Morning Snack

The first of an important series of 2010 concept art pieces. All technicalities of art aside, my main focal point is "storyline"I'm exploring humor and storytelling from a completely personal level.It's not enough to just draw funny pictures, rather convey a funny message to my audience that they can relate to, and enjoy as much as I do.Therein lies the real challenge...and one which has taken me on a journey studying illustration and live-action comics through the ages.

Magelord

Magelord is part of my 2010 concept art collection.

My focus during the piece was to approach lighting using photographer's laws of light rather than a painters.

How a camera over-exposes lighting or readjusts itself to different lighting situations.

as for character design, I wanted to keep it simple by segmenting the armor and gear the same way an MMO concept artist would. Each piece of armor is individualized (ie - pauldrons, robe, helm etc...)

The character is deliberately generic - I aimed for "cool looking" rather than portraying personality to any great degree.

Alice

Here's something that I was intending on keeping for myself and my family.

On November 2009, my beautiful young girl Chloe was born.

Every child in my family have their own fairy that comes to visit them when they're sleeping. As my older daughter Emily has had her fairy Brigitte since she was 6 months old, Chloe now has her little Alice.

Everyone meet Alice :)

Druid

Druid is straight-forward character design using traditional digital painting techniques.

The inspiration behind this piece came from an unexpected source. I had the pleasure of meeting a fine artist who's skill was creating hauntingly beautiful dolls made from millions of beads, memorabilia, gems etc.

We sat together for hours as she described the story behind each individual doll, and how every tiny item attached had a significant meaning behind it.

Absolutely inspiring work.

I honestly don't have the patience or skill to create dolls like that of my own, but her work definitely contributed to my creation of this character. My petite homage to her work is the beaded jewelery and dressings scattered throughout the character's outfit.

Lady of Lafayette

Lady of Lafayette is part of my 2010 collection. This was a particularly fun project for me, delving into storytelling.

Being a documentary junkie, I wanted to bring an element of medieval and religious history into the image from a modern perspective. in this case, exposing the current "unearthed truths" about the history of women and religion, as many books like Da Vinci Code explore.

Many religious works of art often tell the story with male characters as the main focal points. In this case my painting was entirely female in subject with hints of conspiracy theory embedded in the surrounding architecture.

And...I was born in New Orleans..the land of superstition. I only saw it fit that Lafayette Cemetery be the modern stage for such a topic.

Monk

This 2010 concept piece has a slightly more classical approach to it. My aim was realism to a modest degree while working within the constraints of a speed-painting.

My inspiration was William Bouguereau's use of sharp contrast, composition and most of all, subtlety of color. I picked a stark-white robe for that very reason. Although the colors are more noticeable on the face and hands, the focal points...I must have spent triple the time and effort applying color to the robe. The end result was very satisfying, and believable image.

Welcome to Quebec

Another 2010 speed painting by Adam Duff.

Having enjoyed painting My Highschool Sweetheart, I decided to explore one more "zombie" piece.

I explored very much the same principles I did with the female zombie piece as I did in this one - presenting the back-story to my zombie character. In this case, I wanted to add a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor alongside.

We are usually introduced to zombie store keepers, zombie cheerleaders etc...but I wanted to portray a zombie plague that sucks right off the bat.

I asked myself "how could I begin a story by telling the audience that an entire city or province has been overrun by flesh-eating baddies?" Well...stick him at the border crossing gas station!

My Highschool Sweetheart

My Highschool Sweetheart is a combination of traditional character design with a hint of theatrical storytelling embedded in the design itself.

Although it's not a regular practice of mine, there's a lot of enjoyment in drawing Zombies. Dramatic weight distribution and exposed anatomy poses many technical artistic challenges.

From an artists perspective, what draws me to illustrating zombies is the story behind the zombie. Who were they prior to being "zombified". To me, this makes for a more meaningful character design. A zombie alone is well...just a zombie! Realizing that she was once a beautiful young lady exposes you to the tragedy of who she's become...or at least, who she no longer is.

Dragon Slayer

An earlier piece from my 2010 collection. My focus was less on artistry and more on storytelling.

In this image, my goal was to illustrate the boundless imagination of a young boy.

I got the idea watching my friends children playing the "floor is LAVA!" game. It was in watching the children play that I realized how to make the merge of real and fantastical in my illustration. Everything the boy "touched' would be real, and everything else would meld away into a fantasy world.

Although my focus wasn't actually technical artistry, the end result is one which I enjoy more than other more technically challenging pieces.