Filed under: Artwork & W.I.P's, School Progress | Tags: 2d, art, artist, artwork, character, college, concept, design, digital, drawing, fantasy, games, gaming, gesture, Illustration, painting, PC, photoshop, progress, project, school, sketch, sketches, sketching, update, videogames, work
Hey!
I’m back with a hefty update for y’all this week. In my last class, game art senior project, we’re tasked with putting together our portfolios and/or demo reels along with a presentation that shares our creative process with the class. No matter how enthralled I get into the realm of 3D with 3DS Max and Zbrush, I always seem to go back to my passion, 2D art, so I wanted to focus my up and coming reel on 2D concept art alone (at least for now – maybe! 
). I’m planning to include a selection of finished works from 2008/09, but we’re also supposed to create and polish about three pieces from scratch for another class project. Because of this, I wanted to get some much needed practice in for my figure drawing skills, so I decided to come up with a number of character designs that could be used for game concept art.
The initial phase of these new works start with thumbnails. Personally, I like exploring shapes for character designs (or anything, really) by sketching out rough line-work and filling it in to create a variety of silhouettes that can be individually tweaked, taking the most appealing designs and pushing them further (sometimes I do just use the silhouette itself as a base and over-paint from there – it depends on if I’m fancying lines for the day). Lowering the opacity of the silhouettes lets me refine the loose construction lines where needed and add details like costumes and/or physical features. Here are some examples:
A female rogue…
A generic Diablo inspired fighter…
A heavy armored destroyer/tank… 
A veteran barbarian…
I used a similar process to make this random character design of a young sky pirate a number of weeks ago…
Basically – using silhouettes as the driving force behind the design of your character, creature, vehicle (or whatever), can help speed up the return of interesting shapes and contours that can give that much needed ‘umph’ to a particular concept – experimentation is always the key! The next step will be sticking with a select number of these concepts for a longer period of time to develop a larger rough draft – most likely I’ll be concentrating on value painting them before thinking about color. I’ll be sure to share what’s coming as soon as possible.
Until then, like always, thanks for stopping by, and I hope you had a good visit! 
Also, please feel free to check out my DeviantART page for a few more bits of random art.
Peace!
Filed under: Artwork & W.I.P's, School Progress | Tags: 2d, 3d, art, artist, artwork, character, college, concept, design, digital, drawing, games, gaming, Illustration, Painter, painting, progress, school, sketch, study, update, videogames, work, Zbrush
So I got a real bad urge to hop back into some programs that I don’t use all too often over the break – Zbrush and Painter. Since my new, and last, term starts today I wanted to share my personal work over the last week. I really need to utilize Zbrush more often – every time I use it I cant help but have fun. These speed sculpts took around 2 hours each – after I nailed down a process that starts with making a rough skull out of a polysphere tool (I try not to use the primitives because of potential mesh destruction at higher subdivision levels).
Here’s a quick one from Painter as well – I’m starting to like the watercolor brushes.
Really appreciate all the views. Don’t forget to check out my DeviantART gallery for uploads that might not be posted here.
Thanks – see y’all soon!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: adoption, animal, cat, GA, hospital, info, information, kitten, kitty, orphan, rescue, stray
So we finally decided to take the orphan kitty to a nearby facility known for the great care and love that they give all of their animals - the Berry Hill Pet Hospital.
Managed to take a good collection of shots of him last night, however.
The staff at Berry Hill was so kind and more than willing to take in the little guy along with all the food stuffs and litter we had bought for him, and apparently this is the time of year people call looking to come by and check out pets for possible adoption anyway, so we left pretty happy dispite the somber tone of the day – sad letting him go.
If you’re around the GA area and would like more information about Berry Hill Pet Hospital, this kitty, or any of their animals, please give them a call at 770-474-3255, or drop by their joint over at 575 Millers Mill Rd, Stockbridge, GA (30281).
Thank you, and thank you Berry Hill Pet Hospital!
Filed under: News & Media, School Progress | Tags: 2d, 3d, 3ds, art, artist, artwork, blog, cat, character, college, concept, design, digital, drawing, fantasy, games, gaming, kitten, kitty, news, painting, photoshop, progress, project, school, study, update, videogames, work
Here’s my character animation for games project from last term. It was really fun learning about morph targeting in 3ds, and I’ll be sure to try this again soon.
And my final fly-through for a mock game environment concept.
As I stated in my last post, there are many updates concerning both projects located in my DeviantART gallery, so be sure to check out the art over there as well. It feels great to have a small week break before tackling my very last class with Westwood before graduation – I’ve missed painting being so involved with 3D over the last nine weeks. Also, I’m going to be doing some brainstorming on revamping this blog as best I can very soon. Right now, it’s time to relax.
Oh! The strangest thing happened yesterday – I rescued a, apparently abandoned, kitten near a friends house that was getting all soaked in the rain under a shabby trash heap in the back-yard of a deserted house – that constant squalling was insane, so I had to figure out what it was after I got there. I don’t even really like cats – I’m very allergic – but I couldn’t just leave the thing out there all alone – we looked everywhere for a mom, but found nothing. It’s very young and we’re thankful that it’s eaten and gotten some sleep, and a little peeing, in over the night. Since we’re really not sure what to do with it (ownership wise) we’ve definitely got our hands full.
I’ll try and take some pictures of it tonight.
Aye – not what I expected to be doing over the break, but it’s fascinating how such a simple thing as giving a poor cat some shelter and food can take your mind off everything else that may be bugging you!
See y’all soon, and thanks for the views!
Filed under: School Progress | Tags: 2d, 3d, 3ds, art, artist, artwork, blog, college, concept, design, drawing, games, gaming, Illustration, painting, photoshop, progress, project, school, update, videogames, work
Okay – so I’m not dead! I’ve been quite busy with this term, and that’s always a great feeling.
I’ve been posting updates over at my DeviantART page for several weeks, but the urge to get on here and post the same material has not struck me yet – once this last week is over with I’ll be sure to share some of my favorite works from the last 8, soon to be 9, weeks. So, like I said, check out those updates on DeviantART. If you’re not familiar with the site be sure click the ‘Browse Gallery’ button located in the ‘Newest’ section on the left to expand the entire gallery.
Also, after this term I only have one more class to take to attain my degree (it all seems like a blur when I think about it – fast!). After that I’m going to be doing some heavy duty revamping to this blog – so stay tuned!
Best wishes and luck to all of you in these uncertain times, and thank you so much for the ongoing views of my little place here.
Filed under: Artwork & W.I.P's, School Progress | Tags: 2d, 3d, 3ds, art, artist, artwork, college, concept, design, digital, drawing, fantasy, games, gaming, Illustration, model, news, painting, PC, photoshop, progress, project, school, update, videogames, work
Back real quick to give y’all a few updates after a week long break - new college term started today.
Firstly, here’s that final version of a game art project from last term up on Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPkn1LaEpIE
Secondly, something I threw together in 3DS Max for a little fun – news was apparently on the brain.
Lastly – a peice I worked on after following some artistic processes in ImagineFX from last months issue (lots of abstract work – flipping, splotching, turning, brush here, brush there, flip flip flip – until something started to come out). Really liked the idea of a sci-fi gateway kinda thing sitting in some mystical setting. Maybe it’s a star-gate!
Really excited about this new term with a couple 7 credit hour classes to tackle. I’ll be taking World Building and Character Animation for Games. Just two more terms to go – it’s flying by now hehehe!
That’s it for this update – see you soon, and thank you so much - as always!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 2d, 3d, 3ds, art, artist, artwork, blog, college, concept, design, digital, games, gaming, media, model, painting, PC, photoshop, progress, project, school, study, update, videogames, work
Back with a quick update for the week. Been busy (and sick, grrr!) so I’m gonna post a few quickies.
Here’s that youtube link to my game art project rough draft – a mock city building/management simulation game set in a kind of ‘new age’ scenario. Again, a way to upload quicktime videos escapes me, so I ramped up the render quality for a little better picture on youtube. Next week I’ll be doing a lot of tweaking to the demo, and adding some sound, music, and more animations before I turn in the final scene.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8dSW6IOj8A
Also, here’s a self portrait I finished the other day – a little over and hours worth. Painting from straight observation with no preliminary sketch – used a live webcam stream for reference.
That’s all for this week y’all – unless further noted.
I’m beat.
Peace!
Filed under: Artwork & W.I.P's, News & Media | Tags: 2d, art, artist, artwork, blog, character, concept, design, digital, drawing, Illustration, obama, painting, PC, photoshop, politics, president, sketch, sketches, sketching, study, update, work
Hehehehe – subject line behind me > I wanted to upload a few pieces I slapped down last night while watching Obama’s address.
I’m not great at capturing a likeness but it’s something I practice. This does NOT mean I endorse Obama (I don’t vote) – I just wanted to draw something. I wanted to try some color reproduction experiments as well after re-calibrating my laptop so this came directly from that system.
And, please, be nice to slimes….
Ta-ta for now, and peace be with you!
Filed under: Artwork & W.I.P's | Tags: 2d, art, artist, artwork, blog, character, concept, danger, design, digital, drawing, electro, fantasy, gesture, Illustration, painting, PC, photoshop, progress, sketch, sketches, sketching, study, work
She’ll zap you good!
Inspired by the wonderful electro music of DANGER.
Hope you like - see you soon!
Filed under: Artwork & W.I.P's, School Progress | Tags: 2d, art, artist, artwork, blog, college, concept, design, drawing, fantasy, Illustration, painting, PC, photoshop, progress, project, school, sketch, sketches, sketching, study, update, work
Hey – crawled out from my cave to post a painting of… well… a cave!
Cept mine doesn’t have a waterfall – just dust at the moment. 
Been going along with some workshops in this month’s ImagineFX issue to practice value and composition. After a few gray blobs on a white canvas being pushed around and chiseled away, this is what I came up with. Lately I’ve really toned down the number of brushes I use in Photoshop – this here was done with the hard round exept for a few things like the waterfall mist.
I do hope y’all like it – I sure had fun with it! Next week I’ll post a video or two of the progress I’m making on my little mock game scene. Sure is hard work but it’s starting to fit together alright.
Take care, be well, and thank you so much for stopping by.
