More portriats

Cesar Chavez
Michelle Obama
Sidney Poitier
Thurgood Marshall

Here are a few more portraits that I did for a different version of the poster.

Take care,

Gavin

Full Circle Nuit Blanche Mural!

Hey everyone, Full Circle did a mural down at Distillery District for Nuit Blanche...here it is...the size is about 15' by 7' ...it was lots of fun to work on. You can see some progress on the Full Circle blog here.

Take care,

Gavin

Here is a character design I've been working on for Full Circle...you can see some of the progress work on the Full Circle Blog

I'd like to hear what people think of the concept. I'm probably going to make a few changes to it, but I'd like to see what people say first.

Take care everyone,

Gavin

Some new figure drawings

I attended life drawing class at Seneca college a couple of weeks ago. We had a really great model that day. Here are a couple of drawings that I was happy with.

I hope you like it.

-Gavin

p.s. More Azania updates coming soon!

Azania concept

Some more Azania stuff. This is from a tribe living below ground in caves, they have developed an affinity with insects and have found a mysterious way to drastically increase their size. The previous image of a guy riding a giant insect is from the same tribe.

Also, thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes, it was greatly appreciated.

More to come!

-Gavin

Project Maas: New title - Azania

Here are some more concepts for Project Maas. They are a couple of older images, one which I did some more work on (the young lady). I mainly wanted to show the name and logo. We finally came up with a title that we liked. Azania, it is a very fitting name for this project. Thanks for the suggestion Emily!

Feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Still have a lot more concepts to post. Lots of characters, creatures and environments.

I hope you like it!

Regards,

Gavin Ball

Back to drawing

I've been drawing a lot more lately, which has been really nice...didn't realize how much I missed it. I've never really stopped. But lately I've been practicing a lot more and trying new things...especially drawing more environments and backgrounds...

I've also been brushing up on my perspective and placing characters within an envrionment in a way that looks believable. It's been a lot of fun. It's always cool when you feel like you still have a lot of room for improvement on something. It makes you feel excited about what you might be able to do tomorrow.

That's one of the things I like so much about art, you can really continue to hone your craft for your whole life almost. The road doesn't stop, even if you feel like you've made some progress, there are still so many more things that you can continue to work on.

Anyways, I just wanted to share some of the doodles I've done recently...I thought it was pretty cool, so I figured why not share it, instead of keeping it to myself.

Take care,

Gavin

Project Maas

This is another character design for the story. His name is Fudu as you can probably see. He is a friend of the main character...they come from the same village and they are around the same age.

Comments and crits welcome.

I hope you enjoy!

More to come.

-Gavin

Project Maas

Here are some more concepts of the characters in the story. Feedback is more than welcome. I am working on this with a friend of mine, Anthony Lynch.

Again, there's a lot more to come so stay tuned!

-Gavin

Project Maas

Hello everyone,

There is much more to come, but here is some more preliminary work on my big project. This is just some early concept work, I will be posting a lot more in the days ahead...

The project will be released as an online webcomic...completely free of course. I will post more details here shortly...so please stay tuned.

I haven't updated in a while but hopefully I will be able to make up for that in the coming weeks and months ahead.

Take care and God bless!

-Gavin

Portraits.

Martin Luthur King, Jr.
Tupac Shakur
Sistah Soulja
Shirly Chisholm
Rosa Parks
Oprah Winfrey
Muhammed Ali
Nelson Mandela
Maya Angelou
Marcus Garvey
Malcom X
Abraham Lincoln
Kwame Ture
John Lennon
JFK
Harriet Tubman
Mahatma Ghandi
Fredrick Douglas
Booker T. Washington
Bob Marly

Here are the pictures of the people I painted for the Obama poster I did with Afrentine publishing.  The concept was to show some of the many many people who have contributed in some way, shape or form to the possibility of an african-american - Barack Obama winning the US presidential election.  Which is still pretty amazing all things considered.

I've been wrestling with the idea of posting up an image of the poster I did...I know I said I would.  I guess, I feel weird about it being an Obama poster...I'm still not sure how I feel about the guy.  I don't really follow politics too much, or watch all that much t.v. unless I happen to be home to catch a Raptors game.  So I can't say that I'm completely up to date on what he's been doing of late.

He seems like a great guy by all accounts and I pray for him because he certainly has a difficult task ahead of him...When you are in a position like that who do you turn to for guidance?  Who do you put your faith in when so many are putting their faith in you?  I believe only God can give you true guidance when you are in a position such as that, or at any other time for that matter.

So my dilemma comes because I don't know how I feel about Obama...I don't blindly put my faith in him to solve every ones problems.  Unfortunately, I think some do....I think that can be problematic because some of us might then absolve ourselves of personal responsibility and wait for others to solve our problems for us.  No matter how great a man or woman may be, they are still only human...flesh and blood.  Not perfect, but flawed...   

We all have our shortcomings...as Jesus said, '...let he who is without sin throw the first stone...' With our 'sins' being us wandering off the beaten path in our walk with God (if you are trying to walk with God), and in 'throwing the first stone'... our condemnation of another for their shortcomings.

To get back to the post though, these are all individuals who have made sacrifices and contributions to society, often times, calling upon us to question what we believe is right and wrong...many have paid a very high price, in many cases, their very lives.

So I guess what I am trying to say here is that only time will tell whether Obama will be remembered with the Martin Luthor King, Jrs and the Mahatma Ghandis...I'm praying that he will be. 

God Bless,

Gavin Ball

Oddly Studios and upcoming comic book

Hello everyone,
It's been a while since I posted, I've been pretty busy finishing up that Obama poster. I'll post that soon. We just printed it out this past Friday and it's getting cut today. So I should have some in my hands shortly. It's very exciting. Overall, this has probably been the most involved single painting I've ever done. It was a great honor to have had the opportunity to work on it. Thanks to J.D. and Afrentine publishing for the opportunity! Thanks to God for the series of unlikely events which resulted in the crossing of our paths.

On another note, I've recently had the great opportunity to spend the week in a Flash development studio here in Toronto called Oddly Studios. I am honoured to say that I was the first participant of their in house artist program where they bring in an artist for a week and show them how to get their work online for the world to see. I have to say, the stuff those guys are able to do with Flash is nothing short of incredible. I came away very impressed with the work they do and also with the versatility and power of Flash. Thanks to Tim for that opportunity and again to God for placing me there. To see more about their studio, you can check here ---> http://www.oddlystudios.com/

The images attached in this post are concepts related to a web comic which I'll be launching later this year. I did the drawings quite some time ago. I used my time at Oddly Studios to flesh some of it out a bit more. So stay tuned, it should be good!

Peace out everyone.

Your friend,

Gavin Ball

Martin Luther King Jr.

As many of you know black history month is coming up pretty soon.  I've been fortunate to have been comissioned to do a poster for it.  Overall the poster is pretty ambitious so I've been working away at it pretty diligently for the past week or so.  I hope the result will be special and memorable.

This is one of my personal heroes Martin Luthor King Jr. ;the famous civil rights advocate.  It's funny becuase being black, I realize that many of the oppourtunities I've been blessed with in my lifetime wouldn't have been possible if not for people like MLK.  He was brave enough to stand up for what he believed in and he ultimately lost his life as a result.  Thankfully, it was not in vain and I believe his dream is slowly becoming reality.

Thank you Martin Luther King for sharing your dreams with us.  As a result of your work and sacrifices, I feel that I too will be able to realize my dreams.

Anyone who would like to learn a bit more about Mr. King, can go here 

---> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

God bless everyone!

-Gavin

Character anatomy

I always thought it would be cool to work out the skeleton and muscle system of a character design. To me it just brings them a little bit more to life. The first time I really ever saw this done to a high degree was in Disney's Tarzan. Which is one of my favorite Disney movies of all time.

I also had a really good teacher when I was a Seneca college who taught us a lot about anatomy. More than that though, he instilled in me a real passion for digging a bit deeper into the physical aspect of a character. By doing this I think we are able to enhance, to a degree the illusion of life, thereby creating a more convincing, believable character (thanks Werner). Of course, that doesn't get into personality and the story behind every character which is a whole other ball of wax.

Anyways, like I said, I always thought it would be cool to do an accurate skeletal system of an otherwise unbelievable character (I guess that is what appeals to me the most, taking something unbelievable and arranging all the little details in a way that makes it believable) which in theory, should render it a bit more believable, because it is based on things that makes sense.

So here are a couple of designs I did, you can see the initial sketch and then what I was able to do using Photoshop.

I hope you find it interesting!

Take care,

Gavin

Cat drawings

These are some drawings of a cat that I did a while ago. I was teaching a portfolio development class for students who were trying to get into animation school. One of the student's was nice enough to bring in her cat for everyone to draw. The cat was really cute, but it was terrified and wouldn't move at all. So we just rotated around the table and drew it from different angles.

I was just looking through some of my older drawings and I came across this so I decided to post it. More to come!

Take care,

Gavin

Silly monster

here is another image for my friends short film idea...I'd like to hear what you guys think. This is the big guy who is supposed to chase down and try to eat the little blue guy from an earlier post.

Peace,

Gavin

whohub

Hi everyone,

I just did an interview on this cool site called whohub you can see my interview here. It's basically an interview template and anyone can answer the questions, but I think it's a pretty cool concept and it's a good way to get a glimpse inside a person's mind.

So yeah, I did it and I took it pretty seriously, so if you were ever wondering about some of my philosophies about art, check out my interview.

Thanks everyone!

Take care,

Gavin

p.s. more art will be coming soon (I'm just deciding what to post next!)

The Prom Date

These are two illustrations I did to commemorate prom time. They can be viewed separately or together...It is my way of paying tribute to that beautiful time of year when high school seniors all over the world go to prom...

On the right, you have the excited young couple...and on the left, the young ladies parents...As you can see the young man is very impressed by how beautiful his date is looking, but he can't be too effusive in his praise or her overprotective dad (and Vietnam vet.) will not be impressed (I would be the same way of course)...so he's got to play it cool and make sure that he is a perfect gentleman or else he wont make it to date number two.

Mom is so proud to see her little girl all grown up, and the lovely young lady is looking forward to going out and having a good time dancing with all her friends...but mainly, she's just glad that school is finally finished!

I hope you enjoy!

Best wishes,

Gavin Ball

Cute Little Alien

Orthographic views...I was trying to get it so that modeling it in 3d would be very straight forward...I had a little bit of trouble visualizing the top views though.

I anyone sees anything I could correct, I'm all ears...I hope you like it!

-Gavin

Cute aliens

here is something I'm helping a friend out with...please let me know what you think!

Take care,

Gavin

Inspiration

This is some early development work for a new project I am working on. The final project probably wont have this kind of look, I'll probably go for something a bit more realistic. This character could exist in the world I want to create.

Hopefully that was very vague! This idea is top secret right now, but you will all see much more about it in the future.

Take care,

Gavin

Flight!

Lifedrawing - Marjanka

Scalp Masseuse

Here is the painted version of the doodle I post a while ago...

Take care,

Gavin

Oops revised final

Thanks for the critics Bobby and Louis,

I went back in and fixed the hand, also adjusted the colours a little bit, and softened up the smoke coming out of the big guy's ears. I also cropped the image a little bit to get a composition that was tighter on the two characters.

I think it was for the better.

Cheers,

Gavin

'OOPS' finished

This is the piece I've working at off and on for a while now, people who come to my blog from time to time might recognize parts of it.

I finally finished it and it's also the first thing I've ever posted on CG Society.
You can check out the thread here --> http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=133&t=670777

Take care,

Gavin

Portrait Painting (digital)

I brought my laptop to figure drawing again on Friday. This one took about 2.5 hrs.

Hope you like it!

-Gavin

Different angle

I did another pose this week...I like some of what I did...mainly the elbow and feet, I also think I was able to capture some of the weight in her chest and stomach, but I was too heavy handed when I was drawing her face...way too many dark lines...it's a bit distracting. Next week, I should get into some colour...I'll choose between these two poses when I do.

Take care,

Gavin

Lifedrawing

This is from lifedrawing this past Friday at Basic Inquiry (www.lifedrawing.org).

I monitor the sessions there every Friday, it's a really cool place and well run for anyone who wants to do some lifedrawing in Vancouver.

They have sessions pretty much everyday of the week, ranging from gestures, to long poses (12 hours), depending on which day you go. This is from the long pose session, which we do on Friday nights....This is the first three hours. for the last 9 hours, I'll try colouring it in on my computer. So, I'll scan this and then use it as the foundation for some digital painting.

I also bought some Oil paints, which I plan to learn how to use at some point very soon. Thats something I've wanted to do for a very long time, so now is my chance.

I figure painting from life using the computer is probably a cheaper way to learn initially. But at some point I'll have to tackle mixing paints the traditional way. I am looking forward to the challenge though.

Anyways,

I hope everyone is doing well. Thanks for all the feedback and support.

Take care,

Gavin

Spiritual being

This started off as a doodle, but then I started colouring it and I let the concept develop organically...this is how it turned out....a bit strange, but I think it's pretty cool.

I have an idea of what the story is but I won't write it...I figure it will be different for everyone.

Take care,

Gball

Couldn't resist

I couldn't resist colouring this guy in

cheers,

Gavin

It's been a long time...time for a new post

Where to start, it's been a long time....

I've finished a couple of the things I've been working on, so I have a little bit more free time...I also got up to date on watching all of Avatar and Naruto, both from the beginning...even got up to date on the Naruto manga...pretty nerdy of me, but it's all good. I'd highly recommend them both, especially Naruto, that show really blew me away.

I also finished that caricature I've been working on as you can see here.

I've been doing tons and tons of random doodles that I really like and want to post, but there are soooo many. I posted a couple of them here, one is a self portrait of how I think I must look when I really get into drawing...the stuff pouring out of my head is supposed to symbolize my ideas flowing onto the page. The other is just a random creature I drew, When I needed to figure out something for him to be standing on, I figured it would be cool if he was like a head massager or something...so there you go!

Did some work on the animated painting, and I'm realizing that my animation skills need some serious work! I'm not giving up yet though, it should be cool when it comes together.


Work is going great, learning tons of stuff everyday...right now I'm learning how to do vehicles, which is pretty cool. Soon I'll be working on my big achilles heel, Environments, so that should be a cool challenge, I'm definitely looking forward to it though.

I'll definitely start posting more frequently, at least once a week.

Thanks,

Take care everyone,

Gavin

Ebony, my girlfriend's crazy cat

Here is a quick update, I've been pretty busy lately...Work, freelancing and some personal stuff...things are looking pretty good though...

When my schedule clears a bit I will resume updating more regularly.

Take care everyone!

Best wishes,

Gavin

Day 43

Right now I am doing some work on stuff that I cannot show ATM, but it's pretty cool, I look forward to posting it in the future...for now though here is some more progress on another peice I've been working on.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 42 Turning a New Leaf

Hello,

sorry for the lack of updates recently. I've been at a bit of a loss as to whether or not I should continue updating everyday...I feel as though in some ways it is good (practice, getting better) in other ways it is not so good (preventing me from spending time on some of my personal projects)

The reason I started doing this everyday is because I had the goal of getting so good at digital painting that it was like second nature to me....while I don't think I am quite there, I have progressed much faster than I anticipated.

The reason I wanted painting to be second nature is because I have a goal of doing animated paintings. To be able to do that I felt like my painting skills and speed needed a lot of work.

I could continue honing my painting skills for the rest of my life, however I wouldn't get to some of the things that are really important to me.

Since I came out of animation school, I've focused primarily on developing my illustration skills. putting animation on the back burner for the time being.

I guess to make a long story short I decided that from now on I'll continue to update on an (ideally) daily basis...the only difference is that now I'll start using a more focused approach...

So that means, I'll start posting images that will tell a story or process work on bigger peices and most importantly animated paintings.

Thanks everyone.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 41

Basketball...my favorite sport!

-G

Day 40

Another doodle trying out a new style inspired by Shiyoon Kim's designs

Day 39

I am still working out some of the details here...mainly just going through and using tone to tighten and properly define unclear areas...The figure is by far the most important part so I take my time to ensure that I get it right.

Once the tonal image is finished, its not that hard to lay down the colours.

-G

Day 38

More progress on Caricature,

just tightening up some areas here and there

Day 37

Speedpainting I did today.

-G

Day 36

A sketch of an older man I saw on the bus.

I did this a few months ago, but I never posted it and I like how it turned out.

Thanks,

Gavin

Day 35

This is an old drawing I did, just decided to colour it today.

Peace,

Gavin

Day 34

Hey everyone,

A lot of the time I like to draw people flying so today I figured I paint one of my flying people doodles up and see what happened.

peace,

Gavin

Day 33

Some cafe sketches I did at Metrotown mall, apparently, from what I heard, it is the second biggest mall in Canada after West Edmonton Mall, not so sure anymore now since Vaugn Mills was built in Ontario.

Actually, I just checked and it is second biggest, but not a close second, Vaugn mills is way down the list and Eatons Centre (Toronto) is a very close third...

you can see the list here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada's_largest_shopping_malls

The internet is such a beautiful thing, you never have to wonder about anything anymore. Not for long at least.

My apologies for the poor picture quality, I'm moving and I had to use my camera instead of the scanner.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 32

Some more progress on the caricature, apologies for not posting this yesterday, after rereading my previous post, it said I would, oh well here it is...Still needs a lot of work, moving forward though.

Thanks!

take care,

Gavin

Day 31

An old man!

Day 30

Here is the initial thumbnail which I did to get a feel for the composition of the scene, nothing is really set in stone at this point. To be honest, I didn't really want to post this because it is so rough and it doesn't really look good, however it serves a purpose and it gets across what I intended, and it provides enough indication for me to proceed. So while it is a little embarrassing, the important thing is that it gives me good starting point.

Since I already had a likeness, I just used Photoshop to paste the head into the scene and I drew in some parts that were unresolved or unclear.

The next step will be to clarify the composition and try to get all the elements working together...For that I will do it in Photoshop in black and white. I will post that tomorrow.

Take care,

Gavin Ball

Day 29

This the caricature I mentioned in my post yesterday, The client was nice enough to say it's okay for me to post my progress. This is a quick sketchup I did to get the likeness. I'll continue to post progress as I go along.

-Gavin

Day 28

Some more practice, this is from a few weeks ago, It's not what I worked on tonight, I'm still trying to finish up a different peice, it's getting there, it will be ready soon...and I also am doing some work on a caricature for a client...I think it would be cool to post some of the process work here on my blog, but I must first ask if it's okay.

Thanks!

Take care everyone,

Gavin

Day 27

Another sample from a WIP

Day 26

More progress and some practice

Day 25

Hello,

I've been working on a peice for a while now and I was hoping I'd be able to post it today, unfortunately it's still not quite finished. Instead I am going to post up some doodles I did and then painted over. Some of the drawings go nowhere, but some turn out pretty interesting. I noticed a lot of times, whatever I am reading at the time will influence what my subconscious mind will draw. I've been watching a lot of Avatar lately and that came through in the one sketch.

Anyways, it's been a long day, I'll try to post something more finished soon.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 24

A change of pace for today....

Take care,

Gavin

Day 23

Still more progress on Fire Vixen...I'll finish it eventually!

take care,

Gavin

Day 22

Some more work on The zombie guy, I like where it's going. I'm going to get back to the Fire Vixen piece later tonight.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 21

More Progress on 'Fire Vixen'

-Gavin

Day 20

More progress for Fire Vixen

Day 19

This a WIP of a piece I am doing for my drawing jam, the theme is "Fire Vixens" this is just a part of what the final will be.

peace,

Gavin

Day 18

Memory sketch of my Girlfriend Emily, it could some work here and there...I think I'll try some more in the future.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 17- Stomach mouth Finished

Just went ahead and finished it up, I'm going to be pretty busy for the next few days, so I figured I'll just get itout of the way.

Comments and Crits welcome.

Thanks,

Gavin

Day 16- Stomach mouth

Hey everyone,

I didn't quite finish it up as I had a lot of work to do tonight...but I like where it's going and I'll post the final in the next few days.

Also, I'm open to ideas and suggestions on how to improve it before I'm done.

peace,

Gavin

Day 15

This is a drawing i did today, I'll try to post the coloured version tomorrow.

-Gavin

Day 14

Some landscape practice...

G

Day 13

Hello again, here is my post for today. I started this one a while ago, finally got around to finishing it.

It is a cool gargoyle.

peace,

Gavin

Day 12

This weeks drawing jam was characters that could be in the movie Labrynth...so this is some of what I came up with, it's a bit of a stretch, but i think it's close enough.

Take care,

Gavin

Day 11

Hey everyone,

Thank you for all the comments and taking the time out to stop by my blog...I'm a bit disappointed in myself that I don't have a bigger update today...but I have done a little work on a piece I posted earlier and I've also got something that I wasn't going to really pursue any further.

Thanks again!

peace and blessings,

Gavin Ball

Day 10 - Salma Hayek

Exaggerated portait of Salma Hayek

-Gavin

Day 9

These are some cafe drawings I did last night.

peace,

Gavin

Day 8 Post

Another washing machine drawing, this was a pretty fun topic

Day 7

Some more tonal studies of heads I doodled out the other day.

-Gavin

Day 6 Post

day5

This image was a bit of mission to get scanned in and everything...wasn't able to even edit it in photoshop...oh well, here it is...straight out of my sketchbook...

I hope you like it!

-Gavin

More sketches of washing machines

Day 4

These are some more ideas I had for washing machines.

-G

Day 3

Todays another quick old Post...still working on the same peice I was yesterday...Still not quite finished.

Working on silhouettes...breaking it down to its most basic compnents...black and white.

peace,

Gavin

Day 2

I'm working on something at the moment, but I didn't quite get it done tonight...so this is about a week old, I did it for a drawing jam at work. The topic was washing machine.

peace

Gavin

Super metroid hommage (sp?)

Finished



Original Doodle


I decided that I will start posting everyday...I've made a commitment to myself to improve as an artist and my old approach wasn't really working for me...I would draw everyday, but I wasn't painting enough...so while my goal is to do a new painting and finish it everyday, that might be a little unrealistic, but I can at least post a new image everyday....painting, sketch, doodle and Hopefully somewhere down the road my painting skills will be second nature...like breathing...thats the plan at least.

I also hope that anyone who sees my work can get some enjoyment out of it...creating artwork is something I love to do and hopefully that comes through.

Always open to comments and constructive criticism.

Take care,

Gavin

January 29, 2008 - Day 1

Drawing of Biggie and some creatures

Some creatures and a picture of Biggie.

These are some creature doodles I started at the distillery district a few days ago which I decided to finish up a little bit more when I got home...I started with the first two at the top. My initial idea was a swimming, living ball thing...so I drew a ball with a huge mouth doing the front crawl with no legs...then I did another drawing, this time just a flying ball, again with a big mouth because I thought is was pretty cool in the first one, this time no legs or arms though...it kind of looks like a Chinese dragon to me. Then when I got home I did some colours and I did the other two creatures to see what else I could come up with. I just threw the Biggie sketch in there for no good reason. I did it a while ago and now felt like the time to display it I guess.

They are all traditional with some minor, minor touch ups in Photoshop. I'm finding that I enjoy working traditionally better than digitally. Maybe that will change at some point, but I believe that the stronger your traditional skills are, the more that will transfer over to digital...especially as the tools get more user friendly and intuitive. I guess we'll see...

Thanks and take care everyone,

Gavin

Primo Carnera

This post actually has a little bit of a story to it...this guy, Primo Carnera I had never even heard of until I did this drawing.

Some of you might know the current heavyweight boxing champion Valuev...he's this huge 7 foot guy from Russia who looks like he could punch holes through a brick wall...anyways I've been meaning to do some drawings of him for a while now because he's such a cool, interesting looking character.

So one day I was looking through some blogs and I noticed that another artist had done a caricature of him, so I was like, I'm going to do that too! So I went on google and did an image search for Valuev and a bunch of pictures came up that I proceeded to download. Somehow while downloading I came across an article that referred to Valuev as modern day Primo Carnera...when I saw this I was like COOL!!! and I went and did some more digging on this new guy Primo Carnera.

His story is that he was a boxer back in the day from Italy and he was like 6'5" and 350 lbs or something like that. Anyway's he was like 10 times bigger than any of the other boxers at the time and I guess he was a bit of a freakshow to people...just like some would say Valuev is today (Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling them freaks personally, but that is unfortunately how some people may perceive them).

Back to the topic though, I ended up reading quite a bit about this gentleman Primo Carnera and I found his story to be quite interesting (most of which I forgot, I think he fought Max Baer(the bad guy in Cinderella Man(who wasn't actually portrayed properly in the film(I did some reading on him too that day(I did more reading than drawing that day for sure!))))) so I did some sketches of him instead of Valuev...kind of like a tribute I guess. The Valuev drawings will be coming at a later date! I hope that some of you learned something interesting today!

Take care.

-Gavin

Some armadillo designs

I was doing some designs with a friend of mine and I liked what I came out with so here it is... comments and criticism are welcome.

Hopefully I was able to capture some feeling in the characters and let them emote a little bit, because that was my goal.

Oh yeah,
there's a cool site that features very talented artists, it's called www.drawn.ca I've seen some really crazy inspirational links on there...so if you haven't checked it out yet go there now!

-Gavin

Old creature design

This is an old creature design that I did

The Donald

Some more creatures

These are some new images I did for my latest portfolio

Sorry, this drawing turned out a bit gross...but I thought it was pretty cool so here it is

Copic marker and col-erase on bristol with some digital touch ups

Finally an update!

Hey everyone, I've been really busy lately, but my schedule has cleared up a great deal recently now that I finished that comic book. It was a good learning experience, something I always thought I would do one day but, not so soon...I made some mistakes but overall the final product turned out okay...I know that if I ever do something like this again I will do a much better job and avoid some of the rookie mistakes that I made.

Other than that I have a bunch of new artwork that I've been working on...as always comments and critics are welcome...I'm just trying to become the best artist and designer that I can...so all feedback definitely helps.

Take care everyone,

until next time,

Gavin

A couple more peices I did, the beyonce drawing was marker on bristol...the other one is a quick digital sketch inspired by Volver with Penelope Cruz

The magic of photoshop

Here is another mouse image that I did...I find it really amazing the amount of things you can do with Photoshop. I never thought I would enjoy the program so much...but it really never ceases to amaze me all the cool things you can do with it. Some people might think that it's cheating to use all the different filters and and effects, but I think that all the features should be embraced in order to create artwork that might not be possible otherwise.

This is the third mouse I've done and I still have a few more that I plan to finish off (second and third from the bottom) I hope you enjoy it...comments and critics are welcome

Radioactive Monster

Some more digital artwork

End of the Year Post

Where to start?

I'm not sure how many people will be reading this, but I've come across a few things that I'd like to share with anyone who is.

The first is a really cool book that I first found at the Seneca library, it's called Composing Pictures. As you can probably imagine, it's all about composition and design. The author Donald W. Graham was a teacher at Cal Arts for 40 some odd years. I think he taught visual language. The reason I think this book is so good is because of all the knowledge inside it. Stuff you don't learn in art school. If you like blogs like http://sevencamels.blogspot.com/ and http://drawingsfromamexican.blogspot.com/ then you'll like this book. If you've never heard of these blogs, I suggest you check them out, both offer alot of useful information on visual language and design.

The next thing that I've come across is a music website called pandora.com this site is excellent, and if you're a fan of music you should check it out. What google was for search engines, this is for online radio stations, do yourself a favor and take a few minutes to check it out.

Other than that, I've been really busy lately, it seems like I'm always busy, sometimes I wonder when things will slow down a bit. The most exciting thing I've done lately happened last week, I did some caricatures at the Chris Bosh Christmas Bash.

Anyone who knows me, knows how much of a basketball fan I am, especially the Raptors. The highlight of the afternoon was when I got to meet Chris Bosh and I even got to do a caricature of him (that was pretty cool to me!) I'm not sure if he liked it or not, I thought it turned out pretty good, but I'm not sure if he was really feeling it...I'll try to get some pictures up pretty soon. Also I'd like to thank the people came to help, Deanna M. a veery very talented artist, Ed Racho, Hung, Phil Thomas, Greg, Perry, all very talented artist and more importantly, good people.


Anyways, I hope all is good with you all, Merry (belated) Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!

here are a couple of newer things that I've been working on.

Comments and Criticism are welcome

Lots of doodles

Sketchbook Dump

Sorry for the lack of updates, I have been very busy...I'm colouring a few of these concepts right now...will post soon!

Concept, Orthographic drawing and 3D model

Mad Scientist

Couple of new characters I've been working on, I like the scientist, not so sure about the other guy, comments and critics are welcome

The Magic Bike

This is a bike that my big brother David just finished making, you can see him on the left in the picture with his family...pretty amazing stuff if you ask me...he's been building and taking things apart his whole life, I've always looked up to him, and tried to copy him. I got the taking things apart down pretty good, it was putting stuff back together that I always had problems with

Congratulations David, Amazing work!

Cyborg

this is just another concept drawing that I coloured...I'm going to start posting some other stuff soon, some character designs and stuff...so stay tuned!

-Gavin

Another creature!

this one I drew a long time ago, and I finally got around to colouring it

Emily and another fairy

A picture of my lovely girlfriend sleeping, the other is a fairy drawing I did that I liked

a creature concept I'm working on

Subway Sketches

A couple of pictures from subway sketching a week or two ago and a self portrait

I'm Back!

Hey everyone, I decided to start up my blog again to show some of my new work, get some feedback, encoragement etc. etc.

I want to thank everyone for their encouragement and for helping me get to the point I'm at right now...Obviously when you decide to get into a field such as this, you've chosen a long and often difficult path. That's why it's so nice to meet people who are further along than you who are willing to stop and help you out from time to time when you don't know where to go next.

Two people who I owe the majority of my development to thus far are Werner Zimmerman, my life drawing teacher at Seneca College, and Bobby Chiu, from Imaginism Studios. I want to thank them for seeing something in me and pushing me to get there. I'm not there yet! But I'm on my way, and like I tell people all the time, as long as you keep walking down that road you're eventually going to reach your destination.

Anyways, I'll stop rambling now...

here are a couple of things I've been working on...the fairy is for Bobby's new fairies book, which you can order at his site www.imaginismstudios.com as well as a lot of other cool stuff, so check it out