The Studio Set Up

Here are some pictures of my studio set up. It's my creative space, where I do anything that I call "creative." Sometimes that's just sitting at my desk and staring into space. Essentially, this is a spare bedroom in my house that I've claimed for my personal use. That's one advantage of having just one child: the other bedroom is empty and can be used for something less expensive than raising a second child.

So. here's a shot of my table for doing all my miniatures and modeling projects. You can see that some recently completed minis are kept in a plastic storage box. This is done because I have two cats that will jump up on the table when I'm not around and eat my figures. So, I protect them in a covered box. Also, this gives me a place to keep them to look at after I'm done with them. For whatever reason, I like to stare at my completed artworks for weeks after I'm done with them. Then they get chucked into storage and hardly ever see the light of day.

Here's a wider shot of the whole set up. You can see some of my pin-up paintings on the walls and a colored pencil drawing that I'm working on currently. I'll post that when I'm done with it, too.

Here's where all my Warhammer stuff sits in boxes either awaiting assembly and/or painting. Also, a Sobol case holds my almost never played Ultramarines. You can see the Dwarf Battalion and Ogre bull boxes in need of attention. Better get cracking on that.

The studio, as you can tell, is a mess. I could hardly function in a place with too much organization. There's a nice sized closet in there that's just overflowing with miscellaneous junk. I didn't bother to photograph that, as it's probably too shocking for you to bear looking at. I have a corner shelving unit also that's not pictured. It too is an unsightly mass of brushes, pencils, solvents and who knows what else. Also, the carpet is wrecked too. That's what I call "making it my own."

I'd be remiss in showing my studio if I did not include a picture of my easel. Here's where all the painting gets done that's too large for my desk. You can see some more of my paintings on the wall. My favorite Sophia Loren portrait is up there too. I'll have to get around to posting that one here. It's one of my better ones. Also, piled in the corner is my very scientific storage method for my Warhammer armies. I've got Orcs on the bottom, piled up with Battlefleet Gothic stuff, Hordes stuff, Warmachine stuff. Believe it or not, a Tyranids army is hiding somewhere in this room. Of course, they're camoflaged so you can't find them.

The computer monitor next to the desk is where I put up a lot of my reference photos for when I paint. It's like a nice slide projector only better since I can zoom in and out and got to grey scale or change colors. Don't know how I worked without one. Also pay no attention to that Dirt Devil behind the easel. I never use it except to scare my cats away when I want them to leave me in peace for a minute.

I hope you enjoyed the studio tour!

Trying Out a Picture

Here's a first attempt at posting up a digital painting of mine. I created this on my computer using Painter 9 and a Wacom pen tablet. It's a few years old now, and I think I could do better today. Still, I like this painting. It was fun to do and is themed on one of my favorite hobbies -- Warhammer 40,000. So have a look at this and let me know what you think.

First time out

So, here's my new blog. This is really just a test post to see how things will look and how this all works. I'm essentially migrating all of my old website to this blog. I think this site will be easier to maintain and also give me flexibility to put up what I want to put up, and not just limit it to my artwork.

I'm calling this Jerry's Big Picture because I don't want to limit myself to any one thing. I usually have too much going on at once, and I'd like to share all of it. So, here launches "the Big Picture!"