pneuma

caricature-ized

2011-10-04T00:45:00.001-04:00

I know it has been a very long time since my last post! Life has been crazy and I just have not had much free time to give to art. I've been doing a lot of artwork for a new game that hopefully I will be able to show one day! However, that is not this day!

Here is a caricature I did of my fiance! I love it! She doesn't think it looks much like her though. I'll have to keep practicing, hehe. I thought it came out nice though, so I figured I would post it, since I haven't posted anything in many eons. Enjoy!

love means war - stefanotto

2011-05-24T14:00:00.001-04:00

This is the artwork that I did for my friend Stefanotto's album cover entitled Love Means War. He is both an inspirational person and a talented artist. I am happy to work with him! The album will be releasing on Monday, May 30th! You should totally check it out! Yesssss!

You can find him on twitter: @StefanOttomusic.

madden wii work

2010-09-09T19:24:00.003-04:00

Here are some character paintings that I did for Madden NFL Wii 10 and 11 for Electronic Arts. They were a lot of fun! Enjoy!

figure drawing

2010-08-19T22:25:00.004-04:00

Here are some figure drawings I did at work today. These were anywhere from one to fifteen minutes a piece. I am very grateful that my job still offers figure drawing classes. What a blessing!

loner update

2010-07-09T13:26:00.004-04:00

I had some time this week to color a drawing of the Loner character. I had to change his arm from the original drawing. I am pretty excited to see these characters in context and in action! Till next time! Shalom!

biblefox.com

2010-07-03T02:41:00.003-04:00

I painted this character for my friend's new website. It is called Biblefox! It's an online community for sharing thoughts about the Bible! You should check it out.

jeremiah 25:30

2010-06-01T01:51:00.004-04:00

I was asked by a friend of mine to submit artwork for a show he was putting together. The only requirement of the show was to work in pen and ink on plain old copy paper. Pretty fun if you ask me! I was pretty distracted these last couple weeks, however, so I only did a single drawing.

man of sorrows

2010-05-16T01:37:00.003-04:00

This is a quick sketch I did while hanging out with my friend today. I might turn it into something more polished one day. It is a depiction of the most amazing man to ever walk this earth, Jesus Christ! I can never seem to get myself to paint him with his eyes open. He terrifies me.

captain test

2010-04-04T00:44:00.006-04:00

Greetings! I haven't had much time to do art these days! Today, however, I was much encouraged to color up this drawing I did from a while back. He is another character from the comic I am developing with my brother. Enjoy, and Happy Easter!

group colors

2010-01-18T13:43:00.004-05:00

Hi there! Here are the colors for my previous post. Things are coming along! We are still trying to figure out what to call the comic. Once we come up with a name I will try to make some kind of title logo to stamp this picture with.

main characters line work

2009-12-31T16:43:00.007-05:00

Here is the line work for the five main characters in our comic! They're just hanging out! These are pretty close to being their final designs. I'll color this up soon.

new loner build

2009-11-06T21:09:00.006-05:00

Hello! I have been without a computer for a while now. Here is a quick look at the new build I've decided for the Loner character in our comic. His character is going to see many battles and so it seemed good to beef him up a little bit. Thanks for stopping by!

His old design can be seen here.

comic concept update

2009-09-04T01:42:00.007-04:00

Good morning! I'm very sorry for the long delay between posts. Here is some of the conceptual work I've been doing for the comic I'm working on with my brother. Things are moving along! My brother nearly has our first 6 issues roughed out! There is still a lot to do, however! So stay tuned for more updates in the future.

ogre concept tutorial

2009-07-11T18:49:00.010-04:00

Hello! I know it has been a long time. I've had a few people request a tutorial to show some of my process. So I put this together this afternoon. If there is anything anyone feels I left out, please feel free to let me know. I hope it is both informative and helpful!

june gamepro cover

2009-06-01T17:19:00.000-04:00

Greetings! This is the Gamepro cover from June 2009. I'm just posting it now for no reason other than it's neat to get artwork published! For this image I sculpted all three heads in Zbrush. That was the part I played, lol. Pretty cool though!

dominance war iv

2009-05-19T00:02:00.006-04:00

Well hello there! It has been a very long time since my last post and I apologize. But now you get to see what I've been up too!

I've been taking part in an online art contest known as the Dominance War. This is a huge competition with some of the most talented artists I've ever seen! It is a game art contest with both 2d and 3d challenges. Since I am focusing a lot on 2d these days I decided to try my hand.

As part of the 2d challenge I had to create a character based within the Dominance War universe. They gave us a short story and made available to us a list of races and classes to choose from. The big theme this year was demons. So what did I do? I went with the most overdone race and class there ever was. A Human Warlord. Haha!

Here is a link to My Online Thread at CGSociety that holds my progress for these last two months.

The final image did not at all come out like I had originally imagined. I ran into a ton of compositional issues throughout the process and made many compromises along the way. I learned a lot about my process that I can now improve upon. And I was reminded once again to flip the picture often to make sure your composition is strong. I got tunnel vision and forgot to do that with this one. However, in the end, it came out alright and I think the experience was worth it! Enjoy!

and another painting!

2009-04-10T01:23:00.003-04:00

Hello everybody! I know that I have not updated this blog in a long time. I've been extremely busy with an online art contest. When it is complete I'll be sure to post about it! Until then, be blessed!

more painting

2009-03-07T00:54:00.001-05:00

rufus

2009-02-25T23:17:00.005-05:00

The rufus is an animal that has black fur with blue spots on its legs and arms. Its tail is shaped like a brick which it uses to launch closets. An adult rufus may weigh more than 89 pounds and stand over 100 feet high.

ogre concept

2009-02-03T22:36:00.004-05:00

This is a concept painting I did for a friend of mine. It was just suppose to be some big monster guy with armor! It was a lot of fun and I think it came out pretty nice. I was also thinking of selling some prints of this sometime in the future. We'll see!

digital figure paintings

2009-01-23T23:32:00.005-05:00

disney sketches

2009-01-19T17:07:00.003-05:00

This past Monday I went with a friend of mine to draw at Disney's Magic Kingdom! I must say, it was great to have company!

radioactive

2009-01-09T19:50:00.002-05:00

Run for your lives! The radioactive worm slug thing is attacking! Hah! This is a 3 hour speed painting I did during training at work today!

the remainder

2008-12-30T20:16:00.006-05:00

I've added the Loner now! Not sure about the color scheme though!

Here is a quick look at the General character all colored up as well. I'm not even sure if I'll be sticking with his costume design at this point. But I decided to color him regardless! The color scheme is fun though. Hah!

the girl cell

2008-12-30T15:06:00.004-05:00

Here is the girl colored up using the cell shading style. Because these are going so quick I think I will try to knock out the other two characters today. Stay tuned!

droid cell look

2008-12-29T12:58:00.003-05:00

Here is another attempt at cell shading. I'm starting to kick myself for running out of room in my original drawings and not drawing the feet as a result. Next time I'll flip the page vertical to draw! So again, I'm trying to decide if I'll go this route with coloring the comic. We shall see as I am not fully convinced yet.

cell shaded study

2008-12-18T03:26:00.005-05:00

I'm going to try a number of different ways to color these characters to determine the most efficient and pleasant path to take for the comic! This is actually the first time I've made anything cell shaded! More to come!

comic genesis

2008-12-14T16:34:00.006-05:00

So recently I've been designing these characters for a comic I am making with my brother! My brother is coming up with the story for the purpose of giving me something to draw. Great guy! I must say that I am very excited about this. We decided on a fun setting and time period in which to place the story and now I begin the concept phase!

Here are the beginnings of the five main characters! I plan on posting updates here on the progress of the comic. Everything from location designs and prop designs to villain designs! All coming soon! Actually, first my brother has to tell me what those things will be, and then I'll draw that stuff. Stay tuned!

bearded

2008-12-06T14:04:00.005-05:00

Hello world! Here is a painting I did for my brother this morning! He asked for a 'drawing' of himself with his late beard. I'm not sure why I did a painting instead, other than I somehow thought that's what he was implying.

This painting took three hours. It was a lot of fun!

exosquad

2008-11-14T19:39:00.007-05:00

Our training theme at work today was 'Your Favorite TV Character'. I don't know if any of you remember Exosquad, but I thought it would be super cool to draw one of those characters. Now, this is JT Marsh, and even though he's not my 'favorite' of the Exosquad gang, I thought he had a pretty cool haircut! So I chose him.

Also, it was my intention to create an image that was fun with dramatic foreshortening. It could still be pushed farther, of course, but I am pleased with the result.

You may also view a process gif by clicking here.

coming soon...

2008-11-09T00:46:00.005-05:00

I have plans to make a website! Now I'm not sure how soon I'll have it up and running, but at least now I have a splash page! Check it out! www.numabrush.com. The website will serve as a more specific online portfolio, while this blog will cover all the fun stuff found along the way!

I made two different variations, but I decided to go with the black background version. I like them both for different reasons. Who knows, maybe I’ll alternate them!? It holds a similar design to the actual header of this blog. Look close! It's the same leaf!

I recently went to visit some friends in KC and I got to spend some time at Hallmark. I saw so many twirly vine things that I decided to have them growing out of the bottom of my leaf! I'm not the strongest designer, but a man has to start somewhere! Hah!

expressions

2008-11-05T00:19:00.003-05:00

These are some expression studies from the other day. The more I look at them the more I laugh! It was certainly good practice! What's with the Mr. T hair cut?? Hah!

a day at disney

2008-10-28T00:19:00.003-04:00

This past weekend I went with a friend of mine to the wonderful Epcot Center! Because Epcot has such an awesome variety of architecture it never gets boring! The tough part is finding a shady place to draw from because it gets really hot! I almost melted from the heat last time I went. This time I was able to find an awesome spot with an amazing breeze to just draw for hours! Here are some pages from my sketchbook.

rabbitz

2008-10-22T22:20:00.006-04:00

This is a quick painting done in response to a certain Jen asking about rabbits. Hah! I amuse myself! I painted from a crazy bunny photo found in a google search. Hilarious!

cyborg juan

2008-10-11T23:48:00.007-04:00

A co-worker of mine, Juan Chavez, asked me to design him as a character. This turned out to be a real challenge because he gave me complete freedom. I thought the freedom would be awesome, but it was so painful! I had such a hard time trying to figure out how to make him look.

I enjoyed working with the colors the most. I feel the weapon design leaves something to be desired, but hopefully when Juan creates this guy in 3D he’ll make some fixes where my design is falling short! Go Juan!

sketches for a bust

2008-10-07T19:07:00.008-04:00

I'm going to be sculpting a bust over the next 7 or 8 weeks as part of an open sculpture class I'm taking. Today I did some preliminary sketches to help determine the look I am going for. I wanted essentially to sculpt a beautiful woman with long fun hair. I'm not sure which one I'm going to go with, so we'll see! I plan on posting the final sculpt when I'm done.

some figure

2008-10-02T18:34:00.003-04:00

Today we had a figure drawing session at work. It was a blast! The gestures were anywhere from 30 seconds to 1 minute. The more rendered sketches were from 5 to 10 minutes. I used ballpoint pen on copy paper. (forgot my newsprint at home)

those eyes

2008-09-26T23:35:00.011-04:00

I did this in the morning at work during our speed session. This one's from a mirror and I love it! Working from life creates such unique results. This isn't a perfect representation of me, but you can see the likeness for sure, and that is what makes working from life so awesome. No two drawings are the same! There is always a new interpretation! Yea!

abandoned circus

2008-09-26T23:28:00.004-04:00

This was a three hour speed painting I did as a part of a work training session. It was a blast!

I started painting some rough thumbnails to zero in on my composition. I also created some custom brushes within photoshop to speed up the process. This was very exciting for me because I do not paint landscapes often. I may post some tutorials on how I created the photoshop brushes if there is some interest.

wonderful forms

2008-09-26T23:18:00.006-04:00

So along with the human body, I absolutely love all the different creatures and animals that fill this earth. I find them to be another source of endless inspiration for the imagination! Just look at the Ninja Turtles. What an amazing concept. Add some ooze to any animal and you got a brand new character! Endless possibilities I tell you, endless!!!

These animals were just painted from some photos I googled. I found the shark to be a very fun challenge to recreate. The horse is pulsing with strength and the rhino is so heavy his shadow is slouching!

the barton!

2008-09-26T23:16:00.003-04:00

This is a co-worker of mine. Haha! Bless him!

wrinkle flow

2008-09-26T23:12:00.003-04:00

We went through four sessions of cloth training at my work a couple months ago. This sketch was from the first session where we studied how wrinkles work in cloth on a live model! This was a lot of fun.

foot study

2008-09-26T23:09:00.004-04:00

This is a study for a foot I painted in 2 hours as a part of a training session at my work. Wonderful colors to work with!

the general

2008-09-26T23:02:00.003-04:00

This is yet another character from the workings of my story. This guy is a mighty hero! I'll probably talk more about him on another occasion!

I can't go very long without doing a character design, what can I say?

tmnt

2008-09-26T22:51:00.003-04:00

This painting was birthed out of a challenge given to me from my friend Nate! He's one of the coolest people I know by the way:) Check out his site! [http://www.studion8.com/]

We were talking one night and remembering those days as kids when we would go nuts drawing from the richness of our imaginations. (And also how awesome the Ninja Turtles were!) Then we were kicking ourselves, asking where our love for making art had gone. Then Nate challenged me to a drawing duel and called me out. We had a couple days to create a Ninja Turtle drawing that comes from the same creative source as our childhood, uncompromising and rich imagination!

handsome fellow

2008-09-26T22:35:00.004-04:00

So these were some portrait studies I did of yours truly. They were created using a combination of Photoshop and Painter. I've found that each program offers unique strengths. You can tell these were created from photographs because I'm not actually looking at the camera.

My goal here wasn't to create some 'incredible' artwork, but to study color and value. I learned much about light and how it decays from the top of the forehead to the bottom of the chin, and also I got a neat glimpse at the different colors found within our skin!

ninja prophet

2008-09-26T22:24:00.003-04:00

I'm a big fan of character designs. I use to draw characters all day growing up. Those were the days; the imagination was completely free and flowing with ideas! Take us back to those days!

So this guy was pretty fun to design. He's supposed to be some kind of prophet ninja...but really there is no reason to assume this character is anything but a ninja... if that even! Hah! He certainly doesn't resemble any prophet I've seen. ...and I've seen a few:)

robo dude

2008-09-26T22:16:00.003-04:00

This guy is from a story I'm creating. I'd tell you about him, but then... you know. I hope to one day format the story as a graphic novel.

I find it easier to create organic shapes with paint, but hard and straight edged surfaces would drive me crazy. I would always seem to lose the gesture that's found in the original sketch. Because of this I would often avoid drawing things like this guys machine gun arm. I'm not even sure how this painting got finished...I mean...for sure I should of stopped at that gun and thrown my computer out of the window in frustration. Hah!

enjoying painter

2008-09-26T22:04:00.003-04:00

In this scenario I scanned a drawing from my sketchbook which I thought had some potential. Ahh, I love potential! Once you see it you become gripped with vision which then carries you to the conclusion of your painting! Haha, I've tried so many times to work through those paintings that go bad from the beginning and they never get finished. ...unless of course, I see that potential along the way!

From the scanned image I brought it into Painter 8 and painted away. I remember learning a lot from this painting...but I can't quite remember what at the moment.

the figure

2008-09-26T21:50:00.005-04:00

So what kind of art blog would this be if we didn't have figure drawings! Man, I can't get over how awesome the human body is.

There is such beautiful design, lovely symmetry, wonderful form and balance! Even the skin tone carries with it a multitude of colors, if you look closely, that make it one of the most extravagant things an artist can explore! There is so much diversity even within different types of lighting and poses that the human form creates what could be an endless source of inspiration for an artist:) Hah! Yea!

face study

2008-09-26T21:41:00.006-04:00

These were some quick face studies I painted to test a certain color palette. I also learned a lot about the different blending options within Corel Painter 8 and began to challenge myself to paint less with lines and more with value! I remember experiencing some lovely freedom when I no longer felt bound to lines to define form:)

If you look closely, the color scheme in both paintings is exactly the same. The one on the top is simply inverted! I thought it looked cool:) Good times!

in the beginning...

2008-09-26T21:00:00.002-04:00

Hello World!

I've been encouraged to create this blog as a type of journal to record this gift of creating art! There is just so much to discover, learn and enjoy through the venue of art that it felt foolish not to record it in some manner.

It's my hope that you find yourself encouraged from your visit! So please, grab a coffee, sit back and let’s find out where this thing goes!

Time to get started!

Be blessed!
Matt