Happy Halloween!

Cooking is one of my favorite pastimes. Two Christmases ago, my wife and I made a bunch of chocolate truffles to give as gifts. They turned out well, but ended up being much more labor intensive than I had expected. After that experience, I cast aside the idea of making truffles again without the help of a chocolate tempering machine. Somehow, completely unbidden, an idea popped into my head of how to make some really unique truffles and I couldn't seem to let it go. I am a sucker for a good concept and even though it would entail an elaborate process, eventually, I just had to make them. Walnuts have always reminded me of tiny little brains, so coated with candy and set inside of miniature chocolate skulls, they would make an irresistible Halloween treat.


To pull this idea off, required quite a bit of preparation. First, I sculpted little skulls out of polymer clay and molded them in food grade silicon. Then, I made bittersweet chocolate ganache, froze it and rolled it into little balls. Finally, I molded the white chocolate skull truffles, fitted each one with a bittersweet center and topped it off with a candy coated walnut "brain". They looked appropriately macabre, packaged in black tins lined with red velvet. No one expects a Halloween gift, so the recipients were amused and delighted.

Now that I know the process, I have quite a few other ideas for unique truffle shapes. If anyone wants to try making their own food molds, I described the process in detail here.
It was a lot of work, but fun and I now have a mold I can use for years to come.

Life changes

Well the last 18 months have been the most challenging in my life. My wife passed away due to breast cancer at the end of October 2008. Her dying at only 31 years old has radically shifted my view on life. It is no longer acceptable to push off the dreams I have to a future that may never come. I have always wanted to travel and so far this year I have spent 3 weeks in Germany and Switzerland, a week in Hawaii and am just about to go on a month long road trip across the USA.

I haven't really had the energy or desire to paint outside of work, so this blog has languished in the meantime. I am feeling better every day, so I hope to get back into the groove of it soon. I really want to feel inspired again and I am hoping the fresh perspective that travel can bring will help.

One of the games I did some work for has come out and another one is due to be published in 2010. I did a lot of background paintings and prop design for them, but I can't show much yet. These images have been published elsewhere, so I can re-post them here.

Here is the cover of A Vampyre Story. I painted everything but the characters, which are 3D with some touch up by me.(.. and the bats, which my boss Bill Tiller added in)



Here are a couple screenshots with backgrounds I painted. The game is Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island which is due in 2010. (Blogger is cropping them from the left side, so click the images to see the whole screenshot)

Catacombs

I am trying to improve my environment painting abilities. I finally got around to completing a painting. I really struggled with this one, but partway through it took on a life of its own. I like parts of it, and if I did it over, I would simplify it a lot, but it was a good exercise.


a detail:

another detail:

John Singer Sargent studies

I discovered the work of John Singer Sargent in my late teens and he has remained one of my favorite painters ever since. I am still awestruck by his ability to express complex and nuanced subjects with just a few expertly placed brush strokes. I remember saving up to buy the Carter Ratcliff Sargent book and spending hours studying the images. As my painting abilities have improved, I have grown to appreciate his mastery even more. I was lucky enough to see an exhibit of his work in Seattle in 2001 and prints do not do his paintings justice. You need to see the paint handling up close to appreciate how amazing he was.

Here are a couple of studies I have done of his paintings.

Closeup of the face.

Here is an image of the original Lady Agnew of Lochnaw:

Here is another study I did of Dr. FitzWilliam Sargent:

Here is an animation of the process. Although it is digital, I tried to approximate Sargent's process. It is interesting to see how flat and two dimensional everything looks until the highlights are placed.

Here is an image of the original:

Sculptures painted

I finally got around to painting a couple of my sculptures. They still need to be touched up with dullcote and glosscote. You can see the concept sketches in this post.

I might cast this one in resin someday to get a translucent look that matches my concept art more closely.

old shaman

These are character sketches for a graphic novel project that is on indefinite hold. I had fun trying out a more "cartoony" style than usual.

aquatic creature