Conquering Frustration

I had another bout of "ugh I can't do this!" and "I suck at drawing!" a few days ago and it pretty much ground my work flow to a halt (not something you want with uni deadlines looming). So I took a step back from photoshop and analysed what it was that was annoying me so much with my work?? Usually with me it's a technical issue, I can't get the hand to look right, the head looks wrong or something else along those lines. The solution?? Get better at that thing! If you can't draw heads (as in my case) draw loads of them, look at tutorials or just look at pictures of people and breakdown them down into simple shapes. Yeah it can be pretty dull but it's worth it for the pay off. Granted I'm still trying to work out how to draw the head at extreme angles but the other angles I think I have nailed pretty well. All this from six to eight hours a day, for the past four days. 

I guess what I am trying to say is, don't keep banging your head against a piece, step back analyse what's wrong, go away and get good at that thing and then go back to your painting /drawing a apply your new techniques, it's a great feeling! Till next time. 

All About That Line Art

Been beavering away on a high quality piece these past few days, the early stages have taken me a bit longer than I would like but this was mainly due to destiny (that game is slowly sucking my life away!). The line art for the piece is pretty much done though, only a few things to finish up. The picture on the right is my initial sketch phase, where I just play around with the characters design, the left piece is when I take all those ideas and tighten them up into the final line art pass, I love photoshop when it comes to easily editing and reiterating on pictures like this!

Her horns haven't been sketched in yet and I'm thinking of not including them at all due to some feedback on twitter, someone mentioned it looked like smoke, so I'm thinking of playing around with that idea. Should have the whole piece finished by the end of the week but first I am going to do a few colour tests using a technique I learned from a sellfy video I picked up, hopefully it will speed up my colouring process a lot as that's probably one of my weakest areas at the moment (as you've all probably noticed with all the black and white paintings). Till next time. 

Evolution

My bad it's been a whole week since I updated, slacking in the blogging department! There is a reason though, been busy designing elves, lots and lots of elves. So where to start eh?? Well the elves without the orange backgrounds are where my initial idea generation took me, I was worrying a lot about making my elves look like.....well.....elves and I was producing a lot of generic designs. So I lowered the opacity and did another pass, always trying to think outside the box and the orange backed ones are a result of that. Finally begining to get that "animal" look that I've been chasing, lots of talismans and a cobbled together look is helping with this. The creepy masks are just an experiment, do you think I should keep them?? Till next time. 

Experimenting

So I took my line art from yesterday and fleshed it out a little bit. I was playing around with not concentrating on rendering the painting to the nth degree and leaving some areas looking vague or barely painted at all. it definitely sped up my painting speed as I managed to get this done in about three to four hours, which is roughly how long it took me to just do the line art on the priest concept! Going to play around with this style a little more in the future! The character herself is going to be some sort of huntress or clan leader for my elf race, plenty more back story to flesh out though. Till next time. 

Creating The Elves

So I'm taking a break from designing the "nordic" race to begin on the elves, my initial approach was to make them very acrobatic and graceful but I felt this was a bit stereotypical, which is something I am trying to stay away from in my IP. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with the second design, with this one I am trying to make them look more aggressive and very animistic, which I think the second design is getting across (though not enough), also trying to incorporate a few design elements from the "nords" to give the world a sense of continuity, going to carry on working on the elves tomorrow though, stay stay tuned for more, early days yet.

This next piece is me exploring how the elves would live, I want their homes to look very organic, as much a part of the forest as the trees are. This first idea is almost like a bee hive, with all these spherical buildings clumped together on the tree's forming one mass, still more work to do on that too. Till next time! 

Slowly Building A World

Some new bits of work today to show everyone! The top piece is me continuing to explore ideas for my "nord" race, I'm trying to avoid some of the big stereotypical Viking aesthetics, (apart from the beards that is), so that my world looks really unique. I am trying to expand on the priest character that I designed the other day into all aspects of the "nord" look, in my head I have their culture as very religious, going as far to say that they are fanatics. So I am using lots of symbols and markings combined with helmets that are more ritual in nature than military. Still plenty of work to do on them.

The second picture is me exploring a new race in my IP, the elves in my world again are not going to be your traditional elves. These crystal forests are going to be where the elves are born, almost like genetically grown but more "magical". The overall design of the elves will be very animalistic and ferocious but I will explore more of that in their character designs. Hope you enjoy my design thoughts and its not just boring text to read. Till next time. 

Busy, Busy, Busy!

I have a lot of work to show you guys, this lot above is just the tip of the iceburg! The top character sketch was me jumping ahead a little bit, on monday I started to do some head skecthes for my nord race, just to get ready for doing the full designs, my second design got me so pumped full of ideas though, that I had to do a full sketch. 

The background behind the character is that what with the dawning of ragnarok, the nords have become very paranoid, thus their religious cults have began to take more impact upon their daily lives. The most notable of these cults is "the brotherhood of silence", they dwell in great monuments near the sea and any body of water, believing they are always near an area of cleansing. 

That's about it so far, (the environment sketch is an idea I had for these monuments) but as I keep designing more keeps coming to me, my projects beginning to feel more like a lived in world, than just a bunch of random images! Till next time. 

Practise Makes Perfect!

So I wasn't lying when I said I am going to keep practising until I perfect the human body! These sketches are from the past few days, each page took about a couple of hours. I am slowly beginning to get to grips with the techniques I have been researching, such as using the Loomis method for getting the head proportions right. Overall I am really pleased with how its going, when I feel fully comfortable I am going to start getting back into creating my own characters with these new techniques. Till next time.

P.S: I don't think myslef some genius at drawing, far from it, but if you ever feel like you can't draw or that you want to give up, like I did on monday, don't! Getting good at art takes time and a lot of patience, just keep at it every day and it wont be long before you're creating masterpieces!  

Understanding The Human Head

Sorry I have been pretty quiet lately but there is a reason, I promise! That reason is a lot to do with the above pictures, so my main passion in games is characters, I love creating weird, unique and interesting people to fill game worlds, my main problem is that my faces always look so dam weird! To rectify this I have been doing loads of studies on the facial features. There are a lot more sketchbook pictures that go with these but I didn't want to bore you guys with all the technical stuff, you come here for pretty pictures right!? (Well I hope!) With these done I am going to hopefully attempt a portrait next combining all that I have learned from my studies, after that characters shouldn't be a problem!......well apart from hands, posture and proportions but I will get to those, one step at a time. Till next time.  

P.s - If your'e interested where I got all the information to do these I followed a lot of this guys tutorials, the guys brilliant, helped me loads! 

http://www.youtube.com/user/ProkoTV

Final Batch

Finished up my final batch of sword designs yesterday, was really trying to make some more unique blade shapes with this group, which I think shows in the far right two. All these weapons are for the Nordic race in my IP, that's why they all share similar designs and certain things like skulls and talismans. Tonight I am going to do some head mock ups to go with these designs, as I have a real strong image of what I want the race to look like in my head, thinking of this race as a collection of people who travel about and never really stay in one place for a long time. Design wise I am thinking of having them carry lots of equipment with all sorts of knick knacks upon them. Till next time. 

More Weapon Designs

Enjoyed designing swords so much yesterday that I created another four today! With these four I really tried to push the detail more, I wanted to make them look a lot more bespoke than the others, I think I might go all out on the details on the last four too because I much prefer these four to last nights. Design wise I really tried to push the fantastical elements a bit more, which is probably most evident in the far left one, where the sword has this huge chunk of ice anchored onto the side of it. Will try and get the other four finished this week, if other projects don't get in the way. Till next time. 

Weapons, Glorious Weapons!

Realised today that I have less than ten weeks till first semester ends! So design mode has fully kicked in for my honours project. Above you can see the twelve initial sword silhouette sketches I created for my "God race", was trying all sorts of things in this phase, from curved blades, to big world of warcraft style broadswords. Was always trying to achieve an ice effect with the weapons though, that's why some of them are so misshapen. 

These are four of my favourites from the silhouette sketches, I took them and simply lowered the opacity on them and sketched over them, going to take the sword second from the left and fully render it next, lots of frost effects and glowly blue bits to come! Till next time.

Frustrated Doodle

Been in a really funny mood today, well for the past few days so decided to take my mind of things. My "brain turned off" paintings tend to be a bit weird and whacky as you can probably tell from above. The whole thing was only took a about half an hour so that's why it's so dam rough, it's nothing serious though, just trying to blow off some steam. Till next time.

Attempt Two

So here is another attempt at a environment painting, I was trying to create a "forest" but not in the traditional sense, that's why there's all the stone monoliths. The background behind the piece is linked to my new honours project, the idea being that this is some sort of prison, with the souls of the prisoners trapped in these stone monoliths but the prison is slowly degrading and the prisons are beginning to open! It's not finished yet far from it but I thought I would show an W.I.P so I can see whether I am improving or not. Till next time. 

Starting From The Ground Up

So I bit the bullet today and finally started doing some environment art, above you can see the fruits of me banging my head against a wall of "I can't bloody do this" for a fair few hours, as they say though you learn through your mistakes. Also I have changed a lot of my original ideas for my honours project, that's why the guy has a spear and shield and why the whole thing is a little different tonally to what I was planning on doing. Will make a later post explaining my new found ideas but for now you guys will have to make do with this rather uninteresting environment piece. Till next time. 

Getting Somewhere

After yesterdays frustration at trying to get my characters proportions right I created this. Using the anatomy studies I sketched I came up with a pretty much finalised character design for one of my races, in my honours IP, the nain. Obviously he needs either painting in black and white or colour but so far I am really happy with how he turned out, especially because he's proportioned correctly! Till next time.

Doing Something About It

Due to pure frustration with trying to get my characters proportions right I have decided to do something about it! Every day I want to do a set of at least five sketches of a different part of the human body, whether that be hands, feet, legs or as you can see above the body. Hopefully with enough persistence I can get a better understanding of how the human body works and what correlates to what. I have already figured out what I have been doing wrong with arms, so hopefully by the end, I can iron out all my other kinks. Till next time. 

Honours Work and A little something extra!

It's monday again, so you know what that means right!? More honours work, still having problems installing the wacom drivers at uni so had to resort back to the pencil (not that's a bad thing). Above you can see an A3 spread of characters from one of the races I am creating, beginning to really lock down the look and feel of this race but still a lot of work to go.

This next picture is something just to break up doing uni work all the time, it's based heavily on GW's tomb king range, going to go for a very saturated look with the final things and lots of sepia! Till next time.

Shoulder pads!....You excited??

Maintaining my enthusiasm for my honours project today by designing some shoulder pads for my "nain" race. The nain are a half bull half lion race in my game universe, so I wanted to give them a very barbaric look to all their weapons and equipment, which is why there are a lot of skulls all over the place! It's really interesting trying to balance this look with the sci-fi aesthetic I am trying to go for, think I have struck the right balance at the moment. Till next time. 

Honours

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have started my uni honours now! This project is a year long and is worth pretty much a third of my overall grade so I can't balls this up. My proposal is to create my own IP, specifically on mmo. Above you can see some very rough initial sketches of my first race, the " nain" ,trying to get a humanoid/lion look going with these guys, so far getting some pretty good results. I will be posting a lot of this over the next few months so you will get to see the evolution of this project. Till next time. 

Getting Frustrated!

So it's been a while........I do apologise been a bit busy lately (no alcohol was involved in this distraction...shifty eyes). So last Monday I started back at uni and I got to start planing my honours project, more on that in another post, so to prepare myself I thought I would do a little character design study. I have a always loved the look and feel of the British Napoleonic uniforms so I thought why not create a character based on it!? The actual line work for this piece was done weeks ago, it's only just now that I have gotten around to actually applying paint on it. This might get finished but at the moment my uni work is going to take priority over any personal work. Till next time.

P.S: The title is because his face has been causing me no end of problems! 

Into The Fires Of Mount Doom!

Another environment study for you guys today. This one is obviously looking at a much warmer colour palette to the last one, again though it's only a small little snippet of an environment, still not ready to do a full landscape. This one was 1024 x 1024 though compared to the last ones 512 x 512, so I am getting there. The painting itself came together pretty well, the smoke was the only thing that really give me any issues, so overall I am pretty happy with how it turned out. Till next time.

A little tease

These are far from finished but I thought I would throw them up here as a little taste of what's to come. I don't usually design weapons, so I thought I would take a break from the character design and started doodling these today (although I do have an idea for a dranei shaman in my head ;)). I was trying to keep a loose theme to all three of the weapons, not sure it really shows though. Passing these over to a friend when they are done because he wants to model them in maya, so you never know, you might see these fully built and textured! Shocking I know. Till next time.

I am alive!

Sorry the blogg has been a bit dead recently, what with being at home for a week and then a few of my house mates moving in, I have been a little preoccupied. So today I decided to kick myself in the backside and  crack back on with some commission work, above you can see the waves/water asset, which is done, well unless the client wants something changing and you can also see the background to the game. Struggling with the background a little but it's slowly coming together. Till next time (I promise next time wont be two weeks!)

At Home

At home for the week so I haven't been able to do any commission work/personal work, much to my dismay. So thought I would crack open a sketchbook and doodle, again with most of my doodles I have no idea what it's about, just needed to flex the creative muscles and it's better than no update!

Till next time. 

Double Post Treat!

Environments have always scared me, not sure why but I always try to avoid doing them. So I am challenging myself to do one of these little environment sketches a week. I will probably do the next ones a bit bigger though, as this one is only 512 pixels by 512 pixels, which is a tad to small. The one above, or as I call it "The Ice Valley" took about an hour, that's hopefully going to be the same for all the other ones too. Till next time.

Clouds (Commission work)

Small little update on the commission front today. I present top you some really rather thrilling clouds! Haha in a ll seriousness though I am onto the prop design and creation aspect of this brief now, so I started off with something not to taxing, thus the clouds above. The client wants a very high amount of contrast in the props, to fit in with the cartoony design of the game, hopefully I achieved that. Till next time.