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Jun 03 2012
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Archival Art Gallery

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!

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May 24 2012
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Environment Design Gallery

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.

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May 21 2012
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Archival Art Gallery

Sai Warrior

This is the first in a new series of posts concentrating on concept designs from yesteryear. This one is an early concept from the game Stormrise, released by Sega in 2009. It is an early interpretation of a Sai Warrior, the spiritual, mutant faction in Stormrise. I started by doing a pencil drawing of the character before bringing it into photoshop to paint up. What I find pleasing about his image is that it really pops out and gives a good sense of being three dimensional.

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May 18 2012
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Environment Design Gallery

CGMA Environment Design 1 with James Paick – Week 4

This week we started to use colour. I’m afraid I only got three of the five images done this week. It seems to take me ages to get the image to a point where I feel like I’m liking it. Added to this is the fact that when I had to rush an image a couple of weeks ago just to fill out the assignment, the critique centered on the rushed image, rather than the two more finished pieces, thus covering a lot of things I might have attended to, had I given the image equal time. For this reason I have only submitted images that I have given fair attention to.

However, I did really enjoy this week’s assignments a lot more than weeks 1 to 3, which were a real chore, if I’m honest. I think this is because I started to use the lasso. I liked what I got out of it on the first image so much that by the third image I was using it for a lot of the image making, and doing very little actual painting. As you can probably tell, I’ve been looking at Robh Ruppel’s blog a lot recently.

There is a definite progression through the three images, the first being quite basic, while the last is comparatively rich. I’m learning a lot from the class, but what is becoming most apparent to me is less about the technique and skills, and more about my attitude towards environment design. When creating environments before I would get frustrated that the image wasn’t looking decent from a fairly early stage, and as a result I would get disheartened and this would put me off. Now I am forcing myself to get environments done and to a state where I’m happy with them, in the process learning that it takes time, but also proving to myself that I can do it.

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May 16 2012
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Inspiration Gallery

Robh Ruppel

The fine work of one Mr Robh Ruppel has been brought to my attention during my Environment Design class, as mentioned in my last post.

He has a great sense of style, and his compositions and colour use are phenomenal. I’ve inserted a couple of examples below. Hit the link to see more on the blog. I hope you enjoy them as much as I do. This stuff is a real inspiration, as you will see in my next Environment Design 1 update.

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Apr 14 2012
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Comics, Fan Art Gallery

Batman

This week’s OzComics.com challenge was Batman. How could I pass up this opportunity?

I started sketching in the old drawing pad, searching for a look that I liked. Having come up with this angular design I then set upon the task of designing my version of the Batmobile and could think of no better car to base it on than the classic over the top ’80s supercar, the Lamborghini Countach. Being a rather angular shape already, it leant itself well to the ride of choice for this particular Dark Knight.

Drive was not the movie that I though of aping at first. I did toy with the idea of doing a version of the Beverly Hills Cop cover with Batman sat casually on the bonnet of his motor. I was halfway through this one and on the brink of redesigning when the whole Drive thing sprang to mind, which was a relief.  Having spent a lot of time on the Star Wars cover I was quite keen to keep this one to a more manageable timeframe. And because Drive is a cracking movie.

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Apr 12 2012
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Wideguys Gallery

Speed Trap

Part of the Wideguys lineup, I initially wanted to do a cop car conversion of the 2009 Dodge Challenger. This was one of the American muscle car re-imaginings I really liked from a few years ago, other examples of which are the Ford Mustang and Chevrolet Camaro.

From there I developed the idea of it being part of a speed trap scene, and that it would be cool to have the cop a female, so that I could use her long hair to accentuate the draft created by the unseen perpetrator speeding by. The criminal in question was originally going to appear to the right, having gone round a bend left and driving off into the distance. Ultimately I preferred the idea that you don’t see him, just his wake.

This image was created by drawing and inking the car and the cop separately with a pen and pad, then scanning and comping them in Photoshop. The dust cloud effect was created using the Colour Halftone filter.

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Apr 10 2012
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Portrait Gallery

Dani

A portrait done as a commission for a friend. It took about four hours using coloured pencil and black PITT pen. The original photograph was a nice composition, which always helps.

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Apr 04 2012
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Pin-up Girl Gallery

Paris je t’aime

A piece drawn for a friend’s wedding present. It was created using coloured pencil, black PITT pen and a dab of gouache paint. Everyone loves pin-up girls, but I’ve never seen one dressed as a mime. This was partly inspired by the work of comic covers artist Adam Hughes. Check his work out at justsayah.com

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Apr 02 2012
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Rugby Tubs Gallery

Cass and the Burnley Boys

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A friend of mine commissioned me to do a digital painting of him playing rugby for Burnley RUFC in Lancashire, England. I was also instructed to have a couple of his mates in there as well, in support of his run to the try line.

The whole job took me about 17 hours to do from scratch. I started with a sketch and proceeded to block in the characters with tones, having roughly gone over the outlines. I then went through and rendered each of the characters, before moving onto the sky, the grass and finally the background elements.

After tidying up the characters once more, I flipped the image to check the balance and decided I preferred the image the other way round, with the characters coming towards the viewer from left to right, ending with the man of the moment looking back the other way as he hands off his would be tackler.

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