December 2016 – Josh Hancock

“The Pilgrim” Character Concept

Yesterday I posted an environment concept I painted. When I posted it on facebook I asked my friends what story they saw in the piece. A close friend and fellow artist Annie Lightsey suggested the following:

“[He] has embarked upon a pilgrimage that will take him far from home. Reverently and with gratitude he turns and looks, one last time, upon the opulent comforts of the home he leaves behind before he proceeds on his journey.”

I’m considering going on this journey with The Pilgrim, so I decided to do a character concept of him today.

Concept Art

I’ve been trying to challenge myself to create some wholly original work and find my voice as an artist, and this is what I found today.

I was inspired by watching a twitch stream of johnlestudio to just begin a drawing and figure out the story as I went. As John was drawing he would “feel” a shape or a line that looked/felt good to him and then he would figure out how to create it within the developing world of his piece.

Of course, if I’m attempting any kind of concept art, I should also mention the artists Sparth and Scott Robertson whose tutorials, both online and in book form, have been helpful to me along my journey.

Nathan Fowkes Charcoal Portrait Study

I’ve been following the work of Nathan Fowkes on his blog for awhile. He’s amazing and his work is amazing. A couple days ago he posted this great image showing his charcoal portraiture process since he just released a book on the topic.

So I decided to give it a try. In looking for an image to study I came across this iconic photograph of Marlene Dietrich from the film “Shanghai Express.”

I followed the same process as Fowkes and really enjoyed the journey.

Make art!

#inktober2016

I participated in inktober again this year, but this year (in contrast to last year) I was committed to see it through. I really appreciated the discipline it required of me. As you can see in these sketches, I went through a portraiture phase that I really enjoyed. It was reassuring to feel like I was seeing some growth in my observational drawing skills. None of these sketches had a pencil under drawing–I just went in directly with the pen and tried to cover over any “sins” with Copic marker value:)

The last sketch in this post was done with brush and ink washes from reference.