Bald Eagle - Process.

The entire piece is A5 size (149x210mm) Whole process took under 2.5 hours. This piece was done with reference off a photo taken by Michael Melford from National Geographic site on Bald Eagles. >>Link here<<.


30 mins. Started out directly with watercolors. I've not use pencils for some years now because I'm lazy. Over the years I've sketched directly with pen so to some extent it took away any fear of ruining a perfectly white piece of paper.


60 mins. I've already nailed down most of what I want by the hour mark. The rest is just filling in detailing.


Quick comparison to the reference I have on screen.


90 mins. Used another brand of watercolors (Schmincke's) to darken up the background and added details. Started to work in some of the feathers on the body.


120 mins. Added a light hue to the beak. Detailing on the body feathers and lost some definition in the white areas I have left white from the start.


140 mins. Done. Worked on the beak a bit more with some wet on wet to blend the orange into the yellow. Also gave the eye a shadow. Nothing more I add at this point will alter anything significantly so I decided to stop and call it a day. After all this is a practice piece and I've hit the things I want to do in this exercise.

Happy Darwin Day!!

I thought I'd go back to some Natural Science on Darwin's special day. Tried to figure out what really represented the science he stood for. Finally settled on his Finches from the Galapagos.....which ironically weren't very high on his list of things to figure out :D though they were one of those findings that supported his idea of "transmutation" when he started thinking about it in South America.


Reference from JellyBean's Big World. Very entertaining blog.

Also started using my new batch of Schmincke watercolors. Its VERY GOOD. Then again its probably one of the more expensive pigments around so it better be good.

Wheels

Concept Troop Transport


Rollin' on quad bikes.

More Historical Stuff

It feels great to be doing historical units with watercolors.

One more piece of Roman Auxillary Trooper



Norman Knights maile coif study - they put on a quilted padded cotton arming cap before wearing the coif.


Subsequently with better metallurgy technology the medieval armourers were able to fashion bigger plates and the Great Helm was born. Full faced protection comes at a price - no peripheral vision.



I've been doing some reading on the Terracotta Warriors too - what intruiged me was really their armour. Instead of simply being overlapped in sequence like Lamellar armour, the Qin era plates were arranged in a way that would have less of a weakness if struck directly from the front.


What's also interesting was the plated helmet that was found in a separate site. That goes to show the Qin soldiers did not go to war bare headed. The Terracotta Warriors in the mausoleum were posed in parade dress rather than full battle dress.


If you compare the Qin bodyarmour to the modern infantryman....


...the design seems timeless.


Of course our anatomy hasn't changed at all since modern humans came about, but bodyarmour has gone through a great amount of changes via available technology and a compromise between mobility and protection. So its kinda interesting we've come full circle. If you look at the internal plate structures of today's bodyarmour - with front and back plates + optional side plates, its very close in layout to the Persian Chahar-Ainé. Ideas remain the same - technology and materials change....but war....war never changes. (October can't come soon enough)

History Weekend - Medieval Military Update

Trying out some watercolors. Getting back into it with a Daler Rowney pocket watercolor set. Also ran across several BBC documentaries on the Normans and the Norman invasion of the British Isles. And I dug around a bit on the earlier Anglo-Saxon invasion and I've been reading up on the Arthurian legends which were kinda placed in the short span of time after Roman withdrawal from Western Europe and before the Anglo-Saxon invasion/immigration. All very interesting.

Here are some sketches on those topics.

Late Roman Era Infantryman


Equipment of an Infantryman


Granted its not really accurate - The Pilum isn't really in use by the 4th to 5th century just before Roman withdrawal from Western Europe. The course of warfare has evolved by then with the Romans so effective and technologically superior - it makes no sense to train and equip expensive troops when the frontline brawlers could win the day.

On to the Normans - I was intrigued by the written description of their hairstyle. I've given it a modern spin here - when I first heard the description I thought they must've looked a lot like modern infantrymen with crew cuts.


Norman knight 1066AD


There's a lot more freedom when it comes to accuracy of the uniform in this 1500 year stretch. Most soldiers paid for their own equipment and each piece is customized to some extent. Gives room for creative freedom :D


Pretty cool exercise - I need more practice. The Holbien Waterbrush is great if you're working on a more intuitive level as it always stays wet as long as you have water in the well - but sometimes for detail work, I have to switch back to a normal brush for dry brushing. Still, its quite an interesting piece of equipment.