Thumbnails

I always start out with a thumbnail. Here's a comp of some of my favorites from the last 3 months or so.

Spring Update

It's been a really busy Spring... literally the day after my last post I got involved in what turned out to be a fairly lengthy freelance gig. I was quite a long process and after that project was finished there was a bit of burnout downtime and some rest. I've also been thinking alot about where my personal work is heading as I'm gearing up for a couple of personal projects I'm going to start this summer. As a bit of a break I did this quick piece over a few nights this week. It's no real departure for me as far as style goes, but I think some of the thinking I've been doing about my work is starting to show in a more cohesive, inspired look. I'm figuring out how to represent my themes and inspirations more, where my influences fit in to that and starting to develop more of my own personal visual language.

Colour Thumb...

I'm going to try and update more frequently, even if it's just little things like this...



...a small colour thumb I did up the other night. These are such good practice for composition and colour... I love 'em. Started with a blue green sky colour for the jungle night sky and worked towards the foreground laying in bold silhouettes in solid colours first, then pushing some back with atmosphere, then hitting some spots with a brigh, warmer moonlight. Really tried to keep the strokes purposeful on this...

I am reading Moby Dick right now, thanks to my current interest in classic, dark fiction and Tony's emphatic recommendations... Melville's thoughts on the inherent terror inducing qualities of white, especially when found in nature, were why the snake ended up white...more interesting than the green I was thinking of for sure.

Spectrum 16 and Mixed Bag Mythography

Well, it looks like I will have some work in Spectrum 16!

I was super surprised to make it in to say the least. I sent submissions in this year as a due dilligence kinda thing, with no expectations whatsoever of having anything accepted and I think I'm still in a bit of disbelief!
When I find out what piece or pieces got in and get an official correspondence from them it will probably sink in a bit more.

I am really, really flattered to be in a volume with so many incredible artists and I know that seeing my work amongst the many truly great pieces will be humbling but it will inspire me to work harder too. It's great to feel like the hard work and focus is paying of somehow, and I'm more inspired than ever to keep pushing myself, be more focused and work even harder. I've been looking up to the artists published in Spectrum since Volume 3, and this is a huge milestone for me.

So not to post news without art...

When I wanted to come up with a title for this blog, I wanted it to somehow relate to my personal work that is eclectically inspired and varies in subject a fair bit, but is still unified by my own influences and Personal Mythologies. I came up with Mixed Bag Mythography.

I wanted to make an illustration to serve as a visual interpretation of this title that would represent some of the inspirations and subjects of my personal artwork. I chose to personify the theme with a female character to represent creativity. She’s kind of a vagabond – wandering through the world much like how my inspiration will wander with no set purpose. She’s collected all kinds of trappings and artifacts, some of which represent my cultural background and inspirations, and others that I just think are cool and add interest.

All the pseudo-intellectual artistic descriptions aside: this is a character I thought would make a cool illustration for my Blog, with lots of interesting things to paint and opportunities to play with expression, colour, texture and lighting.

I hope you like it…



- Nigel

Big Ol' Grizzly Bear...

I haven't had much to post for the last month or so... did a couple submissions for Udon Darkstalkers book, we'll see how that goes...

Anyway, as fun as the fan art was, it's good to get back to my personal work. I made a bunch more PS brushes last week. Some rough textured ones, bristly ones and some different chisels. Here's a sketch I painted up a bit using some... the bristles worked out great on the fur.



...updated this march 23rd... fixed a part of the tree on the right that was bugging me.

Colour Thumbs and a Sketchpage

I've just been sketching and messing around a bit for the last few weeks.

Here's some small colour thumbnails I did. I'm forcing myself to work on these small without zooming in, trying to keep it simple and just use the right colours and values to make them work without rendering. It's a really good exercise, and when you do lots at once you really start to notice the compositional and lighting cliches you fall back on. These are a great way to explore ideas for bigger pieces, if they work this small they will be great in larger sizes...you've also got a pretty complete colour palette after an hour or so.



And here's a sketchpage...

Steampunk CGTalk Challenge

Been a while since I updated...I've been pretty busy wrapping up my entry for CGTalk's Steampunk Myths and Legends Challenge. I'm not really into Steampunk but I am really into Mythology, so I thought it would be a good excuse to do up an illustration.

I started by brainstorming some myths and thumnailing what I thought might be interesting compositions.... Icarus, Gawain, Valkyries, Cyclops, Giants, etc...





After settling on an Icarus theme,I did more thumbs...



I had a pretty hard time finding a composition and pose that showed everything I wanted to show but was still close up enough to show the expression on Icarus. The one figure was going to be center of focus for the comp, so I wanted him pretty close up. I did this thumbnail up into a slightly more involved sketch, and then did a quick colour pass on it.





After this point I was pretty burnt out on the piece. I was so unhappy with it that I came super close to deleting all the work off my hardrive just to be done with it. I was happy with the decisions I'd made, but the art I had generated was pretty poor. Too much quick sketching without a real commitment. After a 2 week break I started the piece over again, sticking to the decisions I'd made, but with more focus. I started with some design work on the character...



Then after the holidays I started the work on the final comp. I was never really happy with the poses I had come up with, so I sketched a few more dynamic one out that had a struggling, grasping emotion to them, rather than the helpless resolve of the previous look and it really made the piece start to come together.

A rough block in of the comp with the colour scheme I had established before, but moved the light source to the bottom...



and went from there...



Did some design work for the airships and Steam Labyrinth after I'd roughed them in.



Then I did some rough 3d modeling to help block them in for the painting...



Got the 3d integrated...



and then pretty much just worked at it until the deadline to come up with a final.
I got alot of great feedback along the way that really helped the piece out, so thanks to everyone who gave input. I learned alot through the process and I felt pretty good with what I ended up with, but I'm really glad to be done with it.