The Red Claw of War

Bidja Gams

Digging through my archives today in search of my lost Nephilim sketches, I ran across a few old still life projects from my college years. Being the immense nerd that I was, I usually chose video game equipment as a subject when given the choice. Thought I might as well share them here.

This was the third project in my introductory oil painting class, and probably the one that turned out the best. The assignment was to endow an inanimate object with a sense of emotion through composition and color, and as luck would have it, I ended up picking "joy" from the hat. So I guess this one comes across a little too easily -- but just to prove that I could muster some subtlety, I tried to make the bottom contour of the controller suggest an upturned smile. So there.

Sorry for the low-quality picture. I never bothered to replace it with a better photo.

Here's a color pencil homework assignment from one of my winter terms. Those are my bedsheets there, hoisted over the back of my desk chair and swaddling my second-hand Gamecube. The controllers are looped around the back of the chair, crudely taped in place just off-frame.

I realize that there are some perspective and proportion mistakes in this one, but... man, I was in shape back then. I really need to work myself back up to that level of discipline.

Null Moon

Surprise, it's a sketch of a knight.

An experiment that didn't quite interest me enough to finish it.