Starting Color (2 hours)

Had some free time tonight to start on the coloring. We'll see how close I can get to realism in the rendering. Paper Textures should really help, they turned out fairly well on the Inventor's wife's robot flesh, a little rough in spray. I'll upres the canvas after I block in the basic coloring for everything. That's when I will be able to really get in there and get every crack in the brickwork and scratch on the egg cannisters.

Thee Final Line Work!!

So here it is. Finally!! This is around maybe 70-75 hours, largely due to working in small increments as opposed to large chunks.

So in this update, I finished the robot boy and his robotic insides. Other than that I polished and added a few more prisoners in the new cells.

1 More Day Left!!!

I'm pretty pleased with how much work I have done in the last two days. I repositioned the Inventor's wife to better serve the story and composition. Now the good side is mirrored by the bad side. Before she was just a background character and not as integral to the story or taking any action. Now she is trying to stop the Inventor, her husband, from bringing his creation, their son to life, which will be used as a weapon by the evil man on the right. She also has her left hand her pregnant belly in a somewhat protective manner.

I also finally got around to the Robot Boy's heart/battery, which the inventor is grabbing. On my first try the heart looked too human, my second try it looked too much like the venom symbiote from "Spider-Man 3." The heart is rather large for a typical heart, but its not the entire object that goes into the robots for their energy source. As you can see its pretty much like a lava lamp in its form and movement.

In the middle there are the two angels of death, which will be more clear when I finished the lifeless robotic boy. The guard with the battle axe was inspired by a vulture and turned out rather nicely. His eyes are going to be blind and white with no color. I tried to make him as skeletal as possible to make him more like the Grim Reaper. The vulture guard is currently my favorite character in terms of personality and how he factors into the story.





So what I have left, the robot boy. Today I concepted (see above) out the robot boy's mechanics and inner weapon, which will reveal itself in his chest. The rib cage will be opened up like a pair of hands or angel wings if you will. The battery storage area is visually inspired by the biohazard symbol with a red light emitting from inside. The bones will be chrome/metallic. The muscles will be black/dark gray. Lastly the bomb/organs will be white.

I also have a flesh spray gun that I concepted earlier today, which is based off a paint spray gun. It does what its name implies, gives the robot flesh and a more human appearance.

After about two to three hours of drawing in the inner parts of the robot boy I can start coloring.

Sunday Work

Well I got a lot done during about a full day of just working on this, but I also am planning to make a few big changes. So here is what I worked on recently.
-I worked on the Inventor's face, making his lower lip poutier
-adding a more pieta-like pose for the Inventor and his son, which meant redoing the Inventor's L arm and the boy of course.
-I messed around with the Inventor's wife's pose and emotional state, but then realized how to better pull her in to the story.

So here is what I'm going to change
-I'm going to move the Inventor's wife over to the L beside the Inventor, which will also mean I will add on the the L of the canvas. I'll explain more on this when it is done so its easier to understand.
-So now that I have this void in the center of the composition, in front of the door, I'm going to add a henchmen/guard and close the doors. This will get rid of any feeling of hope and choice, which the Inventor's wife will add, the fact that he has a choice.

August 6th Update (still working hard)

Well I finally had some time off to work some more on this today. My deadline is August 24th or so, when classes start up again. But I'm really pleased with how far this has come over the summer. I still wish I had the time to just sit down for a solid day or two.

Today I made a whole bunch of minor changes that would just take to long to list, so see if you can spot them yourself.

So what I have left draw in are a few new ideas that definitely need to be put in. A giant prison guard behind the evil couple. The giant's shoulder will reach the Evil Man's head. He will have a giant battle-axe hung over his shoulders with wrists resting on the handle as he looks over at the entering Robot Wife. I'm also going to put another one of these guards at the bottom of the entrance, with a large battle-axe as well, but using it as a cane to rest his weight on.

I'm planning to basically redo the Robot Boy so that it is more interesting and fits with the sacrificial son/"Pieta" piece. I'm also going to make the Robot Wife's expression very sad to mirror her husband's suffering, which will give her more humanity.

Yeah I know more line work

Well its been a while since I've been able to work on this. Of course once I sat down to look over it again, I found a lot of things that needed improvement. Mainly the ceiling and the rest of the background. The perspective was off and the ceiling was too high. I lower the ceiling to further confine the prisoners and enlarged the chandelier (with some small improvements). Along with this I also addd some more line weight for a better feeling of depth/atmosphere.

What I have left in terms of linework is the following:
-finish the brickwork for the prison and its cells
-inmates in several of the cells (with much more detail)
-add the cell bars again
-prison guards
-the robot boy/weapon's heart, which the Inventor is grabbing with his right hand
And then on to the coloring stage (I already have all of the gray scale values and the lightsources figured out in my head, which is why I'm moving onto color). Along with the fact that I'm only running out of more time until classes start up again.

Lately, I've been out of town on family business without my computer (so you know its serious). So I've been studying a lot of artists, particularly Norman Rockwell.

My deadline for this piece is August 24th, around the time that classes start up again. Its going to be a bit of a close call because I work from around 8-4 or 5 weekdays, but I think I can do it (fingers crossed). My big struggle has been working on this in spurts, instead of a whole day at a time, like say 8-4 or 4. Mostly, I just want a really good line drawing to work from with as few errors as possible. So I don't have to hide them or pull out hair trying to fix them too far in the process. Hopefully, if things go as planned, I will be starting the coloring this week around Tuesday or Thursday.

I'm really excited to see how this all turns out and its looking to be one of the better pieces I have yet to do. We'll see.

What I thought was the final line work at the time

Well this is the final linework and now its on to the adding the gray scale values. I'll probably add more detail to the background when I up res. the image in the coloring phase. Mostly to detail out the prisoners in each of their background cells. I'm kind of interested to see how big the final file is going to be.

In this update, I made a few more tweaks and additions. I fixed the Inventor's expression. He was too happy before, so I made him sad and added a few tears. Other than that, I added the brickwork for the prison walls, along with an overhead cage design. The brickwork for the walls was modeled after Frank Lloyd Wright's Circle Gallery. And the overhead cage design was modeled after a manhole cover, which fit the design and purpose that I was going for and some play with scale.

Also just to let you know, the open cell door on the far right is not faulty perspective. The prison walls kind of bow out, so the top row of cell doors tilt upwards, which is why the door looks a little odd. It will all make sense when its rendered out in case you don't see what I'm saying.

I'm hoping to have this done by the 14th, but its looking questionable because I am only doing this in my free time. So we'll see about that.

More Progress (still have a lot left)

Well there were some greatly needed alterations to the background. Before, it felt too typical and ordinary. So I decided to build around the Arabic calligraphy visual style that I utilized for the client/criminal mastermind on the right of the image. The canvas size was a bit too comfortable and I was too concerned with the edge of the canvas, so I added to the top of the canvas to open up the scene and releave the creative block that I was banging my head against.

This aided in the telling of the story and establishing where we are and who is behind everything. The Inventor is imprisoned himself and all around him are other prisoners in these circular/tuna can cells with geometric bar patterns. On the top of the image is a chandelier hanging from the ceiling cage, which has armed guards standing above to overlook the prisoners. Several prisoners are blocked in with different poses and emotional states as well. Some are watching what is going on and others are sick in their despair, ignoring what evil creation is unwilling being made by the inprisoned Inventor.

There will also be a multitude of candles resting on the floor's of their cells (symbolic of hope) to go along with the incense and candled chandalier. I didn't want the situation to feel overly bleak and hopeless, like most prison images. This painting is an allegory painting with much careful planning.

I also added much more detail to the Client/Imprisoner, finished detailing out the storage containers on the lab table, gave the ArmCandy babe with the Client a tigher waist and sexier curves. I also finished the line work for the Inventor's wife, the figure that is walking towards the table. She is also carrying the Inventor's child in her belly (she's a robot creation in case you didn't notice). The unborn child's silhouette will be viewable from beneath her gown, with her belly glowing beneath it.

I still think that the Inventor's face and expression could also use some work. It doesn't seem like he is as unwilling or reluctant or in pain at having to create something that will solely be used for evil. Any thoughts or opinions would be greatly appreciated.

All I have left is finishing the prison details, which will be a very intricate brick design. Then its on to the black and white values, then adding color and getting this bad boy done!