Friday 29 July 2011

Trying To Push for 3D

Older work revised. Thought I'd take a pass at pushing this image into a more 3D version. Not sure what to think of this at the moment, think I've been staring at it for too many hour's!!! Hopefully I'll be happy with it tomorrow...I hope!

Womack The Nomad:



Thursday 28 July 2011

The Baby Sitter

I've been sort of pottering about of late, interms of what and how I've been working. I needed to do something that would anchor down for a while, whilst also being something that would help strengthen my portfolio. I hope this picture will do just that for me, as it definitely kept me anchored for a while!

On an arty farty note* I wanted to try and capture both the protective responsibility and the sheer exhaustion that comes with looking after kids, in the cat's face

p.s) I know Leopards don't really look like this... get off my back will ya!

The Baby Sitter:



Tuesday 19 July 2011

Leave Your Line Work At The Door!

First time I've ever not used line work...big step for me! I aslo held back (though I nearly needed to be restrained) from adding to much detail. I knew from the initial sketch of this piece where I wanted it to go and all in all, I think I've got it there.

Tried to treat the whole piece as an editorial brief:

Beauty And The Beast's :



Tuesday 12 July 2011

Enter Six Hard Mercenaries For Hire...pt2

I was suppose to have finished these Chaos Engine characters age's ago, but I've been right off the boil of late and for the last month I haven't had the stomach for working (or much else) Anyhow, before I crack on with some portfolio illustrations. I thought I'd ease myself back into working by finishing one of these Chaos Engine character's. The Navvie was always my fave, so it was always him who would receive a first lick of digital paint.

Looking over my blog though, I realise there has been a bit of a beard/soup collecter fetish going on of late. Maybe I'll paint up the Thug just to balance out the abundance of man fuzz!


(For those unfamiliar with the Chaos Engine, above are the 6 in game character's in all there glory. These fantastic character's were designed and (pixel) painted by the fantastic Dan Malone. Dan's pixel work was and still is, the best I've ever seen, no one else could ever achieve so much from so little. The in game graphics and these character portrait's by Dan are still among my favourite images ever )


(Above: my humble version of the Navvie)


(Above: Thug)



Tuesday 5 July 2011

Character Design (quick process)

Here is a very quick and shamefully rough process of how I approach painting a character within Photoshop.

All the layers used are normal layers except for a Colour Dodge Layer added at the tail end of the image and a Channel Mixer Layer which is set up at the beginning (this is set to monochromatic and therefore allows me to constantly check my image in a black and white state. This way I can constantly see my values clearly and easily) Oh yer, the pencil sketch layer is set to Multiply.

I normally work with just 2 or 3 layers, but I had no idea what colour to do this guy's clothing, so I put each piece on a fresh layer, just to make it easier to adjust.

(Original Coloured Pencil sketch)

(A Crummy Animation Of The Process)

(80% done)

(Finished: Womack The Nomad)
(any reference to my friend Paul Richards are totally coincidental :)