Bendragon now in 3D!

Had some free time at work today and spent a while experimenting with the free 3d sculpting package, Sculptris (similar to Z-Brush but made very simple). I started this with the basic head template that comes with the program and then just pushed and pulled the virtual clay around for quite a while. It is very intuitive and also you can also paint on the 3d models in the program! I left the wireframe on some of the shots cause I kinda like the rimlight look it gets from it. Maybe more Sculptris work to come! Its a neat package that is great for people like me who are frightened off by the complexity of Maya but would like to be able model things. Checkout SketchUp for another easy to use 3d package. I also want to show you a program called Al.Chemy too. We've been using it in the studio a fair bit in our work and I thought Id do something with it and talk about how I use it in concept art so thats something to expect in the future.
Lastly, something pretty old. I did a few anatomy studies off photos and referenced off a sequential album and put the drawings together in an animated gif (you need to click the image for it to work).

Invoked Evil

A watercolour painting for a competition hosted by Bobby Chiu and Chris Sanders. This began life as a watercolour painting but underwent quite a lot of photoshopping. There were a few blunders involved with the traditional paints and I tried to salvage it by altering the colours and values digitally. The scans didn't turn out well either since the painting couldn't fit through my scanner which also added to the list of things to sort out digitally but I think in the end it turned out fairly well(ish). Let me know what you think, I dunno if I should touch this up some more (turn up the contrast or even turn it down to help it retain a bit of a traditional look).
Also planning to do another painting to accompany this. Maybe a digital version is in order.

Some inspirations: Chris Sanders himself - Nice stylized and cute characters and also director of some awe inspiring films such as 'How To Train Your Dragon' and 'Lilo and Stitch.'

Tips n Tricks #2: Value Checker

Another trick I want to quickly share. Ever since someone over on conceptart.org gave me this tip I have been using it for almost every painting Ive done. What this does is create a physical layer that desaturates everything underneath that layer so you can toggle it on/off to switch the painting from its current state to a grayscale one. The reason you want to use it is to keep a constant check on your values. The theory being that if it reads and works in simple black and white values then really any colour on top of that works. This is a layer I frequently turn on and off to make sure Im keeping things readable. So here is how you create it...
On the bar at the top of photoshop click Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Hue/Saturation. A new dialog box opens up asking you to name the new layer (just click OK) and then another box will open with all the goods inside. You have a few sliders and the middle one should control saturation, drag it all the way down (to the far left) and click OK. And voila! Your very own value checker :P

Tips n Tricks #1: Channel Nudging

Hey all! I learned a new trick today from my friend Sukh and thought Id share it here. Then, thinking about it I thought I might make occasional posts about little tricks I find out or talk a bit about other useful things about art. So today's big idea is channel nudging!
Dunno if that is the official name for it but I'll run with that for now. Well the effect it creates is something that looks like an old 3d glasses filter. The process is simple... just go to the channels tab and select the colour rages (ctl+a) and use the arrow keys to offset (nudge) them a bit. Alternatively you could use a filter by going to the tool bar at the top and clicking Filter>Distort>LensCorrection and then play around with the Chromatic Aberration sliders. You can also use this filter to distort the image like I have done above by fiddling with the Transform sliders at the bottom of the pop-up screen. This might be helpful to get a slight feel for a low camera or a high one but push it too far and you can break the perspective altogether so its might be a bit limited. However it can act as a basis for you to paint over no?
Happy experimenting! ^_^

Future episodes: Alt linking tricks, sharpening and finishing, textures, stamp brush, granular sweeps, locking silhouettes, value checking, tonal stippling and other things I discover (if you have any requests or questions let me know and I'll try tackle them).

WIP: The Great King of Evil

Work in progress. Can anyone guess who this is a redesign of?
Ive been meaning to do some fan art/ redesigns of my favorite game franchise for a while. So why not start now? Ive use a few new techniques for this one. Sometimes I think I labor too much into a painting and so have been meaning to try a different approach. So Ive been trying to adapt a bit of a colleague's technique and mask off the silhouette so that I can paint freely and quickly whilst still keeping control of the shapes. I ditched the opacity round brush for most of this (cause it forces me to get into details and I get carried away) and taken up a solid opacity round brush with size pressure (with opacity constantly on 60%). Also used layer blending options to alter colour and add lighter values (coupled with radial gradient to get that spherical fade off). Stay tuned for more.

Princess Mononoke

Done for a competition hosted by Bobby Chiu and Pixar's Dice Tsutsumi! Had fun with this one, some of the challenges was in getting the poses down and render the lighting. Ive still got some way to go with both these aspects but every painting is another step in the right direction! So onwards to more painting!
Lately I have been really enjoying my work a lot more. I think it finally sunk in that Im in a games studio doing what I love as a profession. I really enjoy working with other artists here and have our discussions on arty topics. Collaborating within a team is also great fun when we bounce ideas about and be involved in other areas other than concept art too. I am delighted that we are sharing ideas and encouraging one another and everyone getting excited together. I actually cant wait to go back to work on Monday :P
In other news... My friend and colleague Martin Johnson has released his new website here. Check it out. He is a great artist to have in our team. He has been feeding me anatomy knowledge for some time which is why you saw my recent updates with anatomy studies. I probably wont upload much more of them since they are kinda boring to look at. I dont want to fill the place with the same stuff :P So there should be some more interesting things to look at in the coming updates!

Lets draw baby!

More studies mixed in with some drawings from my head. Wow anatomy can get a bit addictive when you get into it :P Still not quite there yet but that is why I do these studies :D Putting time and effort into bettering yourself is well worth it and the results can be you landing that dream job and lifestyle you wanted so isn't that reason enough to go mental and study your craft like a nutter?

Exploration

Some more figure drawings to push my anatomy forward. Mostly from imagination with a few referenced pieces.

Go Go Logo

Another 2d artist activity at Blitz Games. This time we had this random shape we had to manipulate into a logo design. This was a tough challenge and until I finally got the idea I ended up using I was really struggling :P I decided to try use the geometric shapes this offered and initially extended the lines to try create an impression of three dimensional space and essentially create a cube I can chisel into (thinking of the N64 and Gamecube logos). I made up a random company name to go with the letters that came out of the logo and then started playing with how they are arranged together. Since this was an exercise I tried to come up with a more adventurous layout than the standard ones.
Its about this time that students are graduating from university and are released into the big wide world. Its usually this time that the post education period of looking for work and constant rejections occur. Ive been through my fair share and I just wanted to share a few thoughts.
Do not be content to stay at your current level! Dont wait and hope that someone will just give you your dream job, you must earn such luxury. The creative industry is mega competitive but those who are daring and willing to put the work in to achieve their dream are the ones who will succeed. I took comfort in these times in the knowledge that no matter what happens and how long it takes I will keep drawing and painting and because of that I will keep progressing and eventually get to where I want to be. Dont be discouraged by failure. I failed before and I am happy I did, it taught me an important lesson to never be complacent. From then on I focused on improving myself and the best way I knew how to was to practice a lot. I pretended to be working full time whilst I was unemployed and worked from 9-5 (and often overtime :P) on my own artwork. That was my tip-top secret... to consistently practice a lot. It was not an overnight thing, it took dedication. I worked this way for 5 months before I was good enough to be land that cool job and all the struggle and hardship has been 100% worth it. Often I chat with my colleagues on what a living this is but we never say how 'lucky' we are because we all know what we had to go through to get there. It is time and effort in abundance. Now its your turn to do the same :)

Bodies

Some drawings from today. Still trying to learn anatomy :P Thankfully I have some awesome colleagues who are well informed on this subject and have given me some pointers which has been very helpful. Trying to just copy from anatomy books helped me with rhythm but I needed something more to inform me of the forms I was looking at and it was a benefit to be told what each muscles do and how they operate. Slowly getting better! Lets keep it up!
Ive also been looking at some of my old drawings from 6 years ago when I was still in high school. Let me tell you.... they sucked ASS! Its comforting to look back on where you came from and where you want to be. 4 years ago I didnt even paint digitally and back then seeing any ole digital art blew my mind and I couldnt imagine how I could paint like that. But with practice you can achieve anything. That is why I am continuing my own practice outside of work. My goal is to make the same advancements in the next 4 years as the previous ones so why wait? What better time to do it than now?
Inspiration: Keith Thompson - Recently been thinking about design and this guy is very good in that department. Imaginative concepts accompanied by descriptions creates a sense of worldliness to his work. Kris Kuksi - Superb designs! Something for me to aspire towards!

Walk! Dont Run

The above pieces are tracing exercises. Its an exercise Ive been reading about and decided to put to the test. The trick is not to 'copy' but to analyze and draw! I found this helpful to recognize and hopefully memorize forms on the body and to make a decision on what to keep in and what to keep out of a drawing. Having a photograph to trace from was usefull because I saw all the details in the form that might have been tempting to throw in but looking over other high quality drawings I saw that they didnt construct themselves that way so I started doing these to help me make a better judgment on what to describe and how to describe them. I have looked at my own shortcuts in drawing a form and rather than accepting it as something that just worked I questioned if it was accurate. My goal with these is to eventually be able to use the exercise to help me to draw (not trace) over the reference and then upon removing the guideline reference, hopefully have a drawing that does not look traced but stands alone as a good drawing. This I think is a stepping stone for me to the next level. More to come

Some drawings from my head (mixed in with a few referenced drawings) to put into practice ideas achieved from studies. Mixing studies and application will test how much I have taken in and my ability to transfer studies into concepts. More to come :D

And finally... A study of Charles Gibson's girl figures. I have studied his drawings before whilst at university and have since adopted his method of describing the bottom of the nose with that thick 'v' shape but I started questioning the accuracy I used it and so I went back to the original to inform myself further.
In other news... Work is going very well. I am pretty damn excited and enjoying my experience. Sometimes you can get tunnel visioned and forget the awesome situation you are in! I am enjoying working with other ambitious artists and talking to them is refreshing as we all share a common interest, belief and background. I also got to see today one of my environment concepts in game! It looked great even though there was no textures applied yet. It was a bit weird to see my painting in 3d and interactive. It is a tiny bit frustrating that I cant say anything else thats been very exciting to me. But maybe in a couple years time you will know about it and by then it would be old news to me lol.

Lion Guard wip

Heres a wip im working on and might not get to work too much on this week (have to pack up and move house :P) so I'll post up a wip. This might be good for people to see as you can probably decipher some of my techniques and process in this. Sometimes I might crop out elements from a previous painting and use as a base to work on top of. Thats also how the head came about, it was a photo of a stone lion that I cropped and made a crude montage to paint over. This is one of many different approaches I have been using and is something that I find useful to save time when it comes to concept art for a deadline. Recently I had to paint 4 characters in 4 days at work and so I have been looking into ways to quicken my process. Towards the end of this wip I found the image to be quite desaturated and so I added some overlay colours and you can see the hallmarks of overlay layers involved. Hopefully by the end it will be less blatant ;)
In future Im not entirely sure what kind of updates you will see. I am tempted to just do concept artwork and explore some neat designs but I have also been neglecting my studies quite a bit so that needs to be addressed. Ive been reading some anatomy workshops but I might have to put more consistent practice into that.
And some inspiration (its been a while since I last posted these): Jeff Simpson - very nice styled art. Red Bear Dead - an artist's personal project thats gathered a lot of interest.

Akumazine!!!!

For the Super Street Zine blog.
Ive taken some time to look through some of my old work currently in my portfolio. Its been about 7 months since I started working at Blitz and since then I havent always had as much time to do my own work to a 100% finish like I was able to do when I was fresh out of university. But this was kinda the first time I took a good look at whats in my folio since then and Im quite pleased to find that I can see looooaaaadssss of crud and areas I could improve on and I find it an encouraging sign rather than a negative thing. Ive recently hit one of those walls when I doubt myself and feel a bit frustrated with my art but looking at my old stuff gave me a bit of encouragement since I feel I can do better now. Sooooo lets hope there are more improvements along the way!

Parr-ty Time!

Just wanted to drop a few links here for you to check out. Ive been bugging my tutor (who recently just retired) Peter Parr to set up a blog or website and it looks like its finally worked! In response to some incessant demanding he sent me this link: (Click here to Parr-ty!)
The site is new and is in need of more uploads so we just need to keep pestering him about it. Hes got tons more great work that we cant see on the site yet so Im gonna link to another place where you can see his work: Here!
Also a lil plug for myself hehe :P You can now pre-order Expose 8 and preview it here. I had a look in there and was very impressed with the work that was on show. So much so that I was thinking to myself "How the heck did I get in this?!?!? Im not nearly as good as these guys!" Then when I got to my page I was even more shocked! In the category I was in (Abstract and Design) I received an Excellence award!!!! Really dont know how that happened! I only hope I can improve and eventually merit such an accolade more convincingly. Back on the road of self discovery!

Chun Li

For the Super Street Zine blog.