Art – DutzWorks

The Orc of Draenor – Process Art!!

January 25, 2016 derrickutz

Ahoy all!!

I hope you all are doing great! Thank you for stopping by to see what is going on here at DutzWorks!

Well, things have been pretty good here, catching up on work with the The Oatley Academy of Visual Storytelling where I staff part time and once I am more caught up I will be jumping back on my first children’s book.

Until then I work on little fun sketches a few times a week and that is what brings us to this post! It is Saturday night as I write this and on Thursday I started a sketch when I had a few minutes and it grew into a really neat piece. I have been inspired lately but some art friends lately (I will post links to them below) and also with the visuals I have seen in the new trailers for the new movie, “Warcraft.” Here is the trailer for your enjoyment too!

It is based on an online game that was first introduced in 1994 by Blizzard Entertainment. Newer versions/expansions of the game are now called “World of Warcraft.” It has grown to be one of the world’s largest online multiplayer games and is rich with creative characters, races and locations. A ton of amazing creativity and art has been poured into this world and is shows in both the work that is produced for it and by the dedication of it’s players.

Well, thanks to all of this inspiration, I ended up pumping out a creature sketch for the characters called “Orcs” and after making the drawing I thought it would be a great opportunity to practice my digital painting and to make a value study in greyscale of the piece. As I drew it, in my head I kept picturing the character backlit with a strong, hazy light and atmosphere blowing past him. I also corrected the name of the piece to “The Orc of Draenor” because I found out during research that the Orcs were actually from a world with that namesake so I wanted to be more accurate. Additionally, I found out that they got to the world of Azeroth through a dimensional gateway called “The Dark Portal” so this painting of mine actually kind of works well under that context!

Alrighty! Click here and lets check out the rest of the story about this piece and see the process art, final piece and process animation!!

Click below and lets jump into the process art for

The Orc of Draenor!!!

Additionally I recently began my first classes at The Oatley Academy and they are part of a series called “The Magic Box.” The entirety of the course will be teaching me a full spectrum of creating art in Photoshop. One of the big things that Chris Oatley, the director of the school and instructor of the course, concentrates on is the creation of atmosphere in our art. I am still in the beginnings of the classes but just what I have watched on how he breaks down the building blocks of this method of painting has made a big impression on me. I wanted badly to try it out in this piece and to push it to the extreme as a way of building the intensity of the mood in the art. I really like the way it turned out and I cannot tell Chris and my other muses just how much their inspiration means to me.

Those inspirational artists are listed here so you all can go see more of what they are making and be inspired too!
Chris Oatley – The Oatley Academy of Visual Storytelling
AJ Nazzaro – The Art of AJ Nazzaro
Fred Lang –
Zijian Yan – Zijian’s website

Click on this first image and it will go to the full size of your browser window. Then you can use your arrow keys to advance or go backwards through the higher quality versions of the process art!

The Warrior Process Post!

July 11, 2015 derrickutz

Ahoy fans and visitors!

Welcome to my Process Post for my new my new digital painting, “The Warrior!”

Hello to all! Thank you so much for stopping here to check out this new process post! I have been kind of going crazy with inspiration lately so this is another piece that has jumped from the page to the tablet and then on to your screen!

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I was at an event with the family one evening recently when I pulled out the sketchpad to doodle. I wanted to try to work on a few head sketches because I feel that I need to add variety to the shapes and proportions of the faces I draw. As usual, a simple sketch turns into narrative-like doodles and I ended up drawing two faces that vastly contrasted each other. I thought it would be fun to give them two character types and then use them to practice more on my digital painting. I wanted to call the duo “The Wizard & The Warrior.”

In the case of the Warrior, I started with a cool pallet with deep blues and purples and want to exercise a warm pallet of red, gold and oranges as a contrast on the Wizard piece when I paint it later.

I admit, I really got carried away with excitement on this piece and kept trying to push it as practice. Then, when I thought I was comfortable with a stopping point, my oh so awesome and bold wife pointed out an area that was lacking and I really had to face it honestly. It was with the skull-shaped face painting. My wife said that the first version I had (when I was just trying to hint at the skull) was too faint and vague. I had to take a step back and admit to myself that she was right and then I went back into it and pumped up the color and shape of the skull and the whole piece is better for it! Thanks sweetie!

Click Below and lets get onward to the art!!!

Lets have some fun and watch how The Warrior was built in the layers from finished pencils to digital painting!

So, I am going to hold off on painting “The Wizard”, the complimentary piece to this painting, until I have a few more panels of my book, “The Tiniest Titan,” finished. I really need to get control of the distractibility I am having on that project. I keep getting inspired to do all of these other practice pieces, which are great ways of giving myself breathing room on learning to paint better, but they are also beginning to become a tool of avoidance and I need to maintain myself. This is one of the biggest hurdles we creative-type people face with personal projects; maintaining momentum and drive on a singular piece or project over time.

I have been a professional graphic designer for 7 years now and working on my own small projects on the side for years too and I really want to make a serious move to turn my intellectual properties into products. For me to be successful with that, I have to maintain my professionalism with my books even though they are personal projects. I want The Tiniest Titan to be the first of many successful books and the beginning of a grander creative future for my family and I and that requires that I take myself and my schedule seriously. That can be hard at times, but well worth it.

Now that I am all booked to go to the Creative Talent Network Expo ( CTNx ) in Burbank November of this year, I really want to be able to showcase the finished Titan book along with a strong portfolio. There are people that I am sure I am destined to meet and connect to creatively and my book and portfolio will be GREAT tools in those conversations! I will tell you all more about that as the show gets closer! But…enough with my talkativeness, lol!

Simply click on the first image and it will pop to full screen and then use your arrow keys to scroll and travel through the process images! Its that easy!

And here is the animated gif made from the process images!

Man, I really had fun with this! Thank you all again for stopping in and checking this piece out!

I will continue to post more art here on my site as I work through them!

Oh, I almost forgot! With all of this other art news, I was forgetting to tell you some additional awesomeness! You can now also get to this site by going to www.DutzWorks.com !!! I also have a new business phone number to reach me by for projects or consultations! It is 682-334-DUTZ (3889)!!! Please reach out to me here on the site, through my email at Dutz@derrickutz.com or now through the new phone number!

I will continue to keep you all in the loop on the new things going on here at DutzWorks! Until then, my very best to all of you!

Best be to yee’, me mateys!

May the winds be at your backs and friends be at your sides. Blessed be your journeys.

Derrick “Captain Dutz” Utz

Captain Dutz's #Inktober Art Wrap Up!

November 29, 2014 derrickutz

Ahoy all! Sorry this is so late but here is the collection from this last month’s (October 2014) annual art event, #Inktober!

The first time i can remember seeing anything about the event called #inktober was probably 2 – 3 years ago and i was astounded by the quality and variety of works people would post. It is an event in October where artist around the world make a daily ink illustration of any type of topic they want. I have seen them ranging from mystical place to robots, creature and everyday scenes. They post them to their website or social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

This was the first year that i thew my hat in. It was a crazy month with a great deal of things going on a work and home so i did not make a piece everyday but i tried to make quality pieces when i could. I still have a short list of sketch ideas that i did not get to so i will try to pull from that when i sit doen to sketch over the next month or so and i will post them here so you all have a chance to check them out!

Below are the pieces that i was able to do and some of them even show the process steps as i created them!

Thor!
( Ballpoint Pen, one of my favorite ink tools! )