Pushing On!

 

 

Vey close to the end of this project now! As you can see from above I'm mainly adding polish, colour and finishing up final pieces for the book, I still feel no where near ready to hand in this project but then again I never do with my work, always room to improve!

 

The above pictures are from left to right a nord baron, huntsman, guardsman and shield maiden. They are pretty much a culmination of everything I have learned over this year, anatomy, colouring my pieces and getting away from line art into fully rendered greyscale paintings. I still have a lot to learn but I am getting to a stage where I feel like I am a lot more comfortable with my work. I hope you guys have enjoyed seeing me grow as much as I have enjoyed pushing myself. Till next time! 

Stressed!

 

So deadlines are getting closer and closer and the panic is really beginning to set in, therefore it seems I have become a concept art producing machine! With at least 50% of one of my races still to go I'm really having to put the hours in, thankfully I enjoy painting so it's not too much of a chore.

 

Above you can see the very nearly finished designs for a nord marshal and foot soldier. To contrast with the other two races I've really pushed the armour on them, so lots of bulky shoulder pads and a much larger amount of metallics. The masks are hopefully going to be the big distinguishing feature, with each member wearing one of these elaborate gilded masks. They also tie back into the backstory of these guys, with them belonging to the clan of the silent man. each member of the clan must at all time hide there face and it is seen as a crime to show yourself in public. I also have some helmet designs, clan emblems and a bear knight to show you guys so just bear with me and you will see them soon ;) Till next time!

Ghosts Of The Webway

 

 

So I should probably be doing university work but I couldn't resist doing some fan art after picking up the harlequin codex last week, the background for the solitaire really grabbed me when I read through it so I couldn't resist doing a painting of one, he was also a test to see how well I could use gradient maps to colour my greyscale paintings, I think it turned out pretty well and it looks a lot nicer than my old method of colouring.

 

 

The second picture is another attempt at trying something new, which is to try and have a painting that tells a story, instead of just being a flat character piece or an environment, its still a work in progress though as I'm not happy with the poor guardsmen the harlequin is about to jump onto. Till next time. 



Getting A Little Creepy

 

University is getting pretty tense at the moment so I haven't been able to upload as much as I want to in the past few weeks, however I can't leave you guys hanging without any new work, can I now?? Above is my first pass at creating some fanatics/zealots/mutations for the children of odin, if it looks weird and disturbing to you then I have succeeded in what I was trying to achieve! I have some even weirder head designs too but I haven't yet finished them.

 

I was trying something a little different with these guys technically, instead of my usual render everything to death, I attempted to try and be a bit more loose with my brush strokes and suggest things rather than painting everything out. It was a fun little experiment and I certainly finished these a lot quicker than previous piece of work. Till next time. 

Master Studies

After watching some of Noah Bradley's environment tutorials I picked up that he recommended studying the masters to improve your environment art. Above is my first attempt at this, it's a painting by Thomas Moran, overall I think I captured the original pretty well, obviously it's not a like for like replica but it's helped me get a better handle on atmosphere and mood. The range of colours in his colour palette is crazy! Felt like I was colour picking like a mad man, anyway I highly recommend anyone interested in environment art to give one of these a go, you would be surprised how much you learn. Till next time!

A link to the Noah Bradley Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQfF-P70V2Q

Composition Is Key!

 

If you've ever frequented this blog then you probably know I have a little bit of an aversion to environments, well recently I've been tackling that problem head on! The first thing I've been focussing on has been composition, as without it your painting can lack focus, after some great feedback from a university friend, I realised that lighting can be used to really push were you want the viewer to look, combine that with the usual character design tricks of using high contrast areas and high detail areas you begin to be able to move the viewer around your painting much more effectively.

 

Above are a bunch of thumbnails for two new environments, "The anomaly" and "The frost gates", the anomaly is actually much further along now but I can't be spoiling you guys too much now can I?? till next time! 

It's been a while............

 

So it's been a while and I do apologise but I have been a very busy bee lately! 

The guy above is one such thing that's been keeping me busy. He is a finished "Children Of Odin" acolyte, these mystical seers keep watch over the ravens and commune with the Gods or so they would have there people believe, in all reality they are little more that noble men taking advantage of the current situation.

 

Design wise I wanted something a lot more civilised looking than the designs I have been creating for my elves, less bone and fur, more silks and armour. With the armour I still didn't want to have them overly armoured because that's going to be the main feature of the nord race, so I wanted to create something more visually appealing, maybe less about defence and more a show of position. You might also notice that I have actually put some colour on this piece! I felt like the black and white wasn't doing the character justice and in all honesty, I was getting a bit bored painting in greyscale, I hope you guys like him and I will try and get a new update sooner rather than later. Till next time.