alien poo

When I was growing up my best friend was one of those kids whos parents let him watch tv that was outof his age range (we were somewhere between 1st and 3rd grade). So  basically that meant whenever i went to his house I would come back terrified from seeing some nightmarish monster movie or gory crime murder show. Dunno where this is going, but we would play with alien and predator action figures all the time.

uugh rim light!

been thinking alot about exposure levels recently. What value range gets flattened out and what gets pumped out? I like these theatrical sortof lighting setups where the ambient filled shady areas tell the story, and the light stuff gets all blown out. Something about it strikes me as very modern and realistic I guess- we do live mostly in ambient/diffuse light here on earth don't we? Not to say other lighting/exposure situations are bad or nothin...I just like those types of scenes.

digi variations

One of the things thats really cool about painting with PS is that you can easily come up with several variations on an idea. 

I had painted this snow bridge scene and posted it online-immediately my dad gets on and says the left hand path doesn't read so the bridge looks like its going nowhere-

 so I said "dangit" and decided to try to fix this by making the trail more apparent. I had ghosted the far posts out earlier cause i wanted atmosphere, but it caused the image to suffer. Decided the thing needed to look more epic too so I changed the bridge and widened the gap. Also rounded out the snow boulder so it looks like part of a bigger mass. I got bothered though because the way the bridge meets the far cliff is kinda weird. The way it slopes looks like two different vp's-i decided the angle of the bridge was weird-

 then i just said 'screw it!" and made the whole thing horizontal and a yeti cave! but now i think the light is boring! oh dear oh dear!

 I guess the danger is you can change the idea so much that its not really comparable anymore. Like changing your apple into an orange so you don't know if you are even improving it. Ah well its fun.

sum carz

here are some carz, been trying to learn how to paint a car design, needs alot of...milage :)

some interiors

heres some templelike scenes-click fo big

half baked design philosophy

I saw a quote by some guy where he was saying that his goal was to make every step in the painting pass as a piece of its own. Its cool how sometimes things look better half done. Gonna do more with this thought in mind.

environmentals

fun stuff.

some weirdness

this one is in acrylic over the paper, also pastels and pasted tissue

storytime!

hehe-remember click to make them big

right facing-oh no!

maybe there is something interesting over that way--->

trying the lasso tool

here ya go

 a few-click for big!

Prisoner's Cinema

Something that has always fascinated me is phosphenes: the little sparkles of chromatic energy that are always there if you care to look-especially in dark places- like with the eyes closed. Soon these little guys form patterns and waves of energy, and if you're in the right state of mind- either a humorous state or bordering on sleep, strange places and things materialize ( i never get these visuals when i'm all stuck up and serious, or critical).

There is a method I found for getting good closed eye visuals that I've never seen mention of before-simply draw with your eyes closed and watch. Of course you'll get a shitty drawing on the paper, but it reaaaaaallly prompts visual activity... I must ad though it only works if you are in a humorous mood. Its funny because I saw a study recently where some science types showed that people in a humorous mood solve visual puzzles easier-theres definitely a connection there. here's the study

heres some pictures trying to capture things I've seen, I like it cause I see stuff that I wouldn't consciously design...

this first one i saw with lamplight shining through the eyelids- a really cool thing you can do is change the space and the mood of the visuals just by the amount of light shining on the lids, opening them slightly has an effect too. It amazes me how much designs like this have been found the world over, the mandala or sacred lotus type form.

Add caption

this one was seen in total darkness (blindfold)- one thing I can't capture about this stuff is the scope, and there is always constant motion or change-even if the form of the visual isn't transforming it will rotate or my point of view will pan around it. Nothing sits still.

 Here's a bizzarre one I've never been able to repeat, words started forming into "giant" walls of text as I (or my point of view) flew through them, then they would break apart and new spaces would form-

another abstract form, it seems lonely in this picture, cause when my brain produced this stuff there were hundreds or thousands of these planetoids. What amazes me is how lighting in the phosphene visuals will be so consistent. Or how real things look, the brain is such an amazing painter from the start, but it takes the human ego years to learn how to put anything like it on canvas. I notice a pattern of formation with these things. Generally it starts with a silhouette and then value patterns form in (which shows light on the form). If you are focused enough you can follow it into a full color, crystal clear visual, but this happens rarely, usually they slip through like trying to grab jello with the fingers.

 Now this one is very different from the others, and it shows the variety of imagery types that the living brain produces. I had been doing something I call "seeding", that is looking at reference pictures of the type of stuff I would like to see in the phosphenes right before closing the eyes. I was also drawing at this time, just closed eye sketching, because it encourages the visuals x 10 . I think it has to do with the sense of feel, you start to 'feel' out the picture by drawing with your eyes closed, and then the brain conceptualizes it as an image that will pop up on the eyelids. It will start changing and rotating very quickly though, and similar yet various forms will start appearing. I was drawing aircraft and then this bizarre pontoon jet flew through my vision. I ended up doing this painting trying to describe it.

some experiments

Been experimenting with new ways of doing things recently-taking time to fail! What I've learned has to do with layers and painting underneath stuff.
1. painting edge indication and then gradient and textures underneath-

2.painting on watercolor

3.doing simple gradients in a selection and then doing textures underneath

4. sortof like pointillism, very gradually trying to influence the image into reading with small shapes and textures-also some glazes. trying to keep the texture reading through for as long as possible before covering it up.