ART CONTEST!

That's right an ART CONTEST! One of my fellow artists called me up the other day and suggested we pick a topic and have a friendly little art competition. I thought it was a great idea. Competitions help us push each other as artists and when a contest is themed as this one is. It forces you into new territory and you might just find yourself out of your comfort zone.

So here we go the first ever Crystal Clear Art Contest has officially begun and since its Halloween, the theme is "The Living Dead" Zombies, Vampires, John McCain, whatever. Its up to you. Whatever style you want, whatever medium you want, However abstract or realistic you want to be, its up to you. All art must be emailed to me at adam@crystalclearart.com by Halloween 10.31.08 I will post the entries I get and we will leave it up to the general public to vote for the winner. I will make sure you get credit for your piece and link to your site so people can see more of your work.

My friend and fellow artist Mike Damico has offered to print the winners art on canvas and frame that bad boy up in all its glory. If you don't win and still want this to happen (or want anything else printed or framed) you can go about it the old fashion way and pay for it. You can't beat his companies price and quality. Trust me. View his site here... I will also do a little article showcasing the art here on my site discussing the winner in more detail along with other pieces they have done. And besides, you get to draw Zombies and that's fun! So get started people!


NOTE: The above art is not mine (I'm not that good) it's from the very awesome "The Walking Dead" comic books which if you haven't read I suggest you go pick up a couple graphic novels, You'll get addicted to it...

Crystal Clear 3D Animated Intro

So now that I've been getting my feet wet making these speed drawing videos. I thought I would get a fancy 3d animated logo intro to put before them. I've always wanted one of those cool movie studio intros to use on my short movies. But since I have yet to get around to shooting said movies I have never had the need. But these speed drawings give me an excuse to be a little self indulgent. That and having my good buddy Keith Lackey hook me up. (Check out some of the movies he's worked on here.) They include everything from Happy Feet to Fantastic Four 2. He's also working on the new Hobbit movies and James Cameron's new flick Avatar. Anyway, I designed the logo of course and even added the sound but he did the coolest part. Modeling and animating it. PROPS TO MY BOY! I'm also now considering offering 3D creation to my customers with him at the helm. I'll have to see if there's a need for 3D logos out there. Hope you all like it. You'll be seeing this before all my videos now. Which by the way, my next speed drawing will be Angelina Jolie as Catwoman. So stay tuned for that.

Clive Owen as Marcus Fenix

UPDATE: Now in stunning HD! Go HERE to see it.

With the announcement that one of my favorite video games ( Gears of War ) will be made into a full on big budget Hollywood movie, I thought It would be fun to make that the target of my next speed drawing. I had heard that the games brilliant and way to cool for school designer Cliff Bleszinski had originally envisioned Clive Owen as one of the possible choices for the main protagonist Marcus Fenix. I know some fans are suggesting wrestlers, but come on, Have you seen the movies with wrestlers in them? If you have, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't...... please don't. Clive Owen is a great choice and was also my runaway choice for the new James Bond before they got Daniel Craig who still did a great job. Anyway, here is my concept sketch of Clive Owen as Marcus Fenix in the Gears of War movie. I hope you enjoy it.

The Ultimate Sacrifice

Here is a painting I did that was used in a Myspace theme. The goal was to deliver an edgy take on the Crucifixion. I opted for lots of paint splatters to show the gruesomeness of it while still keeping with the beautiful nature of what Jesus did for all of us sinners. Thanks for saving me Jesus!

Angelina Jolie Speed Sketch

Now that I've got my fancy new Cintiq Tablet (very cool check it out here) I decided it would be fun to start doing some "speed sketches" You see them all over YouTube. Some really good, some really bad. My first crack at it is just a VERY quick sketch of Angelina Jolie. I had the photo on hand for reference thanks to the image I used in the Sin City Poster which you can check out a few posts down. Anyway, like I said this one was just for practice. I needed to figure out how the capturing software worked and how to put music in, speed it up, all that stuff. Didn't want to draw something great and find out it didn't record or something. So enjoy for what this little 5 minute doodle is worth and look forward to more detailed and committed efforts soon :)

Fight the Devil

I love making propaganda posters. So much that I think this is the third one I've posted so far on this blog. Anyway, my good buddy Torrance Reed, (check out his sick work here as well as his version of the poster) did the awesome illustration of the preacher that I used. It was very cool collaborating with him on this piece and I had a good time with it. Hope you all like it. POWER TO THE PEOPLE!

Edgy Christian Designs

Here are a few of my more recent Christian themed designs I've done. I tried to make them a little more edgy than most Chistian designs turn out to be. I figure enough people in the world are making Jesus Loves You t-shirts already. I like these cause I think they reach out to a more teenage audience which can be difficult to reach. ( Whipper Snappers always listening to there loud rap music, LOL ) Anyway, hope you like them. I'm sure there will be more designs like these to come as the company who hired me to do these ( Stuph Clothing ) likes to keep me busy. Which I am of course grateful for. Enjoy!

Sin City Posters (Children close yours eyes)

My last post was a cute frog. So now the universe must be balanced by some edgy stuff. Okay, maybe not. But If there's one thing I pride myself on, its trying out new styles and growing my versatility as an artist. So here we have a couple Sin City posters I did for the next couple of planned movies. Now if you've seen the original Sin City, you either hate it or love it. There's no middle ground. I've always liked the comics due to Frank Millers amazing writing and stark black and white images. The stories are classic film noir with a new age spin which I liked alot. And they captured that in the movie perfectly. Are the stories bloody? Yes. Morally Corrupt? With the exception of a few noble characters.... Yes. But you can't deny its good writing and some really cool stylized visuals. The movie helped pave the way for another one of my favorite Frank Miller stories. (300) And so I felt like experimenting with that style a bit. So here we go. 2 Sin City Poster designs, One with Angelina Jolie as Ava Lord in A Dame To Kill For. The other is Johnny Depp as Wallace in To Hell and back. These are my dream castings for the parts that have yet to be cast. Plus, as a bonus... one old sketch of Nancy Callahan I did a good while back emulating Frank Millers style of hard black and whites with splashes of color. And now back to your regularly scheduled wholesome stuff....

Nekkid Frog Time!!

Soon, I'll be working on illustrating my first Children's book. It centers around a frog and his journey meeting other animal friends. It's a christian themed story that I'm excited to be a part of. I don't know much on the story yet, but I know there's a frog in it and that's enough for me to start drawing. Here's my first concept. I'm going to try to do the whole book in a pencil/watercolor style. Not sure if this will be the final design of the frog but I like it okay for my first crack at drawing something cute in a long while. I was inspired by the illustrations in the movie Lilo and Stitch. (My personal favorite non Pixar Disney movie) Now, my only real concern is whether he should wear frog clothes or not. LOL. Generally I consider any animal that walks on two feet to be human enough to be modest. Its a good rule when drawing cartoon animals. If they walk on all fours, they can be nekkid, If they walk upright, they should have some clothes on. But It just didn't seem right to put clothes on this frog. Ahhhh, the many difficult decisions an artist must face! It's a quick sketch but expect a more refined look when I start pumping out pages later this year.

Annivesary Art.... AwwwWWwww

Well, I've officially been married for 3 years. WOO-HOO! What you see below is one of the anniversary presents I gave to my beautiful wife Valerie. Cue the "AwwwWWwws" No more mushy stuff... on to the art!!! I did this with a combination of techniques. Traditional watercolor, Pen and Ink, and painting in photoshop with my trusting Wacom pen tablet. I wanted to do this piece completely traditional but it came down to a couple things.

When you're painting someones likeness you have to be pretty dead on, a slip of the brush and suddenly your subject has a uni-brow and looks nothing like they're suppose to. You counter this by working big so you have more room for detail. But this means more time, and time was not on my side. Besides, digital painting is cheaper, faster, less messy, and you can simply zoom in for you're detail work. But like I said, I did do some of it traditional with the black lines being inked (of course) and the background being watercolor. You can't really make it out, but in my original wash you can see some cool "sparkles" that I achieved by throwing some salt on my watercolor wash. It's a cool trick to add some detail or texture to your piece. (because the salt absorbs the pigment) give it a try sometime. You can finally mix the culinary arts with your paintings! Also your painting becomes edible so even if the picture stinks at least it'll be delicious :)

Everybodys Gone Surfin....

I was recently challenged to do a design that was at least 75% illustrated. Now as a graphic Designer, that's quite a bit. But It turned out to be a fun project. The final result is more like 98% illustrated. The only things that weren't done from scratch was the text and the circle at the bottom. Even the text is really more of a placeholder as it is intended to be a template design that will be changed out down the line many times. This was a great project that helped push me out of my comfort zone and force me to throw out the "bag of tricks" and just do it the old fashioned way. It was nice to spend more time in front of the drawing board than the computer screen for a change. The only thing I would alter on this piece is the text. I'd like to do completely custom text. I'll get around to that one day... maybe. In the meantime, enjoy!

Microbursts Book Cover

Here is a project I just completed for a Christian book publisher. I'm now officially their "artist" and have many projects lined up with them this year including my first full blown Children's book. But for now, check out my first book cover for them. Its not really anything fancy but I think it works well. The main thing I'm proud of on this one is the illustration. I took a picture of my wife for reference and then tried to create an illustration that had some movement in it, not in the image per say, but in the actual line work and painting. The whole idea is about bursts of wind so I tried to carry over that theme to the painting. Check out the image below or view it on Amazon HERE.