most recent posts
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003 - recreating nueva york - spiderman 2099
a couple years ago i sketched spider-man 2099 after ‘spider-man: across the spider-verse’ released and i spent a while trying to make sure he felt like he came right out of the movie. i succeeded in getting miguel right originally but the background was, lacking. earlier this summer i decided i wanted to refresh this piece and give it some new life with a new background. i knew from the start i wanted to have miguel on a gargoyle and i knew i wanted the space elevator in the background. that space elevator was something from the film i really liked seeing. so i pulled out the sketchbook and ipad and drafted up some sketches.
i’ve been experimenting with blender and there is a lot of buildings and perspective in nueva york, so i decided to create the new background in blender. i learned a lot with this piece haha. it was my first time doing a larger shot within blender. my initial goal was just to use blender for the layout and making sure perspective was correct, i did not want to worrying about rendering. as i was building the elevator, i started messing around with materials and lighting and suddenly i was took a deep dive into blenders compositor node system…
i got stuck in the node zone a few times and spent more hours than i’d like to admit re-rendering the scene to try new stuff. my first thought was to render one layer with line art only and another layer of the render, that i would paint over. after a few tries at it i finally was able to get something i was happy with using blenders freestyle rendering pass. since i used a basic compositor node tree, i figured why not make it way more complicated and try and get a close to final look within blender. after even more hours of re-rendering this scene i finally landed on something that worked for me. i ended up using a combination of glare and the kuahara filter. i still wanted to paint over the whole thing but using blender in this way taught me a lot about the program and i have a better idea of how i can fully utilize blender in my workflow.
eventually i had to wrap it up by painting over the background in clip studio to tie it all together. i’ve been in the process of moving away from adobes apps for years now and photoshop has been the one program i gotta have. i’ve had a copy of clip studio for years but i finally bit the bullet and uninstalled photoshop and forced myself to use clip studio. it was a good move, procreate is great but it doesn’t work in macOS and i’ve been itching to use my cintiq. i spent so much money on it a few years back and i prefer working on the desktop. granted at this point i could also just use the ipad for most things. regardless, i like clip studio and will be using it as my main desktop painting app for the foreseeable future.
@michael_fran.art a couple years ago i sketched spiderman 2099 and i spent a while trying to make sure he felt like he came right out of the movie. i succeeded in getting miguel right but the background was, lacking. earlier this summer i decided i wanted to refresh this piece and give it some new life with a new background. i’ve been experimenting with blender and there is a lot of buildings and perspective in nueva york, so i decided to create the new background in blender. i learned a lot with this piece haha. i got stuck in the node zone a few times and spent more hours than i’d like to admit re-rendering the scene to try new stuff. eventually i had to wrap it up by painting over the background in clip studio to tie it all together. #spiderman #spiderman2099 #spiderverse #fanartfriday #fanart #marvel #miguelohara ♬ Spider-Man 2099 (Miguel O'Hara) - Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse - Daniel Pemberton -
002 - hot wheelz
"hot wheelz" 16x20 digital paintingwhen i was a kid, one of my favorite things was to play with was my rather large collection of hot wheels toys i had collected over the years. i would set up race tracks, fake construction sites and just see how intricate and crazy i could make courses. I also loved car chases and would even stage lil getaway scenarios, it was fun as hell!
hot wheels were (and still are) a core reason i really love cars and the car community. i'd also play games like forza, need for speed underground and midnight club that would get me thinking about body styles, liveries and the aesthetic of cars. a couple family members of mine have owned 4th gen and 5th gen mustangs. i personally own a 6th gen GT and i quite like it :)
this summer one of the big things i wanted to finally tackle and learn is how i can implement 3D into my workflow. i've sparingly used it in the past for some complicated perspectives i tried but i've seen a rise in a painterly/stylized 3D art-style gain popularity (thanks arcane!) and it's been inspiring work to see! the plan is to learn how to model, texture and rig models that i can use to speed up some of the tedious work. I also want to experiment with animation my illustrations. my thought was if i'm going to build something in 3D why don't i try and add movement as well? for the first few pieces that use this technique i'm trying will be static but i'm being mindful of motion when laying out the composition on these. my goal isn't to create 'final' models and renders that would be mostly untouched by me. i like going back over everything with a hand painting layer. i can get pretty picky when it comes to the textures and color in my work so i wanted to be smart with my use of 3D to make sure everything meshes.
the "bosStang 65" model i created in blender
for this illustration i started in my sketchbook, like i do for most illustrations, with a couple thumbnail sketches. i already had the composition down when i started and one i had a more rough version i opened up blender. the model was textured by hand by creating a custom UV that I bought into procreate to paint on. i ended up throwing most of it out lol. it just wasn't looking how i wanted and then i downloaded this paint system by tawan sunflower and used it to get the toon shading i was looking for right inside of blender. the lighting wasn't too hard but when i added a couple iterations of the models into the illustration in procreate, i knew i was heading in the right direction.
layer breakdown of how i painted over the 3D model
after modeling the car, i would do a quick viewport render and add it to my illustration. i repeated this a few times to get the colors right and the perspective right. its not too separate with the way i would push and pull colors before but knowing the perspective and rendering are mostly locked in helps me focus on color and mood. eventually it all just fell into place.
the modeling i did was fine. it had been a while since i had done anything like this but i think i got back into it well enough. i want to try and model a couple more cars and then throw them all into one big scene together.
remember, slow down to speed up
made with intention by human hands, michael
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001 - creating a ringmaster
i had zero intention of starting this blog with a post related to politics but here i am.
"the ringmaster of the great american circus" 16x20 inch digital artworkthe goal i set at the beginning of the month was to launch my online print shop in tandem with the summer solstice on june 20th and create a couple illustrations related to the solstice alongside my pleinairpril collection. i still plan to soft launch the shop later thus week, i'll make a post about that too! however, the vibes here in the united states are, off. to say the least. immigration agents are kidnapping people across the country, we're getting dragged into another war and about 100 other reason to dislike this administration in the white house have people upset. very upset.
i also feel this administration has been terrible. i've never been a trump guy and these last few weeks have been a living nightmare, both in my own personal world and the outside world. so i felt compelled to get that energy out of me and create this political cartoon to go alongside the no kings protest on saturday, june 14th. it felt quite nice to get this outta my system so i can move onto the next thing.
@michael_fran.art timelapse of me creating the ringmaster caricature of donald trump 🤡🤡🤡 for no kings day, june 14th 2025 #nokings #nokingsamerica #president #america #caricature #clown #jester #ringleader ♬ Tear The Facists Down - Woody Guthrie i think the piece speaks for itself. on my social media posts about it, i had a couple paragraphs about trump being a puppet, this being an up-vs-down issues as opposed to a left-vs-right and how immigrants built this country and nobody is illegal on stolen land. one thing i didn't include was a call to action because i wasn't sure what i wanted that too be. i know not everyone can go protest and i know money is tight for a lot of people, myself included. i also don’t expect people to all of a sudden become a leftist like me and flip their political views over night. it doesn’t work like that and i don’t expect that. what i find frustrating is their loyalty to the individual who has a limited scope of opinions. loyalty to someone who doesn’t like anyone who disagrees with them. that’s the beauty of democracy right? that everyone’s voices are heard? that we will disagree and that the truth is whats most important?
it also has been quite reassuring seeing how many people disliked this man as much as i do. for some reason, i was a bit worried this wouldn't land well but it has become one of my best performing pieces so far. suprisingly, i haven't received a bit of hate either, which i expected some pushback but im happy to report my comments and dm's are clean of maga hate, for now.
thumbnails and ideas i had for this illustrationoriginally i was going to do trump as a puppet and i wanted him to be ominously dangling above a generic white house with fire or some kind of chaos behind them all. i still think that was a cool idea but when i tried to execute it came off as more aggressive than i was intending. i think the idea of portraying trump as a 'force to be reckoned with' or as a villain isn't as solid of a message as liberals think it is. the real villains are behind the scenes, the billionaires and tech companies. not this clown. i didn't want to prop him up so instead i made him seem like the fool he is. maga likes seeing him as this powerful figure, many believe him to be just that. he's not. he's is the president of the united states and he works for the people. he should remember that.
so if i were to attach a call to action here, it would be for my fellow artists out there. if you also feel compelled to speak on anyone you believe in, speak up! create a piece that you're proud of and that represents who you are as a human being. i got a handful of comments that were wanting more political cartoons from more types of artists. i think the political cartoon genre has gotten stale and it's been really fun to dive into this subject.
the landscape in entertainment (film, animation and video games) is changing and has been for years. indie studios are growing more and more and our ties to old money are breaking. we can speak directly to our audiences in ways that traditional media wouldn't allow. i think we have an opportunity to not let anyone control the narrative but us.
sketches of donald trump as a clown puppet from my sketchbookgoing forward, i plan to keep my politics to a few select pieces every now and again. i've always wanted my pages to be light-hearted and inspire hope. i feel this is one of those few cases where i wanted to say something and it is what it is. while i will try and stay positive and light-hearted, i will speak my mind as i feel necessary. i have one more 'political' piece planned for the fourth of july but my focus going forward will be around indigenous issues and environmental issues, like the fact that were about to put up a majority of public lands up for sale to pay for the tax cuts for the wealthy...
i also have some not-political stuff ive been working on. my next blog post will go over what the actual plan is going forward. i'm still evolving the vision for how this blog, my social media pages and my artworks all tie together to tell my story. more to come!
remember, slow down to speed up.
made w intention by human hands, michael :)