A quick couple of hours well spent with Mr Cagney.
Art Nuggets
The Concept Art of Nick Smith
Tag Archives: Illustration
The 34th Battalion
I’ve been lucky enough to get work on an exciting new film production being made here in Queensland, Australia. The 34th Battalion is about the exploits of a Australian soldiers on the western front in the Great War. Above you can see the initial teaser poster and two pieces of concept art I have worked on. More will follow and you can find out more about this fine production on their website.
“Jonathan Brown and his close friends, whose lives are full of family and commitments, are faced with a call of duty. A recruitment march has found its way to their small town. Jonathan’s decision is full of heartbreak and regrets. He will carry those with him through the war.
…
A gritty and powerful window into the past, Jonathan’s story brings a personal and human element to the concept of war. How will this gentle and kind man survive the horrors of the Western Front? How will he return?”
Wolverine
Here’s this week’s OzComics entry. A bit of Wolverine taking on the Juggernaut. Similar screen tone approach as previous entries. Just trying to really nail down my technique for a bit of comic work I’ve got in mind. On this occasion I did the roughest of pencil sketches and took them into the tablet quick smart before drawing it up digitally, rather than doing a fairly finished pencil version, as is usually my method.
Echelon Heavy Infantry
He never made it into the game, but this is one of my favourite designs from Stormrise. I was particularly inspired by Craig Mullins at this point and started off doing a quick thumbnail sketch before scanning it into the computer and painting him up in black and white. I then overlaid some colour and added detail and textures.
Superman
A quick Superman image for the OzComics.com challenge this week. He’s never been one of my favourite Super Heroes, but I felt like having a crack at him. As ever, it’s telling a snippet of a story, albeit a daft one.
This one began life as a sketch in my pad before being transferred to my ASUS Slate tablet PC. Having purchased the kit over half a year ago, I had been neglecting it. I picked it up again when I went for a Drink’n’Draw session last week and I really felt we bonded, finally.
CGMA Environment Design 1 with James Paick – week 8
Having not attended a Q & A session for my online class all semester, I finally made it to one at the ungodly hour of 4:30am. I had to attend at least one and it was good to be able to be there and communicate with James and to be able to thank him. I have come on leaps and bounds having taken the class. It has given me a lot of confidence in tackling environments and more ambitious concept pieces than I thought it would. Well worth it.
So here are the final pieces. With the top one I added a few more dragons in front of the mountain side so they would look as if they were swarming over it more. I also pushed the castle back a bit by adding a little haze to the upper reaches. The bottom pic went through a more drastic overhaul since the last update. I implemented the advice that was given, sharpened up a lot of areas and included the seagulls which gives the whole piece more depth.
Stormtroopers
This is one of my favourite images. After spending the whole weekend playing the original World War 2 game Medal of Honour on Playstation 1 back in my Uni days, I came up with this image of three nazi stormtroopers are making their way through the driving snow in a determined fashion.
It was created before the advent of my getting photoshop, using pencil and paper initially, before laboriously inking everything in with a humble felt tip pen. Having drawn the soldiers first, I originally drew the snow circular, but tben struck upon the idea of drawing them elliptical, which allowed me to suggest the direction and force of the snow storm and give the image it’s power.
CGMA Environment Design 1 with James Paick – weeks 6 & 7
Week’s six and seven of the Environment Design 1 course focused on refining a one design each from week 5’s thumbnails. The use of photographs, to help not only texture the image, but also as a way of creating new shapes and designs was explored.
The top image is Week 7’s effort. I felt I owed the course a real solid effort, since last Week 6’s image (bottom) coincided with my trip back to Australia from the UK and I wasn’t able to give it the attention it deserved. I went with a more fantasy style image, with a castle stretching out to the sea being marched on by an army. I took the thumbnail and pretty much painted it again from scratch, making use of the painting on top of photos idea.
The bottom image is Week 6’s effort. This was probably the most successful of the thumbnails from Week 5, and certainly the most intriguing point of view. I used photos in this one to enrich the mechanics of the water mills design. This image was going in the right direction, but I was unable to give it the attention it needed to really make it look finished. Perhaps I will return to it and finish it off in the coming days.
Commandos
A few years ago THQ/Relic’s Company of Heroes was the game of choice round these parts. Set in World War II, it was a superior RTS that gave special consideration to real tactics and had a fully destroyable environment, making it very atmospheric.
Inspired by that game, I came up with these Commando squad leaders, all with their own appearance, weapons and abilities, and tried to present it in a mock WWII style poster, with the idea that this would be what you see when selecting which nationality you wanted to play.
This was painted in Photoshop from the ground up (as opposed to starting with a pencil sketch), which I rarely did at the time, and I consider it quite a milestone in my evolution as a concept artist. I remember thinking how simple the rim lighting was to do, yet so effective. Good fun!
CGMA Environment Design 1 with James Paick – Week 5
Week 5 of Environment Design 1 centered on using textures within the designs, both to add character to the image, as well as inspire new shapes and ideas. Our assignment was to create 4 or more thumbnails around one theme. I chose as my motif buildings built on rocks protruding from the sea.
Following on from last week, I once again enjoyed creating these images. I’m finding it easier and quicker to get an image looking pleasing to my eye, which has a snowballing effect, as the confidence gained from one image feeds into the next. Next week we are to take one of these images and take it to final quality, so stay tuned.
Art Nuggets 