Patio Flower

Painting for the animated Sinbad feature

Gouache Sketchbook Work

Township from The Legend of Puss in Boots

The Spanish Town from The legend of Puss in Boots, the layout is by the amazing Marcos Mateu-Mestre and painted by me.

How to Draw Portraits in Charcoal Demo

One of the demos features in my new portrait drawing book available on Amazon!

Pet Portrait

I did a portrait of a family members pet as a gift:

Portrait Book Available at Amazon!

Here's the link to Amazon to purchase the book and a short demo for you:

 

The Road to El Dorado

A scene from the movie featuring one of my paintings.

Road to El Dorado Scene

Demo from Schoolism.com

An abbreviated demo in watercolor. The full demo https://www.schoolism.com/school.php?id=36 is one of nearly thirty in my Schoolism landscape sketching course. It's now available for an inexpensive self study subscription at $15/mo.

Family Pet

Years ago I did a watercolor portrait of a family member's dog as a gift.

Happy Halloween!

Moonrise

In the spirit of the season, here's a sketch of moon rise from an abandoned road...

My ink sketching setup

This is one of the demos from my online landscape sketching course. In it I show a handy technique for quickly capturing a vivid quality of light!

Online Landscape Painting Course!

It's finally here! https://www.schoolism.com/school.php?id=36 My online course: Landscape Sketching in Watercolor and Gouache is available as a self study subscription at an affordable $15/month.
No long term commitment is required for the class but it may the beginning a of a lifelong commitment to the joy landscape painting for you!

Road to El Dorado Elements and Scene

Dawn Tower

I got my copy of James Gurney's book on Adolph Menzel! The man lived by his motto "Not a day without a line." and sketched and painted everything all the time (as does the admirable James Gurney, one of our best living artists), his commitment was extraordinary! My hope is that that all of us digital artists will follow his inspiration and improve through observational study. The book has helped me redouble my efforts, It sits next to my desk and is frequently perused as a constant reminder of what the attitude of a real artist is. I highly recommend it, get your copy at James' website.

Jungle Birds!

The Prince of Egypt!

Another of my scenes from The Prince of Egypt. Still can't believe my career began with such an opportunity and hope the same for you.

City on a Hill

Office Window, Digital

About 13 years ago I went through the transition from traditional painting for animation to digital. It was really tough. I prided myself on my brushwork but had to transition to tap tap tapping on a wacom tablet, no cintiq existed.
So to practice, I continued my habit of painting the view out my office window but now with digital tools. These are some of my first digital paintings.

Rio2 Concept Art

Here's a set of concept art roughs and the finish from the animated movie Rio2. It's the confrontation between Blue the Macaw and the tree cutting machine. We went with the less saturated choice because it allows the bird to be the main focus of the moment.

The idea is to carefully control the value contrast, hue contrast and saturation contrast to properly emphasize the story moment. I also have the ground plane tipped to add drama.

If you'd like to learn more you can checkout the new inexpensive subscription program http://www.schoolism.com/school.php?id=22 for my online concept art classes.

How to Train Your Dragon Production Process

Here's some work done for How to Train Your Dragon during high production on the show. It's not general concept art but rather it's created specifically for the 3D modeling and texturing departments for reference to create the final set.

We Begin with a rough Maya model (not created by me), and find useful angles and take snapshots to use as layout.

Then we find appropriate photo reference to help us give a believable surface quality to the location. I'm personally hesitant about photo bashing for concept art but here it can be a help to the texture Department.
The scene is then painted and worked out in Photoshop as a work of reference for the rest of the production team.

To learn the entire process from start to finish for an animated film or game design you can take my Environment Design course for an inexpensive subscription price at: http://www.schoolism.com/school.php?id=26

Puss in Boots Concept Art: Bleak Township

I previously posted an idyllic version of this scene but later in the story the town falls on hard times.

Day and Night

I did a bunch of townscape exploration sketches for The Legend of Puss in Boots, here's a day and night take on it.

Puss in Boots Old City Painting

Painting for the flashback sequence of The Legend of Puss in Boots.
This was hugely collaborative with the layout by Ron Kurniawan and character design by Patrick Mate.

Back From China!

Great trip to Beijing China where I did a week long design workshop for the Create Change forum sponsored by my alma mater, Art Center College of Design.

 

Portrait Drawing Book Now Available!

It's up!! Available NOW on amazon for pre-order. https://www.amazon.com/Draw-Portraits-Charcoal-Nathan-Fowkes/dp/1624650317/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468346064&sr=1-1
We're so proud of the book and are confident you'll enjoy it. Please share the link if you'd like to support it.

Charcoal Portrait Drawing!

This is one of many drawings that will be featured in my soon to be released book, How to Draw Portraits in Charcoal.

 

Practice Study

Rome!

I recorded the painting of this study, it will be included in my online landscape painting class found here.

Revisiting the Puss in Boots Beatboard

I've posted a few bits of this here and there but here's a group for you:
(some collaboration here with the great layout artist Marcos Mateu-Mestre.)