Kaiser Wilhelm II

I have been reading called George, Nicholas, and Wilhelm by Miranda Carter. It is about these three first cousins that were the rulers of England, Russia, and Germany leading up to the first world war. Reading about the tragic circumstances of Wilhelms birth and upbringing make one cringe with a mixture of disgust and empathy. His left arm was injured during the extensive labor which almost killed his mother. Up until the age of 10 he underwent medieval forms of therapy, from stretching on a rack, electrical shocks and "animal bath's" in which his arm was plunged into a freshly killed hare.

I took some liberties as the animal baths ended by age 2 and I doubt they were all conducted at once, but these truth's are stranger than fiction anyways.

French Girls

I had a wonderful time at the Westerfield Mansion in San Francisco drawing the Gallery Girls, a group of terrific models who pose for artists, often in interesting costumes and with unique themes. Last night's theme was French Girls, so the music was a mix of French pop and classics dating back to the cabaret days of Paris. The Mansion has an interesting history and is maintained with antique furniture and decor, looking as if it were the late 1800's. There was a lively group of artists, several of them from other game studios all painting, drawing, and photographing our talented models. I highly recommend looking into future events if you are looking to improve your figure drawing skills and socialize with some other creative types.

Swordsman Rendered further

I tried to take this guy a bit further and render a single focal area. This was a recommendation from Silvio Aebischer. He is an excellent concept artist and worked at Oddworld as a driver of those games artistic vision. He recently came by Crowdstar and did some lectures and demos. It was a really great opportunity.

Dream Stone Color

I dropped the previous post in color. I did make some comp changes, once color came in and tried to get the scale more dramatic and closer to the original dream.

Dream Stone

I had some very vivid dreams last Thursday night and awoke around 6:30 am still seeing the imagery. I saw this huge stone, I looked up and it appeared to be a large cylindrical stone, which appeared volcanic and moss covered. I guessed it had fallen from the sky long ago from some asteroid, and then maybe thousands of years later, someone had scaled its face and carved out statues which looked somewhere between the Easter island guys and the Buddha. It when I looked up it stretched up into the clouds and seemed much larger than the skyscrapers down in the financial district of SF.

At its base I saw the ruins of a modern day sports arena, but covered in some calcified stone, and other building edifices, overgrown also with stone and moss. I removed them from this comp because I have just done far too many Post Apocalypse things so I am making this more pure fantasy.

Then the dream got weird, I was dying, and a Black Widow jumped onto my chest releasing a venom directly into my heart, which had the effect of keeping me alive. I felt the pain and fear, and a strong desire to remove the spider, at one point I couldn't stand it and I ripped it off, and then it sprang back onto the opposite side of my chest making a fresh bite. I saw drops of my blood landing on the paper on the table below me. Like I said, weird. I will take this to color asap.

Photo Study of Tiraspol

A quick landscape study from a photo. Trying to do a few more of these this week.