Wally and Beth. Digital Illustration (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes. Click on picture to view larger image.
I was recently sent a link on Twitter for a photographer that specialized in taking candid photos on his smart phone. Apparently this link let to the photographers Instagram page where he had a vast collection of his work. I browsed through his work — which is, for the most part, very good — and became inspired. This inspiration had led me to create a set of illustration of Candid Shots from Around the Galaxy (this is just a working title, suggestion for a better title would be appreciated).
With this in mind, I have searched through many “candid” shots I’ve found and I will work up illustrations of humans and aliens doing “everyday” things.
This image Wally and Beth is the first illustration of the series and was inspired from a photo by photographer Daniel Arnold. The characters were created in ZBrush (as I have demonstrated in previous posts – Meet Wally and Sculpting Session: Female Alien Head) with the composite produced in Photoshop.
I hope you like it.
I am in the process of creating an illustration that includes two alien characters – “Wally,” who is displayed in the previous post, a male alien character. And a female alien who is featured in this video.
Sculpted in ZBrush, I begin with a pre-sculpted female human skull that I created. I like to begin by shaping the skull, then adding the major muscles, then fleshing her out, until I completed the final textured head (shown below). This sculpting session took about an hour. I decided to name this character “Beth.”
I envisioned these characters to be humanoid, with a very close resemblance to humans, but not quite. Wally and Beth, which is the working title of my in-progress illustration, needed characters to fit this description. I’m hoping to have the new illustration completed by early next week.
“Beth.” Digital Illustation. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
Wally. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I have been inspired to create a new series of illustrations (more on that later). Meet Wally. Wally is a digital illustration of an everyday good guy alien dude. Wally here is going to be a character in an upcoming illustration. So, technically, this is a WIP (work in progress). I realized I hadn’t updated this site in a while, so Wally is my latest submission.
Wally was created and rendered in Zbrush, with the composite image produced in Photoshop. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Since I have taken on the task of resurrecting my freelance career, I have been posting feverishly my latest illustrations in several locations with the hope that someone will like my work and ultimately hire me. While doing these posts, I realized that I made multiple mistakes that really may have hurt my marketing efforts. I am listing these errors so maybe it will help any new artists, as well as myself, overcome any further advertising missteps.
Take the illustration below. Although I was very please in how it turned out, in a marketing standpoint I realized that I made several mistakes.
Whenever I post a new image I always add the name of the work, a copyright and my name to the description of the image. Always a good idea. However, upon closer inspection I discovered any real lack of marketing my talents.
I’m Batman. Digital Caricature.
I often peruse multiple art/illustrator websites, blogs, and forums and noticed multiple submissions of Batmans in many of these sites. I realized that I never have created my own Batman fan art. Well, here’s my submission.