Uphill

So, here's another shot I did. I put all three characters in here again. I wanted to establish their personalities just a little bit with where they are in the composition. For instance the squirrel is very bouncy and excited and the bear is very content and eager to explore- they're the positive gun ho adventurers. The beaver on the ,other hand, is lagging behind and not quite as enthusiastic as the other two but, no matter what, he's still with his buddies. Cranky and griping a lot, but with them.

The Revelation

So here is a composition I finished a bit ago. It's my three characters finding out that some other creatures have begun to intrude their woods. I think this is the first tine I've shown all three characters.

Climbing

So here's a painting I did a week or so ago. This color scheme is very much inspired by xiangyuan jie. If you haven't visited his blog you are truly missing out. His work in inspiring and his paintings are incredibly beautiful.

Trailers

Here is a shot I did a few weeks ago. I love bears but I also like beavers. They have such a funny little body capped off with that flat tail so I had to put this little guy in my story as a sidekick. Here I just wanted to have a little creature approach another very strange looking thing he's never seen (a trailer). He doesn't know what it is or who lives here, all he knows is he's never seen one of these things and really, it can't be all that bad considering how pretty and shiny it is.

More to come...

The Little Vehicle That Could

So, I have a lot of vehicles in my story. This one was really fun and I like the "character" that came out of it. I wanted to make it playful looking because while machines in my story are a bit scary, I also needed one that the characters would follow out of curiosity and something huge and extremely severe would scare them away, so this little machine came to life for me. In the next few weeks I'll be posting the "scary" one that is in complete contrast to this one.

River's Bend

Here is a shot with one of my main characters seeing how logs that once were a part of his home are transported by man. I chose a the truck to be far off on the bridge and a bit vague because that's how the character would feel when he's introduced to such a foreign thing he's never seen that is invading his life. He doesn't know anything about it but it will soon become something he can't avoid and will learn more than he ever wanted to know about it.

I do a lot of these value study shots just to set up a composition that sets a mood. It's one of my favorite things to do and I find it so much easier to do in photoshop because if I don't like a foreground or mid ground object I can move it quickly. Now most of my initial thumbnails I jot down on paper simply because ideas don't always happen when I'm near my computer but you can always have or even find paper ( I know some people who actually prefer napkins because they are such a throw-away thing- love people like that).

Lunch Sketch

So I did this quick sketch at lunch a few weeks ago and since someone (I'll save that person any humiliation :)) really wanted to see the face of the bear I decided to post this. It's just a quick concept and really not thoroughly thought out. There will be more sketches of this guy posted later.