• +714-723-8311
  • michael@lookingtodraw.com

Tag Archive art

Newest Illustration: ‘Soar’

"Soar." Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“Soar.” Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

I present to you my latest piece that I have named Soar. This fantasy illustration depicts the successful flight of a man soaring through the sky in a wooden DaVinci-esque flying machine. A bit of a departure from my previous creatures and aliens. After my last work, I decided to scour through webpages, books and other publications to inspire me for my next illustration when I came upon DaVinci’s flying machine blueprint.

My intent here was to depict the flying machine, somewhat modernized for the Victoria Era, hence the clothing I drew onto the pilot. I know this is not an original idea, but this is my take on the whole “early” flight idea.

This flying machine and character in this illustration was sculpted in ZBrush and final production was completed in Photoshop.

This illustration, a well as my other illustrations, can be viewed in my Illustration Portfolio.

New Character: ‘Aviator’

"Aviator." Character Bust. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“Aviator.” Character Bust. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

I decided to taking a break from creating aliens, and monsters, and sci-fi characters and draw up something new. I am in the process of a new illustration for my portfolio, and decided to produce a new character for its. This new characters is called “Aviator.”

With this character, I learned a few new techniques. These techniques mostly involved the leather helmet and goggles, and I am really pleased with the results. I ran a search for “leather healmets” and found images online, and based the sculpting of the helmet and goggles on the images I found. I wanted to create an old-tymie looking pilot for this illustration.

This character bust was created in ZBrush, and composite produced in Photoshop. This 3D Model has been added to my 3D Modelling gallery. You can also view my other works in my Illustration Portfolio.

I would like to know your thoughts. Please leave a comment.

— Mike Barnes is a professional graphic designer and illustrator with over 15 years of experience. His online portfolio can be viewed at www.lookingtodraw.com.

 

Newest Work: ‘Evening Stroll’

"Evening Stroll." Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“Evening Stroll.” Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

This is the second illustration for my series of “Candid Shots from around the Galaxy” (still just a working title). Here we see Eleanor and Edgar taking a casual stroll through the streets of their home town.

Both of the characters and their clothing were sculpted in ZBrush. The background image was created in SketchUp, then imported into Bryce for rendering.  The final composite was produced in Photoshop.

his image Evening Stroll is the second illustration of the series and was  inspired from a photo by  photographer Daniel Arnold.

WIP: Edgar, Alien Bust.

"Edgar." (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“Edgar.” (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“Edgar” here is my latest character sculpt. He’s another alien set to appear in an upcoming illustration. Created in ZBrush and composite produced in Photoshop.

Flying Cars

"My First Futuristic Flying Car." (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“My First Futuristic Flying Car.” (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

"My Second Futuristic Flying Car." (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“My Second Futuristic Flying Car.” (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

As a kid,  I was a big fan of the Jetsons, and later of the Star Wars series. In both of these shows, they featured “flying cars.” To this day, I am greatly disappointed that we don’t have flying cars today, as I hoped we would when I was young. Well, fear not, the flying car is here. These images above show two of the concepts I have created for production. I just need to come up with the “actual” technology to make these vehicles airborne.

Actually, I have created these to be background elements for a future illustration. These “flying cars” were modeled in ZBrush with composites produced in Photoshop.

 

WIP: “Eleanor” A new character.

"Eleanor." Digital Character. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

“Eleanor.” Digital Character. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.

So, this is Eleanor. My latest alien creation, just an average middle-age female. Eleanor will be a feature character in an upcoming illustration.

This character was digitally sculpted in ZBrsh, with the composite produced in Photoshop.