Videos:

After hitting the books mentioned in Part II, these are the sources of video tutorials and demonstrations that I found most helpful and am most grateful for having:

Feng Zhu Design [link] or [link] - digital painting, concept art

I Draw Girls [link] or [link] - anatomy, digital painting, concept art

Scott Drake [link] - concept art, pin-up art

Henning Ludvigsen [link] - digital art, digital painting, pin-up art

J Scott Campbell (workshop on YouTube):
part I: [link]
part II: [link]
part III: [link]
part IV: [link]
part V: [link]
part VI: [link]
part VII: [link]
part VIII: [link]

Anatomy

If you plan on creating completely original compositions that include the human figure, you can never have enough training/documentation/instruction regarding it.

Don't make the mistake I did and work backwards, by grabbing a book that covers these things at a high-level and specific to that certain style you're looking for.  For example, "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way" is a classic and it packed a lot of information that is still very useful (even if the drawing styles now look outdated), but it's of much better use after you have a much stronger understanding of anatomy.  The same goes for the more recent "Drawing Cutting Edge-Anatomy".

Burne Hogarth

If only I started with Burne Hogarth's books right from the start.  These two were invaluable to me:

1. Dynamic Anatomy (if you're in a hurry to get started, you may want to skip the first 3 chapters and go back to them later)


2. Dynamic Figure Drawing

Hogarth explains things in a way that make the subtleties more obvious and easier to remember, and it wasn't until reading his books that I was able to take a figure and pose in my head and properly translate it onto a page or a screen without any reference.

Andrew Loomis

You'll find that there's a divide between most artists.  Some connected with Loomis' books and instruction better than Hogarth's and vice versa. *J-Scott-Campbell is one who preferred Loomis over Hogarth.  I actually didn't know about Loomis until after I started using Hogarth's books, but I plan on digging deeper into his works.

The best part about Loomis' books, you can get PDF's of them free at this [link].

Now... once you go through these artists' instruction, you can go back to those more recently published books show you how to create these figures any number of different styles with a more contemporary flair.

(Resources that aspiring artists should know about)

I've always had an appreciation for art and loved to draw/sketch. From when I was a kid I admired Frank Frazetta, Boris Valejo, the many fantasy artists of Heavy Metal Magazine, and the masters of Marvel Comics. I took some art classes here and there in high school and then again in my early 20's.

Since then I've used Photoshop, Fireworks, Illustrator, etc. and Wacom Intuos tablets primarily for web application design for my day job, but it wasn't until about 1 1/2 yrs ago that I made a solid effort to learn what I had always wished I learned how to do with these tools. Something much more fulfilling to me than just design... Concept drawing, digital painting and illustration.

I've learned a lot more than I thought I would in that short period of time and I'm going to start documenting in this journal all of the individuals and their sites that made it possible.  The great thing is, much of it is free online or at a very minimal cost.

First and foremost is dA itself, but I'm sure anyone reading this knows of all the great artists that can be found on this site, and the excellent tutorials many of them have posted. If you're new to this site, just take a look at my favorites.  I've organized much of it in helpful categories.

So stay tuned, there are more details to come on some great resources out there.

Last month Behance.net offered a great contest sponsored by Adobe called "5 Weeks of 5".  Each week they gave away some great CS5 prizes and the final week's prize was the entire Master Collection.  Projects were judged on how well you used the new features of CS5 and how effectively you presented how you used them.

I love Adobe's Creative Suite products and I'm extremely grateful to Behance and Adobe (and all of the judges) for this ultimate prize.

And thanks to my wife for being the ultimate pin-up model.

The world of Fantasy Art owes a lot to Frank Frazetta, who passed away last night.

I'm happy he painted for us for all the years that he had. He was truly an inspiration to me.  I still recall checking out the compilations of his work every time I entered a book store in the mall when I was a kid.  His work was fascinating and loved being transported to these magical worlds graced with beautiful bodies.

Be sure to check out the NY Times article at [link] and read the readers comments.  They do much better job than I did explaining why the guy was so extraordinary.

Posting various stages of a painting I'm working on.  Demonstrating some of the steps from pencil sketch to cleanup, to color blocking, to painting.

GaGaloo-LOVE's staff chose 10 pieces and then another 10 were added at random for their contest [link]

My piece was one of the 10 chosen by the staff!

The winners get placed on a collage quilt being given to Gaga when she returns to the states.

THANK YOU Gagaloo-LOVE staff!

Just submitted an updated version of my Lady Gaga Monster Movie Poster for GaGaloo-LOVE's contest [link] love to win this one since the winners get placed on a collage quilt being given to Gaga.

Looks like I didn't make the first round of the contest, but thanks to all of you who voted and gave such wonderful feedback.  It was worth it for that alone!

Finally, I have a valid reason to write in this journal

Thanks to =sayumi-sama for holding an outstanding contest in her Lady Gaga Fan Club Group #LadyGaGa-FC and accepting my Lady Gaga Monster Movie Poster Concept [link].

IF YOU LIKE IT, PLEASE VOTE FOR IT [link]

Thanks!