here’s the excerpt from his post:

“There is a stereotype of the starving artist; rarely does a visual artist’s creative vision pervade the murky realm of Return On Investment and Break-Even.  Matthew Wellman is one artist who I believe is a distinct exception to this model. He is never far from good pencils and a sketchbook, and has a solid career plan, connections in the business and the talent to take to market. One day you will probably be pitting your half-gnome rogue alter-ego against one of his creations in a terrifying battle to the virtual death.”

His post ‘Orchids of Ottawa’ can me found Here or Pay him a visit on his blog, The other blog, where he updates regularly.

I’ve posted the development process I used for creating this panning background.

Starting with very rough Sketches, and doodles, I try to keep composition and loose perspective in mind. As I doodle I’m also trying to find within the lines interesting forms that could be developed further. I keep this stage of development for my eyes only, and it’s used for my own personal inspiration. It is from the ideas I gather from these loose doodles that I will then translate to the thumbnail phase of the given project.

The following images are a small collection of thumbnails generated for the project. I had my heart set on doing something futuristic, but I still tried to change the thumbnails enough for them to be different from one another. It is important to explore many different compositional ideas so that you may have many to choose from. Most times then not, you’ll always find one better then the last. With that in mind, the more thumbnails generated the better.

I did try experimenting with vertical compositions for variety.

Ultimately, I decided to develop the above horizontal thumbnail.

The Following image is the rough image that was drawn directly from a blown up copy of the final thumbnail. I will blow up the thumbnail with a copy machine, put a sheet of paper over it, turn on the light table and redraw the thumbnail elements on a new larger sheet of paper. This stage is especially important as it is here that I will correct any perspective issues from the thumbnail and correct them, I was fortunate that the thumbnail chosen used a 1 point perspective setup. So there where very little perspective mistakes to correct as I was able to have the perspective pretty much nailed in the thumbnail phase. None the less, I will still determine my vanishing points (or in this case vanishing point), draw all perspective lines and ensure that all elements are true to the scenes perspective. As you can see, in the rough image below, I have drawn in all perspective lines leading to my vanishing point.

Rough Drawing with perspective construction lines.

Having completed the rough, the next step is to tighten up the lines and create a rough/clean version of the image using a clean fresh sheet of paper and the light table. Adding more detail where necessary. At any step before this stage, I’m free to erase parts and redraw elements I’m not happy with, as I try and figure out the design. When all that has been done, it’s time to set it in stone (or final line to paper) and begin the final clean drawing. When I’ve hit this stage, all elements of the scene have already been figured out. I threw a new sheet over the Rough/Clean drawing and begin painstakingly putting the final line to paper. With all my composition, perspective and designed elements already figured out in the Thumbnail/Rough/Rough-clean stages, here I am free to clear my mind of all these elements and focus purely on line weight.

Rough/Clean in blue with final clean drawing overlayed over using photoshop

Final Clean Line drawing of drawing.

Here’s a self portrait I did some time ago last year, I liked it back then and to some extent still today, so I thought I’d post it

As always, crits and comments are welcomed

Well, Im back from the holiday break! It was nice to go back home and spend quality time with friends and famaly. I hope everyone had a great holiday season.

To kick off the new year, I’ve posted some ,

Enjoy,

This is an absolute must see for everyone!

If you havn’t yet heard of endicott studio’s and are into mythologies, folklore and storytelling; What are you waiting for?! This link will bring you to their reading room section full of articles and stories about those very things, Quickly now, this treasure trove awaits you!!

http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/index.html

Cherio,

Matt

30min ea.

enjoy,

-Matt

Heres and excerpt from the official ADAPT MONTREL website “The //ADAPT Conference is thrilled to announce the success of its second edition. This past September, close to 3600 visitors including attendees from around the world, renowned local and international studios and master artists joined in a week long event that allowed creative minds to unite. More than fifty-two speakers hosted an array of classes on subjects such as concept art, digital and matte painting, modeling, rigging to 3D animation techniques and much more.” to find out more visit www.adaptmontreal.com

Below are a handfull of the many pictures we took during our weeklong stay in the great city of Montreal. If you would like to know more about our experiances during the event, be sure to check out my buddy jay’s website, he has document our day to day activities at the event, you can find him at http://animatorj.livejournal.com

Here are a few Life studies I did in my sketchbook,

Enjoy,

-Matt

These are my first two attemps at painting digitally. As I worked on them, I was learning how to use the tools at my disposal and these are the results. The goal was not to produce highly rendered pieces, but rough images that would suggests the elements that made up the scene. As always, I encourage you to share your thoughts and comments. Tare it apart if you must

Enjoy,

-Matt