Weird Science

By Paolo Rivera

WEIRD SCIENCE #32 COVER. 2013.

Ink on bristol board, 13 × 19″.

Mondo Gallery in Austin, Texas is hosting a show that honors EC Comics and Tales from the Crypt. "It Didn't Rot Our Brains" runs from October 25 through November 23 and I'm happy to be included among the many artists. Although I've always been a fan of the Crypt Keeper (who is rumored to be based on a RISD professor) I went the sci-fi route and did a tribute to Wallace Wood, one of my favorite comic book artists. I like to think that, like him, I take draftsmanship seriously (and little else).

I inked this cover myself since it was for a show and they needed it quickly (my Dad, Joe Rivera, usually inks my work). That being the case, I "penciled" it digitally in Photoshop and printed it out in blue-line, then went straight to inking. I used a Winsor & Newton Series 7 #6 brush for everything but the lettering, which was penned with a Speedball B-6 nib. Holbein Drawing Ink is my ammunition of choice, which provides a rich black and dries to a waterproof finish.

blue-line print of digital "pencils"

Pictured above is a darkened version of what I actually inked over. Converting to blue-line is easy with an adjustment layer in Photoshop set to "Colorize" — this turns every layer below to the same hue, which can be then be adjusted according to taste. Below is a screenshot of my typical setting: Hue - 196, Saturation - 100, and Lightness +94.

HSB adjustment layer

Prior to that is the rough sketch stage where my primary concern is composition and legibility. I always distribute the main elements to separate layers so I can nudge them into position, or scale them if need be. This is also where I lay in a perspective template that helps keep all the technical aspects aligned. Since this was a tribute cover (with the full support of the Bill Gaines estate) I used the trade dress from an actual Wood cover to frame my own work. Their only request was that I use an issue number that wasn't already taken.

digital sketch with trade dress

Since this was not for publication (and only pays if it sells), the approval process was pretty lax — and so I dashed off a few rough layouts with quick descriptions of what was going on. Of course, now that I did them, it makes me want to draw an entire series.

The whole process, start to finish, took 30 hours, half of that being inking. Because of the tight schedule, I didn't have time to color the original, but I still hope to color it digitally at some point. Of course, if the art doesn't sell, I'll just get it back and finish it up with watercolor and touches of gouache.

In space, no one can hear you sigh.

The New Year isn't looking so good for our commander.

The White Test

This post is already a few years old now, but it seems to be making the rounds again, and rightfully so.



Before Muddy Colors existed, artist Jonathan Linton posted an article on his blog detailing the results of his 'White Test' experiment. Jonathan sampled dozens of different brands of white oil paint, let them age for 5 years, and then rated them on much they yellowed over the years. The results may shock you!



I, for one, am changing my brand of white immediately.



Want to know what the best white is? The worst one? Read the entire article, and see the results at Jonathan's blog HERE.

Happy Birthday To Us!

Muddy Colors turns 3 years old today!



Over the past 3 years, we have never missed a single scheduled day. That's more than ONE THOUSAND posts detailing our paintings, our process, our failures, and our inspiration. Somehow, after all that time, this amazing group of contributors still manages to share something insightful week after week.



There have been some real gems scattered throughout the last 3 years of posts. How many of the 1000 have YOU read? Here are some of my favorite, and some of the most popular posts, you may have missed:



Our very first public post on October 25, 2010, by Arnie Fenner:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2010/10/hit-beach.html



Greg Manchess' first "10 things" post, which has since turned into one of my favorite recurrent posts on the entire blog:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/03/10-things-to-remember-about-training.html



The inimitable Adam Rex tells us how he crafts one of his award-winning picture books:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/04/how-i-make-picture-book.html



Serge Birault gives us tips on how to make your digital paintings look more like real paint:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/07/how-to-emulate-oil-painting-with-your.html



The introductory post to 'Dragon Fortnight', 2 weeks of nothing but dragon-themed posts:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/09/enter-dragon.html



How to build a free website in less than 10 minutes (seriously!):

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/05/how-to-make-free-website-in-less-than.html



The ever aloof, and amazingly talented, Paul Bonner graces us with a guest post:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/09/guest-blogger-paul-bonner.html



In one of my favorite posts ever, Chris Moeller talks about those incredibly difficult years immediately following art school:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/05/life-after-art-school-five-years-to.html

Jesper Ejsing shares his entire process in an in-depth 2-part post:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/04/griffin-vs-blood-demon.html

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/05/by-jesper-ejsing-this-article-is.html

One of our most popular posts of all time, Jordu Schell proves that nothing goes viral quite like Star Wars fan art:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/05/jordu-schell-grand-moff-tarkin.html



Eric Fortune starts a great dialogue asking if Art School is even worth it any more:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2010/12/is-art-school-worth-it_24.html



A quick rundown of some of my favorite art books from 2010:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2010/12/best-art-books-of-2010.html

Arnie Fenner gives us an inspirational glimpse at what some of our favorite artists were doing BEFORE they were our favorite artists:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/05/beginnings.html

Our very first "Crit-Submit", where we revised our reader's art (which I promise will make a return someday soon!)

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/03/crit-submit-1.html



Todd Lockwood does a 2-part guest post, and blows us all away with his comprehensive understanding of Curvilinear Perspective:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/06/todd-lockwood-curvilinear-perspective.html

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/06/todd-lockwood-curvilinear-perspective_03.html



Justin Gerard, always in search of better methods and mediums, shares his experiences with traditional oil paints vs. water soluable oil paints:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/05/new-fangled-water-mixable-oils-vs-old.html



A posthumous homage to one of the greatest fantasy artists to ever live:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/03/i-moebius.html



10 different artist's takes on the same subject, shows us that even old ideas can still prove innovative:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2011/03/eowyn-and-nazgul.html



A comprehensive step-by-step on how to professional photograph your artwork:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/12/how-to-photograph-your-paintings.html



Donato instills us all with a little bit of hope, as he shares the progression of his work from age 10 and up:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/01/humble-beginnings.html



Paolo Rivera discusses one of the most important, and under appreciated, aspects of any painting, Presearch!

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/12/presearch-part-1-of-3.html

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/01/presearch-part-2-of-3.html

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2013/02/presearch-part-3-of-3.html



Last but not least, the last known videos of Moebius drawing:

http://muddycolors.blogspot.com/2012/08/moebius-drawing.html



So what were some of your favorite posts? Please share with us in the comments section!

Huor and Hurin Approaching Gondolin - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion

-By Donato

Ever since I was handed The Hobbit to read as a 13 year old, the world of Middle-earth has been at the core of my imaginative being. J.R.R. Tolkien's writings and epic trials of his characters have been much on my mind these past years as my skills have grown, my aesthetics matured, and my thoughts turn to those stories which transcend time. I am now at a phase of my career where I have the technical ability and emotional sensitivity to make real those visions which normally confound and frustrate a young artist. I have become a bit more fearless in embracing major projects and revel in the challenges they present.

Niagara Falls  Fredrick Church

This painting speaks to many passions I hold, from that of being an artist, a dreamer, a story teller, and a fan of Middle-earth. Drawing on my love of the Hudson River school landscape artists, it was pure pleasure to undertake this monumental work both in homage to the art of Albert Beirstadt and in celebration of the writings of J.R.R. Tolkien. I could not have stepped into this realm of landscape work without the sublime discovery of Fredrick Church's Niagara Falls at the Corcoran Gallery in Washington DC years ago.  I will never forget walking into that room, transfixed by the painting on the wall.  It was the first time I really saw a landscape painting and the emotional weight it could deliver.  Church displayed such beauty, awe, and technical brilliance in bringing that geological wonder to life through oil paint. 

Lander's Peak  Albert Beirstadt

Those emotions were a part of why and how I wanted to tackle this commission, and a reason for its scale - my image is nearly identical in size to a masterwork of the Hudson River School, that of Lander's Peak by Albert Bierstadt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.



Specifically, my mountainous scene comes from The Silmarillion and features a forefather of Elrond, Huor, rescued with his brother from the minions of Morgoth and transported to the hidden realm of Gondolin by the eagles.  An act of kindness, discovery and wonder all wrapped into one!



It was only through working upon a painting of this scale that I could really appreciate the accomplishments of what those landscape artists achieved in their work.  I will be forever humbled by this journey.



The painting is my largest to date in an attempt to convey the wonder and majesty of Tolkien's Middle-earth, but it will certainly not be my last. Keep your eyes open here and on my website for more epic interpretations of Middle-earth to come in the future!



Enjoy!



P.s Prints are now being proofed for those Tolkien fans who want a piece of the hidden elf kingdom.

http://www.donatoart.com/mofcart/giclee.html#gondolin

Huor and Hurin Approaching Gondolin   Oil on Linen   112" x 77"   Donato Giancola

Advocate of the Beast

-By Jesper Ejsing

This is a magic card artwork for a card named Advocate of the Beast. The assignemnt asked for an elf riding a giant beast off panel. He should be agressive and determined.

I made a couple of thumbs with way too much beast included, and ended up with a sketch that focused mainly on the elf. I sketched to figure more detailed concentration on the pose, the expression and the equipment. I was quite happy and started to transfer it to watercolor for painting. I went for a cup of coffee and when I returned and looked again I got that strange uneasiness in the stomach, not from the coffee, mind you, but from doubt. As soon as Doubt stuck its ugly head up and announced himself a player, there is no turning back for me. The only way to stuff him back down into the mud is by starting all over. The reason I started doubting was because of small unclarities in the pose. He was turned away from the line of action of the beast. It looked like he was tilting out of balance. I did the only right thing: acted the pose out on stage. In this case, stage is the studio floor. My roommate took a fuzzy photo and I resketched the pose. I noticed from the photo that the torso needed better foreshortening to make him more hunched and I changed the hand holding the staff to be more dynamic. Also the face pointing in the direction of the chest helped to show him more solid standing, less dancing, if you know what I mean.



The final grey version here is the one I was painting on top. My idea for the armor was that most of it was made or material from the forest like bark strapped together like a Duffel Coat. The staff is made from a large leg bone of a giant animal and the morningstar-like balls is made of bones too. Keep it all naturell. I also gave him a little flute-mouthpiece that he could use perhaps to control the beast by sound with. The “Rope” he holds as reins is made of his own old braids.



I spend most of the time on this painting on shifting the colors around on his face. Somehow it constantly skewed around for me. One eye dropping or seemed to small and then all of a sudden he squinted. I do have a mirror on the top of my desk in which I hold the painting once in a while to see it in revers. It is the analog way of “Flipping image horizontally”. Usually it is enough for me to hold it op once in a while to spot the mistakes you make from painting something you know. The image in your head is clear and somehow it cheats the brain to not carefully look at what you are actually painting, cos the brain knows better. Flipping makes the mind reboot and forcing it to see the image anew. It has really saved me a lot of skewed faces.



I deliberately chose the colors to be very warm and yellow greenish. But to avoid it becoming too flat I had a cold blue tone to bounce of his chest and in the shadow part of the hair rope.

10 basic tips to keep your website or blog safe from any Google Panda updates

10 Simple and basic ways to avoid any panelty for your blog from Google updates ( Panda/ Penguine) 

Google Panda is a modification to Google’s search algorithm which makes it possible for users to find content that is relevant to their searches pushing down the low quality or inferior sites. It’s done by ranking sites based on their quality and content. However, in recent times many sites have suffered as their ranks have dropped. And that could well be because of the latest updates from Google, namely Panda or Penguin.

Google Panda in particular has brought about dramatic changes in website ranks and thereby the search result for users. Websites that resort to spam links or content have been penalized and have seen their ranks drop. Clearly, Google Panda has stricter guidelines when it comes to the quality of links and content on a website.

In fact, it has various updates that can tackle following issues:

• Websites that have low quality content.
• Websites with improper SEO structure
• Websites with useless pages.
• Poor grammar and duplicate content.
• Black Hat SEO techniques.
• Websites that load slowly.

Ways to prevent being hit by Panda update

Website owners and users who want to make sure they are not hit by Panda Update can do well by following a few simple tips that can help them immensely.

#1. Duplication of Content

Having duplicate content on your website is not helpful to your users and it can only get you into trouble with Panda update. Hence, if you have any duplicate content on your website you need to edit or rewrite it at the earliest to avoid future trouble.

#2. Significance of detailed content
Low traffic to your website is often due to poor quality and it’s an issue that needs to be addressed. You can start by using your analytical tools to gather more information about the pages that can be hit by Panda on account of low traffic. Once you have taken stock of these pages you can determine whether you want to

-> Add better quality content so that it can promote social interactions and increase organic traffic.

-> Or redirect pages that have poor quality content to another site.

#3. The importance of keyword density

When you create content for your website, due attention has to be paid to keyword density. You need to get a fair idea of the desired keyword density for SEO; it will help you ensure that keywords are used in an article only a certain number of times. When keywords are repeated more than the desired number of times then your website can become vulnerable to the impact of Google’s updates, especially Panda.

#4. Steer clear of Spam

Spam should be strictly avoided in terms of SEO. It’s important to get rid of poor quality content, spam articles from your website. You should also eliminate spam comments and links from your website as it will avoid the risk of being penalized. Relevant and useful information that’s free of spam on the other hand, can help you get more traffic. Search engines also look at such sites favorably and they gain credibility.

In a bid to get a large number of backlinks in a short time many tend to take the easier route and associate themselves with blacklisted websites. These blacklisted sites could have been banned because they use Black Hat SEO techniques or contain duplicate content. Unfortunately by linking your website to them you stand the risk of being penalized as well.

#5. Eliminate unnecessary tags, categories and pages from Google search
It can help you protect your website from the impact of Panda. When you get rid of unwanted tags, pages and categories using no-index or any other option for that matter, you can boost your site’s visibility and thereby improve its rank with search engines too.

#6. Pay attention to proper distribution of anchor text
It is absolutely vital that anchor text in your content is distributed properly to get best results. Using variations like “click here” and “this site” can make the right impact.

#7. Buying or exchanging links
They were considered to be productive means to boost traffic to your website and improve your page ranks. But that’s not the case anymore and only relying on buying or exchanging links cannot bring you desired results. In fact, they can lead to being penalized by Google.

Rather than relying on these methods you can try to be creative with ways to bring more traffic to your website. Find out more about means that you need to avoid and thus ensure that your website rank is maintained in the long run.

#8. Higher page views
when users visit a website briefly and quickly move on to another search, it’s a sign for Google that the site doesn’t contain relevant content. To avoid this problem it’s important that your website has compelling content so that your users will want to spend more time on it.

You can make the most out of your analytics to run a check on pages that have the maximum bounce rate. It will help you make your pages more valuable to your users.

#9. Use Ads smartly
SEO experts believe that minimum use of ads on your website is the way to go. If your site has ads, you can work on a design that gives the impression that minimum ads are being used. It’s your content that draws users to your website; hence it should be crisp and easily accessible. Ads on the other hand should be used smartly.

#10. Use of Social Media is imperative
Social Media promotion is a way that offers your website respite from Google-Panda's update. Using tools like Facebook, Twitter, Digg etc can improve your website rank in a short span of time. Using Social Media tools, asking people to bookmark or share your posts can also make a big difference to your website rank.

Google Panda gets updated frequently, which is why you need to be patient with SEO. Original, high quality will be rewarded while duplicate content, link spamming will be penalized. And that can spell doom for your online marketing career.

Author Bio:

I’m Ramya, a freelance web designer/writer based in India.  I have worked in a number of SEO projects and have a good insight into creating a web design with SEO techniques incorporated in it.  Apart from web designing and SEO I also contribute high-quality articles to top class websites and blogs. Besides business I am part-time wildlife photographer and generally an extrovert, I also like travelling to different destinations.

Contact:

Ramya

Website:  http://www.seotraining.me.uk/seo-training-blog/

E-mail id: ramyaraju896@gmail.com

Mobile: 9442474516

Harry Dresden, Part 2

-By Dan dos Santos

In the first part of this series I shared with you the initial sketches that I gave my client. When I work for a Publisher, I typically do just 3 sketches, and email them to the client. But because my client was actually commissioning an original work of art to hang on his wall, I did things a bit differently.



Firstly, I did a LOT more sketches than usual.  Secondly, I mailed him printed copies of the sketches. Mailing versus emailing some sketches may not seem like a big deal, but it actually makes quite a big difference. Because I was sending him print outs, I was able to enlarge them to the actual size I had planned on painting them. Looking at a life-sized painting in person is a completely different experience than seeing a small image of it on your screen. This way, the client could tack the sketches up on his wall, sit back, and see which one he liked best, taking their intended size into account.



My client got back to pretty quickly, and said he liked sketch #3 the best.

Now that I knew which sketch he liked, my next goal was to find out WHY. We emailed back and forth a bit and discussed what he liked about the concept and why he selected that particular piece. He said he liked how resolved the scenario was, and that the image seemed more like a movie still, rather than a 'pin-up'. He also liked the idea of adding the demon Lash I included in a previous sketch, and wondered if there was any way I could add her to this image as well.



From there, I went about revising the sketch, and offered him a variety of poses to choose from. I also made two notable revisions in these sketches:

Firstly, I turned Harry's chest toward us in two of them. I did this for two reasons. One, I wanted try to show Harry's pentacle pendant, which is an important part of the story. Two, I felt it would be better to have the warm light of the fire, and the cool light of Harry's shield on opposing sides of the figure. That way, the colors would compliment the form, rather than compete with each other.



Secondly, I slipped the visage of Lash's face into the flames, whispering in Harry's ear.

Because this painting is ultimately a portrait of Harry, I wanted to make sure I refined his actual 'look' a bit more in this second round of sketches. To help me do this, I shot some reference of a toy model. I also purchased a head specifically for this piece that I thought was close to how I envisioned Harry looking.

I really love using miniature models for reference. Not only is it pretty fun, but I feel that it helps me explore more options, and break away from my usual solutions. Rather than just imagining a pose, I was able to physically place my toy model in a variety of real poses. This helps me 'act out' the scene in my head a bit, and quickly eliminate, or expound on, any silhouettes and lighting schemes I find interesting.