Aaron B Miller | Illustration Portfolio

Oil Color Palettes: Michael Van Zeyls Palette.

Posted a new palette to my palette blog.

Minita by Michael Van Zeyl

Descendant of Yig | ©FFG | oil on panel/digital | Aaron Miller

This is a piece I did for the Call of Cthulhu Trading Card Game. I was surprised to find out they liked it so much it is on one of the box covers. How cool is that to find out.

More in about the Yig.

Box Art for Call of Cthulhu Last Rights

Phil's Last Stand | oil on canvas | 10x8" | ©Aaron Miller

Plein air painted with the Plein Air Painters of Chicago group that meets every Saturday. While setting up for this session a man behind me seemed to have gone into cardiac arrest and needed an ambulance quickly.

Toy Huntress 1 | Oil on panel | 8x10" | ©Aaron Miller

Toy Huntress 2 | Oil on panel | 8x10" | ©Aaron Miller

During the January Figurative Illustration Workshop I organized a costume for a personal project I plan on doing a series of. I thought how perfect to bring my project to this setting.

The workshop was almost completely shut down by a blizzard. So many artists were looking forward to the workshop, so I’ve planned to have a second session in February, giving me a second opportunity to gather references and have the artists join me working from life for some studies.

More in about the workshop can be found following the link.

Awesome Horse Toy Hunter Demo | Oil on panel | 9x12" | ©Aaron Miller

This was painted as a demo for Awesome Horse Studios. You can watch me and the other four horsemen working from my reference shoot. I took these reference shots at my Figurative Illustration Workshop help monthly at Platform Studios in Chicago.

• Watch the demo
• Check out the workshop

Attack Dogs | ©FFG | Call of Cthulhu | Aaron Miller

Attack Dog printed card for the Call of Cthulhu TCG

I saw this was recently released. It was a lot of fun to put my dogs to work for the reference shoot. While the name of the card is Attack Dogs, the description was more about a hunter and his dogs finding a mysterious footprint. The card pack is based in Greece so my hunter is from the early 20th century in Greece wearing traditional outfit and weapons. I even changed Wyatt (the black dog) to look more like a Greek hunting dog.

One of the fantastic projects I work on is the online workshops with Awesome Horse Studios. Most of our content revolves around live streaming digital techniques. As a painter I had been craving a solution to streaming content of me painting traditionally. At the moment a video camera is not in my budget. I did however figure out how to “MacGyver” together a system using my DSLR camera. So, in order to be as prepared as possible for my first demo with Awesome Horse Studios with traditional media I did a test run on my own Livestream channel. I had a few hiccups but overall it was a success.

I had recently acquired a cast set based on Michelangelo’s David, the eye, ear, nose, and mouth. That seemed like the perfect subject matter for me to work with. Since this was just an quick demo and experiment with recording I opted for a limited palette. I initially was going to just use black and white but I opted for a slightly warmer palette. The image suggest three colors. I did tone the background with a third color but my paint mixtures were with only two pigments. I used a Permalba white and a Gamblin Van Dyke brown. Admittedly the brown is on the cool side, but much warmer than black. I felt it was a great limited palette for a study.

Now as far as the video capturing using a camera I did a quick Google search and found that someone had the same idea. I have a Canon 40D. If you have one of these cameras you’ll know it does not record video. What I did was install this application called EOS Camera Movie Record. This app captures the live preview function of the camera to your computer (I have a mac). It can record video on it own but I didn’t need that since I was going to Livestream my demo which records whatever is on my screen anyway. So, for the Livestream it was no different than recording my desktop for a digital demo. Perfect! Aside from all the crazy wires and trying to get the camera at an angle that wasn’t too severe or just the back of my head, I think it was a great solution for the resources on hand.

Here are all the pertinent links:

• Awesome Horse Studios
• Aaron’s Livestream Channel
• EOS Movie Capture
• Oil Color Palettes

Stormtrooper 1 | oil on panel | 8x10" | ©Aaron Miller

Stormtrooper 2 | oil on panel | 8x10" | ©Aaron Miller

In December I was able to get a Stormtrooper into my Figurative Illustration Workshop. We had a “blast”! I had some need for the reference for a current job and thought it was the perfect opportunity to really wrap the workshop around a current job. It seemed to be a real hit with the group.

Episode 35; we discuss our love for WordPress. We talk about some great templates that are best for an illustration portfolio that keeps the Art Directors happy. We tell you our favorite host to run that site as well too. Joining in on the conversation was Aaron Miller, Marc Scheff, Madeline Matz, and special guest Tim Piotrowski.

If you have any questions after listening email us!
Listen to the podcast here!

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The theme this month is the Toy Hunter. Those cute, cuddly, soft, and fuzzy creatures are dangerous and need to hunted down.
Figurative Illustration Workshop

Friday

January 20

hosted @ Platform Studios

6:00 pm – 9:30 pm

1821 W. Hubbard Street, Suite 304

Chicago, IL 60622

$20 cash or credit.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact me.
I’ve also set up a nifty, non-spammy, newsletter. I’ll only send you an update once a month for the new schedule. sign up now!