Speedy Du Jour

Recently joined DA-Speedpaint which is a deviantart group dedicated to speedpainting. They have a daily / weekly speedpaint topic challenge titled 'Speedy du Jour' which i've been interested in entering, i noticed a new one had been put up after getting home with the theme of Gladiators, so i decided to do a quicky, the allocated time was 30mins, of which i spent the full time.

Speedy du Jour

Recently joined DA-Speedpaint which is a deviantart group dedicated to speedpainting. They have a daily / weekly speedpaint topic challenge titled 'Speedy du Jour' which i've been interested in entering, i noticed a new one had been put up after getting home with the theme of Gladiators, so i decided to do a quicky, the allocated time was 30mins, of which i spent the full time.

Seeeeeed Painting.... kind've..

Started off as a speedpainting study using 2D Total's Speedpainting V3 ebook, however this one took me around 4-5 hours (including breaks and internet browsing) so it's kind've a speed painting, but not a quick one by all means. 

I'm fairly pleased with it, i added quite a bit to the original concept in the ebook, as i thought that the overall colourscheme and content of the original didn't really portray the theme very well so there were a few changes i thought would help it.

There are also a veiw angles and perspective issues that need to be fixed at a later date..

More Figure Studies

I am quite happy with these 2 figure studies, they are probably about 10-15 mins each, but i wasn't taking note. I've been focusing on drawing with my whole arm still instead of just my wrist which is helping tremendously with capturing more of the gesture and making them feel less 'stiff'. The proportions on the left study are wrong, the arms and legs are slightly long, however i think this is because the photo was on a slightly angle so the perspective must have thrown me off.

LIGHT MAN - HE BRINGS YOU LIGHT

 LIGHT MAN - HE BRINGS YOU LIGHT

Heres i pencil drawing / sketch thing as a submission to the Super Hero Challenge, i'm not too fussed about the challenge this week but thought i better do something - may decided to develope this alot more but otherwise this will be my submission.

Someone commented on my sketchbook over at CA.org and said that my enviros are really good but my figure studies are quite poor in comparison and suggested doing some tonal figure studies, so here is a quick'n from tonight before i nip off to bed. I felt that the excercise is very useful for focusing on the form and not worrying so much about details.

Here is another figure study, kind've a tonal study, with some more details, but mostly to practise drawing with my whole arm, instead of my wrist - as suggested by Frukt over at Gameface, which is a very helpful tip. I've heard others talk about it alot on different websites however never really saw the importance of it. But after trying to force myself to draw with my whole arm i can see how i can help a alot with drawing much more fluent and precise lines.

A turning point..

I have set myself a task for the Christmas holidays starting this week, to spend a lot of time painting a much more proffessional illustration as i'm sick of constantly producing quick pieces that don't showcase what i can do, or push myself to any further extent. I hope that i can achieve a really good result so that i can put it into my portfolio and start advertising for freelance work again, fingers crossed.

Above are the references and inspiration that i'm using and below are the thumbnails that i've painted so far:

 

 Update 10/12/2010 (Below)

This one was painted a bit hap-hazardly, the composition taken straight from another painting, or aleast heavily inspired, and then the cave was shoved in quite quickly and has a very stupid placement.... oh well, many more thumbs to go until i'm happy enough to create a final one to use for the final placement.

 

Update 11/12/2010 (Below)

Heres the start of a new thumbnail idea for the painting, however i'm taking much longer with this one as i'm really keen on the idea comming from it. I wanted to focus on perspective in this thumb and a much closer composition, which is going quite well, lets see how it progresses. This painting has also given me a plot idea for the piece which is:    "A very intricate, royal castle has been corrupt by a dragon entity., the kingdom surrounding the castle are under fire more and more each day from within the castle." I like this idea it allows me to play with the contrasts of ‘good and evil’ ‘ dark and light’ ‘green and red’ etc in the paintings and is also not 100% cliché but is relatable to other plot ideas allowing me to use them as inspiration wtihout copying them fully.

And then here is the final version of this thumbnail, still quite rough but i really like the overall feel and theme of the image, this is my favourite so far. I couldn't decide on a colour scheme so here are two monotone schemes, cool and warm.

Update 13/12/2010 (Below)

I am very happy with this latest thumb, i spent alot more time on this one again and feel as though i'm getting much closer to what i'd like the final image to look like, atleast in terms of content. May develope this one a bit more by adding some snow and more elements but otherwise i'm happy with it overall atleast for a thumb.

Steambot 3CH

I abosolutaly LOVE this little tool: 3CH !

It comes up with some really wack, wonderful and creative things that you wouldn't have though of otherwise - maybe not useful for ideas for a game or plot, but amazing for when you are stuck with what to paint, everything it generates is so easy to imagine visually, making it a great source to paint from.

The images above are quick 15 min speedies from 2 phrases generated by 3CH.

The Hoe etc

Had a really great trip down to the Hoe today, the weather was brilliant, it was a peacful and managed to get some really nice photographs and a life sketch, so all in all - im happy :D

Also managed to finish my Christmas Shopping, ;)

 

Here is my challenge piece for this week.  To create yourself as an animal that represents your personality, i chose to paint myself as a St Bernard as i feel that i'm quite a helpful person, and St Bernards are most known for rescuing people from mountains etc.

 

 Annnnd... here is a kind've developed speedpaint that will be developed a bit more and used for the Easter Bunnies Lab in my Easter Game.

Perspective

Starting really gain a better understanding of perspective, it still confuses the hell out of me if i try to go more complex but i'm starting to get a bit more of a grasp on things, i think.

Heres another enviro for my easter game, probably not gonna declare it finished yet, but i wanted to try and give it a slight 3 point perspective to emphasize the scale of the easter bunnies lab (the mountain on the left).

Oh, and heres a bit of progress on this weeks gameface challenge - Creature Personality Challenge - design yourself as an animal that represents your personality. I will most likely choose a Raccoon however i'm going to try and get this self portrait spot on before i add any animalistic features to it.

1 Month till Christmas

And here is my Santas Workshop enviro:

This is the entrance hall to Santa's Workshop and is 3/4 of my easter game environments. Been doing 3Dsmax for the last 2 weeks or so so havn't been using photoshop and am a bit rusty, but i am quite pleased with the result none the less.

Commission

An old commission, forgot to upload it and i need to post it here so i can link it on  Gameface.

Hobbit Hole Renders

WOOOOOP so my hobbit hole is now complete! These are the final renders.

I had to touch up the brightness and contrast a tad in photoshop but otherwise its 100% rendered using mental ray in 3dsmax. I am very happy with the outcome. All the way through i was creating it with the intention for it to be at night, as happy as i am with the midnight render - i am really quite pleased with the dawn render too, i love how warm it feels.

My main focus while making this was to get the colours and atmosphere perfect, i wasn't too worried about the modelling or textures as ive done quite a lot of 3D before, i just wanted it too feel quite magical and a place where you would want to live.

I think i have achieved that.

Hobbit Objects

Here are some of the objects i've created for my Hobbit Hole:

Hobbit Hole

 

So heres the perspecive drawing of my Hobbit Hole, or - one corner of one of the rooms. In total i'm modeling 3 rooms, technically. The Front Hall, the Drawing Room and the Fireplace 'room'. I want my scene to be set at night so that i can have the contrasts of cool blues from the moonlight and warm oranges from the fireplace and candle (s). I wanted to add more clutter around the room but really need to sleep and i think this is good enough, for now alteast.

The purpose of me doing this was, more practice, but also to use as a reference for what i'd like the objects in the room to look like, what textures to use and what lighting and amospheric effects i would like to add into the scene.

To Do List

Just feel the need to make myself one of these so i know exactly what i've got left to do.

Deadline 15th Dec.

3D room:

• Finish the Perspective / Lighting / Texture / Object illustration
• Use that illustration as reference to model the objects for each room
• And as reference to add the lighting
• And for the textures, texture map the more complex items, otherwise if the UV modifier + normal texture works use that instead.
• Do TWO different renders of each room in different lighting conditions ( Night / Day?)
• Write up about my process in the design document.
• Finished!

Easter Game [Theory]:

• Find out what to put into 'Technology' part of the Game Design Document
• Put all of the graphics into the Game Design Document to make it pretty
• Tidy it all up and refine some of the text.
• Finished!

Easter Game [Drawing for Games]:

• Finish the last 2 Environments
• Draw some Game Layout Charts
• And some Level Layout Charts
• Storyboards?
• Do some Character sihlouetes and refined sketches in pencil in sketchbook
• A model sheet for the main character (Front , Back , sides)
• GUI design (interface, menus)
• Annotate everything within the sketchbook
• Finished!

Image Analysis:

• Pick a piece of concept art for a awesome game and write about how and why the image is painted and created to lure people into playing the game, before they even see any ingame footage, how it portrays the world and characters etc.

Environment Painting PT1

I have decided to start a video tutorial series, on how i paint, to try to help my fellow classmates and friends. Also, it helps me too as i need to think about everything more - so i am teaching myself, too.

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Here is the final painting, i'm fairly happy with it however there quite a few parts that i can see that  i should / could improve on such as the icey water and the cathedral. However i don't think it's crucial to the otherall image at the moment so may not make any more improvements just yet.

More Easter Work

I did 12 different thumbnails for 4 of my environments, 3 of each. North Pole, Santas Workshop, Easter Island and the Easter Bunny's Lab. I then scanned in my favourite for each (as its A3 and too awkward to scan them all on my puny scanner). I then put them into photoshop and added some lighting and depth to see what their potential is, in very quick and rough adjustments. I am fairly happy with how they turned out and will develope them further to create the final level environment painting.

Speedpaint 002

Another speedpaint, i'm really started to love these! Just scribbling onto a canvas and see what happens. I'm quite pleased with the atmosphere and textures here, i tried to use a mixture of the lasso tool and painting, however someothing about it looks a bit flat in places which is annoying.

Maybe an hour / hour n half.

Hm...

Was helping Nick with his creature by sharing my screen, then colin, fred and viki got involved and it got a tad out of hand! xD

Easter Island

A kind've extended speed paint environment as an idea for Easter Island in my Easter game, trying to depict the great wall that surrounds the Easter Bunnies labratories. Theres a few things i don't like, for example i forgot to resize it so the canvas was quite small - hence the low quality brush strokes etc, which is really annoying. However i am really pleased with the atmosphere and concept, considering it was done fairly quick.

Speedpaint #1

Speed paint while sat in the library at Uni, trying to capture a scene using minimal brush strokes and eye-catching light. Used a photgraph as reference for the composition of the light sort and horizon line, but the overall image is completely different.

From hovel to hobbit hole.

I've finished the written part of my Easter Game design document, a rough version for now. I better start this 3D project, so i've drawn up a quick floor plan for my hobbit hole, and made it look pretty.

I am only going to be modelling the Entrance Hall and the Drawing Room. However i feel that these two rooms are a good choice, as the two-way fireplace, candle lighting and moonlight from the window should create interesting lighting situations for my renders.

Next i'll create a more detailed floor plan of the Entrance Hall and Drawing Room, so that i can plot what objects i would like and where they should be placed. Lastly i want to paint a perspective illustration of the rooms to portray what sort of textures and atmosphere i'd like to use.

Here is the final version, with the more detailed floor plan of the 2 rooms that i am going to model - the Front Hall and the Drawing Room. Things will most likely change during illustration and 3D, but that's all part of the creative process eh?

Floating Pumpkins

Heres a little update on my Halloween Challenge. Fred and nick suggested i remove the legs and make them float, we then came up with the idea of them having tentacles like the aliens from Crisis.  I also decided to brush up the background perspective and add some more atmosphere by painting in fog.

Decided that i was spending too much time on this one, especially considering it failed from the start. I should have kept doing more thumbs before hand and then go from there instead of just rushing in with the first 5 minuite sketch that i did. However i don't mind too much how it turned out, but it could have been a lot better. 

Darn still no new artwork, hoping to get the boring side of things out of the way, lots of writing, theory...ing and thinking of ideas. Here is the current idea of my Easter Game after looking through my brainstorm and picking out the best bits.