Space Art by Christopher Doll

Tag: livestream

  • Rigel 7 Fortress and Daytime Livestreams

    Rigel 7 Fortress and Daytime Livestreams

    I’ve been trying out a new format for the livestream – daytime streams. It’s allowing more people to drop in and watch, although many admit they’re watching while at work on another monitor. Good for them, and I’m glad to give them a diversion. But I’ve also been trying a new format too. Instead of a painting in a session, I’m working on longer-format paintings. These are larger, and far more finished than the usual painting in a night session.

    The Voyager painting I’ve previously shared was the first of these. And so far it’s been a great success. The second is this scene of the USS Excelsior. At the same size, 24″ x 36″ it’s a great way to work on the ship detail with a fun scene. This one is in the last stages, so the photo is after my last livestream.

    Livestream Progress Shot – Excelsior

    While it’s been fun to watch the entire progress live, I find that final details are a bit more consuming and it’s much more efficient for me to work on them alone. Then it allows for a fun reveal live on the show.

    Which brings me to a subject that I’m finally returning to paint, the Rigel 7 Fortress. I’ve been promising a return to this painting for some time. This week I started back in on it and I’ll be working on it live over the next couple of weeks.

    Return to Rigel 7

    In this photo you see the first stages of the painting. There’s an initial drawing, and then a light layer of shading. The basic color fields were then laid down – sky, planet, building, etc. All of these will need to be detailed and refined. The painting is being made entirely in acrylic (as of this writing that is the plan, but I may switch to oils if necessary).

    In short, this is a larger painting than my previous Rigel 7, which is now in the hands of a collector. It’s also a wider crop of the original painting. I received wonderful images from “BirdoftheGalaxy” over on Flickr, and it’s helped me produce a very accurate drawing. The canvas is 20″ x 30″ and roughly the same size (we think) as the original painting. There will be differences of course. The color palette I’ve chosen is closer to what’s seen in the TOS digital remaster. Brighter and more vibrant than some of the original photos. The original was also painted on glass. With my painting there will be a slight texture from the canvas, which is its nature of course. On close inspection of the above image the texture is apparent. But there are many more layers of paint to go before this is finished so I expect it to be less of an issue.

    When finished, all of these will be available in the store – both the originals, and limited edition signed prints made in-house. Although the Rigel 7 original painting should be consider on hold until I contact an individual that has first-rights to purchase. If they decline then it will also be available in the store.

  • One Year of Livestreaming Space Art

    One Year of Livestreaming Space Art

    It snuck up on me – the one year anniversary of my Space Art Livestream on Twitch. Started as merely a test last March 10, 2020, right at the start of the COVID pandemic, I looked around and noticed that I had everything I needed to paint space art live on Twitch.

    I grabbed my webcam for the stream and hooked up my iPhone so I could have a 2-camera setup. Even though my aging workstation PC is probably nearing the end of its useful life, it has more than enough horsepower to run everything through OBS. And my studio space had plenty of lights. There was no good reason to NOT try a livestream.

    Typical post-stream scene at my table

    While working on projects I watched a number of livestreamers on Twitch, usually playing World of Warships or PUBG. To me it’s a great background, I don’t have to pay attention too hard to it and the streamers often have music. It’s a good diversion too when I need a moment to clear my mind. Some streamers handled their content better than others, and I had a lot of good examples to draw on as I put together my own stream.

    Painting while running a livestream was a difficult experience at first. There’s a lot to keep in mind at the same time – managing the stream technical details, the chat (when I started to actually have people interacting), and of course conducting a painting from start to finish. The first streams were exhausting. Some gamers can go eight hours at a time, but for me I max out at about 3 to 4 hours. With practice it’s gotten better, but I still find I need a long cool-down afterwards.

    My other inspiration was the brilliant and legendary Bob Ross. Instead of “happy little trees”, I’m painting “happy little spaceships and galaxies”. Bob Ross would rehearse his paintings ahead of time, and managed to complete them in about 20 minutes to fit in the PBS episodes. He had developed a wet-on-wet technique in oils that suits his landscapes and I wanted to follow his example.

    In my case I wasn’t constrained by PBS or the time frame, so to me I felt I needed to be more concerned with the average attention span of people watching a livestream. With few exceptions I’ve managed to finish a whole painting in each session. To do this I’ve relied mainly on acrylic and casein paints, which help for a faster painting time. Both are water-based, and both allow me to go beyond a wet-on-wet landscape style and explore more of an illustration process, similar to some of my favorite artists like John Berkey.

    To be 100% honest I do not consider these paintings to be GREAT, or even high art, but I do try to make them beautiful to look at and when I can, inspiring. These are scenes from my own mind, and extension of the kinds of drawings that would fill all corners of my notebooks over the years. Except they’re not drawn with a pen or pencil, I’ve gone full color and have a completed image at the end of the day.

    So far I am thrilled at the response I have received from these live streams. The community is growing and each week I see new people joining in. To everyone who has followed along and helped support the stream I thank you. I couldn’t have done this without you and I look forward to expanding the stream in the next year.

    I will leave you now with a fun mosaic of all the paintings from last year’s livestream, and some stats. Cheers!

    Mosaic – Livestream Paintings from March 2020-2021
    • 47 paintings in total
    • 3 sessions didn’t have a final painting, or they weren’t anything I’d like to share
    • I missed ONE week, but had several weeks where I streamed multiple days
    • 50% paintings were done in acrylic
    • 40% paintings in casein
    • 10% in oils
    • Made a ton of friends
    Livestream on Twitch

    If you’d like to join me, follow the link above to my Twitch channel. Typically I stream every Wednesday evening from 6pm PST until 9pm PST.