Justin Owens » creatures

Thumbnail Rising

jay — Mon, 14 May 2012 03:20:33 +0000

I always love imagery that really captures a huge sense of scale. This thumbnail was an nod towards that idea.

Rupert – The studious dragon

jay — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:30:42 +0000

A sketch done during lunch today that I hope to use for an upcoming painting.

Well hello there!

jay — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:34:42 +0000

Ouch, way too long since posting! I started a new job back at the end of October, I’m now the Content Care Admin (of the student site, not the public site) at AnimationMentor.com. It’s an awesome place to work. I’ll get to that in another post.

I’ve been doing some sketching here and there, but I haven’t done nearly as much art as I’d like. Yesterday was the first time in months where I had a sustained session. I ended up doodling and just getting comfortable with painting again. It felt awesome to be painting again.

A sketchpage, digital

jay — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 22:35:17 +0000

I spent some time this morning doing a few warmup sketches before work.

I’m not sure what this guy is up to, but more practice in rendering form and texture is always nice.

I’m liking this guy, dubbed “The Admiral”. I want to do something else with him, but I’m not sure what. I did a quick splash of color on him and an armor tweak, but I’m not at all satisfied with where he’s at. These will work as exploratory sketches for a later painting.

From the depths

jay — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 00:57:20 +0000

A sketch painting I did this afternoon in between work projects. It lacks any real specific design, but was a fun and quick mood piece to break up what I was doing. Also, I hadn’t posted anything in a while!

Draco Spinosa

jay — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 20:50:16 +0000

Draco Spinosa, or the Thorny Dragon, is an elusive predator found mainly in the dry brush regions of the great desert. It’s natural camouflage lets it blend in to the briar thickets found throughout the area.

A sketch painting of a knight

jay — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 22:30:17 +0000

Something I’ve been noodling away at when taking short breaks from work. I had the idea to practice painting armor and just kinda went from there. The armor doesn’t make a whole lot of sense (as far as functionality), but my goal was to work from imagination. Reference definitely has its place, but I want to get comfortable designing armor/clothing without having to rely on it (reference).

I’m back, after having not been away

jay — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:27:30 +0000

Time to get myself back into a regular posting schedule. Just under a month ago I decided to retire my daily image project. After around two and a half years, I was ready to move on. The original purpose was to just get me drawing at least a little bit each day. I used to spend weeks thinking about drawing, but never actually picking up a pencil (or the digital equivalent). By sticking with my daily images, I conquered that problem. Now as I’m working towards doing illustration to support myself, I’m wanting to focus on more finished works. There were enough times over the last few months where I didn’t have much time to put into a particular daily image, that I was extremely unhappy with the resulting sketch.

Since setting aside the daily image project, I’ve easily been still drawing each day, but I feel much freer. That makes me happy. I do want to post regularly here though, at least twice a week would be ideal. I took a break from on of my work projects and doodled this creature.

Small adjustments to the lil’ mercenary

jay — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 22:00:52 +0000

A lot of times when I finish working on a piece, I’ll keep coming back to it in the following days. I’ll see how I respond to it and what stands out as needing work, refinement, clarification etc. In the case of the character I posted the other day, the lighting just wasn’t popping enough for me and overall the image felt a little too desaturated.

I haven’t decided if it’s done yet, but I’m going to let it rest a bit and see what I think in another couple days. Areas that I’m considering working on: overall texture pass (on skin and clothing). Storytelling elements (other characters? Perhaps silhouetted in the bg and fg).

Daily… A sliver of a sketch

jay — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 21:52:38 +0000

I was exhausted all day for some reason. I spent a lot of time doing research, since I didn’t have the focus to draw. Sat down with this creature before heading to bed.