Wednesday 26 October 2011

Goblin & Wolf

Right now I should be working away on some proper illustration's from the Hobbit. The scenes that I want to do are all (sort of) planned out. Some of these scenes are properly planned out. Whilst other's are only visible from within the confines of my foggy and sometimes rather erratic imagination. Never the less, I think I'm pretty much ready to go!

Well, I would be if I hadn't decided to squeeze in one more illustration before hand. To be fair, the piece of work that is making me stall over starting the Hobbit, is in fact of a very, very similar genre to that of the Hobbit. Therefore I'm viewing it as a practise piece rather than it's true reason of being. Which is help further stall the taking on of the Hobbit, because I'm still scared that I'll ball's it up! :)

Anyway, whilst I finish this (final) piece of work. I thought I'd post this very quick sketch of a Goblin Wolf Rider. It's very hard to do something new when it comes to working on Goblin's or Ork's as they've been done so many times before. I've got something new (I hope) to bring to the design of Goblin ears*. But, as for the rest of him I've just tried to design him and the Wolf around shape structure.

(* the new thing with the goblin ears wont be visible till I do some coloured concept's)

Thursday 20 October 2011

Moby Dick (I've touched this dick for the last time!)

This is my version of Ahab taking on the mighty Moby Dick. Like I said in the earlier post, I've not read the book. So, this illustration comes from the few bit's that I vaguely know about Herman Melville's tale. I took those few fact's (mainly that a captain takes on a huge sperm whale!) added a load of made up element's that I knew would make for a stronger illustration and below is the final version!

The thing's I've fixed since the last post:

Boosted key highlights:

Added an ore: (bet you never noticed, ha)

Pushed the shadows further back to then be able to heighten the chroma of the lamp and it's glow. I always wanted to have the main focus area bathed in a warm yellow glow, whilst complementing the rest of the image in blue's. Looking at my version from yesterday, I didn't feel I'd taken that effect as far as I wanted. Hopefully, this final version has put that right:

Hope you like

(will get around to posting the thumb nail and sketchs for this piece in the next few days)

Cheers.




Wednesday 19 October 2011

Moby Dick (my take...even though I haven't read the book!)

(proper process write up to follow)

Things will probably change here and there, but I'll leave it a day or 2 yet.



Tuesday 4 October 2011

There And (hopefully) Back Again!

Since having the brake through idea that I should just concentrate on illustration work, thing's have been going great. Knowing I don't have to design thing's and structure my work around the format and desires of the video games industry, has lifted a real burdening weight that lay upon my shoulder's. Now, I feel released to express my own feeling's and emotion's within my work. This was something I was never going to obtain whilst trying push my portfolio along the ridge's of both an illustration and video games market. Looking back, I should have noticed the fact that my work and the current gaming industry were never going to get on. After all, I barely play the thing's anymore and only about 1 in every 20 odd titles even makes me raise an eyebrow! (that said, Batman: Arkham City is making me geek out)

With a new direction in place and my skill's within shape and structure coming along nicely. I felt it about time that I sunk my teeth into something big, something that would fully push my own ability and understanding of illustration to it's limit! I wanted to take something on that I felt very passionate about, as I wanted to work on this project for a good few month's (if need be) I also wanted something that I felt my working style and vision would stand out upon. With this criteria in place, there was only one real option for me to take (well, two actually, but I'm defiantly not ready for the other one, just yet!) I'm going to illustrate The Hobbit!!!


(yep, that's right... The Hobbit... feel my gun's ladies and gentlemen)

As to wether I'm ready to take on such a challenge, well, I guess I'll only fully now the answer to that, when it's all over. Like the stories main protagonist, Mr Baggin's, I'm a little unsure about such a big adventure!

Below are some work in progress/concept character design's. I'm going to treat this project like a movie and before I go into illustrating any key scene's I want a fully auditioned cast. Working on the character's also allow's me to work on the overall style and process to the project.

(early Bilbo test: his head need's shrinking and leg's need a little lengthening to make him work against the other characters)



 (early Beorn test: not happy with this and he has been re-designed since)




(I should never have painted this up, as the picture is way off kilter. But, it served as both a lesson learnt and a colour test)