Turban Dude!

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First of all I want to apologize for not having posted in such a long time.  School has been taking most of my attention the last few days.  But, I've decided that, just like everything else in life, I just need to make time to post stuff up here.  

So I've wanted to delve more into the character and world of the turban guy I've been putting into a lot of my paintings.  It's funny I just put him in there to add more drama to some of the scenes and I liked how much dramatic billowing you could get from a turban, but now that I've put him in so many things I want to do more with him so my wife and I have been bouncing ideas off each other and we have the beginnings of a world and a story.  So in my free time I'll be posting some of the concept sketches and things that I'll be making as we flesh out what we want to do with it and as we get more finished pieces I'll be sure to post them up here too.

This piece is just a quick sketch I did this morning trying to nail down what I want my turban guy to look like.  A lot of my inspiration for this character will come from the old Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns.  I liked those movies a lot as a kid and the whole nameless wanderer motif seems to fit turban dude rather well, though I guess I'll have to figure out something better to call him eventually than turban dude.  Anyway I hope everyone had a great weekend!

Desert Canyon

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It's been a while since we've seen from turban dude so he's back today.  This time he's in some kind of desert canyon with tent-dwellings there.  I was going for maybe a nomadic tribe or something like that that could build semi-permanent dwellings that could be taken down easily if need be.  

 School is starting this week and it will take up a lot more of my time, unfortunately leaving less to work on stuff for the blog.  But I'll also be doing some (hopefully) cool stuff in my classes there so I'll keep posting those things up so be sure and check back!

Fall

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Another color and mood study today.  Today it's fall.  My whole purpose with these was to be able to capture the feeling of a place with a quick glance.  I wanted to put just enough detail that you can see what the piece is, but I didn't want to put in too much because I want the focus to be on the feeling of it.  

Winter

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More color and mood studies today.  This time I wanted to do something that felt like winter at a glance.   These color speed paints are fun because my more detailed project is all black and white.  I'm hoping to have more on that before the week is out.

Spring!

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So I'm playing around with different lighting styles for mood and seasons and stuff.  Today I wanted to do something that felt like spring so this is it.  I'm still working on my larger project, I'm hoping to get it done before school starts next week so we'll see what happens.

Sunset

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So I'm working on another larger project but in the meantime I'm trying to do at least one speed paint every day so this is my speed paint for the day.  I like the atmosphere and mood to this piece, I'm thinking of doing something with it later on, just not sure what yet...

District 37

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So my floating city is finished.  The world I imagined for this painting was a overpopulated world where the rich paid huge sums of money to escape the crime, pollution, and mess on the surface to live in floating paradises.  But even on these floating cities there are divisions.  The richest live on the top of the city with lush gardens and whatnot, while the lower class live on the bottom.  It was a fun design to paint I hope you like it!

Flying City (Work In Progress)

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  I was looking at some more preview videos for Bioshock Infinite and that got me thinking about flying cities.  I thought it was a cool idea and i wanted to try doing it so I just started painting away today and thought I'd see what happened.  This is where I got to so far.  I'ts been a fun project and I like where it's going.  Hopefully I'll have it done by Monday.  While I was painting I was thinking about these super cities where there is no more real estate unless you build up.  So maybe in the future that's what will happen on an even grander scale.  Earth becomes so overcrowded that they are forced to build floating cities.

MULE

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Well my technical problems are solved now so it's back to work.  I'm working more on the futuristic city that I started with my flying taxi and the police vehicle.  I want to do some kind of gangster story there and all gangster stories need a ship yard or dock or something so I want to put in one of those too.  So today I started with that.  This is a concept for a loading robot to help load and unload massive cargo from the ships.  I'm still not sure if they will be flying or sea faring or both yet.  Anyways I hope you like it!  

Logan Temple: The Secret Project Revealed

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   This weekend we went to a wedding for JaNae's cousin.  We wanted to get them a unique gift so I did a piece of the Logan Temple, where they got married.  I wanted to post it Friday, but I didn't want to risk them seeing it before they got it from us, so that's why we kept it a secret.  But now that we gave it to them I can show everyone else.  I'm pretty pleased with it I put a lot more detail into this piece than I have in some of my other digital ones.  It's all paint too, no added textures or photos.  Anyway, I hope you like it!

Speed Painting and a Top Secret Project, Shhhh

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The last couple of days I've been working on a larger piece, which is why I haven't been as good about posting as usual.  But the piece is still a secret so I'll show it to you later on...so keep checking back!  For today though I wanted to at least have something for you to see so There is a return of the turban dude today! And for once he's taking a break from battling insanely large creatures and/or robot things and just admiring the scenery.  I like these speedpaint landscapes, they are fun and quick, a good way to loosen up before or after a more detailed piece.

Draper LDS Temple

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  Today's painting was a "reality check"  so to speak.  I've been doing a lot of fantasy/sci fi stuff lately so today I decided to do something that really exists.  My wife has been wanting a picture of the Draper Temple for a while.  This is where we got married so it's a pretty special place for us.  So this one is for you sweet heart.  

City Gate

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 Today I did a quicker piece.  I was trying a few different things and didn't have enough time to finish one of them but I got to at least a rough finished stage on this one.  A few weeks ago you may remember seeing a picture I called Alien Attack using this picture.  Well the alien robot thing turned out to be a happy accident, when I took the picture I was actually thinking that it looked more like a castle gate or the gate to a walled city or something.  So today I decided to go with that.  I hope you like it!

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Police Flyer

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So I liked the atmosphere of the flying taxi piece I did the other day so I wanted to keep working on that world.  I decided today to do another vehicle design for it.  This time, instead of working from something I decided to work from scratch, although I did use different helicopter images as references.  I want to keep going with this world off and on and see where it goes.  I like these "near future" type environments.  I'm doing it in black and white to give it the feel of those old gangster movies, or maybe the hard boiled private detective stories.  I hope you like it!

Hovercar Taxi

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I had so much fun doing yesterday's piece that I decided to do another one.  This time I went for kind of a Blade Runner look to the piece with huge city and flying cars and ships and stuff.  It was a lot of fun to do, I hope you like it!

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Bug Snow Cat

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I had a lot of fun doing my alien attack piece where I modified a photograph to make a painting so I decided to do that again.  This time though I wanted to do something similar to what I did with my Bumblebee piece where I combined two things into one.

My brother Todd is, well, very fond of VW Bugs.  He has an old 1970-something Bug that he drives around and tinkers on.  So I took a picture of it and wanted to turn it into something totally different from a Bug, but that still kept the basic form of one, so I turned it into a snow cat.  I hope you like it!

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Quetzalcoatl Robot

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My big robot statue guy is finished!  This one was a lot of fun to do.  This piece also has the return of turban dude.  He has quite the adventurous life I have to say.  How he gets around to so many places all over the world I have no idea.  But then, if he can defeat giant robots and creatures with sticks, spears, and swords, I guess getting around to different places isn't that hard.  I hope you enjoy it!  

I also want to thank all of you for viewing my blog and coming back so often.  Each month we have more and more people coming to see my art so thank you to everyone!  Hope everyone had a great July!

Aztec Statue Robot-Work In Progress

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So I'm about two hours into this piece.  I lived down in Mexico for a few years and got to go and see some of the ancient ruins there and that's where some of the influence for this came from. I wanted to do a big ancient statue/robot thing, with a kind of Indiana Jones feel to it.  I started with a statue of Quetzalcoatl and loosely based the head on what I saw there and then just kind of started to have fun with it. I'm hoping that by tomorrow I'll it done but in the meantime I wanted you guys to see what I've been working on, especially since it's been a while since my last post.  Hope everyone had a great weekend! 

Bumblebee Finished

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Today I was finally able to get my Bumblebee excavator thing finished.  It was a fun concept to do.  Later on I may go back and keep adding in details and stuff, but for now I'm pleased with the design and how it turned out looking.  I also added it into my swamp that I drew yesterday.  What do you think?

Swamp

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This is a quick sketch of the swamp where my front loader will work.  I've got my front loader about half way done being painted so once that's done I'll put everything together and finish it up.  The idea is that the cone-shaped mountains actually have a rare mineral deposit but they are so hard to get too because they are in the middle of these swamps that the flying front loader that was in my last post was developed to mine the stuff out.