Art Camp - Environment Concept Design Weeks 1-3

So I've decided to try out an online course to improve my skills as an artist; a bit of what has been posted here lately has been sort of a result of this class.  I decided, as I want to eventually work on Magic cards and also because environmental work has been something I've done for some time to take Titus Lunter's Environment Concept Design class at Artcamp.  Depending on how things go I may go and take the other classes that Noah Bradley has taught, or I might try and find a mentor, or even just continue at my own pace.

So far, I'm GREATLY enjoying the lectures that Titus Lunter has given, as well as watching him work - it's given me a lot to think about regarding the mindset and methods of inspiration and productivity that I think I barely picked up while I was at art school. 

He's done a pretty good tying a number of subjects together in his lectures within the scope of concept art, and while the assignments have been a little more difficult to engage with than I was expecting, I'm nonetheless beginning to feel like I'm improving.

Week 1's homework was to draw 15 thumbnails of the phrase 'never give up.' Here's what I came up with.

This took me a lot longer than expected!

It had been a very very long time since I had engaged the old art muscles involved with illustrating an abstract concept or phrase, and was a rather pleasant return to the illustration department at MICA. 

From there was a lot more thumbnails with a new process for generating ideas from abstract compositions. 

I really wasn't that happy with these however.  Recalling what I read about online courses "You get what you put into it" I decided to re do another 10 thumbnails using the same abstract base for composition. I'm a lot happier in some cases with the overall appearance of these but something still felt off.

 

In the last two weeks I've begun to develop a process that feels a lot more natural and loose which is far more painterly, and less draft-oriented as I'm used to. With my spaceships and other previous environment work, I've always tried to focus on good perspective linework and that stuff, but I think I'm looking to be more evocative with my work, as sometimes it can feel very very stiff and clinical, and not anywhere near as visually appealing as some of the illustrators I admire. 

Week 3 involved taking 3 of the thumbs I liked most and reworking them with considerations of composition in mind.

 

I'm stoked. These feel more cinematic, the value additions make them feel a LOT more evocative and atmospheric. The one thing is that it would seem the general composition rules are identical. I want to experiment with my daily sketches with doing more dynamic compositions, or at least switching them up a bit more. 

Simply seeing the work compared above is ... well rather inspiring! I'm looking forward to continuing this class!