Sketchbook Update

Some selection of sketchbook pages. Hahaha I omitted the really crap stuff out! But it is there somewhere in my real sketchbook. Its been a while since I drew in good ole pencils and getting back into it was scary when all that came out of my pencil was crud. It was a bit of a heartache to think that Ive taken a few step back after neglecting my pencils but now Im feeling Im on the track again to regain some form. There is a mixture of studies of other artists, scribbly thumbnails (you can see the first page is for the Oz character contest) theyre usually messy yeah :P Its just meant to be seen by me, you can also find some imagination drawings and observationals like the pen gesture drawings.
Dead to Rights: Retribution was released on Friday. We enjoyed reading the press, what the media wrote about it and seeing the game in store was great. Its quite an odd feeling really, I saw how the box art was painted on the computer right next to me, seen the artwork for it before playing it, and to see familiar names in the credits takes some getting used to :P Im actually genuinely enjoying the game too. Its scary fun and satisfying to brutally melee a guy, disarm them and shoot them in the face slow-mo style with their own gun and curse them before they hit the floor :P Here is some promotional material (This is the only copy I could find. Its been banned):


And... Good luck to all the animation students at Bournemouth who are pitching this week!

Some inspirations for tonight:
Jason Chan - Back in 2006 when my buddy Harry first introduced me to digital art I found this guy's work and it became one of my first and biggest inspiration for digital painting.
Creative Uncut - Good source for game art.
Richard Schmid - Author of Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting. Good book, afraid I havent finished it yet :P Borrowed it to a colleague who went out to get his own copy straight away! But his work just speaks for itself no?
Alvin Lee - Awesome comic book artist. You might recognize some of my studies in the post was off his work :P

Reboot!

One day I looked through some old work.... they made me wince! So here are some repaints. There might be more on the way but I am leaving them to rest for now. There is a space of about 4 months between the repaints and the originals. In the repaints I got rid of some indecision from the first ones. Often colours are muddy, too hastily rendered, too random and without thought in the attention to clothing creases, messiness and general "what the heck was I doing?"
My hope is that I can continue to make improvements. The art journey continues on and on! Actually lately Ive been doubting myself again and so I hope to work more into some weak areas I am finding. More to come soon!

Inspirations: The Art Center - Awesome awesome awesome AWESOME blog! Very useful talks and tips. I made a thing of reading something off there every day. Gold! Read this post especially. I completely agree with whats been said in that post and it was a good reminder for me to read that. It is something I havent done enough of late.

How to Train Your Watercolours

Im backkkkkk!!!!! My internet at home died for a few days... it may have been a week! It was horrible!!!!!!! But Im back now and have quite a lot to tell. First off, this is a watercolour piece for the AIB Jumble inspired by the film How To Train your Dragon (the film I currently cant stop talking about)! OK... now theres a few news.
I have passed my probation period and am now permanently working at Blitz. That is until I get kicked out! I still remember a couple months ago when I was fresh out of university and looking for work. I didnt know what would happen, where I would end up or when something will happen! But after wasting time worrying about it I realized there was no good waiting for it to happen to me and I adopted an attitude that I will have to work everyday as if I am employed so that I can keep improving like the people who are in a job already. Most likely I would have to work double the amount they are so that I could level up quicker. It was a tough journey for sure and there are definitely more to come. I had some failures and made mistakes that cost me but as long as I bounced back they dont matter anymore. Actually, the failures helped me to respond in a more positive way and so I try to see a good sign in any failures I make from now on :P I also remember a few years back my ambition of being a concept artist in a computer games studio. At the time it might have seemed beyond me so it is slightly surreal to have ticked that box off and that has given me a bit of encouragement to go set myself more goals and ambitions to meet.
Anyways I should move on to the next couple of news. We are soon to release our latest game Dead to Rights: Retribution this Friday. I didnt work on this but if you want to see what my colleagues have been busying themselves with please check it out and support us :D
Lastly... Me and a few other people from ConceptArt.Org had work featured on IO9 and Super Punch recently for our participation in the CHOW. Here are the links: IO9, Super Punch. There might be another announcement soonish too XD!

Fellowship of Oz

ConcepArt.Org's Character of the Week (Chow) topic: Wizard of Oz.
Got some time to finish this off earlier than I normally do :P Usually at work everyone has to create the artwork in a tight deadline and so we have to work faster and utilize Photoshop trickeries to speed up the process. Its good to churn out the work but for my most of my personal pieces I like to take my time on it to balance the method I use at work. Having said that, I still think I should speed up my whole process and will try doing some quicker stuff and try not to fall into the trap of finishing everything. The beginnings of a piece is where most of the problem solving takes place and after that everything should be straight forward. So the plan is to produce more initial sketches in a bid to learn more from the problem solving stages. Rendering an image takes a lot of time and I dont think I am learning as much from it as I can off sketches atm. Stay tuned to see how it goes :P

Chiustream topic: Insane Turtle Man

Took part in the Chiustream contest tonight. Thanks to my buddy Owen Williams for reminding me about the event and encouraging my ass to get this done by coming close to winning the previous contest :P
It was a bit tricky cause I normally want to finish pieces off and this forces me to do more quick stuff which is something I need to focus on. More to come soon.

Following the Yellow Brick Road

Wip for the Chow.

Sketches

Was scanning in some thumbnails from my sketchbook to paint over so I thought I scan in a few pages to show here too. The sketchbook pages are mostly studies from the Vagabond manga. Accuracy was crud :P The digi was my first stab at the new Chow topic but I hated where it was going so I am now working on a new one. Sometimes failure is good, it keeps me on my toes and encourages me to keep pushing on. Theres been a lot of crap drawings along my journey that I now try to think of them more positively as a sign that a better one will come out of my frustration. Got to go back to some studies and also focus on quick speedy pieces. I think I labor and noodle too much into my work too often.
Inspiration: How to Train Your Dragon! Go see the film! Nooooooowwwwww!!!!

Shapeshifter

Finished for the AIB Jumble. As I said before it was inspired by Gil Elvgren's work. Just brought a book of his and been admiring his work. I really like how his form pops! I tried to apply that in this piece, I think its been a bit successful around her arm (the one thats held up). Its because I zoomed in on that and painted in a lot of hard dark edges to it and tried to fade it off into the form so that it doesnt look too abrupt. The lasso tool is a good friend that I should spend more time with. It was very helpful in painting the straights on the broom stick and made the process easy.
As always Ive been listening to some Chiustream :P It was nice to listen to some encouraging words every now and then. Even though I am now working as a professional concept artist I dont feel much different from when I was in university as a student. I am still trying to improve and do my studies. I still feel the frustrations and doubts I did as an aspiring artist. But doubt is a good thing. It means you are not content and wanting to improve. I think it was Leonardo Da Vinci who said something along the lines of: "That painter who has no doubts will achieve little."
Its a quote I liked and found reassuring. I remember in my second year of university 2 years ago I had a phase of doubting myself and it kept me up at night sometimes :P So during the next day when I am walking to class I would try think of solutions to how I could improve my work and then after class I would try it out... maybe I will fail again and the cycle continued but I didnt get too down about it, in a strange way I relished it because I knew it meant I was on the right tracks and that eventually I would get better. I didnt ever think I would not make art my profession really. I was confident that I would always keep drawing and painting and as long as I kept doing that I will make it in the end. I have seen many examples of beginners growing to great standards and mature beginners doing the same proving that it is never too late to get into it. Art is not like physical sports where you have an age where you peak and then dip from there on. You can start at any time and the whole journey to improve and hone in your skills never end as long as you dont stop. That is why I think you see teenagers painting to the quality of some professionals and its the beauty of it all! There is no differentiating us all, we all have the potential to do it XD
Lets share some inspirations... Im going to link some of the folks I draw with on ConceptArt.Org. I have spoken to lots of aspiring artists before and I am always more impressed and fond of those who do their talking by action. Whenever I see someone working hard and with much dedication I feel these people are the people I like to work with. When I was unemployed I updated my sketchbook every day or two and kept this up for a few months. It attracted the attention of other young and dedicated artists and because of our like minds we formed a group where we encouraged each other and pushed each other on. Check out their work: Krato, Jatherip, Dylanea Go see the last pages to see how theyve progressed!

Jumbling along

A lil update on a wip Im doing for the AIB Jumble. Just wanted to let everyone know Im still around. Been keeping busy. We had some students come in for an open day a few days ago. Heres a few advices I thought of: 1) keep practicing regularly and not to waste too much time worrying rather than doing (so try to be disciplined). 2) Be critical and analytical all the time. I can get some ideas by staring at artworks and trying to decipher the techniques or the way it creates illusions of form, perspective etc. 3) Kinda the same as number 1 but... do it regularly! Theres less benefits doing it from time to time. Regular practice stacks up the benefits because you can learn from your old pieces when theyre fresh. 4) Just have some common sense! Try not to act to weird so that people will remember you... you might annoy someone :P Id much rather hear someone speak truthfully and sincerely about themselves rather than feeling they have to try sell themselves all the time.
Been down to Bournemouth to see old my old classmates too. Twas good to revisit the place :)
Anyway... Onto the art piece. For the AIB blog where this time around we have to take a given shape and manipulate it's silhouette. Ive been influenced by Elvgren's pin ups here. I am trying to replicate the way he paints form. Theres a subtle hard, crisp and dark line that surrounds his forms with the light-midtones and highlights punching out from it.
Some influences: Miles - 16 year old kid who studied like crazy and is now shit hot! In the link you can see his progression which gives me more hope and belief :D Mr.Delicious - Similarly, worked like crazy and you can see the pay off! James Jean - This guy is living the dream and is damn awesome and versatile!

Red Ass

For the AIB blog.... Sorry for the hiatus! Let me explain what happened: Final Fantasy 13! I will be back soon with more art! And I'll be visiting Bournemouth again for the weekend so thats even more delays for the next update hehe.
Coming soon - Back to the usual business -

Some more inspirations: Marc Taro - I wanna draw like that!

Nothing is Junk

Finished the Chow. A junkyard golem and his dog friend! This was a messy piece. The colours are quite muddy. Because the golem is a mix of lots of originally separate unique objects I thought the colours should show they were once separate but bah... it just got cluttered up! Next up.... Im thinking of giving the longer pieces a rest and do some shorter stuff. Been inspired by the Imaginism crew as usual so I want to get some watercolours done and experiment with other medias. Buuuut I dont think I brought my watercolour pad with me! Might have to purchase a new one.
Some inspirations: Feng Guo, Gez Fry, Marcel Vignali Love their drawings. I will put up a bigger list soon.
Final Fantasy XIII comes out in a few days!!!! I am waiting for my collector's edition complete with art book! Drooooooooooool!!!!!

The Never Ending Quest!!!!!!

Another study. This one is after the brilliant John Singer Sargent. He definately knows his shit! This was actually quite hard to study, judging the colours of this was super hard and I had to use the picker to actually see what some of the shades are. As you can see my version on the left is muddy in comparison to the right. I also have lots of angles off but I dont think I should worry about that much as I dont want to just 'copy' the image and get everything lined up perfectly (I might as well use a grid)! Anyway... thats just my thought and I could be wrong. What I did get out of this was rendering form better especially in clothes (I seriously suck at that)! I enjoyed trying to 'pop' out the form on the face and it was great to see the little lightings involved. I am really getting into lighting... they make SUCH a massive difference! His left shoulder is in shadow and as we travel along the arm it comes back into light, it feels like there is depth there. There is a cast shadow underneath the brightly lit right arm, depth!!!!!!!!!!!! It makes the figure exist in an environment and is something I want to bring into my work more. Oh crap... there is so much I need to learn!!!!!!!!! Better hop to it! Bring it on!!!!!!! In other news... I submitted some work for the first time to Expose 8, fingers crossed I can get in :P
Also I just heard that Bobby Chiu and Kei Acedera are getting married!!!!!!!! The proposal was live on Chiustream and I missed it!!!!!!!!!!! Congrats guys! Im so made up lol!
Some inspiration for tonight: Algenpfleger - Love to look through his sketchbook. He is a prime example of how sheer hard work can bring you success. Check out his progression from 2007 to the present day. It gives me hope because I can see that all you need to do is put in the mad hours like he did. You might feel like you have to force yourself to work in the beginning but when you get into a regular routine of it, its not a hassle anymore and it becomes second nature. Lets get INTENSE!!!!!!!!

Junkbot and friends

First up is a new work in progress shot of my latest attempt at the Chow. Topic: Junkyard golem! Straight off I thought of doing a more cartoony treatment to the piece. We will see how that goes... I havent stuck to the styles I tell myself to use in my recent work. The previous Chow was meant to be in a brush styles linework thats painted lightly and uses lots of patterns to try emulate an oriental art style but I was tempted into a tighter render after looking at some classical paintings. Perhaps a similar thing is happening to this piece again! I was looking at some Ghibli films for the look and feel for this one but I went into my own style again :P GOT TO BE MORE DISCIPLINED!
The other two are Painter doodles. I started my digital art journey with Painter. Having worked in traditional paint throughout high school I couldnt get to grips with Photoshop... it painted very precisely and didnt have the fun randomness and happy accidents (initially) that traditional has. So Painter was my natural tool in the transition to the digital age. Eventually I went back to Photoshop and fell in love with it and Painter was left to collect virtual dust on my desktop. I decided to try it out again recently and remembered the fantastic feel of the program's brushes. I might try to repaint an old piece I did when I first started out 4 years ago so I can give a direct comparison to my old self for your viewing pleasure!
Oh... and tonights inspirations are: Janaschi, Jon Foster, Ghibli films and Richard Schmid (Ive introduced one of his books to a colleague and he loved the read and went to order his own copy but is keeping hold of mine until his arrive lol)
Also... a lil plug for my colleagues... check out the developer's diary for Dead to Rights: Retribution!

Play the Game

A piece for the AIB Jumble blog. The topic was 'sport' as chosen by me :P I had a look through for some football/ sport slogans to add with the image and found some really good ones. Heres a few:
"All it takes is all you've got."
"Winning is a habit, success is a choice."
"Good. Better. Best. Never let it rest until your good is better and your better is best."

In a way this art business is like a sport. You have to treat yourself like an athlete. Be disciplined and exercise your skill or you will slow down and lose form. Good things dont come easy that is why I think it comes down to a question of "how badly do you want it?" If you want it badly enough, you will keep pushing and keep training. Because as long as you are improving you will eventually reach your goal. Then when you reach that first goal you set a higher standard and train to reach that.

EDIT: Been in one of those moments again where I feel daunted by how much I still need to learn and was wondering if I could ever get there :P So I went to look back at my first digital paintings from 4 years ago. OMG Im going to say 'what the hell' and go ahead and embarass myself by linking to them here. Its an odd feling looking back at these. I feel embarrassed, outraged (:P) and all these negative feelings towards these old pieces. But also... I feel encouraged to have moved on from those crap. So I hope I can keep improving and in another 4 years time I should be a lot better! Just got to keep going!!!!!!!!!!

9 Tailed Wrath

There you go... Maybe I could have shown more steps in the earlier stages. I dont really save the early stages and flatten them down a lot so I couldn't show them when compiling the wips. Its a habit but I dont really like saving off too many drafts, I hate looking back at them :P
I nearly missed the deadline for this because my housemate was downloading a huge load of things so my internet was crawling at a snail pace! Erm... Ive been meaning to write out a tutorial but Im tempted into doing more Chows.
I thought I might also blog a list of some of the inspirations I find at the times too. First up is ThienBao, I got quite a kick up the ass looking at his stuff today. Same goes to this guy Zhuzhu. And check out the film Memoirs of a Geisha... I was watching it as research for this Chow and thought the composition and framing in this film is bloody awesome! Also quite a few intense scenes in there. Annnnddddd as always the ChiuStream is a place full of motivating talks! I recommended these podcasts to whoever I can, they helped me push myself and get into a positive mentality.