Stop, Drop, and Draw.

The other day I was stuck at work, making last-minute revisions for a client until about 7:00. After sitting in front of a computer screen all day I needed some fresh air. I just started walking the trail behind the vet med college and noticed this big electrical substation (if that's what you call it; help me out, engineers) that I had never really looked at before. It was magic hour, so the sun was casting interesting shadows on all the equipment. I suddenly got inspired.

I'm interested in making concept art, so what I've been doing for many years was take photos of stuff like this to save for later reference. However, what invariably happens is I take my camera home, copy files to my assets folder, and there they sit, almost never to be looked at again. This day I decided to try something different.

So I sat down on the grass, took out my moleskine, and started drawing this thing, whatever it is. I found as I completed the sketch I got so much more out of it than if I had taken a photo and moved on. The process of spending a half hour drawing this object helped imprint the shapes and connections onto my brain in ways that snapping a quick photo couldn't. So the next time you see something interesting and you're not in a big hurry, just stop, sit down, and draw the damn thing.

Perseus and Medusa - Final

It really is a shame that I haven’t been posting here as frequently as I should be. Selling my house and moving consumed a lot of my time, but that’s really no excuse. At any rate, I finished this painting last month. After some great feedback from my IMC peeps and excellent advice from Dan Dos Santos and Greg Manchess, I tweaked the bounce light and gave it some more polish. I hope I didn’t overdo the lens flare on his sword and shield, but I really couldn’t resist. At least I painted it in and didn’t use a filter, right?