Last Man Standing 3 - Update.

Well, I didn't make it past Round 1 of LMS3. A little bummed about that, but in reality it's probably for the better. I'll actually have time to focus on upcoming deadlines and moving.

Props to Simon Dominic Brewer (Baron Impossible) for besting me and other really strong artists. We had a pretty tough round.
There were some issues raised about the fairness of the judging process. I think it was pretty fair. I'm good friends with 4 of the judges and that didn't have any effect on their decisions. The better entry won.

Simon, lots of luck to you in Round 2.

Related Posts: Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All
Process of "Underneath It All" Painting

Process of "Underneath It All" Painting

Here are some shots of the process of my Last Man Standing Round 1 "Underneath It All" entry.

Sketch phase: Started out with a digital sketch to play with compositions and then collaged some photos. Then just went in with charcoal on gessoed masonite. I was originally going to put the girl in a grave yard but then i decided to avoid the "goth" feel.


Detail of the figure in sketch phase:

I got very impatient with the sketch and decided to dive into the oils without fully resolving the figure and a lot of the secondary elements. Bad idea on my part.


And this is where the frustration started. Lots of noodling at an early stage, wiping down the paint back to the sketch stage, and lots of screaming at myself about how much I suck at painting.





Then my usual issues start coming through; gimpy feet and head that's WAY too big. No matter what my intentions are I always end up making the head about twice as big as when i started out.



After repainting the head two more times and more noodling in the background things started coming together. Now on to my dreaded enemies, the hands.



With the deadline fast approaching and the hands giving me all sorts of trouble I decided to stop here and fix the mistakes digitally.

24x48 inches Oil on Masonite


Digitally I enhanced the saturation and color of the figure and laid in more snow to further delineate what is above ground and what is below. Added some better looking trees to the background. And then continued struggling with those hands. This is where the image was at when it was time to submit it for Last Man Standing.



I let it sit for a few days and then tried to fix it some more to send it of for Spectrum 15. I made the figure smaller and moved it down some. Fixed the hands a little.



Related Post: Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All

Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All

A few years ago a friend of mine, Cody Tilson, started a brutal art elimimnation contest over at ConceptArt.org. It was a modification on their yearly Thunderdome contest where artists would compete against one another for bragging rights. Cody's version, Last Man Standing, pits members of the site against one another in multi-round elimination art "fights". Amateurs are pitted against professionals and the soon-to-be-professionals. The only way to advance is to bring out your best art skills and tricks and then push them beyond their limits.


(I submitted this version to Spectrum 15)


In it's Third year Last Man Standing (LMS3) started with 360 contestants "fighting" in 72 six-man/woman battles. The battles were posted last week and we await the judges' results.
(LMS3 round 1 - Matches 1-24, 25-48, and 49-72)
The entries are judged by an all-star panel of Professionals in the field and Art Directors. This is a great way for young upstarts to get their work in front of the people who matter.


I had a tough match (#28). I'll consider myself very lucky if I advance to Round 2.
This was the state at which the piece was at when I submitted it:



Related Post: Process of "Underneath It All" Painting