Reference – Cloth in the Wind

Cool capes, cloaks, and other bits of cloth blowing about in the wind are a staple of fantasy, comics, and sci-fi art. Every hero or villain looks better with a cape! At first I thought artists made these up out of their head, but over time I’ve found the best way to do a cool cape, is to get reference.

Now there’s a couple of ways to get good cloth reference. The first is to set up a cloth still life add lighting a shoot your photos. Here’s an example from one of my older pieces Skeletal Warrior:

In the reference upper left you can see where I took my drapes and set them up like the skeleton’s cape. You can see some other examples as well. That’s me with a sword and cape, a skull I got back around Halloween time years ago, and some metal objects from my kitchen to see how metal works.

Here’s the final painting:

The static method works fine, but over time I realized that the folds felt a bit stale. In order to breathe some life into my drapery I realized I needed to capture cloth on the move. I got my wife to agree to photograph me running around in our backyard waving cloth about like a madman!

Look at those banners wave about in the wind!

I’ve used this reference in several pieces, but most obviously in the Lion Scout piece I did for L5R:

It’s pretty easy to get good reference, and as you collect it, your library will grow, so you’ll need to shoot reference less often. The next time you need to paint a flowing cape, go run around with some cloth!

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal

www.samflegal.com

Reference – Going All the Way

A question every young artist asks is “Should I use reference?” The very short answer is “YES!” It worked for Michelangelo and Norman Rockwell. If you’ve figured out how to be better than those dudes, then you don’t need my advice. If, on the other hand, you’re wondering, “How did Sam go from being a crappy artist to a good one in just a few years?” Then this is the post for you.

Hopefully you’ve already gotten over the idea that reference is bad, or that it’s cheating somehow. If not, work on it. Chances are your art would be better if you learned how to use reference. That said, reference can be bad if you don’t know how to use it. For that reason I plan to do a series of posts on getting good reference.

The first tip I’d offer is to GO ALL THE WAY. You can never have too much information. You can choose to ignore stuff during painting, but the more costuming, the better the lighting, and the closer the photo is to your subject, the better your painting will be.

Another part of GOING ALL THE WAY is shooting your own reference. Sure, there is lots of good stuff on the internet these days, but the more you use your own photography, the more your work will stand out. I think of it as visual style—everyone has access to the internet, but no one but you can access your photos.

Take the time to think about your work and the things you like to paint. Then keep a camera on you, and seek those things out. I love to paint old trees, so I often take photos when on walks with my family (see tree photo up top). I also tend to paint zombies and dead things, so I collect skulls and take photos of dead animals I come across.

The ultimate example of this was Thanksgiving 2011. My wife’s family often roasts a pig. I came prepared with my camera, and got some great shots. Once the meal was done, I asked to keep the head. I cleaned it myself, and have added it to my skull collection.

BEFORE WE COOKED IT!

AFTER WE ATE!

CLEANED BY MY OWN HANDS!

Basically, don’t be lazy. Step up and become one with your art. You’ll find that your new eye towards reference will bring about some great opportunities for you.

Stay Strange!

Sam Flegal
www.samflegal.com

One Fantastic Week - Ep. 8

Pete and Sam talk about regular fantasy artist stuff.

Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/794623580563108/#

Sam: www.samflegal.com
Pete: www.vandalhigh.com

Evil is a 4 letter word

Let’s stop and think about genre conventions for a little bit. As I’ve gotten older, things about fantasy have started to really bug me. The biggest sticking point might seem a bit odd, but stick with me.

I think violence, as a solution to problems, is starting to look pretty stupid.

As I’ve slowly grown into my adult sized pants, I’ve also grown to realize that the most important things in life have very little to do with crushing my enemies. I don’t think I’m going to rock anyone’s world by saying this but cooperation and compassion is more important than killing. And while we do love to admire Conan the barbarian for his beautifully elegant appreciate of a woman’s lamentation, it’s growing less relatable. I mean really, it’s insane. Murder has become the defacto standard for problem solving in most genre stories and we’re just kind of nodding our heads along with it.

Anyways.

Re-watching Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece Spirited Away reminded me of how unbelievably compelling it could be to watch a compassionate person at work. I never really thought about it before this last viewing, but the story’s hero, Chihiro is really unique. It’s not just that she is a 10 year old girl who possesses no exceptional tools or traits but also that she is almost universally reviled by the world around her. The denizens of the spirit world treat her like a talking pig with constant comments about her bad smell and possible use as a food source. Regardless, she treats everyone she meets with respect. It’s a level of humanity that borders on superhuman and it makes for a wonderful story.

The fact that a celebrated director like Miyazaki has been able to repeatedly and successfully tell stories about people overcoming adversity through love and cooperation makes me wonder why more people haven’t done it. Perhaps it’s just too damn hard. Perhaps there are superstitions that say these sorts of stories don’t make financial sense. It’s hard to say. But maybe it has to do with our obsession with people being ‘evil’.

So much of fantasy is about good people killing evil people. But what Miyazaki does, and he’s pretty vocal about this, is to simply eliminate the concepts of good and evil from his stories. People have benevolent or malicious traits but they are never Good or Evil. Characters find themselves in conflicts that may lead them to violence, but there is nothing evil about either side. The truth that so many stories fail to tell, is that everyone is a hero in their own story. It seems almost as though the inclusion of purely evil characters is an instant dismissal of any victory through compassion. You cannot love evil without being evil, so you must destroy it. This also makes it impossible to tell stories about a two believable people at odds with each other. When one side is good and one side is evil, the conflict is reducible to a paper thin veneer of story. Not stooping to make anyone Evil with a capital ‘E’ is challenging, but it really makes for a way better story.

So while I still like some action in my stories and I don’t really get overly affected by seeing violence, I really want to see more fantasy that does something more with their characters. I want to see heroes that aren’t defined by their weapons or the way they kill. What I really want is to see heroes that inspire me to want to be a better person.

Photo via Instagram by me - Painting by Omar Rayyan

Blank Canvas

It’s time for people to make resolutions. But let’s be adults, they aren’t going to happen. New Year’s resolutions are less likely to happen than just about any goal.
This year I am resolving to buy 5 plain black 100% cotton t-shirts and start phasing out the colorful patterned ‘t’s I’ve been wearing for the past several years.
Wait, I’m going to do that right now.

...

Done.

Now on to 2014 in earnest.

 

This year is a weird one because it is an utterly blank canvas. There is no sketch to fill out. Just a mercurial image swirling in my head that keeps shifting the longer I think about it. I’ve stared into the void enough times to know that what I see there isn’t real and is likely to be impossible. When reality takes over, it’ll be time to adapt and make some real choices. For the time being, it’s time to start laying down some marks.

So, where to start?

• Start making some more pieces for Angel book that’s set to Kickstart this summer.
• Find students for my mentorship program.
• Set up an order fulfillment center in my basement.
• Create work samples for book covers.
• Enter Artorder contest to engage with community.
• Set up new collaborative blog about being an indie artist.
• Plan next week’s live video stream.

With no job to give me a schedule or tasks, I’m anxious, but that anxiety keeps me on point. These aren’t resolutions, these are plans. Plans can change, evolve, merge, divide and get crossed out. Plans are just ideas that have been written down.