Death of Captain Smith (Drawing)

     I'm working on some pitch art for the book I did the cover for ( "The Lighthouse of Alexandria" ). This is the drawing for one of the scenes from the book. If you are wondering what the story is behind this scene, I'll give you one clue. It's about pirates....

Baby Fur Animatic - Grocery Store

Baby Fur Animatic - Grocery Store (Edit 1) from Stephen Sitton on Vimeo.


This is an animatic sequence for my Baby Fur story. This is the first time i've ever done anything like this so it was a really different experience. I've learned a ton and have enjoyed the process. I'm still tinkering around with timing and sound effects and such.. but it's done for now. Enjoy!

Christmas Card Finished

     The semester is finally winding down and I just finished this year's Christmas Card. This was a lot of fun to paint! Merry Christmas everyone...

Christmas Card Sketch

     I have always wanted to do my own Christmas card. This year I decided to buckle down and start one! This is the sketch that i've been working on. I'd like to think that this is where Santa hangs out while he's not at the workshop.  It's really rough at this point and I'm probably going to change things here and there. But, you get the idear. Comments welcome!

Frost Queen

     For the next of my artist studies I decided to try to emulate the style of the amazing Sean Galloway (otherwise known as "cheeks"). He has a very unique style that is crazy fun. His style of characterizing figures is beautiful. His blog can be viewed here. I don't know if my illustration holds up to his stuff at all but I had a lot of fun doing it. Comments Welcome!

The Lighthouse of Alexandria Cover

     It was hard to find time to work as much as I wanted to over Thanksgiving break but I did manage to get the cover for "The Lighthouse of Alexandria" finished. It is a dust jacket cover. So, the image encompasses the front, back, and both interior flaps. I am still going to refine a few things but I figured I could post it to show everyone what i've been working on. This was a blast to paint and I look forward to the next one! Comments Welcome!

Baby Fur Story Boards

     Here are some story boards i've been working on for my Baby Fur project. It's my first time doing story boards so i've learned a lot in the process!

The Lighthouse of Alexandria (Color Comps)

     I have been working on some color comps for the book jacket cover. I have been playing around with a daytime and a nighttime version. The third comp plays off of trying to mix the daytime and the nighttime into the same image. They are still pretty rough at this point but i'm starting to like where the image is going. Comments Welcome.

The Lighthouse of Alexandria (Cover Sketch)

     I'm currently working on illustrating a cover for the book "The Lighthouse of Alexandria". It's an amazing book about Barbary pirates, Romans, and a touch of Greek mythology. Here is the sketch that I submitted for approval. There is more to come. Comments welcome!

Digital Figure Drawings

     I'm in a figure drawing class this semester and on a couple occasions I brought my wacom tablet with me to class to draw with. It's a really different experience drawing from life digitally but I think it's a lot of fun.

"The Journey" Interior Illustrations

     Part of my project for my Chinese themed illustration was to do a couple black and white interiors. These are a lot more simple but I had fun with them nonetheless. ( Note: I have received a lot of critiques from people saying that Mushu in Mulan does the same thing as my dragon. I have watched Mulan all the way through, on fast forward, to make sure I wasn't ripping Disney off. And, I didn't find anything. So, as far as I know, I'm safe, unless you can prove otherwise.)

Baby Fur Character Maquette

     For this part of our projects we were to sculpt a maquette of the main character of our story. I decided to sculpt Alex in his werewolf form. This is the first time i've ever done anything like this so it was definitely a learning experience. I would like to think that the next time I try one of these i'll be alot better at it! It was a really fun experience though. I'm no professional photographer so the pictures aren't that great.

Pure Hotness

     For my second Artist study I decided to try to emulate the style of a fabulous artist named Joe Olson. His blog can be viewed here. This was a lot of fun to draw. I'm still not very confident with the cartoony style but i'm learning alot. The character was inspired by a head drawing done for me by the legendary KidOho. More to come!

The Journey

     I've finally had the time to sit down and finish my Chinese themed illustration. It was a ton of fun to do! As with most of my illustrations, I will probably tweak a few things in the future. But for not it's finished! Comments Welcome.

Ain't No Fishin Here!

     In one of my independent studies this semester I am studying different artists' approaches to illustration. I take a week or so and study their technique and then I try to apply what i've learned on a personal illustration. For my first illustration I chose Cory Loftis as the artist whose technique I wanted to emulate. He has a really fun way of characterizing animals/figures and a very loose and fun style that I really enjoy. He doesn't have a website but you can look at his blog here.  This piece was a lot of fun! I will revise it a little in the future but for now it's finished. Comments welcome!

Baby Fur Characters

     Here are the rest of the characters from my Baby Fur story. This style is completely new to me still and I struggle with it a little bit. But, I'm satisfied with how these turned out. Comments Welcome!

Baby Fur Character Line Up

     Here's the revised version of my character line-up for my "Baby Fur" story. This is a style that is very different than what I'm used to. But, it's really fun in it's own way. Comments Welcome.

Refined Sketch/Color

  
     I spent some time this weekend gathering reference and doing some research for this painting. It was brought to my attention that pandas are only native to China. I learned something new! Most everything in my image was interchangeable, all except for the panda. Plus, the girl that I had model for my reference photos is Chinese. So, I decided to change it to a Chinese themed illustration. I had a lot of fun doing research on trees and architecture, etc.  I'm still playing around with color trying to get it to feel a little more natural. But, the basic palette isn't going to change. I still haven't thought up a title for this piece. But that's not all that important at this point. Please comment!

Sketch/Color Study

     This is a quick sketch/color study of a book cover i'm getting ready to work on. I haven't thought of a title yet but, I'll get there eventually. I wanted to do an illustration that was inspired by the old Japanese landscape paintings. And, I'm pushing mood and color so I decided to go with a vibrant pink/purple sunset. The end result will undoubtedly look quite different from this sketch. But, it gives you an idea of what I'm thinking. I'm going to shoot some reference for this piece (which is something I haven't done in a while). I have received some feedback on things that I'm going to change but, additional insight is always welcome.

"Baby Fur" Character Line Up (WIP)

     This is the character line up for my Baby Fur story. I have received quite a few beneficial critiques since I did this and the final will look quite a bit different. But, I wanted to let everyone see what i've been working on. I'm going to clean up the lines and the colors and add a sweet background. I'm still open to any suggestions in case someone sees something that others and myself might not have noticed.

Baby Fur (Alex Revised)

     I've been working alot on the redesign of my werewolf baby character for my narrative illustration class. I don't have alot of experience with a "cartoony", line driven style. So, I thought i'd push myself a little. In this class our character is supposed to resemble the medium in which he will be produced. My character, for example, is eventually going to be a 2D animation. So, I designed him to be functional in that environment. Enjoy!

Steampunk Rider (Dust Cover)

     I was curious to see what my book cover illustration would like like... well... on a book. Since i'm all hooked up with Maya (thanks to the new 3 year student license) I made a book in Maya :) Here's a virtual rendition of what my cover illustration would look like. It's a low quality render but I thought it was kinda fun. The text isn't anything special, it's mostly for placement. Maybe someday I'll actually design some real text for the book. In the mean time this will suffice.

Comet Chaser (Spot Illustrations)

     To accompany my steampunk themed illustration I am doing a few spot, interior illustrations as well. I'm trying to keep these loose and quick.

*** NEW WEBSITE! ***

     Well, after a couple months of work my website is finally up and running!! I cannot take all the credit, however, because I had a good friend of mine (Miles Leach) do all the web coding. I designed the visuals and he made them functional. It's still in it's infant stages and will most likely evolve over the years. But this is my first official website and I am very happy with how it turned out.

Without further adieu I present you with:

www.stephensitton.com
 

Comet Chaser (finished)

     After a long weekend I've finally finished my steampunk inspired illustration. I feel like every illustration I do teaches me something new. I've learned a lot painting this piece! Although I should have had this done almost a week ago, it was still a blast. The fan powered balloon contraption was inspired from an ingenious sketch drawn by my cousin, the great Max Gurel (Gobo). As with all my pieces, I will let it sit for a while and maybe in a week or so I'll see something that needs fixing. But for now, any comments/critiques will be most appreciated!

Comet Chaser (Color Test)

     This is my initial color test to get a feel for the colors/values. I'm still tinkering around with things, but for the most part these are the colors i'm going to use. Initially I was going to make the seagulls part machine, but it ended up looking dumb, so I let them be real birds. Any comments/critiques are more than welcome!

Baby Fur (Alex)

     This is my initial character design for a story called "Baby Fur" that I am working on for a narrative illustration class. My story is about Alex, a 2 year old boy who turns into a werewolf. I know because of the "twilight" series everyone is sick of hearing about werewolves/vampires but, I thought making him a baby would put an interesting twist on the story. Plus, I've never seen a story about a baby werewolf before. This illustration shows both sides of him. Most likely the character will change throughout the course of the semester but, this is my first shot. Comments welcome!

Comet Chaser (sketch)

     This is a sketch for an illustration I'm working on to look as if it could be a real book cover. I've included a version that has type on it to show what I'm talking about. As far as I know there isn't any book with that title/theme. I've wanted to do something steampunk for a long time. I'm way excited about the idea! I also get to do some interior spot illustrations along with it. Comments welcome!

Sasquatch

     This illustration requires a bit of explanation. This illustration was based off of a random sentence derived from the word game titled, "exquisite corpse" (look it up). Basically it's a game where you write a word on a piece of paper and then fold the paper and pass it down the line. The next person doesn't know what you wrote and they have to write another word, and so on. Here are the official steps: http://www.suite101.com/content/exquisite-corpse-a58007

My sentence came out "A humorous Sasquatch graceflly remembered the crusty darts". I had to take a liberty or two on my illustration but I had fun nonetheless.

Comments Welcome!

Another Sketch

Here's another sketch I did over the break. More updates to come.

Spot Illustration "The Swing"

I must sincerely apologize for all of you who actually follow my blog posts. It's been almost a month since my last post and I thought it was about time I posted something. I haven't been idle, however, I have been spending time designing my website. It should be done by the end of the month (hopefully).

This was intended to be a warm-up painting. But, I don't think it really counts as a warm-up considering I spent more than one sitting to do it. But, over-all time, it probably only took me 2-3 hours. I used some photo-reference I had laying around of my nephew playing t-ball. Comments welcome.

( Once school starts up again my posts will be a LOT more frequent, I promise!)

"Monkey Love" (finished)

     Similarly to the previous post, this illustration is pretty much done. I'll post it on here early to see if anyone has any last minute critiques. Chances are this is how it will look when I turn it in unless I see something that needs fixing.

(Alas, I was going to do a third illustration for my final but I have run out of time. It is almost 6 a.m. and I have worked through the night and I know for a fact that I can't pull out a 3rd illustration in less than 10 hours time. Do not mourn, however, for I will complete the third illustration during the break.)

"This is Bull" Finished

     I might change things over the next few days before it's due. But, this is pretty much how it will look when I turn it in. I took the windmill out because it just wasn't working for me. Comments Welcome!

"This is Bull!" (Work in Progress)

   This is another sketch for an illustration i'm working on right now. It's still really rough at this point. What i'm trying to decide is if I want to crop in or not. I feel like when I don't crop it's not as interesting. But, I'm afraid that it's kinda awkward cropping a cow right down the middle. What do you think? Crop? Don't crop? In the cropped version I thought maybe a curved fence in the front would help balance the image out. I forgot to add cowbells. But they are going to be in there. (Any cow/bull experts out there please critique the cow anatomy) I need feedback!