Metahuman Disappearing Hair Fix

Exhibition

My drawing "In Shadow/Felix" will be on display at the Salmagundi Club (http://www.salmagundi.org/index.cfm) as part of the annual non-members group exhibition. The Exhibition runs from July 31st to August 11th. The closing reception will be on Friday, August 11th (7-9pm). Congrats to all the artists who were accepted into the exhibition.

Charlene-short process

In keeping up with trying to be frequent with my blog posts, here is another short process on my drawing of my friend Charlene. I began with the basic block-in and refining my line until the drawing resembles the model. Once the line work is done, i began shading in with both light and dark tones at the same time. The first photo was taken with my cell phone (left) and the second image (right) was scanned which is why the quality looks different. The drawing was done on Canson Mi-Tienes pastel paper using graphite for the darks and white pastels for the lights.

Jenny-short process

It's been a while since my last blog update. Geez, a year! Looks like i slacked off a bit so time to get back on track. Good? Good. This is a quick rundown of how i put this piece together. I used Canson Mi Tienes Pastel Paper. With paper, for me, it boils down to preference and effect. I like the texture of this brand of pastel paper. It has well balanced tooth on the smooth side of the paper but also has a heavier tooth on the opposite side. I prefer drawing in the pad as opposed to cutting down large single sheets due to the fact that sheets are sold with labels glued to them which leaves a sticky residue when you peal them off.
This was drawn using soft graphite and white pastel pencils. I started off with the line drawing. Shading does'nt start until the line drawing is as close to accurate as i can make it. Both light and dark tones were done at the same time. Traditionally, this is a no-no but...rules were made to be broken in Eddie World. lol. It's easier for me to balance the light and shadow working both tones at the same time. Normally i don't work this way but i used this method for this piece.
Click on the image for detail. The first image was taken with a cell phone and the second image was scanned which is why the resolution seems different. 'Til next time, peepz!

Angela Mitsuko aka SWIIISH

Painted in photoshop. This was supposed to be a sketch but ended up more refined than i thought. Couldn't help myself once the rhythm was on and the juices started flowin'.
I tested her with bangs and having only one sword. I liked how it worked but the free-flowing hair made sense to me.

Connie Quasar

This is a commissioned piece based off of artist Scott Williams' character who will be featured in Witch Hunter #20 by Monarch Comics. This piece will be the back cover. Painted in photoshop.

GAZE

"Gaze"
graphite on paper
18x24

Witch Hunter Characters Part 1

This is progression/step by step process of a couple pieces i painted for the comic book series "Witch Hunter" by Monarch Comics, as well as a sketch of The Woman in Black and some prelims.

Here is an early quick sketch of Witch Hunter painted in photoshop.

Some gray tones added. 

I decided to expand the image and turn it more into an action pose instead of a head portrait. Using the crop tool. i increased the size and sketched in the torso and arm.

 

Still not satisfied with the piece, i felt that more of a story could be told by adding The Woman in Black's face to the background. Being one of Witch Hunter's nemesis', it made sense to add her. Here is where things changed. Although i was happy with the idea of The Woman in Black, her head pose seemed to be distracting my eyes away from the main character, so i decided to scrap that idea and paint in a new face (explained in part 2). 

I didn't want to fully scrap The Woman in Black so i decided to give her a standalone image. I used a soft round brush for the overall image and a textured brush for her clothing.

A little darkening to keep the focus on her face. A few touch-ups and some texture added. And she is finished.

The Woman in Black sketch
painted in photoshop

My sketch for the upcoming Monarch Comics Chronicles horror magazine on Halloween.
You can see more of The Woman in Black at the www.monarchcomics.comwebsite and on their facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/monarch.comics

Progress shots for "Backside"

A quick update. Here is a progress shot of "Backside" from graphite drawing to oil painting.

New Book!!!

I am happy to announce the release of my new book, 
Drawings & Sketches!! :)

It's a collection of drawings with some never-before-seen. It's available for purchase at the link below. Enjoy! :)

                         Drawings & Sketches by Eddie Torres

       

Battlechasers: Brass Demur step-by-step

It's been a while since my last post. Does not mean i haven't been working because i have! Goodies are on the way. :) Here's a piece that i neglected for some time. It's a character from Joe Madureira's Battlechasers comic series. One of the characters was Brass Demur. Won't get into the details of the character because it's better if you read the books for yourself and enjoy learning about who these characters are. I would like to do a few more of the characters as fan art like this one.
...on to the step by step......

1-I started out with a quick pose. He had to look tough but somewhat at ease. I used head counts to keep my proportions correct.

2-Rather than having his hands at his sides, i placed them on his belt line. 

3-I tried to give him a 'rhythm' but not feeling his pose. Looks more like he's posing for a fashion mag instead of seeming like a warrior. Once i got the muscle definition down, i dropped a gray tone 'overlay' over the figure.

 4-With the gray overlay added, i began to 'erase' out the highlights/whites and painted in a black background for blending purposes. Gave him an 'at ease' pose as you would find in a martial arts class. After all he is a martial artist.
5-Now that i have the pose i want, i can focus on the blending of the form. I cropped the bottom in to see more of the actual standing pose and his belt and added some reflective light.
6-Refining the muscle tone and pants.

 7-Here you see the left arm's proportions adjusted.
8-Detail and tone added to the figure and pants. An overall rounding of the form.
9-Finishing of the left arm and some 'small details'

 10-More refining
11-Color added to the eyes and pants
12-Highlights for the pants

 13-Tattoos added. It was tricky for me to get the right 'golden' look of the tattoos. They had to match the color of the original comic character's but also had to seem somewhat realistic. I created to 2 layers (a flat yellow green and an orange) and set them both to overlay. All hand painted using the airbrush, smear tool and eraser.
14-Blue overlay.
15-Color added to the reflective light and highlights added to give shine to the gold tattoos

Brass Demur painted in Photoshop

Head study for "Gaze"

This one is a head study for an upcoming piece i'm working on. It will be a full figure piece with a bit of a theme to it. The head study was done in graphite and white pastel. Leads used for the darks were F, HB, B & 2B. The white pastel is Derwent colorsoft which allows for a very smooth blend. Paper used was Canson Pastel Paper (gray toned). The line process took me a few days and the shading probably about 2 days. 

Poets and Artists

My portrait drawing of artist Sonja Ljubicic is featured in issue 37, August 2012 issue of Poets and Artists Magazine. Info on my process for this particular drawing as well as my bio/info and Sonja's bio/info are included in the article.

Sonja step-by-step

             

This is a basic step by step for my new piece, "Sonja". Drawn in graphite using Canson 11x14 Sketch Paper. Other tools used: Kneaded eraser, Graphite Pencils (H, F, HB and B), Eraser Pencils.

After laying down my line work, which consists of loose rendering, i refine the lines until they are as close to accurate as possible and erase the stragglers because they distract me. Once most of the stragglers are gone, i begin shading. I don't stick with one method because it becomes boring and stale and keeps me from experimenting and learning. Breaking tradition is a good path to expressing your own individual self. ;) I began by laying in some of the darkest darks (eyes and a bit in the hair). From there i went into light shading and worked into building and turning the form from light to dark.

Using an eraser, i lift out areas around the eyes and side of the face to establish the reflective light. I tried to stick with the original idea of 'Sonja's hood' but scrapped that idea and went for a full head and hair. The second idea was to have a long ponytail which i really loved. But i wanted to keep the light on the back of her neck and had to sacrifice the long hair for a bun, which made more sense. 

-Ed

Backside 2

Here's a quick sketch i did in the tradition of my original version of 'Backside'. While working on other projects tends to tighten you up, i thought it would be more relaxing to loosen up with a quick sketch based on an old drawing with a slight difference while using a different medium. The paper i used was Canson Pastel paper. The paper has a rough and smooth side. This was drawn on the smooth side using red and white chalk as well as white pastel. Mild finger blending in the buttock area but the rest was drawn loose. The white pastel was more oil based and held stronger after the drawing was sprayed with a fixative (which fades out white chalk). 

Rodin's 'Adam' - Study

This one is based on Auguste Rodin's 'Adam'. To many, considered one of the greatest sculptor's of all time. I left this one 'unfinished' to a degree where you can see my basic starting point of loosely drawing the figure up to light shading and final shading. It's a small piece, but one of those loosely based drawings that i enjoy having fun without getting too tight and technical. Freeform takes the edge and seriousness of completing a fully rendering drawing with all the artist rules intact. This is one of those that keeps me in artistic shape without committing to anything too serious. I used Canson Sketch paper which is partially smooth and has just enough tooth to soak up the graphite well.                                          

Lindita

 I used the same paper i used for my 'INFERNICUS' piece. Canson Sketch pad on acid free paper. The only tool i used for blending were the pencils (Kimberly Graphite Pencils 2H, H, HB, B) i normally use and a little finger blending near the left cheek and chest. The texture of the paper is semi-smooth/rough. Good for smooth blending but eats up your HB's and B's. I prefer a little bit more tooth. Using this pad was an experiment at the time but as i got deeper into the drawing, it became finished work. The Canson pad is great but i don't think the Kimberly Graphite pencils hold up well with it. I'm happy with the drawing and finished just in time for Lindita's birthday. :)

INFERNICUS

My 2nd rendition of Lucia Infernicus from Glenn Danzig's Verotik. I tried to find as many references as possible for her from my own personal collection and from online pics. I realized that she makes an appearance in Satanika Tales (an issue I don't seem to have). A handful of different artists have taken a stab a drawing her and as much as I liked all of them, I stayed with the 3 artists who I think captured her best for what I wanted to do. Those artists are Simon Bisley, Joe Chiodo and Dan Brereton.

           

           Bisley

Chiodo

Brereton

I also added, The Inquisitor, who is also a Verotik character. This particular one below was painted by Simon Bisley.

The first few stages of my drawing began with the full figure of Lucia with her hands behind her back. There were other ideas but this is the one that seemed to flow better. Sorry guys, didn't take pics. The pics i did take were of her face in step by step form.....

Here is a very quick sketch of the basic shape of the head, eye, nose and lips. This is where I establish the basic idea (although the full figure had been drawn and finished already) so I wasn't too serious about proportions just yet. Everything is basically light and loose. Also, basic light, shadow and reflective light were added. Keep in mind, this was an old drawing sitting around in my pad for some time, so my approach was somewhat different back then. I added what I know now to the finished work.

Here i started shaping the form of the face a bit more. I softened up the shape of her chin, established the lighting on her nose as well as making it thinner, rounded her eye socket and shaped her cheek bone. Now she looks like a girl. ;)

Thinned her cheek bone a bit so that her proportions were correct. Added the ear (which you see in the finished piece), detailed the lips and added the eyebrows. Here you see where i placed what are supposed to be scars on her face that stretch down from through her brow to under her eye. This was the last part of her face. The Inquisitor was done a little more loosely to not take away from her face which is basically the focal point of the drawing. The lettering was done with Roman lettering in mind based on the Trajan system that they used for coins. I wanted the lettering to look like it was carved and a bit sloppy so i did it by hand without using a ruler. 

DARK EYES step-by-step (animated)

  

(Above) Dark Eyes finished painting in Photoshop

(Below) Animated step-by-step

THE WOMAN IN BLACK Step-by-step

This is the original preliminary sketch for the The Woman in Black painting. To save space, I merged most of the original files and wasn't able to get them back. I still remember my process and this will be a close to exact way of how I pieced it together.

I started painting in the face very loosely (see prelim image) in gray tones then began to smooth the edges of the face (using a soft airbrush set to low opacity) to get as realistic as possible while making sure my proportions were correct or close to correct. Photo ref used for the face only to capture the model's likeness. The rest of the painting is from imagination except for the costume and character which belong to Monarch Comics.

Once the face was finished, I painted in the basic form using a soft brush without pen pressure. Tried to keep the proportions as close to the model's as possible. She'd probably kill me if I didn't. ;P

This was the original version that I scrapped. The idea was to have the orb glowing while Witch Hunter was trapped inside but the idea had already been done and I think my version would have taken away from The Woman in Black's face which I wanted to be the main focus.

After scrapping the orb idea, the 2nd idea had her with more authority where her hands would be behind her back but that idea bothered me because it didn't show off the rest of her costume...

...so i made her arms visible. It still showed her as authorative and confident. Basic shape of her cape added.   This was the finished idea and now for the details.

Tightening up of the wristbands, right arm, neck and hips as well as the proportion of the head on the left side.

The details of the cape were added using the airbrush in Photoshop set to different sizes with Pen Pressure 'on'.

After the first underpainting was done in gray tone, a second underpainting was added to significant parts of the figure. Everything in black would be kept standard to bring out the background light that i add later towards the end of the piece. The flesh tone was as close as possible to model Cristi Duncan's skin complexion. Lips, skin tone and wristband colors all set to Pen Pressure 'off'.

After the 2 underpaintings were done, now it was time to add a finishing layer. I tinkered with the idea of having a blood red as you see in the first image, but it seemed too warm for her cold, dark stare. So i adjusted the color for something a little cooler and even though i liked both versions, they still didn't settle into her 'evil' demeanor and took away from the warm colors of the 2 underpaintings. These are the completed versions. I had deleted some of my layers so had to redo them for the purpose of this tutorial. :)

Fidgeting with color, i was blessed with one of those happy accidents that happen to some artists. While i was trying to find a nice warm color to fit the mood, i adjusted into some cooler ones and came across a bluish tone that enhanced the character in the correct way. It brought out the underpainted colors properly, and told the story that i wanted to tell. Cold, dark, evil but yet beautiful.

After the final overlay had been set, some background lighting was added as well as highlights to give the form of the figure some depth and i had my finished piece.