L5 Astronaut - Figurative Illustration Workshop, March session

Last night I attended the Figurative Illustration Workshop, where this month's model was "Astronaut Rodney Lewis" from the crowd-funded sci fi miniseries "L5". The model, who is also L5's production designer and "action wrangler" Chad Burns, had on some really nice gear; as I understand it he built the spacesuit himself from things he picked up at places like Home Depot and American Science & Surplus. So awesome.

L5's director Stanley Von Medvey and production designer Chad Burns

The life drawing session was a great opportunity to test out Colors! 3D "in the wild" and it worked out really well. Having the compact form factor of the 3DS allowed me to paint from what would normally be a problematic angle. Also, the built-in camera allowed me to take reference pics on the fly, which I could then import into Colors! 3D without pause. And being able to paint using layers offered a lot of flexibility in terms of workflow. I built the painting up primarily as a 2D image; doing it in 3D would have required a bit more forethought, and I wanted to concentrate more on just painting.

Astronaut Rodney Lewis of L5

Just for kicks I tried converting it into a 3D image afterwards. It actually adapted to 3D pretty well, and didn't involve much if any blending. Check out the .MPO file if you have a 3DS (or some other compatible way to view 3D) and let me know what you think.

Thanks again go to Aaron Miller for running the whole shindig, it's always a good time.