I just discovered I was one of two winners of the contest hosted by Henry H Neff to render his famous Agent William Cooper. It turns out I won a signed copy of his next book, “The Red Winter” I think that is fantastic! Naturally I love the Tapestry series and tend to plow through the books in one sitting. They are real page turners! If you get a chance, check them out. Here is my William Cooper image again.
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.
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.
Finished the value pass of the William Cooper painting. Decided to not push too much detail into the textures. That, to me, is such a fine line. Don’t want to add in too much detail in the textures and complicate the painting needlessly but don’t want to stop too early on that and leave out too much. So when it comes to the applying the colors, I think I’m really going to need to punch up the frog. For some reason he is getting a little lost there and I do want him to be a point of interest. I’ll probably saturate him a bit and I’m thinking with his being green, he will pop in front of the rocks and wall. For my shadows I’m leaning towards a teal though I’ll still have to play a bit to make sure it is going to look good, unifying the shadows of everyone, though being in a thick forest, I think it is a decent first choice. We’ll see.
Day three of the William Cooper painting from the “Tapestry” series of books. I figure one more day of working on the values should do it. Then we can tempura fry it and eat it! Hooray! Right now I’m doing my best to study wolf fur and extrapolate how that is going to flow over the surface of the forms. I don’t usually leave the hardest part for last but sure the heck did this time. I’m fairly confident I will get it to work. Luckily charcoal is a forgiving medium.
So here is day two on the William Cooper painting value pass. Still working in more details. I hope to finish this value pass this week, provided I can keep stealing time away from work and clients and family. I had to piece some background imagery together to replace what I had in my comp. I wasn’t too happy with the atmosphere. I like what is happening here much better than my original concept (for the background forest anyway.) I think I’ll tempt fate and say it is looking good for making my deadline of the end of the month.
As promised, here is the first work in progress value pass at my William Cooper painting. This is a character from The Tapestry series of books by Henry H Neff. I hope to keep plugging away at this and posting my progress as I go. As you can see, due to the high level of detail I am hoping to achieve (as high as I can at 10” x 20”) I had to add in a series of extra grid lines to try and match my comp and not butcher the proportions or composition too much. I should have this one completed, to some degree, by the end of the month. Whether that is a detailed value pass or completed painting relies heavily on my freelance schedule, my day job work schedule, and the schedule of our newborn and 4 year old. I’m crossing my fingers I can scrape up enough time to finish. Wish me luck!
