Bitesized Blogpost 4: A Factoid

I was invited to participate in a fun project illustrating a factoid, like one you'd find under a Snapple bottle. I ended up with "Tigers have striped skin, not just striped fur."

Here is what I came up with...sparing you all the bad drawings of tigers I made before I found my animal anatomy book.

And here's a figure painting from last night.  I'm not sure if I love or hate Yupo paper, but the results are always interesting.

...and that wraps up my bite-sized blogpost spree. Hope you all enjoyed. Now I must return to hibernation.
-S

Bite-sized Blogpost 3: Sketches and stuff

I wish I could claim to draw these ladies this well outta my head, but no. Alas, I was soaking up some Gerald Brom paintings.

Lil bit of a sketch dump to kick things off...

And a figure painting on Yupo paper for yucks.

And lastly, a Stubby variant for Tor.com's zombie week that I was about 4 days too late in creating.

One more juicy morsel for tomorrow...
-S

Bite-sized Blogpost 2: The Deal

While I was at the American Illustration party, I ran into an old acquaintance. Larry Gendron worked with my former boss/current rep, Richard Solomon, loads of times while I was Richard's assistant. Everytime it was a different hero of mine producing a great image for Larry's magazine, The Deal. Well, Larry was nice enough to let me show off my bit of art on the AI wall and told me he'd be in touch.

Wouldn't you know he had an assignment for me three days later. I received an email with an abstract detailing the unsteady financial future of colleges and universities. Larry encouraged me to push the "unsteady" aspect of the piece and have fun with it...

..so did. And Larry picked my favorite as well.

Left is the refined sketch with some PS value added. The right is a clean line final that I find I need for the more complex images I create. This is apparently old news for many illustrators, but I tend to do a lot of things the hard way.

Really happy with this finish (a true rarity nowadays) and I think it's simply because of the shine on the coins. How sad is that?

And in context...

A big thanks to Larry Gendron for the opportunity.

-S

Bite-sized blogpost part 1: American Illustration, Illuxcon and Fantasy artwork

Due to fun/hectic/awesome/fortunate circumstances, I've been running all over the place and painting my pants off lately. Lots  of new work to show and some I can't speak about just yet.  I'll stagger them out in the upcoming days so all of my devoted readers (all three of you!) can get their Brundage morsels in quick succession, without too much caloric intake.

First up was the ever popular and always epic American Illustration party. This year I was fortunate to have my first ever spread in the book with two entries accepted (Cthulhu Santa and Valentine's Oz). Highlights from the party include getting an elusive compliment from my old boss and chum, Peter de Sève, hanging with Frank Stockton over fruity drinks, and having some beautiful arm candy in the form of my girlfriend. I also ran into some SVA students I knew formerly from my hometown of Danbury, CT. Keep an eye out for Brian Schiering and Jensine Eckwall.

Second up was my last minute decision to attend Illuxcon in Altoona, PA. The majority of my buddies from Racebrook were showing off their wares at this fantasy art convention and had invited me for two years now. I was convinced it conflicted with the AI party and I couldn't attend. Two weeks before,  I realized I was mistaken.
     With little time to spare, I jumped into world where "bags of holding" and "lamps of lighting" were not jokes and "making a saving throw versus dragon breath" makes complete sense.

I love dwarves and figured showing that I could paint armor and human flesh would be a plus. Here is the thumbnail, sketch and photoshop bump up.

A big, resounding thanks to Lars Grant-West for being a pal and taking a look at my sketches. He helped me out bigtime with the dwarf proportions, and his suggestion of the head tilt added loads of character. A second thanks to Donato Giancola for suggesting I go a bit more nuts with the armor decor.

I knew I wanted to have some monsters and recognizable ones at that. D&D is very specific in its creatures so I chose to do my rendition of a Mezzodemon (or Mezzoloth, if you are hardcore). I threw in a second monster inspired by the mezzodemon as a goof.

Same dealio, thumbnail with a bit of PS, and a refined sketch. 

These were fun as hell to paint. The level of finish demanded for this type of work is a bit more than I'm used to, but it really was a blast getting in there and figuring it all out.

There is a third sample that looks to rushed to show as of now. I vow to return to it and give it its proper attention, without trying to cram it into an already tight deadline with other work.  I'm looking forward to creating more work in this vein with more action and fully realized backgrounds. The fellas at Illuxcon make it look easy...

More tomorrow!
-S

I keep it real. Grayscale, bro.

I just finished up a big fun project for very cool website that I can't talk too much about just yet. The site is directed toward a younger audience and set in a semi-fantastic world, the subject matter was right up my alley.
Even more fun was the idea of wanting most of the artwork to look aged, as if originally created on parchment. For me, this meant I had the opportunity to go nuts with my oldest and most trusted of mark making utensils... the exotic and mythical pencil.  I can honestly say I had a blast working just in black and white, worrying simply about value, shape and line. I'm not too proud to say that color has slapped me around more than once, and it was, indeed, a pleasant hiatus. 


Another cool thing about this project... they wanted a rollover. Nice to know they paid attention to my work enough be aware of the rollovers, let alone commission one.

The subject matter is pretty obvious. I used a fair amount of pug and shar pei inspiration for the main monster.

And the rollover offers an escape from the fleshy duo of horned beasts. 

This door went through a couple iterations. Not big changes involving the actual setting or anything real complex. No... instead we had a long discussion about what silly creature should be hanging around this castle's entrance 

I also had the opportunity to do a bit of character design. Firstly, a janitor. All I knew that the janitor didn't have to human. So I explored my options a bit. And, during that exploration, I unintentionally created an amazing stand alone photograph 

Ultimately it was decided that the janitor should be a portly old codger. 

I previously posted the secretary character I designed for this site, but again, I had to search for her. She also had no real description aside from a request that she be similar to "Roz" of Monster's Inc. 

And lastly, a narrator character. Again, the description was "not necessarily human." I didn't offer the option this time. Rather, a gnome was the closest I came, with a host of scaled and furred options. 

I think their choice was obvious. The little bugger looks so damn eager to read you a story. My girlfriend actually pointed out what it was that conveyed that emotion... while his arms are relaxed, his feet are clenched in excited anticipation. 

Berkshire Artist Playtime

For the 5th year now, I've been joining a cadre of intimidatingly talented artists at the Racebrook Lodge in the Berkshires. A week of cool folks and sick artwork. In between hikes and excursions to pick up organic pizza (do try the fig and prosciutto), we turn a barn into a working studio.
While I'd love to post pics of all the work created this week, I'm pretty sure most of it was under some super-secret nondisclosure agreement. I can, however, show some obligatory "artists just kickin't it" shots...

Jordu Schell being badass. (This is actually from last year. His creation this year was an undead asian man with bad teeth)

Top: A rare shot of me actually working. Middle: Talking shop with Justin Gerard (although it looks more like he's telling me to settle down) Bottom: Dan Dos Santos and I watching Michael Whelan work his voodoo.

Tony Palumbo, Winona Nelson, Julie Bell and Boris Vallejo working in their cluster of awesome.

And, of course, Lars Grant-West's one-eyed/watery brained Frenchie, Mumpkin. And, Boris & Julie's much more dignified Izzy.

I got a good handful of work accomplished this year, thanks to an abundance of rain keeping us from wandering into the woods. I even got to bust out some oils and remind myself how much more comfortable I am with watercolors.

Now people won't just have to assume I'm a nerd when I draw in public. They'll know.

I now have a solid number of old lady samples. I'm ready for that retirement home gravytrain to come rolling in.

Thanks for reading!
S

Race to the top and a new studio!

Yes, I am still alive. Still drawing and painting. After a couple rough weeks of funerals, weddings and moving, I am now settled in Brooklyn. I have a brandspankin new studio, complete with four legged studiomates and even a bonsai tree. Domestic as all get-out!

Note killer wild horse foldout card above the tackboard. No biggie.

Studiomate 1 is a fearsome 40lb pitbull named Miga.

She worships me in a very literal sense.

Studiomates 2, 3 and 4 are now residing at The Brooklyn School of Inquiry until next summer. But for a few sweaty days, Lola, Chiam and Fozzy kept me company. 

Lola and Chiam doin what they do best. Mainly pooping.

Fozzy, a sugar glider, is nocturnal. He spends his days in a pouch and his nights killing anything that enters his cage.

And here is a new piece for Kelly Carter at Delaware Today Magazine. The article was on "Race To The Top Funding" and her suggestion was to try to convey a group effort to get a child to succeed. 

These were some of the quick idea sketches I sent. Very rough communication oriented sketches, which (unintentionally, but on reflection) break down to one ok, one good, and one worth painting. 

I really wanted to push the lighting here... possibly more than I ever have previously. I knew I wanted the only pure white to be the very corner where the sun was shining to really push the heat of it. Once that was acheived, realistic color elsewhere wasn't as important.

The final result is among the more dramatic paintings I've created, but a blast to make. Thanks again to Kelly Carter for the opportunity to launch a child into the sun. 

SB!

Paranormal Romance

Not all holidays are endorsed by Hallmark. When it comes to tweens and, from what I can tell, moms, a new Twilight Saga movie premiere is bigger than Christmas, Hannukah and the 3rd coming of Jebus combined. So I did my part to commemorate it. 

I looked up the imagery associated with the movies and got 99% steamy gazes and emo angst with dramatic lighting and stormy backgrounds. Why not throw a couple other classic paranormal romantics into the same ridiculous posing and lighting?

The pose and lighting were the most important to get down correctly. I stuck to one photo mainly, with one or two others to help with the overly shadowy parts.

From here, I just needed to find appropriate characters to switch in then light them the same way. I settled on the Munsters and Micheal Jackson's Thriller couple. The trickiest part was getting their likenesses in lighting they didn't pose in. Netflix screencaps help a lot for this.

Add some paint, and align everything in photoshop and we are all set. 

You can see the animated version on Tor.com here, where it is helping usher in their Paranormal Romance month. 

-S

Sketch dump with fancy costume and tricky paper.

Been moving towns, and finishing projects and a myriad of other time-sucking things that keep me from my sketchbook. On the plus side I've been refocusing on more observational work and figure drawing. (See the racy nudey stuff on DAS )
I also had the opportunity to draw some dope burlesque models at an event my buddy, Frank Stockton (people have heard him for some reason), knew about.
He even did a lil ditty in my book. I think he dug my brushpen.


And here are some more straightforward sketchbook pages of my girlfriend's pitbull, and my family. Both enjoy spending time on the floor.

I spent some time playing with Yupo paper again. Still one of the strangest surfaces to paint on. I used the ugliest model I could find at 4am to do some lighting studies in watercolor.



Lastly, I had the chance to speak to a kindergarten class about drawing animals. After the talk, I did some requests out of my head of the more popular animals. You may notice the chimp looks a bit exasperated... possibly similar to how I looked when the whole class requested I draw a tiger out of my head.
...Then I requested some of my own.
Thanks for reading,
S