k00273511 - Tumblr blog

[k00273511]

Ideas Development Sketchbook

[k00273511]

Finished oil painting

Here's my piece inspired by Zdzisław Beksiński. I had a lot of fun working on this! I left it somewhat unfinished towards the top, mainly the top set of arms & the head, though I'm trying to teach myself not to be a completionist all the time when it comes to paintings.

In this piece I explored movement through the mutation of zombies.

[k00273511]

Project Statement - Movement

My project for this brief revolved around the concept of zombies.

My chosen electives for this project were as follows:

Graphic design

Painting

Print

I grew up fascinated by zombies and wanted to incorporate this theme into the brief. I really enjoyed working with a topic I love so much.

I took a lot of inspiration from one of my favourite games, The Last of Us, which can be seen especially within my digital landscape pieces as these games heavily feature cities and forests. I have become fond of graphic design throughout the making these pieces and I'm glad I could learn the basics of Adobe Illustrator within the short timeframe that I had.

Since I'm in the B.Ed course, I will not be choosing an elective, although I would have liked to go into painting had I been given this option. Oil paint is the medium I enjoy working with the most so I had a great time with my Zdzisław Beksiński-inspired piece.

Regrettably, I didn't get much of a chance to explore print as I was unable to attend a print workshop due to illness and the workshops being full. I have created lino prints before though, so I made a couple of those in my own time which I'm happy with.

Overall I'm pleased with the work I've produced, though I feel like I wasn't able to complete as much work as I would have liked to as I've also been juggling work for my B.Ed course. Admittedly, it was a bit difficult to manage this extra workload and still be expected to produce a sufficient amount of work for this project.

[k00273511]

Artist Research - Tamar Stone

I have completed my artist research for this project digitally using PowerPoint. I had originally included a cover slide, although I had to remove it due to the image post limit. I have converted the slides into JPEGs for more convenient viewing.

[k00273511]

Hyoung Taek Nam

This Korean senior concept artist has worked over 17 years in gaming, comic book and film industries. He's currently working at Naughty Dog Studio as a senior character concept artist since 2009. He has designed many iconic characters and creatures for "The Last of Us” 1 & 2 and "Uncharted 4".

The following images are all concept drawings.

[k00273511]

Lino print work

I created this lino zombie head and I'm quite pleased with it. It was a bit difficult removing all the white areas and I regretted this design halfway through, but I decided to finish it anyway and I'm glad I did. I played around with the contrast levels to make the lines nice and dark.

[k00273511]

Graphic design work

Here's my final graphic design piece. I think this is my favourite one so far. I can't decide which background I prefer, so I'm uploading both versions.

I like how the background is serene & beautiful and in the foreground things seem a bit more intense. I enjoyed creating the shapes and cloning & altering them throughout the layers to create dynamism. I took inspiration again from The Last of Us with the forest atmosphere, an environment that is prominent within the game.

Throughout these digital pieces, I've explored the physical movement of zombies overtaking various landscapes: cities, mountains and forests.

[k00273511]

Exodus From a Burning City - Meindert Sterk

I couldn't find anything about this painting or the artist, though I thought I'd include this painting in my research anyway as it's somewhat similar to my buildings & zombies piece, what with both being shown here in Sterk's painting.

It's a rather distressing piece. It absolutely screams apocalypse -- zombies, burning buildings, muddled sky; it's all there. Definitely a more chaotic piece than my digital illustration.

I'm intrigued by the figure on the far left. What are they holding? A mirror? A microphone? I'm not sure. Why are they holding this? Also not sure. I wish I could find out more about this painting, but unfortunately there's no information available to me.

Very mysterious all around.

[k00273511]

Graphic design work

I have created another desolate cityscape scene using Illustrator, this time without the zombies in the foreground. I have included two versions, with & without the text on top. I really like the gradient I've created in this piece!

[k00273511]

Peter Polach

This Slovakian illustrator creates wickedly dark and beautiful fantasy paintings. He creates slightly disturbing, fleshy and macarbe pieces that feature zombies in either a fantastical, whimsical light or pieces that take a more typically gruesome approach.

I'm in absolute awe of his work. His ability to take a disturbing concept and turn it into a beautiful piece of work really inspires me. He uses a lot of bright iridescent colours, providing a wonderfully playful feeling to his paintings.

His darker paintings are also quite striking. Although he typically paints colourful pieces (which I prefer), such pieces at these also have a great feel to them.

[k00273511]

Gesture drawing workshop

I took part in the gesture drawing workshop with Eoin on Monday. Here I've included some of my 30 second sketches. Trying to enter all the information onto the page in such a short timeframe was definitely challenging though I adjusted quickly. I'm pleased with how these sketches turned out.

I have also included some of my blind drawings & left-handed drawings respectively. This workshop was great in helping me loosen up my sketches. I used charcoal for these sketches which allowed me to work very fluidly.

[k00273511]

Graphic design work

I created another zombie scene using Illustrator, this time with a forest background. I brought the image into Photoshop and played around with different gradient maps to get different effects. I especially like the pink & purple image.

[k00273511]

Graphic design work

Today I created this image of a derelict cityscape and zombies. I had a lot of fun creating this piece and I'd love to make a few more images in this style.

I created the buildings by using the square & line tools over multiple layers and I added zombie pngs into the foreground.

[k00273511]

Painting progress

Some progress on my Zdzisław Beksiński-inspired oil painting. I'm pleased with how it's turning out! I have yet to finish all the arms, and I need to work on the head a bit more. I am also still contemplating the background design.

I'm not too happy with the hands, so I may decide to change their position.

[k00273511]

Oil painting

I've started painting an oil piece based on one of my favourite Zdzisław Beksiński's untitled pieces. I've changed the colour scheme to soft pinks and purples to contrast against the somewhat grotesque figure. I took my sketch of the image and copy & pasted one of the arms into different places.

[k00273511]

Artist research - Chet Zar

Chet Zar is an American artist known for his dark visual art, make-up effects and digital animation. As a child he felt a deep connection to horror movies and dark imagery. He decided to pursue his passion of producing original works and oil paintings, the medium with which he usually works.

He considered his works to be extensions of his doodles and describes them as "very ugly and freakish on the surface" whilst still retaining "innocence about them". I find this similar to the concept of zombies. They're grotesque and unsightly and yet are just hungry and trying to survive like the rest of us. He describes the figures as "monsters" rather than zombies, though a lot of his pieces could could definitely pass as such.

I'm a big fan of his style. There's something about the lighting that's incredibly striking -- the high levels of contrast adds a huge sense of drama to his pieces.

[k00273511]

I took part in the drawing workshop for my painting module today. We did many exercises, such as drawing with our non-dominant hand, blind drawing, sketching for 30 seconds before moving onto another, and creating gesture & line drawings. Shania and I paired up together to sketch each other.

This workshop provided great practice for loosening up my sketches and I enjoyed the challenge of trying to sketch the whole form in 30 seconds.