Controlling a Genie

This is what happens when I do warm-ups; I usually can't stop. This is kind of old-school! Better go do some work ...

Constantine, Hellblazer

"A deception that elevates us is dearer than a host of low truths." - Marina Tsvetaeva

More fun with some fan art and playing with technique. John Constantine's about my favourite comic character; his whole bad /good luck shtick really works for me. He's the ultimate hustler playing against the biggest mark there is. When I picked up a copy of Hellblazer #1 in the late 80's I was hooked and it was another one of those defining moments. Moments like finding his pal Lester sitting in a bath tub covered in insects - mistakenly believing he was having a bad trip - was mind blowing. There was something about the modern London setting that made it unbelievably creepy.

Here's a close up so you can see how messy the whole job is :)

And a progression sequence for the curious (shift-click to escape Blogger's light-box mode for a closer look);

Drawing monkeys is fun

Another lesson I've learned drawing monkeys all day is that they're always funny.

BatMech

To save time, tonight's fan-art speed-paint combines both Ashley Wood robots with Batman. WIP.

Update: Refining and having fun. I'll post updates as they come in.

Alien Horse Whatever

I think this is pushed as far as my attention deficit disorder will allow. Try to ignore the feet for now and I'll get around to them later ... maybe.

Must Draw More Boobs

Note to self.

Cowboy Vampire

Painter.

Here's a Head

Warm up sketch

The League of Geeks + Armello

It's been a mad few months with little time for personal stuff. I'm on the team of a little side project called LOG, or League of Geeks, a collective of like-minded industry game devs, and we're in the process of working on our first IP. We recently announced this at the last GDAA meeting in Melbourne, and released our logo upon the world (above). I was going to explain the rationale behind the design, but the reasoning behind the beast is best left up to your imagination. You can follow LOG on twitter. The goal of LOG is working on containable dream projects outside of regular work. We're pretty excited about our first project called Armello (logo below) ... details to come!

By the way, loving the new Blogger interface. Slick!

Some days you just have to sketch Conan

Another WIP shot here.

Unrecoverable art, I salute you.

So a harsh lesson on the realities of processing power. I'd just finished working on the upper arm muscles of the above critter, and Zbrush crapped itself on save - a few hours work down the drain. This is all the evidence I have rendered shortly before implosion. That'll teach me to watch my poly counts - at least the previous saved version isn't borked and I can try again at lower subdivisions. The reality is that I won't be able to sculpt what I want unless I upgrade to 64bit.

Devil Bust Turnaround Vid

And here be a turnaround for it.

Zbrush Devil Bust - the final.

This is as far as I'll push this - I tried upping the subdivisions in Zbrush and it veritably cacked itself. Time to go 64bit I think.

Devil Bust, Zbrushing

I've been ultra busy working on a new book cover and some concept drawings, so there's been little to update recently. I'm also coding up a new website from scratch in notepad, having decided to teach myself some sweet CSS - not sure what came over me, but sometimes the other side of my brain likes to take over.

I had time today to enjoy some Zbrush sculpting, with the above results. My devil model was being neglected, so I swiped it's head and got stuck in. He's missing his tusks in this render, btw. Peace.

Severus Redux

Tonight I really wanted to practice some nice blends - here's an old speed paint that I've given a make-over. Objective was to get more painterly - specifically I'm trying to reconnect with Painter, something I used to be pretty good in but have slowly adopted PS as my main tool. Below, a close up of the arm. I really have to start using anatomical reference ...

And here's the old version, if you're interested in comparison ...  Black Emporer

How to trap a Monster Pirate: Scooby Concept.

Sometimes a game just doesn't go ahead, despite a great pitch ... this ghost of the deep unfortunately never saw the light of day in any finished form. It's a real shame when you know you could have done a fantastic job on a game.

Thought I'd air him out here for a while anyhow ... a demonic buccaneer falls into  Mystery Inc.'s home-made trap.

Hors d'oeuvres made me do it...

This is my forth day stuck inside on crutches after an operation to take a metal pin outa my leg. I'm going batshit crazy so I have no idea where this came from or what it means! Hors d'oeuvres ARE the devil though, trust me.

Battle for Oz

Here's an interior illustration from the afore mentioned Burning Horizons. A right bunch of bastards, these.

Burning Horizons Preview

Wildfire have released a preview of the upcoming book Burning Horizons, showing off my cover painting ... looks like fun times! Art Direction by Michael Vaillancourt.

Laura, Ryden Girl

 

Small gift for my wife, a Mark Ryden fan.


Incidently, I promised myself I'd never work with the photoshop airbrush tool to paint something entirely ... but was kinda okay ...

Beautiful animal anatomy, and free!

http://digicoll.library.wisc.edu/Science/subcollections/VetAnatImgsAbout.html


I  stumbled upon a treasure trove of beautiful animal anatomy  ... I'm so dizzy with these that I had to share. The plates are taken from a book entitled Handbuch der Anatomie der Tiere für Künstler ... or Atlas of Animal Anatomy for Artists, published between 1898 and 1925, by Wilhelm Ellenberger and Hermann Baum, and medical illustrator, Hermann Dittrich. 


These are stunning - well scanned - and free!

Speed Paint Nasty

Here's a sneak peak at a larger project underway ... as always it's the areas of the canvas I don't care about that turn out the best ...

Black Emperor

A speed paint tonight: Septimus Severus in all of his historically-inaccurate beauty.

Zbrush: Mignola Sculpt Part Duo

Progress: Blocked in the arms and feet, detailed wings and touched up the rest. Hands and feet need some attention. Threw on some colour for fun.

I need to kick it up another subdiv but I'm scared ... oh how I'm scared.

Zbrush: Mignola Sculpt Part Uno

Happy New Year everyone ... first post of 2011! This is a year that's really bad for my signature ... that eleven is a tricky one ... no full round numbers you see.
I'm currently back on the Zbrush bandwagon and honing my sculpting skills... you can see here a devil I bashed out today ... started as Zspheres, skinned and taken into Maya for a clean-up (proud to say the entire thing's 100% quads ... not a tri to be found! I spent the time on retopology to get the best results out of Zbrush), then back into Zbrush to be subdivided and scultped. Lots of fun ... it's only mid-range poly count for these larger details. I might try to push my PC for hi-def sculpting, but my money's on the rust-bucket imploding under the strain. The plan is to get the details transferred onto normal maps to apply to my original 4.5k poly model - just because normal maps are cool.

Oh, I was inspired by Mignola-style devils for this one ... thus the cartoony proportions.