Amelia and Pup Portrait

It's been a long time since I have updated my blog
so I thought I would share a recent commission.

A few years ago I did a digital painting of

my client's granddaughter.  

They wanted a portrait of their other granddaughter
and the family's new pup!

Here's a quick look at my process...

Steps 1 through 6 is sketching to figure out
what I am thinking and composition.

I like to sketch in blue and then turn it into black
to move onto the next steps.

Steps 7 through 9 I was going to start painting
in color and so I fill it all in for an underpainting
and created a palette to work in values.

I changed my mind and decided to work in
grayscale and then do color overlays. 

I added more detail throughout my process
but didn't want to get too detailed.
I wanted it to look more traditional and
match the quality of the painting I did
for them previously. 

With a few revisions to step twelve, here's the final art.

I don't consider myself an expert in painting

portrait and know I have a lot to learn!

Thanks for visiting the Robb Blog!

SpringCon this weekend!!!

I will be at SpringCon this weekend — May 17th and 18th.

I am selling the above prints, doing some sketches and telling people about Art Samurai!

Come by and check it out! It's a great local comic book convention!

For more information on SprinCon click HERE!!!

Art Samurai Homework for April 16th, 2014

This is my homework for tonight's Art Samurai workshop.

Here is the workshop description:

THEME: Anatomy: Veins!

ASSIGNMENT:  Design and draw a very muscular alien monster, but with these caveats:

•  very little to no costume to show muscularity
•  base the muscularity after human anatomy
•  make this character show extreme vascularity (tons of VEINS).  This assignment  will help you identify and draw the major veins on the human body that will aid in your anatomy drawing.
•  make sure this character is in an ACTION pose
•  feel free to use reference!

 Be creative and have fun!

Can I consider flexing an action pose?

Check out Art Samurai!

Conceptual illustrations

Here is some recent art I did. I can't share the whole image yet. I am under contract to not share.

Image it has something to do with MineCraft.

Tornado Emojis

These are some tornadoes in various moods for Michael Cole/Salon Development Corp.

He does a talk about tornadoes and they are explained in his book, Over The Top which I illustrated.

Tom Hanks

Here's a caricature I did of Tom Hanks. He's one of my favorite actors!

If it is a good caricature, maybe it will be pirated and some street caricature artist will take credit for it! We'll see...

The Joker

after

before

Here's a quick photo manipulation I created in Photoshop CS6. I took the photo with my webcam and brought it into Photoshop. I did a bit of Liquifying, color adjustments, masking, replacing the card and adding of blood! I painted in a lot of details and tried to make it look more believable. Did it pretty quick just for fun!

Comic Book Colorist

Artwork pencil and inked by Tom Nguyen. Copyright Tom Nguyen. 

Artwork pencil and inked by Tom Nguyen. Colors by Robb Miller. Copyright Tom Nguyen.

Artwork pencilled by James David Bui. Copyright James David Bui.

Artwork pencilled by James David Bui. Copyright James David Bui.

Colors by Robb Miller. 

Here are some commissions I did recently. The first one is for DC comic pro Tom Nguyen.
He created the line art and I did the colors.

For more information on Tom and his work visit his website.
http://tomnguyenstudio.com

I was commissioned by art James David Bui. He created the line art for Darth Vader/Anakin Skywalker.

For more information on his work visit his Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/ArtofJDB

If you are interested in commissioning me as a colorist, contact me at:
robb@robbmiller.com

Quick Batman sketch

Quick 20 minute Batman sketch

Gift Corporate-catures!

Here are a couple caricatures I did not too long ago for Land O' Lakes for two gentlemen who are retiring. One man had been there for 40 years and traveled around throughout that time. The other a Renaissance man who eats healthy and loves to workout and boat. 

Blog finally updated!

 This is a digital painting commission I did for  a client of their granddaughter.

It was a gift for her daughter. There is a story behind her outfit! I did slight exaggerating 

to it but it's basically more realistic.

(photo is a bit blurry, actual print is not)

I usually don't frame the art for my clients, but I did in this case.

Clients may want specialty framing and matting done.

Delivery costs can make it more expensive too. 

If clients are local and willing to pay more, I will do it for them.

This caricature styled family portrait  has the same little girl as before.

Here is a big moment for them when they sold their house.

These are some custom clip art illustrations for General Mills. I am trying to evolve my cartooning but

I need to have newer characters interact with ones I did years ago.

I have done some updates to my website. I recently worked for a PC gaming/software distributor doing packaging design. I put a couple example up. Please check it out when you get the chance!

ROBBMILLER.COM

Art Samurai homework for July 31st workshop

The theme for this workshop was "Light and Shadow". The assignment was:

Draw any character you want in an action pose, but try to show "dramatic lighting"

on the subject. Feel free to use photo referencing to help with your light/shadows, and be prepared to show the photo reference along with your homework. Be creative and have fun!

I decided to do the Punisher pointing a gun at the camera. Pretty basic concept but I wanted to concentrate on the focus of "light and shadow". 

I started by taking dozens of photo of myself in the laundry room. I used natural light from the outside window and then the laundry room fluorescent light. The TOP  photo is the original photo. I used Photoshop to lighten it (BOTTOM) to see more details. I duplicated the original photo and made it grayscale (MIDDLE) to see just lights and darks.

1. I began with a quick sketch of general shapes. I like to use a color while sketching so I feel more loose. If I sketch in black it makes me feel like I need to product the finished drawing sooner. Weird, I know!
2. I lighten the first sketch and draw over it. I either add a layer to do this or go to IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > Hue & Saturation then lighten. This is refining the shapes even more.
3. I repeat step 2 and lighten and refine.
4. I add in the dark areas and refine more.
5. I block in a quick background.
6. I add a multiplied layer and increase dark areas and shadow.
7. I stamp all layers into one (highlight the all layers up to this point and hit COMMAND+OPT+E) and hide the blue sketch layers. The new layer of all sketch layers I turn into black & white. IMAGE > ADJUSTMENTS > BLACK & WHITE. I took a photo of some clouds and made that into grayscale and placed it over my background clouds and adjusted it and masked out what I didn't need or like. I then merged it into the layer.
8. I found a good Punisher logo online and adjusted the opacity to low and put it onto his chest using FREE TRANSFORM and WARP located in EDIT. 
9. I inked over some areas and tightened some details.
10. I painted in some more shadows and added some highlights. I gave him a 5 o'clock shadow.
11. I cropped it and added my signature. DONE!

I feel I am improving with Art Samurai lessons. I am a little biased because I am business partners with Tom Nguyen but I get no special treatment. I am just doing the assignments to improve and for fun! Students get their homework critiqued before me.

For more information on Art Samurai, click HERE!!!

If you have questions for me, comment below or email me at:

robb@robbmiller.com

Thanks for checking out my blog!

Yee-haw! Cowboy Cutouts!

Here are some caricatures that my client got blown up into cutouts!

Cool to see them "non digitally" and how they look big and in real life!

Napkin Sketch

Just a quick napkin sketch to kill time. A hamster choking a snake. Could have sort of sick connotation to it. Just random.

Family Caricature

Lintner Family

Some reference used

This is a recent caricature a family had commissioned me to do as a gift for their Husband/Dad.

They give him one every ten years! The wife and husband are not in the caricature but their children along with their spouses and children are (including animal grandchildren).

robbmiller.com

MC FLEX

Here are some caricatures of Michael Cole with the physique of Mr. Flex Wheeler!

I think my anatomy is getting better since I watch the workshops at ArtSamurai.net (shameless plug!)

Leg practice

Experimenting posting to my blog from iPad and this blogger app. These are some sketches of legs for practice.

Caricatures

This is a caricature of Brad and Brody from Hi Tempo.

If you are a skier, this is the place to go! I just got new boots that fit perfectly 

with custom insoles and it makes all the difference in the world!

http://www.hitempo.com

These cute girls were done as a gift for the best bosses I ever had,

Michael and Mary Cole!

Gift Caricatures

Here are a couple recent gift caricatures I have done.