the art of Will Terrell

I did this T-shirt design for Texa$ Don Zielinski celebrating his 50th anniversary of drag racing.  He is a cool guy and this project was a lot of fun to work on.  I did a lot of concept sketches to get the car design just right.  I will post some of those here when I get the chance.   I also got to work with my (new) wife on this, since she’s an amazing artist herself.   AND… I got to see a real Drag Racer in action.  Sometimes I have the coolest job in the world.

-Will

Here’s a sketch I did at the Figure drawing group tonight.  This was a long pose session, so I tried to spend more time on one drawing than I usually do.  This was actually my second sketch, which I spent about an hour on.  Its a combination of Pen/Ink, washes, Prizma marker and white out pen.  I really enjoyed the session, and I am looking forward to doing more.

If you are looking to do figure drawing in Lubbock, check out the group website or just stop by!

I love sketching Old Dudes.  Its no secret.   Especially living in West Texas where Old Dudes are in and of themselves work of art for the caricature artist.  I was out at the Market Street last night with Amber sketching people, and the Olderly’s were out in full force.   This guy was one of my favorites.  I decided to paint him in Photoshop.  I want to do a whole scene of these guys.  But I still have lots of other work to be doing.  Maybe one of these days I’ll do a book of ‘em.

-Will

This likeness turned out a little better for Mr Vader I think.  though I still see lots of room for improvement.  Whats weird is that I thought I lost this one several times because I over-inked the thing, but was somehow able to bring it back in the painting process.  Its funny how that works.  I almost never scrap drawings now, because I know if I’m patient with them, eventually they’ll come out alright.

I’m going to try a few more portraits if I have time outside my freelance work.  After a handful of those, I might try for an actual “Star Wars” style illustration, the way Drew Struzen makes it look so effortless.  Till then, I’m having fun practicing.

-Will

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Continuing with the Star Wars theme, I Decided to take a crack at painting Darth Vader.  Definitely takes some work to get the costume right.  Especially on the helmet.  I think this turned out well, and I’m anxious to try it a few times till I get the result I’m looking for.

-Will

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I love Star Wars.  I need to do more Star Wars art.  Its so much fun.  Except when your airbrush is acting up and you end up breathing in too much atomized paint.  *Coff* *cof*

This was a quick illustration, using pen/ink, prisma markers, airbrush and acrylic paints.  About 10″x10″.   Its from a stormtrooper design I saw in a toy magazine.  Coruscant trooper, or something like that.  Pretty cool.

-Will

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Several of my friends from the Lubbock Sketch Club and from around town got together and pitched in to buy me a new drawing tablet to replace my old one that has been hurting my feelings for nigh on two years now.  It was a complete surprise and a real blessing.  Its a new Wacom Intuos 4 tablet.  My old one was a 3.  I didn’t even know they had 4′s out yet.  Its pretty awesome, with a lot more short cut buttons and a touch ring that works as both a zoom, and can toggle through several other convenient options.  Its really amazing.

Its been kind of rough month.  But all of a sudden, I’m with a new laptop, with all new adobe suite, and a new drawing tablet.  I’m really looking forward to diving 2010!

So this is my first official digital sketch with the new tablet.  Amber is really into UFO’s and aliens right now, so I guess this drawing came out of that somehow.  I think he’s cute. This was about an hour in Photoshop.

I hope everyone has a wonderful, blessed Christmas and New Years.  Keep smiling!

-Will

This is a pencil sketch I did last week, and I colored it up last night (with a mouse, if you can believe it).  I am pretty happy with how she turned out!  I’ve always loved Harley Quinn.  I’m trying something new.  I am going to offer this as a print!  I’ve added a paypal button.  The print is 5×7 on high quality rag paper.

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Last year I worked for a local company called Red Raider Outfitter designing Texas Tech game day shirts.  It was a fun job and I got to work with a great artist and I learned a lot about graphic design, adobe illustrator, and meeting deadlines.  I also had the fortune to work on a few of the big gameday shirts – one being the BLACK-OUT Texas shirt design that 10,000 plus people were wearing in the stadium when Tech pulled out that amazing 39 – 33 victory.  I was lucky to be at that game thanks to some free tickets from my friend Phillip.

Well, it’s football season again, and even though I am only occasionally doing freelance work for Outfitter, I got the chance to work on this years Gameday design.  I think it turned out pretty well.  The shirt is available for Pre-sell now on their site if you’re looking to gear up for the game.

It’s always crazy how much a design can evolve from its initial conception.  It always goes that way, through several different stages of revision.  You only have a certain number of colors to print with in screen-printing.  Plus your line-widths and colors have to be very deliberate.  It definitely teaches you to be more bold with your decisions.  This was my original illustrator version before the copy was added…

And the original pen and ink drawing…

I much prefer the detail you can get in pen and ink.  But it doesn’t screen very well.   But it is what it is.  I hope the shirt does well, and I really hope Tech does well too!

-Will

This is from a while back. Its a shirt design for a fundraiser to fight cancer. I wasn’t sure what cancer was supposed to look like. Or a t-cell for that matter. So I just went with what came to mind. I’m pretty happy with how it turned out.

Livestrong cancer run