All posts by msanborn

Charcoal of Ruby June on her way to the Beach

September 26, 2013Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

This was the last of the original canvases that needed to be re-addressed. I pushed the value range to be much broader here in line with the rest of the canvases. Now all I have are 4 more new canvases to complete and then I can begin the arduous task of painting all of them. I plan to tackle all that at the same time to maintain good color consistency through the series.

This page is the beginning of the book with Ruby June on her way to the beach, not suspecting anything is amiss. The sign hanging over the planter will read Innsmouth Inn. For those of you familiar with H P Lovecraft, you hopefully will recognize the name of the town. It helps to explain why she is one of the only people in town and why there are Deep Ones staring through the windows at her. Boy is she in for a surprise!

Charcoal of Ruby June Freeing Charter Jack

September 26, 2013Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

Finished salvaging and tweaking the previous value pass for this panel where Ruby June has freed Charter Jack from the nefarious and slimy deep ones. The original version had slightly different proportions and some varied details in both Ruby June and Charter Jack so adjustments had to be made for consistency sake. Next book project I do I don’t think I’ll take quite so much time between stages.

Pirate Thumbnail

September 26, 2013Blog, Special Projectsmsanborn

Thought, I would post this one as well. I did this thumbnail for the head mistress of my daughter’s school. Her son likes pirates so I was thinking if I had the time I might do a quick painting for her. I’ll have to see if things let up. My plate is getting pretty full already, what with the new baby and all. And I might have to write up a completely new curriculum if proposed changes happen at my school. Yikes! Where is all my time going?!

Thumbnails and Details for my Radioactive Rabbits Painting

September 26, 2013Blog, Special Projectsmsanborn

Work got the better of me this week but I did manage to sketch out some thumbnails and tests for a painting I’m going to try and get done before the holidays. This one is a herd of radioactive rabbits (would that be a herd? For some reason I’m thinking clutch of rabbits might be more correct? Oh, if only I had an internet that I could look up such things on… and that I weren’t so darn lazy) running through the forest irradiating the trees and making them glow from within. I’m going to go very stylized for the whole thing. You can see here on the right some tests of what I’d like to do with my trees. Still working things out. Funny how much pre-work there is before the real work can begin!

Charcoal of Ruby June Discovering a Captured Charter Jack

September 26, 2013Blog, The Amazing Adventures of Ruby Junemsanborn

Just finished pulling this one back from the brink. This was one of my original panels that I didn’t tone first. I went ahead and toned the canvas over what I had already done and was able to pull more dimension out of the forms of the characters. Funny how I’ve been at this a while and sometimes I forget the simplest things like toning my canvas first.

In this scene, Ruby June has followed the deep ones’ tracks and found them searching Charter Jack’s boat house. Startled, they are beating flippers away into the water. Ruby June already saving the day!

On a side note, looks like my intention to post something every day is a bit ambitious with 2 kids and a full time job. Even with my wife’s help, I think that pace would kill me soon. I’m going to try to post every 3 or 4 days just to give my self some piece of mind.

Vulture Painting

September 25, 2013Animals, Blogmsanborn

So I decided to work on a “V” animal as there were few animals to choose from and I needed an easy call. This one has been really causing me serious difficulties. First, when I fixed and gelled over the top of it, I lost a LOT of contrast… so much so that I had to rebuild a lot of it from the scan of the charcoals I took before the gelling. Then there was the background. First I chose to go with a low saturation purple to try an analogous color scheme but I lost the character in it to a large extent. I had to re-paint the background with a low saturation green. That worked a lot better and, being complimentary with the red in the head, popped the character out front more.

Now that I am looking at the edge of the fur coat, I’m thinking this might need just one more quick pass to break up the fur contour. Still, this is close enough to done to post.

Vulture Charcoals

September 25, 2013Animals, Blogmsanborn

Having another productive day so I’m going to make up for the lack of posts over the week and post two today! Just finished the value pass on this fellow. Decided to jump ahead and work on the vulture for the ABC animal book. Was a little worried about the merging of the textures in the fur of the coat and the feathers around the neck. I think they turned out good for the value pass and I should be able to further differentiate them when I apply the color in the painting stage. I’m not sure who this guy is yet though I’m certain he will tell me before long. Just have to spend a little time with him. Could be a performer in a theater troupe. Or a young nobleman just off the road. Only time will tell.

toad painting

September 25, 2013Animals, Blogmsanborn

In place of my William Cooper progress (short on time and progress today) I’m going to post this guy. I finished this frog a little while ago but never posted him to tumblr. This was, I believe, the second animal painting I finished, before the project became a book idea. At this point I was still working hard to fill my daughter’s wall with small paintings of animals since the huge whimsical painting of Princess Burlap Sack turned out to be too much for her to bear. In any case, this fellow spoke to me and told me he is a wine merchant.

Vye Meeting painting stage 2

September 25, 2013Blog, Selected Works, The Tapestrymsanborn

Finished the William Cooper Painting. Hope Mr. Neff likes it. Think the colors turned out decent though they had me worried for a bit. Had to tie everything together with the yellow-green light from the left. The unification of the shadow color was helping but it still needed a little extra push. Strangely enough, my four year old daughter, who was scared by one of my very innocent and whimsical paintings that I painted for her room, was entirely not scared of the vyes (wolf folk) in this image. I’ve given up trying to figure it out.

Vye Meeting painting stage 1

September 25, 2013Blog, The Tapestrymsanborn

Here is the first color pass at the William Cooper painting. Still have a way to go and the deadline is nearing quickly. I went a little heavy on the teal wash I use to unify the shadows and so have been struggling to rebuild my value range. I still have tomorrow to work on it some and am hopeful I can pull it together more. I decided to layer in the colors as if the light were pure white and when I am done I hope to go back in and add a little of that teal color to the mix to bring everything together.