Here's a video of me painting the gun and strap for Tyrese's character...[link] Also tweaked the shirt and skin tones. Just watch and see. Not incredibly long, but it's better than nothing. [link]

P.S. Sorry I keep spamming you with journals Take 'em or leave 'em!


^Previous WIP shot^

You probably noticed I have a deviation WIP as well as the journal one... I'll probably leave that one as is and update my journal periodically with single images of this piece for the next couple days.
The 3 images I had here before was a bit out of control so I'm going to keep it at one. I should be uploading a vid-capture of me working on this at some point too, so stay tuned.

P.S. Sorry I keep spamming you with journals Take 'em or leave 'em!

Alright, art school is starting up on the 8th for me, which means I'm not going to have a ton of time for doing personal pieces. I will, however, keep you updated with pieces from my classes and get my own shit done whenever possible.

But, because of this, I want to get at least one more painting out before my classes start, and I leave that up to you guys. Throw some ideas at me and I'll pick the one I like the best to do a speedpaint on... If the idea is awesome enough, though, I'll probably spend more than 'speedpaint' time on it

I also wanted to thank all of you who watch me and favorite my pieces for the support and inspiration. I can honestly say that if it wasn't for dA and the awesome community, I would've lacked the inspiration and motivation to get pieces finished and nab a scholarship from my college, which pays almost a third of my tuition.

I've got some other projects kicking around currently, but I really wanted to give a chance to all my friends here on dA to choose what they want to see next, so... start throwing some stuff at me!

P.S.  I'll do something similar when I hit 10,000 pageviews, so if you miss out, don't worry, you'll get your chance

P.P.S.  I'm just going to take suggestions for the first couple days and then I'm going to cut it off so I can get to work

UPDATE: Although there were a lot of great ideas thrown at me by you guys, and I'll most definitely get around to exploring some of them in the near future, I've chosen a combination.

Thanks to both and , I'm doing Optimus Prime fighting the Pope in St. Peter's Square

Alrighty, so I sucked it up and purchased myself a print account.
Currently I just have one deviation up for sale:



I figured I'd be getting a print of this piece for my friend anyway, so why not make it available to all of you? Of course, you probably won't want this on your wall, but you do have the option .

Personally I feel it's my best painting yet, but its probably not for everybody. I did work at a really high resolution, though, so you'll have at least 165 DPI on the largest prints.

Feel free to leave a comment about this or if I have any other deviations you think would be good as prints. Anything Halo is automatically out, due to copyrights, but I may be able to pull off House and Statham.



Halo Features:

I was contacted by Louis Wu of HBO halo.bungie.org today about posting my Halo works on the site, specifically my Halo 3 CG trailer speedpaint. Here's the permalink [link] Thanks a ton!

I also wanted to thank for getting me recognized by Louis in the first place, thanks dude!



Also, if you care to, head on over to Digg [link] and digg the article. My friend posted it for me

Halo Update: Looks like I was also featured on Xbox360Fanboy.com [link] This is all over the place
If you see features anywhere else, definitely link me!

Halo Update 2: My Ghosts of Onyx piece was just featured up at Bungie.net [link] for the November art contest [link] ! They're open about giving me less love, though, than some of the other pieces ... I've seen some of them floating around dA, and not to be harsh, I'm kind of disapointed mine wasn't featured higher up, but still, awesome stuff!

My image was also used in another article on Xbox360fanboy.com [link]

Just got my acceptance letter to CCS (College for Creative Studies) here in Detroit, and to my absolute surprise I received a scholarship with it in the amount of $24,000, payable at $6,000 a year over 4 years! I couldn't be more happy or totally taken by surprise at the scholarship!

I haven't submitted anything in a while, but I assure you I'm still working on a couple of pieces. The one from the previous journal was moved to the backburner, because it's relatively unimportant, and giving me a ton of problems. I'm currently working on a new one, that I'm really pleased with so far. I would post some WIPs, but it's a belated birthday gift for ~krisz137. It's been through a lot of transformations, but I've finally locked in the compostition and can't wait to finish it and blow her mind.

Anyway, I should have some new stuff up soon, in one form or another!

UPDATE: I've spent somewhere around 10 to 12 hours so far on this new piece and I've gotten frustrated with it to the point of wanting to stab my tablet with the digitizer. The perspective, plus balance, making it aesthetically pleasing, and making sure it all makes sense started to conflict with my original vision, and things turned all crazy. I just came up with a final layout and design for it, though, so I should be able to crack down and finish it.

The architecture of some of the separate buildings, yes it's a city scene, are clashing with one another, but I guess it's alright, cause that's how most cities are, eh? New next to the old, so on and so forth. In fact, that's part of what's making this piece appealing to me, and in a way, was a little of what I had envisioned from the start. I'm excited to get this one done, not just because I want to see what it looks like finished, but also because I can't wait to start something that might be a little less annoying to me. Next time I'll plan better.

PRE-UPDATE: My new piece is coming along. Originally it was going to be for *FreakyBabes contest, but I far surpassed the deadline due to other things going on in my life. It's going to be post apocalyptic (original eh?), and along the lines of, "Oh shit! LZ is hot! I repeat, LZ is hot!" Because I no longer have a deadline for the piece, I'm going to take my time with it. Expect it sometime next week. I may post some WIPs along the way. It's going to be more intricate than Ghosts of Onyx, and probably a lot more technical and detailed. Curious? You'll have to wait and see.

PRE-PRE-UPDATE: Alright... I have a couple of pieces I'm working on right now, but I decided just the other day that I absolutely have to do some Gears of War fanart... I'm in love with Halo, but right now, I am lusting over Gears. If you don't know anything about this game, definitely check it out. Even if you're not into video games, it's worth a gander... It has the absolute best graphics of any game to date, and it has out-of-this-world gameplay.

Drooooooooooooool. It rivals Halo 2, and that's something very hard to do. Droool.

Newly inspired by Eric Nylund's Halo: Ghosts of Onyx I've finally decided on exactly what to paint... This is going to be fanart, of course, and I have very little to go off of, given that neither of the things I'm depicting have actually appeared in a Halo game. I do have a shred of imagery to work from, however, but the rest will have to come from descriptions provided in the book. I can't wait to start turning my sketches into a full piece, but I assure you, I have big, big plans for this one...

This will probably be the first digital painting that I'll feel is truly complete and shows my worth as an illustrator in the making. I'm going to be working in a lot of detail and it's going to be very atmospheric. Whether or not you've read the book and know the scene, it'll be something truly awesome to behold. Hold onto your butts, because I think this will be my first piece to actually blow some people away.

UPDATE: Holy crap... I've actually had a ton of progress on the Halo piece. It's actually turning out a lot better than I ever thought it would. This is also good news, because I'm so far along, I should be able to get it up in a couple days now... I'm working like mad on it, but I've still got a ways to go. About 5 hours in so far. I'll give you a clue, though... It takes place in a forest... Not much, but better than nothin'! I'm just as excited to see it done as you guys.

UPDATE2: Here's part of it! Click to get the details.


UPDATE3: DONE!

I'm currently in the process of getting my final portfolio together for submission to the College for Creative Studies here in Detroit. I'm really excited, and I don't really have any doubts about getting in... Some of the pieces I have up here are included, but a bunch more are going that aren't... Mostly stuff I don't really see a point for posting.

I've got a couple new ideas for paintings and possibly some fanart that I'm working on... A lot of the environmentalish and other sci-fi pieces I've posted are more like tests than real paintings, and because those are what my real passion is, I've really decided to crack down and do some really cool full blown pieces... I get lazy working on stuff, but I think I'm gonna suck it up and make some stuff that'll blow people away. I'm capable, just impatient.

I'm sure I'll do some more garbage speed paints, but after I get my school stuff taken care of, I'll have a couple months before it starts to kick some artistic ass. I'm also in the process right now of touching up some pieces I have up, including House... After looking at it, I realize how much is so incredibly wrong with it in comparison to the ref. I'm also working on a new I.D. that isn't done in ten minutes, so I'm excited for that as well.

And last of all, I took a bunch of crap out of my gallery that just looked like clutter to me... I'll probably remove a few more things soon. Sucks for people who have favs on them, but at the most on those pieces it's like 2 or 3, so meh... Others only had like 18 hits with no comments and have been up for 6 months, so I don't see a point in them. I may reinstate them in scraps one day, but after I become someone of note on dA, which is one of my big goals... Could take a year, but watch out, I'm gonna be kickin some ass here.... "What, Reid? Your gallery is okay, but seriously?" Shut up, I've gotta have my ambitions. I'm out!

Thanks for watching, as always... And if you've been kind enough to read through this novel, I appreciate it. I know not many people read through journals, mostly cause they're unintersesting and irrelevant a lot of the time, but whatever, it's a place for thoughts... Plus I read yours, jerks. Just kidding. Now I'm out!

As you can probably tell, I've been back doing some pieces again... I've got one I'm finishing tonight, and as usual, it's sci-fi. I've also got another 3 pieces after this that I plan to work on, all of which are looking very cool in my head. I'm getting more into the complexities now, and environmental stuff, so I can't wait to toy with these things some more... Also, sorry for the previous blank journal, my Comcast cuts out constantly.

Thanks for watching.

I kind of disappeared for a while, but I've been working, no worries. I've been playing around with technique instead of doing full pieces. I should have something to submit in the next couple days, perhaps a portrait or two, then I'll be back to the imaginative stuff that invades my mind.

Busy busy busy... My new piece is under way, I've kind of dumped some of my other projects for new ideas that seem, well, better to me. On this one I'm going to be going for a more natural painterly feel, unlike my last deviation which was really kind of technical....
                                   <---- so many lines!   ^empty space^

I've also worked on my technique and I've got some new tricks in my bag that I want to try out... It's amazing how much you can learn about art in a couple days of just viewing other pieces and assing around on some sketches. I love this stuff.... I'm psyched for art school in January, but I realize at the same time that I'm not going to have a lot of time for my personal pieces anymore... I'll cope, and make time...

And on the webcam, yes, unfortunately, that's me.... Nov. 9th, 2004... research the date, you'll understand... and the statement isn't true, I swear it!

ANOTHER UPDATE: I'm actually getting close to finishing my piece based off of 'Dumping Grounds' [link] which also turned into perspective practice... I probably have another 5 to 10 hours to go at least, adding the little details... I'm actually cropping about 40% of the picture out, which if I had planned it originally could have saved be a couple hours of work I'm sure. I'm also going to bump up the image size and go for even more detail once I crop... Oh well, you never know where this art stuff will take you.

This piece will probably be named similarly to 'Dumping Grounds' but it's a slightly different take on the same idea. DG was pretty morbid and flashly with the blood. This one will be a little more subtle, but in my opinion, creepier. I'm looking for the whole, 'Oh, jeese...' effect.... Hope I'll have it up in the next couple days... I've been showing the progress to people and I've been getting the, 'You did that from scratch?' treatment, which is cool. I've done a little bit of texture overlay, but nothing serious... 95% of it is my brush strokes, then some filters, then more brush strokes to get the proper effect on the stone. You'll soon see.

UPDATE: I just did the previous journal, so I thought I'd add on instead of making a new one. I think I'm actually going out today to pick up an Intuos3 6x8 tablet to replace my 4x5... I'm super excited... Plus I only have to pay the difference between the two sizes because I got a warranty so I can do an easy upgrade... So with another warranty and everything else, it's probably less than $140, which is badass. Maybe I can get my work done quicker... with a tablet that barely fits on my desk with the rest of my stuff, bah! Who cares, I want it bad.

I'm actually going to try and get a quickie perspective piece done by either the end of the day or early tomorrow morning to upload. Chances are that I'll probably go too far an try to add in a ton of details and make it take longer, but oh well. I've been super-inspired by
among others, just like everybody else, and I can't wait to finish some more stuff... It's been a little while.

I also got my other screen calibrated to just about what my primary looks like so I can use the dualscreens when painting... This helps mostly with having a zoomed in part on the primary and the whole on the other screen so you can see how your details affect the entire painting... Sweet stuff... I can't wait to work with the new tablet and the dualies.

UPDATE: Long story short, the bastards wouldn't let me do what they told me they would do unless they don't have any 4x5's in stock... Even on the phone they said they would, but when confronted by me and my box, they changed their story... Fuckers.

Here's my current setup.



I've got so many pieces under my belt right now, but I'm actually really excited about it:

-I've got a finished piece based off of Dumping Grounds in the works... thumbnail at the bottom...
-I've got my main zombie piece, which is coming along slow, but looking good...
-I've got an underwater piece which is going to test some of my abilities that I'm currently planning...
-I've got my Halo fanart that coming along, you can see the most recent revision in my scraps...
-My original digital painting in scraps that I may never get back to because I feel my skills have progressed too much...
-I've got a handful of other ideas that involve some crazy perspective work that I haven't really touched on yet...
-And I've got another two or three ideas inspired by a handful of photographs by ...Thumbs below...


Dumping Grounds (mine)