cat studies

 

Some cat studies I've done lately...  Figured it's time to dust off the old blog.  :)

 

It's been a while since I uploaded anything, and there's been a few reasons for that.  The biggest reason, is that I got an industry job (!) and true to form, it left very little time for outside creative pursuits.


More recently, DDFL went kaput, and I'm now free to draw, paint, and upload things to a blog again.  As such, here's some paintings! 

This first one is a cutesy portrait of a friend's mouse character, this was a fun study exploring the use of bright saturated colors, and using temperature to turn form. 

 This second one is a quick sketch of a trickster racoon character, by the name of Loki, in reference to the god of mischief.  Also, experimenting with getting a watercolor look out of digital medium.

I'm looking at at doing some freelance work for a while, so more updates may be forthcoming.

La la la....

You remeber the little sketch of the guy tied to the diamond matrix?

Well here's the final version:

It isn't really a direct translation, the art director wanted a simpler outline that would use less polys, while I could keep the interior very intricate for normal map use, I went through a couple different designs before this one was approved.

And I'm making him in 3d for my demo reel! Here are some W-I-P shots of the prison environment:

My idea for how the cells worked was that they hang from the ceiling in these large broken cone shapes, kinda like waffle cones!

I'm pretty happy with how the cell's turning out, but the rest of the environment needs work (those are NOT final catwalks).

In the meantime, since the prison scene is so complicated, I've been taking it a little easier on my other demo projects (slightly).

Like, check out this sewer scene, for example. It's the backdrop for a snakeman character.

Comparitively a far simpler scene... thus much faster to finish!

Renders of the snakeman pending once I finish re-UVing him and redo his bump maps. Pending!

Slice of Life...

Just so you guys can see what I've currently been working on.

This drawing is for the new Game Wizards game, Detox... it's gonna be cool. This particular drawing was part of a concept for how the prisoners are held within the prison, the mechanical arm that binds the cell matrix to the central support pillar. Everything is modular, and can be detached, moved, and reattached elsewhere should the need arise... which also means the prisoners could be stuck anywhere, should more space be needed.

The better a modeler understands what I'm trying to communicate with my drawing, the better their final product will be. Especially with mechanical assets, because the production schedule does not allow for fully fleshed orthographic extreme detail views of everything, I provided closeup detail front views where the modeler would need more information to produce a finalized piece, and for how pieces fit together, as well as communicating ideas on how to streamline the final piece, so that we can get the most detail out of the least number of polygons. There are more views of this, of course, but this is the big detailed side view, so I thought this would be the most interesting to show.


This sketch is for the other big game I'm working on... Sap. This one's going to be really awesome as well. This is just a test for the different states of a potential enemy, so I'm not sure if this specific mouse guy is going to be used, but the style of the scaling, and the difference between how the hard scales and the goey tar stuff lies is almost spot-on, so there was a good deal of happy about this test.

Anyway, it's gonna be cool! And supah fun. The guys who are working on gameplay are going crazy, so it's gonna be awesome.


This last one is just me having fun with paint... Acrylics, to be exact. I've been wanting to get back into traditional painting mediums for a while now, so this makes me happy. :)

MYTHOS! (dun dun dun...)

It is OUT! You can download it here. What is out, you ask? Why, only the most awesome student-made-mod ever! (can you detect the modesty?)

Anyway, the last couple projects our student game production team has been working on are now out. Thunderflash (boo, hiss. As you can tell, I didn't really work on it. I kid though, it came out awesomely) and our project Mythos! Mythos is way cooler. Waaaaay cooler. You can tell because it's in bold. Also! Check out the lady to my right. Could she have been designed for a project that WASN'T cool? No. She couldn'tve. That's right, glad you see it my way.


The very SAD thing, however, is that she did not actually end up in the game. You see, I only came on the project when the projected deadline was about, say, a quarter away, thus by the time I was assigned this and subsequently produced it... there really wasn't enough time to actually make and add in a whole other character. Am I bitter? ... no. I mean, it'd be totally sweet to have her in, and the character guys were hugely disappointed that they wouldn't get to model her, but these things happen. Deadlines are a cruel mistress. Granted, I shouldn'tve been assigned her in the first place, but mistakes are what school is for. It was a good learning experience, everyone learned from it, and I got a nice portfolio piece. It'll be even sweeter when I model her for myself! And if we can release a patched version with her in it... well, sweetness will abound.


The art to my left? Pure production art. Got something to do with not much time to do it? Yep. This is what happened. The final look is a bit different, so in retrospect it didn't really get in the game either, but it got us where we needed to go at the time, and a bunch of "oooo"s and "aaaaa"s from the class, so I thought someone out there might want to see it.

As for something that DID make it into the game (oh happy joy), a Greek temple. I know it isn't a glowing green sword wielding half-undead goddess, but, you know, it's something. I also designed the temples that you see in the dinky little screenshot under this text, clicky if you want a closer look.








This temple is the only painted one, though, so that's the one you get to see. They're all made of the same material, so the asset people didn't really need more reference. In productions you cut corners where you can.

Who wants to see MORE art that didn't make it into the game? C'mon, cheer with me now! *deadening silence* Oh sure ya do. Anyhow, there was this thing with thrones for the greek gods, then they didn't want to do it, then they did, then they didn't have time to do it... big mess. Anyway, I designed up some thrones, as per instructed, and I thought this one came out rather well. There were some other seriously cool designs that asset people were drooling over and lining up to make... and then we ended up not doing them. Great.

Anyways, this is a small peek into what happens behind the scenes! Sometimes art directors change their minds, and good art goes unused. Happens to the best of us. Least I got some portfolio pieces out of it. :D

I actually started on the team as an "asset person" and thus have a number of 3d assets that also made it into the game, but those are for another blog (hopefully when my net calms down a bit, it's been freaking out lately). Since I proved my worth as a concept artist on this last game, I was moved onto the pre-production concept art team for the next games our production team will produce, see last post. We got a head-start making art for the next project, everything in those games will be student designed, so it's gonna be BIG.

Sci-fi prison with unicorns and ponies

I've been doing a lot of work for my school production teem recently. The production team's called game wizards, and we make games! I'm currently doing pre-production concepts for the next two games we'll be doing, the building to the right is going to be part of a ruined city. Futuristic sci-fi game, about a prison that's being shut down, and it's the battle between the prisoners and the gaurds. From what's been done, it's going to be very cool.


Anyway, this lower image was an early concept for the prison cells. This design isn't going to be used, because of the enourmous amount of polys it'd require to have however many thousands of these guys hanging in their cell, but it's okay, 'cause I have newer design that looks really cool, and it's gonna be awesome when it all comes together.

The unicorns and ponies? Inside joke.

Are you made of win and awesome?

Tutorials, stuff that every artist should know. READ THEM. KNOW THEM. LOVE THEM.

This one first
http://www.anticz.com/drawing1.htm

Then this...
http://www.anticz.com/heads.htm

If you have problems drawing hands...
http://www.anticz.com/handtut.htm

General stuff that's good to know...
http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

Bit more advanced, but totally awesome
http://www.nasonart.com/writing/bongartlessons.html

Really advanced. Beginners beware.
http://www.nasonart.com/writing/fixlerlessons.html

Gaspeth, no art for you? Well I can't be held responsible for this.... *point* Look, a pony! *run*


I kid, I kid. Here ya go. Big steam dude.