Monday 23 December 2013

VMAT 2013 - Merry Christmas!


Some friends suggested doing VMAT (very merry art trade) this year, cheated a bit on the colours but was fun.

Monday 25 November 2013

New game project is coming....

And it definitely involves trains.


Some early idea generation stuff I've been doing on a new project I'm hoping to make it into a concept document and comic. 

Don't hold your breath though - in between freelance, portfolio and trying to draw cave paintings this one's going to be a slow burner... The classic rail travel posters actually weren't in the forefront of my mind when I started this image - but with the vector shapes it just went that way. Still a WIP for now.

Tuesday 19 November 2013

Selfie



Feels like a bit of a A-level art assignment this one - but since I missed world portrait day, thought I try and do something with some new Frenden photoshop brushes. (which are great btw.)

Sunday 17 November 2013

Sunday 10 November 2013

Iliara continues



Phew! suddenly got busy again - Here's a quick concept paint for the new-look Iliara, a side project of mine for some time now. Been using a really nice shaggy Photoshop brush which give a nice softness which keeps things quick.


Wednesday 23 October 2013

Portfolio Update


I try an keep the blog and portfolio fairly seperate (as I like the fact I can put unfinished and dumber than usual stuff on here) but I've been updating the portfolio with a few bits from the past year, more to follow but I'll post when there's some more fresh bits here .

Tuesday 22 October 2013

Fantasy break...

For you gamers I'd say there's a bit of the Dragon Age 2, along with some elements of Plansecape Torment in this one.


Don't really do much fantasy illustration, definitely a guilty pleasure. Just taking a break from fixing up my portfolio from the last job, so just a quick character/costume. A bit static looking, but enjoyable to do. I try to avoid the super-camp armour/bikini thing common with fantasy design but it's interesting trying to capture a function within an interesting or assymetrical form.

Thursday 17 October 2013

Inktober (part 1)

A former colleague of mine suggested we do Inktober this year. The principle around Inktober is just to establish a habit of inking and in doing so improve in its use. Everyday this month (give or take) I've been getting the ink and nibs out and doing a little doodle.

Here's a few (of the more interesting/accomplished ones)








                         I'll do a follow up post reviewing the months drawings at the end of the month!

Monday 30 September 2013

Thursday 26 September 2013

Saturday 14 September 2013

Text Boarder

 
 
Just someone I clocked while out for a run last weekend - sort of did a double take when I noticed this fantastically economical yet ludicrously unwise technique for texting while getting around fast.
 
The diagonal line in the back helps the image, but is a bit out of sorts with the perspective on the board- but hey-ho. If I were to start over I'd be keen to loosen with more exaggeration and character I think.

Monday 2 September 2013

Holiday sketch/paint

 
WIP, a paint based on a slightly wonky sketch I did sitting by the beach on holiday last month. Nice to do something fairly self contained.

It's kind of casually exploring the extreme sunlight and shade, temperature and artificial depth of field type stuff etc. but think I'm going to leave this here, and look at some more studies - as otherwise I'll just over render things and I feel I need to go back a few steps to get things right. (Need to get back on those self lead Nathan Fawkes lighting course videos on Schoolism...)

Sunday 1 September 2013

Summer update Part 1 - Conceptart.org workshop

Now nearing the end of summer I figured it was way past time to do an update, it's my intention to get a bit up to date with things then try and just keep things regular with more images and less text. (joy)

For now though however, you may need to indulge me in a bit of a text heavy recap...

Back in may I attended the London Conceptart.org event - it was utterly chaotic but met some good folk, my professional games work has always been in the sphere of casual and mobile games so was a good opportunity to see how the high fantasy AAA guys do things. 

Mark Taro led life drawing and 'free-concepting' workshops and these definitely stuck with me - very liberating to hear someone talking about the value of originating ideas as opposed to the rendering and polish in executing them. Especially fascinating seeing his initial approach where he just jammed out on a roll of packing paper, and picked out and worked on the most lucid points, while this is not unlike any typical artist's sketchbook actually seeing this in context to a studio's work-flow and process (not to mention how he earned his money) was interesting. 





Some other bits covered were some life drawing and using models to generate fantastical or monster ideas which could be the origin for something to explore later. 



The rest of the event were mainly presentations and demos, which while impressive and interesting definitely resonated less for me. 

Monday 6 May 2013

Ipad paintin'

Been able to get hold of a sensu brush and have been playing with sketchbook pro, It's great to be able to do photoshop style paints in front of the telly or a spare moment. Bush is better than the stylus that's for sure - still a lot of opacity changes as it's not pressure sensative. (it's still no cintiq but it's made it easuier for me to use sketchbook pro on the pad)

A quick study from some one else's image - I was liking the red/orangess in the skin.



Did this guy while watching the Snooker over the bank holiday at my parents as a sport it provides much time for drawing. (I think it's got a slight bit of Stapley/Scott C vibe going on here which I like) I have no significant interest or understanding about the sport beyond "Gosh, that was quite clever" but I just love the TV format, especially all the close up shots they do of men trying to figure out really hard angles...seems pretty surreal and comic to me. Will try and revisit as a theme I hope!



Saturday 20 April 2013

Sketches n' Studies

Generally my personal output has been very much the rougher sketchbook and development stuff recently, partly because there's a release dates looming so works getting pretty time demanding, but also amongst the creative team at MC there's been much discussion and exploration of our art and encouragement to go back and learn a few basics and break into some new habits (in my case anyhow)

There's been much colour studying going around, i've really negelcted to do these for some time so have really enjoyed giving them a go, trick is to keep doing a study a day according to Nathan Fawkes; these are just 20 mins each from movie stills, but i'll be doing whatever looks nice is suspect!




This time last weekend I was able to attend a sketch-crawl for a few hours in the Natural History Museum, so got a mix of sketches there. (Man was it busy)





Plus the pleasing Pangolins!  A few of us were quite taken with this curious creature, one can never really be 100% sure with the exhibits at the National History Museum, how much is down to it's naturally exotic form or just a Victorian taxidermist buzzing off his tits on Morphine. (see the stuffed Jerboa a few cabinets down)


Still the Pangolin is a very characterful fellow regardless...As a video games artist it just feels like someone has already designed this fellow.


Sunday 7 April 2013

Fun with life...


We had a fun life drawing model this week, who was really relaxed and imaginative we got a load of drawings done but towards the end just I started to have some fun with it. These aren't the greatest, but they're starting to get more expressive than my usual (probably as i'm around more gesture based sketchers at the moment) Still a long way to go before i'm confident that I can capture more of a figure (and it's intent) on a page but there's a touch of this (plus I like how i've managed to get a few more bits on the page.)

Monday 25 March 2013

Weekend Sketching...

Been a little busy with work this past week, and doing a lot of stuff with Maya and Unity (still kind of at the basics with it but it's a pretty sweet bit of software) so hankering after some drawing and sketching massively.



Scored some new pencils and a few smaller sketchbooks in the hope I might be able to get a bit more done while waiting for things, also smaller sketchbooks just seem to make for pleasing artefacts.



Just been doodling after listening to an adaptation of Neil Gaiman's 'Neverwhere' on Radio 4 Extra (which I enjoyed.) Guess the idea of keys, rats and a subterranean city stuck with me for a while. I'd really like to do more narrative stuff in future too.


Been a plenty of really cool stuff going on with some of the (v.talented) guys at Mind Candy giving some insight to their way of drawing, painting, capturing figures etc. Including some gesture based stuff, I like the below as it incorporates a bit more force and flow in the figure which lends it a bit of weight my character bits sometimes lack. I've also been looking a little at Matessi's Force book but haven't fully embraced that yet, early days but it's good to acknowledge something new.


Shame I didn't finish the figure and get both feet and hands in - although I liked how it turned into the makings of a potential character (referred to as 'Blammo'); An obsessive figure perpetually wound up and ready to strike, but  kept eternally waiting for his varmint. Some of this comes from the pose which I may not have necessarily have thought to look at before.

Lastly just some Biro drawings because I bloody love a good Bic medium, and get a bit too much of a kick out of rendering things with them sometimes...



Just looking back at these I'm starting to see how nice smaller sketchbooks are for rapidly exploring different stuff in a sequence. Hopefully fill a few and post some more!


Tuesday 12 March 2013

Old pictures of the day!


I've been revisiting my old sketchbook for scans recently - I love these old drawings - they're not the greatest but they're a lot of fun, dating back almost 10 years some of them, and sll pre-digital... I'm actually pretty envious about how stupidly carefree and silly these are...(or perhaps I'm just envious of how much free time I used to have to draw pointless guff?)

A Brief History of Fun 










Some Other Weird Stuff







That is all.

Sunday 10 March 2013

Space Travel!

Just an older piece I dug out for an ongoing comic project of mine -thought I'd stick it up here since I've been doing some writing for it again. I'm currently looking for 3 non current job images as part of an quick profile thingie for some of my colleagues, so may stick up some older pieces that i'd forgotten about up here...

Monday 4 March 2013

Book Cover


Just a quick update on the cover illustration side project for a friends book - here's the final(ish) version. Being doing this around an awful lot of other stuff so glad to get it finished after a fair few months! It's been ages since I've spent such a long time on one image, but kinda nice not to be racing through it like with game concept stuff.

Sunday 3 February 2013

Guess who's back?!


Not unusually it's been a while since my last post, there's been a few distractions as I've changed job and country again...* I'm only just now re-united with my home office set-up in the new flat after 6 months or so of storage in boxes, it's amazing I'm now fully unpacked and can actually access my art books!

 One of my projects I've been able to do around various other bits - some idea generation for a book cover project, it's nice working rough (not a lot of reference used in these which you will probably notice) mainly pencil and biro I've painted into digitally.




I've had plenty of time with only a sketchbook too so it's been good just playing around with some paper and pencils too.


The image is shaping up into something more like this...early digitized version still working stuff out fixing the drawing at this stage.


Hopefully more random images to come!



 *(Back  in November I started at Moshi  HQ, it's pretty awesome)