The Forgotten Pool

 

I got inspired lately to create an environment piece, after going up Coniston in the lake district. The countryside around there really is beautiful and I wanted to try and capture that magical forest feeling within a painting. Obviously I couldn't just paint a plain forest, I still had to sneak a little bit of fantasy in there, thus the giant stone hand!

 

It got suggested to me that the piece is lacking some life to it, especially the water, which I can't help but agree with. So I am going to adjust that and possibly add some wildlife to the piece. I'm thinking maybe a few birds flying around or perched on the hand, as that is the focal point of the painting. So you may see this piece again. Till next time!

Marine Salvage Robot

 

So here's the final product of those alchemy silhouettes I created a few weeks back. I ended up choosing the fifth design from the previous piece I showed you guys for the basic design of this guy. I did change a few things on the final concept, such as the feet, the arm plating and the shoulders. They were all pretty small changes but it made the overall design look a little more grounded. That was one of the main goals with this piece, to create something that looks like it could function in our world and had an actual purpose behind it.

 

 I imagine this robot would be sent down into areas of the sea that are deemed too dangerous or too hazardous for humans. While it is in those areas it's tasked with collecting salvage and relics. It also has a secondary function in the form of the giant canister attached to the front of it. The idea would be that it can store trapped divers in there, supplying oxygen to them from it's helmet, while it takes them to safety.

 

I learned a heck of a lot from this piece, one being that I am not as scared of colures as I used to be and I'm getting more of an understanding of how shadows work. Still a lot more to learn though, so I will get back to it. Till next time!

 

 

Robots And Desolate Wasteland

 

So you remember those robot silhouettes from about a week ago, well I took a few of them and made some more fleshed out designs of them. My main goal with the designs was to make something look a little more believable, with actual joints, gears and bits of machinery. I did this by using a lot of photos and painting over them until I got something I liked, I used car engine parts, spark plugs and medical equipment to name a few of my references. This sped up my design process a lot, as I wasn't trying to invent these mechanical parts, so I can focus on the overall design of the robot instead. The photos also informed a lot of the look of the robots, such as the armoured plating, I'm hoping to push these methods and concepts further by adding photo textures to make them look more realistic. The fifth design is probably the one I will do these experiments on!   

 

 

In a bid to not just focus on character design I have also been doodling some thumbnails for a environment piece. I've had in my head for a while now, it's based on a extract from a book I am currently reading called, The Left Hand Of God, more on that later on though. Till next time!

 

Alchemy

 

So in a bid to try improve how long it takes me to come up with initial sketches and designs I have decided to go back to a programme I was shown in my first year of university. Alchemy is a free programme which lets you quickly make shapes, these can be then used as the basis for character designs or possibly environments. The above image was made for just that purpose, I wanted to design a robot but always struggle coming up with shapes quickly, without getting caught up in my line art, so I thought why not give alchemy a crack.

 

I'm going to take about four of these designs and throw some more paint on them, see if I can't flesh them out into something cool. Hopefully will have a few pages of designs and concepts which I can then use to make a character illustration at the end, got to keep building that portfolio! Thinking of possibly making an alien species with this technique. Till next time.

 

Here's a link to the alchemy site if anyone is interested - http://al.chemy.org/

Knights Of The Round Table

So seen as though I have a fair bit of time on my hands, what with it being summer (and hating the sun and all that). I have decided to start a project in a similar vein to what I did with my honours project, to create a world from the ground up using just my concept art. The theme is basically a futuristic version of king Arthur and the knights of the round table, so lots of robotic suits of armour and dastardly AI is going to be designed!

I'm hoping to push a few new techniques in this project, mainly to start branching into making 3D sculpts of some of these helmets and future designs, so that I can really focus on becoming a professional character designer. I also want to play around with animating some of my paintings, to give them a bit more life.

Above is the very first designs for what I potentially want one of these knights to look like. I took a bunch of reference images of medieval helmets and basically went to town making them look futuristic. The most important thing for me though was to retain that look of a knights helmet, so keeping the thin vision slit and having the angled face plates really helped with this. I hope you guys like them and are looking forward to seeing the rest of the project grow. Till next time!