Komainu Pt3

Well, this is it people, the last day of the 47 Ronin contest. What 47 Ronin contest? Why, the one I'm participating in at Talenthouse.com for the new movie starring Keanu Reeves. The challenge was to design a mythical beast inspired by the movie which would then be subject to votes. (Deadline for votes is Monday December 23rd. Vote for my piece here: http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a3fa924eb874b92f4a55a0ba241309f7/6690
You can vote more than once on both facebook AND twitter of which I'm now a card carrying member-@ShawnAlleyneArt)

 Part 1 of this series was me showing a little of how I created the character:  http://shawnah-lean.blogspot.com/2013/12/komainu-origin.html
Part 2 was me exposing some of the artists in the contest for cheating(start up copy and paste): http://shawnah-lean.blogspot.com/
But now part 3 will bring us back to the making of.

Komainu are usually a pair of lion-like statue creatures that guard the entrance of many Japanese shrines and are meant to ward off evil spirits. 

I figured I would make him stand upright and anthropomorphic to give him more of a "presence" than being on all fours. I saw him as a wise celestial spirit that was peaceful but also bad-ass and could fight if need be. At first I was going to give him a khakkhara, which is a ringed Buddhist staff, to show that wise peaceful side, but I decided against it. In this version of him he has been corrupted by a demonic force and is all action.

 After some sketching I had his design and pose. I knew I wanted to incorporate the ball that is part of a lot of the statues somewhere in the design.

 I just thought it was really cool that these cat like creatures had this ball to play with, so I decided to go the Final Fantasy route where the characters have a lot of extra design elements that may not necessarily have any function. I threw a giant ball on his back, then gave him some ceremonial wraps to hold it in place. 

With the pencils done, it was time to bring in a little assist in the form of colorist extraordinaire Renee Clarke.
See Renee's work here: http://shizuka-shi.deviantart.com/)
Renee is not only an amazing colorist and artist in her own right, she's also an awesome person and a pleasure to work with. I look forward to more collabos with her.

And voila, after a lot of time and effort, the finished piece.

I hope you enjoyed this little peep behind the scenes, and I want to thank everyone who voted and shared the link.
See you next time.

S

Komainu Pt2

This was supposed to be part two of a blog delving into the creative process behind one of my latest characters "Komainu". (You can read the first part here: http://shawnah-lean.blogspot.com/2013/12/komainu-origin.html)
To bring new readers up to speed, I'm participating in an online contest at Talenthouse.com for the new 47 Ronin movie starring Keanu Reeves. The challenge was to design a mythical beast inspired by the movie which would then be subject to votes. (Deadline for votes is Monday December 23rd. Vote for my piece here: http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a3fa924eb874b92f4a55a0ba241309f7/6690
You can vote more than once on both facebook AND twitter of which I'm now a member..sigh..@ShawnAlleyneArt)
Here's the official entry. 

Designed and drawn by yours truly/colored by Renee Clarke. The Lion-Dog spirit exists to protect the righteous and guard against evil, but it remains to be seen if this Celestial being has been corrupted.

Instead, this is going to a public service announcement. It was recently brought to my attention that some of the contests in the competition have blatantly stolen artwork, tweaked it and are calling it their own. This was discovered by someone who knew of the original and came upon the contest. Now, I won't put the names the artists out there, nor any direct links, I'll just show you the artworks and you can judge for yourselves. Below is one of the "official" entries in the contest..

and here is the original artwork that was ripped off...

Ridiculous. And this entry is in the top 5 of the contest!!!! As you can see this piece was stolen, cropped, then meshed together with a different head. That was probably stolen from somewhere else as well.

Here's another entry:

And here are stolen pieces used to create this piece..

Double ridiculous!!!!! This one just pisses me off for the fact that a minotaur has no place in Japanese mythology.
It pains me that these entries are in the top of the contest just because they were able to convince more people to vote for them. That's why I hate these types of competitions. It doesn't come down to skill or passion, just this new age facebook and twitter popularity bullshit!
But maybe it's me.At the end of the day I'm probably going to be called a hater. I'm probably going to be called a sore loser.Maybe I'm reading too much into it. You be the judge.

Once again you can vote for me here: http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a3fa924eb874b92f4a55a0ba241309f7/6690

And see all the contestants and rank here: http://www.talenthouse.com/design-for-47-ronin

Thanks for reading

Peace
Shiz

Komainu- The Origin

What's up peeps. If you've been following my facebook page you should be aware by now that I'm participating in an online contest going on at Talenthouse. com for the new 47 Ronin movie starring Keanu Reeves. The challenge was to design a mythical beast inspired by the movie, and you can vote for my piece here: http://www.talenthouse.com/creativeinvites/preview/a3fa924eb874b92f4a55a0ba241309f7/6690
You can vote more than once on both facebook AND twitter(of which I'm now a member..sigh..@ShawnAlleyneArt)


What I wanted to do here was go into the details of my design called Komainu.

The Lion-Dog spirit exists to protect the righteous and guard against evil, but it remains to be seen if this Celestial being has been corrupted.

As with everything I design I start off brainstorming and gathering reference. Good ole Google came in handy as I looked up "Japanese mythological beasts" to see what was out there. When I came across Komainu image popped up I knew I had my idea. The name comes from the ancient Japanese statues of the same name, often called lion-dogs in English. The Komainu are usually a pair of lion-like statue creatures either guarding the entrance of many Japanese shrines or kept inside the inner shrine itself. They can sometimes also be found at Buddhist Temples or nobility residences and even private homes.

Meant to ward off evil spirits, modern komainu statues are almost identical, but one has the mouth open, the other closed. This is a very common characteristic in religious statue pairs at both temples and shrines. This pattern is Buddhist in origin however and has a symbolic meaning. The open mouth is pronouncing the first letter of the Sanskrit alphabet, which is pronounced "a", while the closed one is uttering the last letter, which
is pronounced "um", to represent the beginning and the end of all things. Together they form the sound "Aum" a syllable sacred in several religions.There are however exceptions to the rule in which both komainu have their mouth either open or closed.

 There's a variation of the statue that resembles a fox.

I love the idea of the Komainu so much I plan on incorporating the theme into a modern version into the Aizan universe.  Next time I'll take a look at the details of the design a little closer.

Catch you then.

S

P.O.D Day 6 "Knightseeker 19"

Happy Sunday(or whenever you're reading this), and welcome to Day 6 of my "Artpiece-of-the-Day" goal. Every day in the month of October I'll be posting  a new piece of art plus providing some behind the scene sketches and commentary. Each pic will be as "complete" as I can make it, depending on what was called for with the project, meaning some pieces may be more elaborate than others, but the ultimate goal here is for me to be more productive.
Today features a piece done for the new Knightseeker illustrated novel written by Eric Cooper.
www.knightseeker.com

 This is Chapter 19 entitled "Disturbing Call". The description was:

(Single Scene) Setting: Ethan’s apartment living room.

Action: GUILLOTINE aiming FUSION BARREL of weapons staff at KNIGHT SEEKER. KNIGHT SEEKER aiming TRI-BLADE SWORD at GUILLOTINE.

LT. DIAZ aiming SHOTGUN at KNIGHT SEEKER. SGT. FLEMINGS aiming BOTH GLOCK PISTOLS at GUILLOTINE.

This one didn't come together right away, and I had to go through a lot of sketches to get what I wanted. Here are a few.

 

All in all the project itself was a fun one. This is the third(!) illustrated novel Cooper has dropped, and I've been lucky enough to have been Art Director for the last two books now. In addition to being AD, I'm also an artist for some of the chapters, primary designer as well as cover artist for all 3 books.

Shout out to Eric for the opportunity. See my last blog for more Knightseeker art.

http://shawnah-lean.blogspot.com/2013/10/pod-day-5-knightseeker.html 

 

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you continue to follow me on this path of me seeking to be a better artist and more productive artist. Feel free to give any critiques or comments. Catch you tomorrow God willing.

Peace.
S

P.O.D Day 5- "KnightSeeker"

Hey peeps. Day 5 of my "Artpiece-of-the-Day" goal where every day in the month of October I'll be posting  a new piece of art plus providing some behind the scene sketches and commentary. Each pic will be as "complete" as I can make it, depending on what was called for with the project, meaning some pieces may be more elaborate than others, but the ultimate goal here is for me to be more productive.

Today features a piece done for the new Knightseeker illustrated novel written by Eric Cooper.
www.knightseeker.com
This was Chapter 25 entitled "A True Test of Friendship".

The description was: (Single Scene) Setting: Subway tunnel by the single set of tracks.

Action: KNIGHT SEEKER shooting out one concentrated shot to GUILLOTINE’s chest peace. This will be a very violent shot that shatters the Guillotine chest piece.  GUILLOTINE whole body reacts to the hit. (Also Guillotine is unarmed. His weapon should not be in the scene.)

Here's the piece.

 

Knightseeker Book 3 illustrated novel chap 25 artwork. Pencils and inks Shawn Alleyne

So after reading the chapter and going over the description, I had a pretty solid idea of how it would look. I knew I wanted to play with shadows and action lines, and though I said in a previous blog that I'm not good at spotting shadows, doesn't mean I don't like to try. Due to the deadline I was at first going to use the blacks and lines in lieu of a background, but after trying, it felt cheap. So I added the subway tunnel to push myself. I definitly need to practice my action lines some more I feel.

The project itself is a fun one. This is the third(!) illustrated novel Cooper has dropped, and I've been lucky enough to have been Art Director for the last two books now. In addition to being AD, I'm also an artist for some of the chapters, primary designer as well as cover artist for all 3 books.

Shout out to Eric for the opportunity.

Here's the cover to the revamped edition of the first novel...

 

Knightseeker Book 1 illustrated novel cover. Shawn Alleyne on pencils and inks/ colors by Blair Smith

And the cover for book 2.

Knightseeker Book 2 illustrated novel cover art. Pencils- Shawn Alleyne/colors-Blair Smith

 

 

Look for more Knightseeker goodness soon.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you continue to follow me on this path of me seeking to be a better artist and more productive artist. Feel free to give any critiques or comments. Catch you tomorrow God willing.

Peace.
S

 

P.O.D Day 4- "Jeb"

Day 4 of my "Artpiece-of-the-Day" goal. For those just joining us, every day in the month of October I'll be posting  a new piece of art, plus providing some behind the scene sketches and commentary. Each pic will be as "complete" as I can make it, depending on what was called for with the project, meaning some pieces may be more elaborate than others, but the ultimate goal here is for me to be more productive.

Today's piece is from the same client that commissioned the Deborah and Gideon pieces from previous days. This description read: "Jeb is a white man in his late 20's with dark, shoulder length hair, dark brown eyes, and scruff on his face. He is wearing military camouflage. He has a SEAL Team 6 insignia on his arm and a petty officer insignia on his shoulder. He is in the prone position aiming a M82A1 barret sniper rifle (.50). He has a slight smile on his face."

The final piece was supposed to be more of a pin-up, which is where I would've done the prone position (where a sniper is taking out his target), but I ran out of time. I also forgot to add the camo and I didn't give him the smile. For just an average shot like this it may not make much of a difference but now I'm sorry I didn't add the smile.I think that would've lent some more character to him than just the typical scowl. 

Here's my original sketch. This is the one I feel the most disappointed in as far as the transition from sketch to final product. Something about the finished piece's stance looks a little too stiff to me.

Sigh, on to the next one.

As always, thanks for reading and I hope you continue to follow me on this path of me seeking to be a better artist and more productive artist. Feel free to give any critiques or comments. Catch you tomorrow God willing.

Peace.
S

 

P.O.D Day 3 Avengers Blank Cover

Annnddd we're back with another edition of my special "Artpiece-of-the-Day" goal. Every day for the month of October I'll be posting a new piece of art, plus providing some behind the scenes sketches and commentary. Each pic will be as "complete" as I can make it, depending on what was called for with the project, meaning some pieces may be more elaborate than others, but the ultimate goal here is for me to be more productive.

On the menu today is a blank cover commish, where the client wanted to see a wrecked assortment of Avengers. Specifically, Avengers weapons: Iron Man's helmet, Cap's damaged shield, etc.

With blank covers it would definitely save me a lot of time just doing the front, but my masochistic side just can't seem to leave well enough alone, and I pretty much always do a double spread. With this cover I felt just having the weapons laying there would be pretty boring by itself, so I thought it would be cool to have some sort of villain in the piece somewhere who viewers could speculate would be the cause of the destruction. And since Thanos is on everyone's minds nowadays, I figured, why not.

 For some reason this cover took me FOREVER to finish. Besides life getting in the way, I just wasn't feeling motivated. On top of that, the bird's eye view perspective shot of Thanos' legs gave me HELL to get right. And I still don't think I achieved my goal. 

I tried to "modernize" Thanos' look a little, and I plan on doing a Thanos solo print at some point. Yes, I'm a sellout. sigh.
I cheated a bit with a few things. One being the Falcon's wings. I know they're supposed to be holographic "hardlight" and they disappear when not activated, but I wanted  people to know it was the Falcon. Also, I felt it would show Thanos' disrespect and power a little more if he were standing on someone.
The second cheat is with the Hulk. Once again, if he's unconscious he should automatically revert back to "puny Banner" but I figured people wouldn't know who he was.

Bonus points: did you spot Thor's hands and Widow's bracelets? All in all I kinda like how it came out.

Well, another one down. Thanks for reading and please feel free to leave any comments or critiques.

Peace
S