From my hands to your eyes.
I used to really struggle with sketching on digital. So what I used to do was I would do my drawings on paper, scan them, and then add digital color. This little guy here was the first sketch and color I did years ago that is completely digital, and he opened a door for me that allowed me expand on my skill set. The past few months I haven’t been working so much in digital, but with the stories that I have upcoming, I think it would be wise of me to step back into that mode…
-Daniel J. James-
This one started with me just practicing faces but grew into something more.
-Daniel J. James-
I put a lot of work into creating the Pavilion LinX stories. The art, the stories, the planning… I felt it was good. But somehow it wasn’t right. So I decided to start over. This isn’t the first time either. I’ve gone back and forth with my story telling because i was rushing myself. I wanted to jump in head first without really knowing what I was doing. I’m still trying to reconcile things within the new stories that will be coming in March. Reconcile what was, learning what it is, and dreaming what it could be. But like I’ve said before, the key to it all will be authenticity in my storytelling. Even though I let go of those stories, there were some very important things that were within them that I hope to carry over, and lessons I learned that I hope will help make them something special. While those stories may be in my archive, I still love some of the artwork that came out of that time…
-Daniel J. James-
A commission I did for a friend of mine that wanted to give it as a gift to her grandson. I really like how it came out.
-Daniel J. James-
I made this one a while back, and I love it even more now than I did then. At the time I was playing around with different poses and perspectives. I think I need to do more of this moving forward.
-Daniel J. James-
So there was this online group I was in (am in, not sure) and there was a art challenge that was going to happen with the prompt being creating a our very own Naruto Original Character. Somehow, somewhere, someone dropped the ball and the thing never came about, but this was going to be my submission for the challenge.
-Daniel J. James-
Honestly, there was a time when I really didn’t understand what it meant to have an artistic style.
I thought it was about the choices you made and the skills you acquired.
But that’s not it.
The choices you make and the skills you pick up only add to your style.
Your style is your natural rhythm.
The lines and strokes you make without any thought to it at all.
Your style is you quirks and imperfections.
And sometimes your style is the things you wish you could change about yourself, but you can.
I’ve come to understand that your artistic style is your voice. Your style, your voice, your art should always be authentically you.
I love this artwork and this character that was done by Uncle J .
When I saw the challenge, the thing I wanted to express the most when creating the character in my style, was the quiet divinity I saw in the original.
There were times I wanted to go back and change things in my version of the character to match what I saw in the original, but that would defeat the purpose of drawing them in my style…
So… I got a thing for frogs. I got this little guy years ago at the thrift store I used to work at. One day I decided to let my imagination wander a little bit and did some froggy artwork…
-Daniel J. James-
This is a painting I did over the summer, because I didn’t have access to my digital art tools, and so I started painting more. For some reason, I fell in love with making characters with these big blank eyes, and I guess maybe it was reflective of the sense of hopelessness I was feeling at the time. The mask is about outside expectations. Who the world has intended for him to be.
-Daniel J. James-
ASH 9/17 