Dragonslayer II
So, where’s Dragonslayer I?… Hanging on a wall in a friends house. I love the dragonslayer theme. There will probably be a Dragonslayer III, IV, and V. I never get tired of painting dragons. They are always a challenge and there is a never ending variety to choose from.
This particular painting has all the elements I described in my previous post. Not to mention the fact, that all the lost value pattern mistakes were made at some point along the way. In my mind I see the final product but, I have to continue to push the contrast, because I get bogged down in creating the subtleties that I so dearly love love to see in any painting.
The other thing about this painting is, that if you could lift the layers of paint off one at a time, there would be a variety of other elements to the composition revealed. Actually, you can see the faint outline of a giant moon in the sky above the mountains. The mountains have under gone a few changes themselves. They were very fantastical at first, but lacked definition, so I changed them to snow capped peaks.
The sky started out an indigo blue and evolved to a blue violet. I like the sky much better now.
In this detail of the dragon you can see the moon that I never took the trouble to completely paint over. Also, you can see the blue greens that I used on the dragons body to create a reflected light effect. Its quite noticable on those giant monolithic stones too. If you click on the image it will enlarge and then you can use your cursor to zoom in and out. That should show every detail including the weave of the canvas. I obviously played with the varieties and subtleties of color in the stones as much as I absolutely could. I wanted anything but a dull gray slab of rock. I chipped it and cracked it and redrew it till I almost overworked it. Then, I rubbed the paint off, and then added some paint back on. Many times over in fact till it seemed to work like I wanted it to.
It is a maddening experiance for an artist to go through. However, once the desired effect is achieved it all becomes worth it. Especially when folks start asking how you did it. They may think you’re a lunitic after you tell them, but that’s OK. So just smile and nod.
The canvas is 24″x30″. So, I had to break it down into smaller images to get a good representation of the detail. Which is actually the way I worked on it originally. These figures at the bottom were added in towards the end of the process. I sort of put it together like a model car. First the stones,(which came from a photo of stonehenge) along with the background. Then, the dragon was created and added in. Finally, I got around to figuring out how I wanted to arrange the figures. This is NOT the recommended way to develope a composition. However, that is the way I put it down on the canvas. You could call this the discovery method. Because its where you discover you’re wasting time and paint, getting nowhere fast, and wishing you had done it different.
I also made some vows to never do this again. (Yeah, right.)
There’s another poblem that encountered with the procees I’ve just described. That is maintaining a sense of proportion. BIG giant stones. BIG dragon. Teeny-weeny people. Nice effect, nightmare to render. The girl is about two inches tall and rendered with a 000 brush. Our hero here is maybe 3 or 4 inches tall and pretty much done the same way. I think that I may have pulled it off but in retrospect I would have made the figures have more of a central or dominant role in the composition. But, I was really enamoured with those huge stones. All in all its a miracle that this didn’t turn into a big disaster that got painted over. Though it does hang on the wall of my studio, because I’m not overly proud of it, and its a great reminder to plan ahead.
Bran Mak Morn
I decided to show you the “under painting” for Bran Mak Morn. Especially since Samson isn’t at that stage. An underpainting is where the artist establishes the value pattern for the composition. Its very important that the value pattern be maintained through out the painting process.
The value pattern creates a feeling of depth as well as enhancing the dramatic effect of the piece. Without a good strong value pattern everything begins to look flat and lifeless. On top of that, if the painting were to be reproduced in black and white, the detail would be lost.
I don’t know about other artists, but the underpainting provides me with a road map of sorts. Cool colors in the shadows, warm colors in highlighted areas, with a foundation of how dark or light I should mix the colors according to their placement. (Confused yet?) Towards the end of this process I’ll mix and match. Such as putting a warm color like red in a shadow area to represent reflected light. I’ll probably use a cool color like green or blue, in this one. Purple or violet works nice in these sort of genres, because it adds to the ”other worldly” kind of atmosphere that we want to have. In my next post I’ll show you a finished painting that has all of the elements I’ve just described to you.
Bran Mak Morn
One of my favorite writers as a young man was Robert E. Howard. Though I wouldn’t recommend them for younger audiences, they make great subject matter for a fantasy artist to work from.
This fellow is from a book entitled Bran Mak Morn. He was a celtic king of some sort. Probably Scottish in origin and very untamed. I saw a version of him that another artist did and felt compelled to try my hand. This is the pencil drawing that I will use to create my illustration. The finished painting will be on canvas board. It will measure 16″x20″. Of course he has to be,” heroic in proportion and sullen in countenance”, to maintain the personality of Howard’s characters. There will also be a variety of “stannin stones” to set the scene and perhaps the ruins of an old castle in the background to add to the overall mood.
Dwarf Warrior, et al.
This is a illo I did for a Fantasy art show in August of 09. I had the dwarves from Tolkien’s Middle-earth in mind as I painted. This guy has sort of a”Scottish” look. I think of the dwarves as sort of a celtic, viking, fantasy what ever fits, kind of character. Tonight, I was reading The Hobbit to the kids and I was reminded of this painting. We’ll get back to Samson in a little bit. Or, as soon as I work on it some more. I’m also working on some other fantasy pieces. I switch up on paintings and generally have two or three going at once. This accomplishes a couple of things: The first being that oil paint needs time to dry and with out breaks of time can get muddy and overworked easily. Then secondly and possibly most importantly it helps me maintain a fresh perspective and therefore I see things in the process that might otherwise get overlooked. This was a problem with the Giant Killer. (see the post in July 09). Because I worked on it continuously for a week, I couldn’t see how the value pattern had gotten lost. I had spent so much time working on the details that I lost all sense of value contrast and therfore lost the dramatic impact of the composition. I ended up repainting most of it after not looking at it for a few days. The sky, background scenery, foreground, and figures all got beefed up and redressed. For awhile I posted both side by side to show the difference. But, I hated the first so much that, I finally took it down. This is a pit fall for illustrators working on a tight deadline. That is namely; no time for revision and rework.
Sometimes, I will just plain start over, as with this painting (untitled at this point) of a fairy holding a bird’s egg.
Because her legs ( not shown here) looked disjointed, I abandoned this painting and called it a color study.
Another unfinished painting (started back in the summer of 09) is this moonscape with Jupiter in the background. I’ll probably add some alien figures at some point.
This started as a painting of the Jovan Sky from orbit. Then, after a couple of dry runs at adding something in the forground, I painted the moonscape. This is what happens when you start with no clear idea of where you are going with a project. But sometimes it goes well as you develope the piece and it sort of evolves and morphs into something interesting.
Some people may think this is a prime example of being scatter brained. They may be right. But, whatever the cause, I tend to have a lot of ideas I like to get onto a canvas as soon as I can.
