A New Year, A New Hope...

HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2016!

A New Year, A New Hope...

Well, another year has come and gone with the usual mix of minor accomplishments and regrets.  I have made the usual retinue of resolutions to break for the New Year, and I'm sure y'all have done the same.  Here's to hoping all goes well for everyone!

I also want to take a few moments at the top of the new year to thank everyone for stopping by and gawking at my modest Blog, as well as the words of encouragement from many of you!  You are all much appreciated!  :-)

I have a stack of odd-sized, scrap pieces of hardboard which I gessoed.  From time-to-time, I'll grab one and paint a picture from a magazine that catches my eye, or something of the sort.  Nothing too fancy, just for warm-up or to try and work on some art skills for an hour or two.  Use it or lose it, don't ya know?  

In this case, it was a picture of Luke Skywalker from the original "Star Wars", which seemed like it would work on this Blog--I even thought of a semi-clever title and everything!  The painting was done with casein (it's sort of like acrylic paint, except it uses a milk-based protein as a binder) on a 4" x 5" gessoed hardboard, using a #10 Flat brush and #10 and #12 Round brushes. 

If I were smart (and I've never been accused of being such), I would have taken pictures/scans as I went along to show the progress, since many people like to see the process (I know I like seeing how they got from point "A" to point "B", myself).

If people like 'em enough, I may post more in the future.  We'll see, I guess.  :-)

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Done with casein on 4" x 5" gessoed hardboard.

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Ultraman

Ultraman

OK, I decided to take a little break between projects.  

I checked out the entire run of Ultraman from our local library.  It was a show which I only caught a few times as a kid, but I was always intrigued by him.  And, with the new "Godzilla" movie being out, I was feeling a little nostalgic for all those old Japanese shows.  Because of that, I thought it would be fun to knock out a quick painting and post it to the Blog.  Something I should do more often, to be honest.  :-D

I also liked the series run enough that I am sure I will be doing more with Ultraman in the future.  I have a few ideas...  :-)

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STEP ONE:  Here are the pencils on Stonehenge paper which was glued to 8" x 10" hardboard.

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STEP TWO:  This was the halfway point in the painting.  I decided to use casein to paint the picture, which uses a milk-based binder for the pigment (it has a slight ammonia smell to is, as well, which can be a little off-putting to some).  I decided to play with it after reading James Gurney's Blog.  I like it quite a bit--it behaves like an odd mixture of acrylic and gouache (opaque watercolor) and is waterproof after it sets.

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STEP THREE:  Here is the finished painting.  For some reason, the brush strokes on the top half of the painting really showed through when I took the picture with my camera, but they weren't that strong on the painting itself.  Because of that, I decided to pull it fully into PhotoShop and tweak it a bit more...

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STEP FOUR:  After it was finished, I decided to just fix the background a bit and brush out some of the strong brushstrokes which kept artifacting from my camera.  I also digitally blurred the ray coming from his hand and added an airbrushed glow to the gemstone on his chest.

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Done with casein paint on 8" x 10" Stonehenge paper glued onto Medium Density Fiberboard (with an assist from PhotoShop).

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