfully I had the good sense to scan sketches before that first re-install, so I do in fact have something to show today.

One Little Pony

No, I failed utterly to make a post about the Blog's birthday. I would say I'm rubbish (but you already know that), but instead I'll point to the slightly hectic couple of weeks I've had with dental work and surprise birthday parties and Mother's Day (which we did bugger all for, as usual), and my Son's best friends planned move to Canada (and his sister's utter terror of my very presence)and my wife's car breaking down, and her entrance exam things for College in the Autumn, and so on and so on... What do you mean that sounds like an average week in your household? You need to lay off the caffeine dearies.

Anyway, so I got a bit swamped, but I also got a commission. Have I mentioned this before? No, I have not, if I mentioned anything it was an entirely different commission that I've not started yet (I need to schedule a photo session).

Now I think anyone who commissions me has got to be a bit bonkers, but lucky for me I know a lot of people who are ever so slightly off their rockers. After the last commission I sort of decided that I wouldn't do any more for a while (because it was hard), and so of course I've taken on another two (because I am thick, or at least a soft touch). So, I present to you the first commission I've ever done for which I will get paid (actual job work not withstanding).

Trains, Planes, Cars and a Boat

There, that wasn't so bad a wait was it? I'm back, obviously. Where've I been? The UK, again. Usually there's quite a gap between trips, but this one was a mere 7 and a bit months. We went again so soon because of my Cousin's wedding, and it turned out to be one of the most mental trips I've ever been on. It'll be a while before I go again unfortunately, but next time we plan for it to be a little more relaxing.

This post is going to be a little different from most as I want to get down things that happened on the trip so I can remind myself just how crazy it was compared to the usual ones (which are rarely boring). I'll fit in the sketching I did first though. I don't really care if you don't want to read all the text - this one is for my own benefit; feel free to check out the pictures and ignore the text if you want to.

Such Speed and Tom Foolery

Yeah, it's been a while, and last month only had three posts rather than the four I'd rather have, but things got a little hectic what with the space-alien abduction and my son building a particle accelerator in the basement (blew all the circuit breakers!). Oh, and my wife finally took the time she'd been meaning to in order to build a shed that looks like the TARDIS, except it actually works and now every time I see her she's six months older and has an alternating tan.
Other than that though it really has been a little hectic in work and at home, but I have found time to do a handful of speedpaints, which I shall present to you below (and no, there's no more April 1st 'humor' in the post, promise).