Illustration Friday - BOOK

My entry for this week's IF topic - Book:

IF - Book                                                             (c) Liz Stevens Illustration 2012

I was going for a kind of reverential feel in this one because that's how I feel about books in general.  I love them, wouldn't be without them, in every format, but printed and bound is best.  I certainly have lugged around enough of them in my travels.  My favorite store is a book store and my favorite thing to do (when not drawing) is to curl up with a good book and read.  

This poor guy isn't exactly curled up and comfortable, but he's definitely intense about it, and I hope he doesn't stay up too awfully late reading!  lol This is a "good book" in every sense! 

Enjoy & thanks for visiting - please leave a comment if so inclined!  -L

Illustration Friday - Crooked

IF - Crooked                                                      (c) Liz Stevens Illustration 2012

Here's one I've been working on  for Illustration Friday.  Being that it's feeling much more like fall (and when I think of fall, I think Halloween of course), and the fact that I've been drooling over Edward Gorey's luscious illustrations, I decided to try my hand at a Gorey-like image for this topic.  This couple is "crooked" but in a different sort of way!  You can decide if it's good or bad, no judgement here!  ;)

The main thing I discovered is how easy great illustrators make things look - and how hard it really is to imitate someone's style.  My poor attempt needs some more line work for sure, but I thought I'd share it anyhow.

Cheers!  -L

Illustration Friday - Imagination

I just posted this on my Enter the Dragon post, but in reality I finished this one with IF in mind.  Last week's topic was "Imagination".  I can't think of anything that fires the imagination more than a good story, and one of my favorite storytellers is J.R.R. Tolkien.  So in honor of my brother who passed away last week, and my dear Tolkien, I submit my rendition of the Golden Wood, Lothlorien.

Lothlorien - The Golden Wood                       (c) Liz Stevens Illustration 2012

I'd like to think that my brother and Tolkien are comparing notes up there in the aether somewhere, telling stories and sharing a pipe.  Miss you both, dear fellowes.  xoxo

Enter the Dragon 2

Progress made on my dragon drawing:

Dragon - progress!                                           (c) Liz Stevens Illustration 2012

As you can see she's developing nicely and if I can get a good scan, I'll take her into photoshop and start coloring.  I haven't worked on the background yet.  I guess I should be working on that now, seeing as it's already Saturday; and week two is coming up!

Dragon Detail                             (c) Liz Stevens Illustration 2012

In the mean time I did finish a color drawing I'd started a while back.  This is my imaginary version of Lothlorien, inspired by Tolkien's Hobbit.

Lothlorien - The Golden Wood                      (c) Liz Stevens Illustration 2012

So there I am for now, more progress to come.  :)

Enter the Dragon

I'm naming this post after an insanely fabulous idea I saw on the Muddy Colors blog ( muddycolors.blogspot.com ) which I found whilst googling the amazing art of Justin Gerard.  He is one among many of the giants of the industry who is doing absolutely gorgeous work in the fantasy/scifi/comic genre.  I found him by attending his panel at Dragon*Con and was just blown away by his stuff.  Plus his panel was extremely informative and entertaining.  He's funny, bright and so so talented.  I was just in awe.

www.justingerard.com

I am also inspired by Elizabeth Malczynski Litton who illustrated Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsong trilogy paperback edition in the 70's.  I met her at the con and she was just the nicest lady.  Her work makes me want to draw and draw and draw so I can maybe get to someday be as good as she is.

http://thedragonstudio.com/

The Muddy Colors blog group is doing an "Enter the Dragon" celebration of dragons.  Since I'm always looking for an opportunity to motivate myself, and having just come back from the con and suffering fantasy withdrawl... I decided to do my own Enter the Dragon celebration.  Who doesn't like dragons??  So in honor of Dragon*Con, Justin, and Elizabeth...  here are some shots of my latest excursion into dragonland!

I'll post more progress pics as this one progresses.  

rough sketch 

Detail

My goal:  at least 2 finished dragons in 2 weeks.  Also I will try to emulate Justin's technique of doing the initial drawing in graphite and then taking that into Photoshop to color comp.  Wish me luck!  

- Liz

NaNoWriMo/30C30D Day 1 - Blood on the Sun Cover

NaNoWriMo Cover #1
Project Title: Blood on the Sun
Project Type:  Screenplay
Project Status:  in development

I can't say any more about this project except to say it's in development now.  The cover is for the presentation/fundraising package.

All rights reserved.  ©Liz Stevens Illustration 2011

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween, Y'all!

What's scary this Halloween?  Probably the fact that I haven't posted anything since JULY!!  lol  So here's one I did digitally using Corel Painter.  Enjoy!

Liz

Illustration Friday - Remedy

My entry for last week's Illustration Friday topic - Remedy.

When I think of a 'remedy' I think of hot tea with honey and lemon.  My Mom used to make me tea and toast when I was sick as a kid.  With lots of sugar and milk.  I loved dunking the toast into the tea and eating it all squishy and buttery.

I also had a friend in Kentucky whose grandmother would give her a teaspoon of white raisins soaked in gin for just about anything that ailed her.  Not sure what the medicinal qualities of that one are...but she said it worked great.

I plan to color this one in Photoshop and I'll post the images when I get them finished.  Just wanted to post this one before it was too awfully late!

TZT Performance Logo Project

I recently completed a fun project for a friend's son - vectorizing a logo for his new performance car biz!  So in this blog I'll show you how it evolved and what the end result was!

First, I received the jpg file of the logo:

Which I then imported into Illustrator.  Placing it into the background, I made a new layer and traced the outlines to make a vector image.  Then I colored it.  I played around with the colors and gradients and gave him several options to choose from:

He didn't bite on any of the changes, preferring the original logo and colors so I played around with values, gradients, and flipping the colors around.

Illustration Friday - Shadows

As promised, here is my IF entry for this week's topic "Shadows".



When I think of shadows, I think of campfires and ghost stories, deep, dark woods and the power of the imagination to see things in the dark.  I also wanted to work on my cross hatching.  I did this one with regular and fine point Sharpie markers on bristol paper.

Hope you like it!

-Liz

In Honor of Grand Canyon

Some random sketches from my sketchbook:

This one is the Queen Mary from a visit to Long Beach.

This is a sketch I did yesterday at Oak Creek in Sedona.

And some rock art from a hike I did just outside of Grand Canyon.  

To see photos of this rock art, check out my Trail Sketches blog.

I know I've been slacking lately and I promise I'll work on Illustration Friday and post this week!

Thanks and enjoy!

-Liz

53 Killer Photoshop Illustrator Effects and Tutorials - Noupe Design Blog

I'm trying hard to make digital artwork, but I am finding I'm woefully behind in my skills. With that in mind, I'm always on the lookout for tutorials and instructions that will teach me to take advantage of Photshop and Illustrator's awesome potential.

When I googled "Photoshop, Illustrator Tutorials" this link came up, among many others. I'm excited to try out some of these! I only hope my prehistoric versions of the software are up to it...

53 Killer Photoshop Illustrator Effects and Tutorials - Noupe Design Blog

Check it out - some of the effects are pretty neat.

I'll post my experiments and let you know how it goes and how my antique brain interacted with the training!

-L

Illustration Friday - Chicken

Here's one in honor of Jannie Ho aka @Chickengirl, a new friend from twitter!  I really am loving twitter for the networking and being able to find and follow lots of illustrators who are working and fabulously talented!!  And Chickengirl, well, her work is really great and so...with no further adieu, here is my chicken...well, actually it would technically be chickens but who's counting?

I actually did these illustrations a while ago.  It's kind of a funny story...a cautionary tale I think for all of you newb illustrators out there...

So, I was living in southern Indiana and every year in a little town called Corydon, IN (the FIRST capitol of Indiana as the residents proudly say) they have a Cock-A-Doodle Days celebration!  This is probably because the town's main employer is Tyson Chicken.  Anyhoo...I knew a guy who owns an art and frame shop there and he sets up a booth for that weekend.  So I go home and whip out these 4 illos and give them to him in hopes that he'll be able to sell them and I can make a little "scratch" for my artwork!

Well, I didn't know this guy very well, and it turns out I never saw my little chickens again.  Every time I went back to his shop and asked for them, he would tell me he had them put away somewhere and would get them out for me "next time" I came by.

So the moral of this Chicken Tale?  Don't ever give away your originals without getting some cashola up front first!!!  I suspect he sold them and just didn't want to give me any credit.  Or somebody pinched them from his booth, or maybe he was telling the truth and he misplaced them.  I dunno...I'm moving back there soon...so I'm gonna look him up again and bring a baseball bat this time!

Illustration Friday - Winter

In the spirit of the season, I decided to do something a little different and try my hand at colored pencil.  I really do like working in colored pencil.  Something about the medium makes me slow down and really enjoy the process.  Since I love birds, I thought a nice winter cardinal would be fun.  So without further adieu, here is my Illustration Friday "Winter" entry.  - L

Illustration Friday - SPENT

Here's one for IF...my interpretation of "Spent" in honor of the economy and the housing/mortgage debacle.  If you have a home, looks like you'll be spending lots of money keeping it in the future!  Just one artist's viewpoint, for what its worth.

The Finished Illustration

Thought you might like to see how my son's web comic illo turned out.

 As you can see, it's quite a bit more refined than the previous post.  I worked really hard trying to give it a feeling like a video game cover.

Figure Detail 1

Detail 2

The colors are a little washed out, but all in all I think it turned out really well.  My "client" was super-happy and that's really what counts, isn't it?

Keep making art - L

Illustration Friday - Renewal

This week's topic is renewal.  How appropriate.  We've just renewed the decade.  Welcome to 2010.  It's hard to believe we're ten years into a new milennium...especially considering that we all thought (or at least some people thought) that the whole world including the internet would come crashing down in the year 2000.  It's been a tough ten years, but through it all I've tried to keep my faith and maintain my focus and drive to become a successful freelance illustrator.  On that note, I've just gotten asked to bid on a new gig that hopefully will start my year off with some cash-ola in my pocket!  Groovy!

So here's my take on the Renewal theme.  I think of sleep...a chance for the body to renew, and chance for spirit to refresh, a chance for mind to soar.  So sweet dreams!  I hope you're feeling "renewed" in the morning!

-L

Happy Holidays

This year is ending up pretty well so far!  Just found out I'll be moving to the LA area and have already secured a place to live in Marina Del Rey.  On the water and just a short distance to the beach!!!  So far so good.  To celebrate, here are a few holiday illustrations for you!  Have a Happy New Year!  2010 is gonna be GREAT!!!

(click on image to view full size)

(click on image to view full size)

Web Comic Cover - evolution of a painting

I have been working on a painting recently for my son who is developing a web comic series.  He has some great ideas and asked me to paint a "cover" illustration for his soon to be unveiled (like Christmas or soon thereafter) site.

The illustration has evolved in stages, and I photographed each stage to send to my son.  I thought I'd share that here as an ongoing "work in progress" blog.

The criteria for this illustration were:
It should feature his "furry" character who is part fox, part human.  He was inspired by his avatar in Second Life.  The character is involved in an ongoing war-type scheme involving "world domination".  Don't ask me, ask him.  I'm clueless here cause when he tries to explain it, my eyes start to glaze over and roll back into my head.  (sorry joey!)  Anywho...one of his favorite MMORPG games is Call of Duty, so he asked me to make his cover art similar to CoD's artwork.  Basically I looked at the image and took it from there.
Here's stage one and you can see the composition is really similar:

Joey has drawn lots of what he calls "mechs" which are kind of Star Wars meets Halo mechanical battle-type vehicles.  He asked me to add in several of these, most specifically a battle helicopter and a couple of walkers.  So here's stage 2 and 3 showing that:

As you can see, the background is developing and I'm trying to get some depth.  Also the figure is becoming more detailed.  The surface I'm using is a very textured one.  It's basically a gessoed canvas with rough sand poured on top and gessoed again.  It's a wonderful, gritty texture and I think it adds a lot to the piece.

I'm really liking where this project is going and am having lots of fun collaborating with my kid on it!  I had no idea how really smart and creative he is! 

When next I asked him for more detailed information on the figure's armor and weaponry, he sent me some images and I incorporated those into the next stage:

So this is where the painting is thus far.  I am still working on it and will post the next phases as they continue to evolve.

I am really enjoying this collaboration with my son!  Thanks, Joey!  Hope you like your Christmas Present!!!

Love,

Mom

NPS Poster

Here's a recent poster done for the NPS at Grand Canyon.  I was asked to create a poster for a sculpture exhibit at headquarters.  The sculpture was done by Julie Ogier and it features the endangered Humpback Chub.

So I guess you could say I've been published and my client was the National Park Service!  WOOT! Poster is still being approved, but you get the idea!!

By the by, I am re-designing my web site.  It's currently under construction, but the new web page address is: http://sites.google.com/site/lizstevensart

Thanks, -L