Yet Another Dwarf Painting

This piece was a lot of fun, but i didnt do enough pre-planning and thats why the values are jacked. it was originally just a dwarf drawing that i tried to turn into an illustration that makes sense. It needs alot more work, but i feel like moving on and learning some new things. Enough excuse making, hope you enjoy and critiques are always welcome. Thanks to Rob, Kurt and Tyler for all your suggestions

African Dwarf

This was a really fun piece that i worked on during my lunches for a week or two. He's the king of An African Tribe of Dwarves. His beard comes down and out through the armor of his breastplate, because in dwarven culture, the beard is the sign of your prestige. he is also wearing hyena pelts because Hyenas are one of the few natural enemies of the lion besides man. His main weapons are the claws of an ancient giant lion that he starps to his hands.

Some Quick Head Doodles

These were some fun head doodles to warm up. They were all around 45 min to an hour, im really trying to focus on staying loose and letting fewer strokes do more work (but its really hard!) Any resemblances to real people living or dead is purely coincidence! Jk, anyways thanks for lookin.

Has Anyone Seen My Arm?

This was a really fun piece to do, it started out as a lunch sketch. He is an Irish Dwarf who is a retired warrior and is trying to keep his nose out of trouble by being a farmer, but those pesky goblins just wont stay off his land. Anyway, thanks to Tyler for the advice on values! Critiques are always welcome. Oh, and sorry for the crazy long absence!

Cameron the Cat Hunter

In a world without adults, children have had to fend for themselves. Their main source of food: ...... Cats! These are truly barbaric times and no feline is safe with "Cameron the Cat Hunter" on the prowl!

This is a fun little painting I wanted to do of my son Cameron. He is the most destructive little boy on earth! ( But i still love him to death!) The version on the right just has some quick color overlays, to see what could happen. Critiques are always welcome.

Another light Study

First just let me say that i know the anatomy on the drawing sucks hardcore! I just grabbed the first drawing i had sitting around and scanned it in. My focus during this exercise was to better understand lighting and how to use it to describe form. If any of you know any better exercises to learn lighting please share them with me! I would be most grateful. By the way, I just want to say thanks to AJ and Edgar for their help! Also Critiques on the lighting is most welcome.

Done but not Finished.

This piece was inspired by my friends Jason Hill, and AJ who both did some kick-ass female characters. I figured i would try my hand at it and this is what i came up with. It feels to me like a student painting and that's not good! I did learn alot though so its hard to be totally bumbed out about it. Anyway, here it is, smash on it good. I need some critiques (that means you AJ, Edgar, and Tyler!) More coming soon, sorry for the long silence.

Look how much I Suck

I was doing another turtle concept at Concept club and my buddie AJ totally kicked my ass about design and making better decisions early on in the piece. He walked over and was like "Here dude, check this out." And ten minutes later my mind hole was blown off! The one on the left is mine before he pimped all over it, and the one on the right is his. I truly appreciate it AJ, if you're reading this, you really opened my eyes. This helped me a lot and its gonna suck if you go to scotland.

Caricature2

Hey there, here is my new piece for the week. Talk about issues, could my lack of color knowledge be any more evident!? But its ok because i learned a bunch! The image below my painting is my inspiration/ref. I just found this man interesting and wanted to do a caricature. Anyway, thanks for viewing, and critiques are always awesome.

Interesting Face 01

This is the first in a bunch of portraits that im going to do to help me get better at faces. I want to find interesting faces and do a painting of them in a slightly different angle, if i can do this and it still looks like the original person, then i am understanding the forms (hypothetically,... i just make it up as i go!) In this one i was trying to use the fewest amount of values possible and still make it readable and descriptive. There are tons of issues with this one, but its the first and i did it on my lunch hour so its okay. As always crits are most appreciated.

Life drawing01

I attend a Life drawing group every saturday and my goal is to get one piece per week that is "good enough" to put up here, this is the one for this week I think it was around 7-10 minutes. More on their way! The neck feels really Long. Any Comments or critiques are encouraged! (I love to learn!)

Caricature Practice

This was a caricature practice inspired by a buddy named Anthony Jones (AJ) who has a bunch of nice caricatures on his blog (www.robotpencildesign.blogspot.com) I highly recomend checking it out! I feel as though some of the movement and rhythm was lost between the linework and the final render, this is something that I will have to be aware of next time. This piece took about an hour and a half. I want to keep track of how long it takes me because I want to get faster as well as BETTER! Critiques are most encouraged. Thnx.

Turd 01

So i'm working on a turtle monster as a personal project and here is one of the early designs. There will be more coming soon, trust me! I want to eventually model this monster in 3D, but i'm more concerned with the design journey than with the final result.

This was an exercise using the woodcut technique that my coworker Tyler uses (hes an amazing artist btw! www.artofty.com) The woodcut technique is an awesome way to start a piece because it is quick and it focuses on readability (i think).

Facefail!

I was practicing painting faces, this one was probably the best out of the group and it has all kinds of issues! I need to stop worrying about anatomy setup and start with a readable caricature, then layer in any anatomy knowledge. (I think!)

Quick Sketch

just a quick sketch

Practice

This was a quick lighting test, i just doodled a head and tried lighting it from different directions, i guess the next step would be to practice lighting it with multiple lights on each head.

The awkward first post.

So here goes nothin. i wanted to start a blog to help keep me motivated and also to somewhat track my improvement. Just some info on me: I am a 3D trained artist working at InXile Entertainment as an Environment Artist, here's my website link if you want to look: www.danielmcgowanart.com.
What I am trying to do now is bring my 2D abilities up to par with my 3D abilities. hope everyone enjoys watching me learn, and hopefully i dont get worse!