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.

More Sketching

I thought it would be good to put up some rough stuff from this week. These were done over two nights.

Valley of Heads

A pretty quick (by my standards) sketch from last week... maybe 3 hours altogether. This was pretty inspired by a couple photos from my trip to Botswana and Tanzania last summer and some Benin mask designs.

Hope

Something fun and light I did over a couple nights this week... I think Obama's election win has lifted spirits all over the world, mine included.

Halloweeny

some Halloween fun...