DVD versions of the Female Hunter and The Final Charge tutorials are now available for purchase through my store. There are only 20 copies of each tutorial available, so get them while they last!

Female Hunter DVD – $25

Length – 124 minutes
1 Disc
Bonus Material – Layered PSD, High-Res JPGs, Portfolio Gallery

The Final Charge – $30

Length – 155 minutes
2 Discs
Bonus Material – Layered PSD, High-Res JPGs, Portfolio Gallery, Brushes, Bio, Sneak Previews

If anyone picked up the Female Hunter digital download, you may have noticed the audio was pretty quiet. In the DVD version I went back and fixed the audio and increased the volume significantly.

I would also like to add that these videos look much better using a high def TV when viewed through a player using an HDMI cable…but I guess that is pretty obvious. I put them in my PS3 and they looked so much better.

Hmmm, time to think about my next tutorial. I am thinking about doing some kind of landscape or environment. What do you think?

I am also trying to think of some “cool” bonus material to package with the DVDs to make them special. Right now I have the layered PSD files on the DVD, previews of other tutorials, a portfolio gallery, brushes, and I have also been playing around with the idea of including a unique sketch inside each case…but I dunno yet.

When I get an idea to do something I tend to go all out and work nonstop until I get it done. I created some prototype DVDs of my two tutorials over the weekend. Unfortunately the Final Charge tutorial was too long to fit on one DVD, so it will have to go on two. I even tried using a DL DVD, but it still wouldn’t fit. Right now I am sitting on 20 copies of the Female Hunter DVD. I am not sure how many I am going to make for the first run, but probably not too many. Maybe 50 total? I am still trying to figure out a good price point as well. Once I figure all of this out I’ll put them on my store. I’ll make an announcement when they are available for purchase. Thanks!

UPDATE

There are only 20 copies of the Female Hunter tutorial and 20 copies of the Final Charge tutorial available for purchase at this time. I will be selling them at the Magic: The Gathering US National Championships in Minneapolis from August 20-22. If they do not sell then I will make them available for purchase through my store. I plan to make more, but it takes a lot of time and effort to create these since I make everything myself, so I don’t know when more copies will be available. Here are the specs:

Female Hunter – $25
124 min. 1 Disc
Bonus Material – layered PSD file, high res jpgs, portfolio gallery

The Final Charge – $30
155 min. 2 Discs
Bonus Material – layered PSD file, high res jpgs, portfolio gallery, bio, sneak previews (female hunter tutorial), brushes

Here is a link to the app description and sample images. The app is made in association with Imaginism Studios, so be sure to check out some of their other awesome sketchbook apps. Thanks!

Back to the video. The video tops out at 155 minutes and is filmed completely in real-time so that you can actually see what is going on. In my previous video I only talked about creating a vignetted figure, but in this video I go over how I create a full illustration. I talk about composition, eye flow, adding color to a black and white image, character design, and a bunch of other stuff.

The video also comes with my brushes and a psd version of the illustration so that you can see the different types of layers I used. I always like seeing other artist’s files so that I can flip the layers on and off, so hopefully people enjoy that. The 1280×800 version is $12 while the 1440×900 version is $15.

Oh, one thing that I want to mention is that the audio in this tutorial is much better than that of the Female Hunter tutorial. I was able to tweak my mic settings and Camtasia for Mac came out with more robust audio controls, like noise reduction filters. You can actually hear me now, yay! The video will be available through my store starting July 1st.

UPDATE – Aaaannd two hours later the trailer is finished.

UPDATE – Available now!

Looking back at the Harbor Serpent piece I really wish I had put a little more time and color into the figures in the foreground. I could have done something better with the lighting too. That is always the problem with looking back at older pieces, you always want to go back and change things. I don’t like the Serpent’s head either…gah, it really bothers me.

If you hadn’t noticed from my last several posts, I have been trying to incorporate a larger background presence into my paintings instead of having abstract and smokey backgrounds. I felt like my illustrations weren’t really illustrations, but rather just images of people against abstract backgrounds. Adding backgrounds to your illustration can not only help your image visually in technical terms (composition, eye flow, etc.), but it can also add more of a story element to your piece, which is key to creating a successful illustration. Bah, it is 3am and I am blathering. Off to bed.

A few of my cards came out last month for the Wrathgate expansion for the World of Warcraft TCG. I am only posting two out of the three cards I did because, honestly, the third one isn’t really worth posting. I had to go through many revisions on these and I am still not very happy with some of the changes. I am still having a hard time bringing my usual style into the world of WoW. I think it is a combination of different armor design style and color palette. Maybe one day I will get to a point where I feel that my style has successfully merged with WoW.

Dave Rapoza also has a workshop in the same issue, so be sure to pick it up because it is a good one.

The artist list for wave 2 has changed drastically due to our schedule. We are also experiencing problems with eBay because they locked our account and refuse to tell us why. A specialist is supposed to call us back on Monday or Tuesday to try and resolve our issue. Hopefully we will still be able to start wave 2 by the middle or end of next week. Wave 3 probably won’t start until the middle of June because I will be out of town for over a month. Here is the updated list for wave 2:

• Tom Bagshaw
• M.C. Matz
• Sarah Gonzalez
• Ben Thompson
• Gayle Wheatley
• Michael Corriero
• Lettie Lo
• Willie Real
• Sergio Lopez
• Everette Downing
• Jeff Miracola
• Martha Chan
• Dominique Fung
• Michael Phillippi
• Simon Otto
• Richard Sardinha
• Tracy Flynn
• Jessica Ward
• Simon Christen
• Victoria Ying
• The Loin
• Eric Braddock
• Sherron Cole
• Evan Hunt
• Patricia Smith
• Scott Altmann
• Adrian Knowles
• Jessa Sininger
• Chenoa Lindsey
• Kristen Perry
• Katy Hargrove
• Kekai Kotaki
• Dan Cole
• Aaron Coberly
• Katy Hargrove
• Richard Anderson
• Horia Dociu
• Daren Bader
• Christophe Lautrette
• Frank Lin
• Eric Favela
• Shyla Ford
• Lisa Evans
• Joy Ang
• Christine Griffin
• Dave Kendall

On the Beautiful Grim front, things have been going pretty well! There are about 3 days left on most of the auctions and already we are up to $3k! For those of you who missed the earlier post, here is the link to the current pieces of art that are available for purchase on eBay. If the piece you have been wanting to bid on isn’t there, have no fear! The next wave of auctions should start at the end of next week. It looks like we will have at least 2 more waves of auctions, more if we receive more art.

In other news, I am in the process of changing up my site. I don’t think the actual layout will change, but I need to rearrange my galleries and make some new additions. Right now my concept art section only has finished paintings, so I want to change that to show more of my range as a concept artist and to also include some unfinished concepts, or rather, different stages of “finish.”

Bye byeeeee.