Owlbear back

Here is my take on the classic DnD critter. I was really happy with it till my son said Awww - he's so cuddly! so maybe I'll take another stab at this some time. Ho hum.

Ork Magic II The Sequel

...and I painted another Orc because the last one really bothered me. The pose was static, he had very little expression...If I was my art director I'd have sent me back to the drawing board, which I did, and painted this instead.

Dungeons and Drawings

...OK more like digital paintings. So I haven't blogged for ages (man the time's I've read that in a post) I've been very busy and kinda down so to cheer myself up I have been painting some DnD subjects in the sort-of-not-quite style of Wayne Reynolds whom I think is brilliant. I used to consider the 'rim-light-on-everything' look a kind of cheat lighting to make the silhouettes pop but Reynolds makes it look beautiful and if its good enough for him, its good enough for me. Also, I went overboard with detail which I don't do much any more so that made a change too. Anyway, Happy New Year!

Sir Brian of Rookley

Sir Brian was once a lowly squire who hailed from the war-torn squalor of Fulham. When he had, after many astonishing deeds, won his spurs and the hand of his lady, Patricia, he settled in the hamlet of Rookley on a rugged Island. He sired two children, one of whom became an artist and we believe, painted this portrait.

Ork Magic

Orcs! Who knows what mysteries they might divine after imbibing some potent weed and offering a song to the stars. Orc magician and tribal fashion guru "Doctor Ufnuf" here is sporting a ceremonial coat of feathers made from a young dragon (baby dragons have feathers - don't you know anything?).

Muddle Gear, Star Bores

My Son has been disappointed by the ending chapter of his beloved Mass Effect Trilogy..."Wrong" "Betrayed" and "Suicide" are words I think that escaped his tear-choked trembling lips... This reminded me of moments of nerd-rage that I, myself have suffered in the past, which prompted some drawings tonight...

Dovakin Bill Bailey

A few folks saw this frippery in my sketchbook and asked if I'd Blog it.

Hardly Magical

This Wizard guy, designed for a third-person/fantasy RTS, was from another live demo I presented at the workshop last month. He was not quite so successful (given another couple of hours I'd have redrawn him completely I think) but he was still fun to do and showed that a different art style does not necessitate a different approach to design.

GORK

The good Orc was a theme for one of my art demos at CDW Melbourne this year. Here he is with some of the rough sketches.

Finally, here is the translation of the character from his original incarnation as a handheld game character to a console style 'Gork of War' :)

Carmageddon

Been over a month since my last post, sorry. I've been pretty busy putting together a full portfolio of my work, so I'll share some of it here, but first... I was working on some contract work for the awesome guys at Stainless Games in the UK. The controversial Carmageddon was my first game in the industry and remains one of the best. Here I get the chance to revisit and reinvent as Carmageddon: Reincarnation goes into pre-production.

WARNING: for those sensitive to automotive violence, the last 2 images depict cartoon pedestrian injury.

My wife, Traci started her deviantART gallery so I thought I'd post a link. This is one she painted as a desktop for herself...which means I don't have to do them for her anymore :D She's Rubbish though.
..or.. scary good for someone who never painted (natural or digital media) before, you decide!

In the same nepotistic promotion, Traci also started a 365 photo blog. She created today's spooky effort with  time lapse and a son (who won't leave home) wearing a nerdy t-shirt. One shot every day (photos, not sons) for a year, so that's about...take away the last Sunday in March...divide by the number of months...412 photos all up I think.

Wrench

While I had to repaint some fine detail, this concept was a colour up of the greyscale original, you can see for yourself. I wanted this female mechanic to have sex appeal without the kind of obvious overtones that would make her look cheap and dumb looking. The motorised wrench looks more like a weapon and gave me something to balance the pose.

Here are her initial thumbs and some WIP stages with annotations on the progress:

 I did the same thing with one of the pilot characters I created last month and he was a complete fail. I ended up pretty much repainting him over the top! I've included him below. My take away was that both the grey values used and the colour I tried to saturate them with are massive variables that change the process. Pretty obvious in hindsight and food for thought.

Kutter

This guy started as a fairly standard digital drawing but I wanted his character to read better so I drew over the top and pushed and pulled and simplified until I'd taken out nearly all the detail and caricatured the silhouette (kind of a French comics or animated film style). I use it to show how much more character you can squeeze out of a little simplification and stylization of an initial more realistic concept.

Oh, and I really hate the hands. They were never quite right but I won't fix them because they remind me to work harder on my hands.

Wow

About a year and a half ago I got an itch to paint World of Warcraft races, the way I'd like them to be. This was more than a little conceited as I assumed my versions would be better, turns out they are just different and even then, unfamiliar viewers would struggle to see the differences. That part of the exercise was really instructive. I learned a lot about why Blizzard's great character models look the way they do as I researched them during the project. Kudos, Blizzard!

Jungle

This was an exercise in speed painting from a photograph. I didn't learn a lot but the result makes me look cleverer than I am.

Warrior

Fighter character I painted a while ago.

Forever Alone

You probably haven't noticed but that awful twin of mine has stopped following my Blog! I worked out how to do it and just edited him right out of existence, no more to trouble my page, no more his retarded little face blinking in the light...I think there is something in my eye...I'll be alright in a minute...snif...it isn't like I miss him or anything...I'm better off...really.

Beardman

This guy's face took '*forever' to get right.

*no, obviously not actually forever, but way longer than it should have.

Pilot design

I had heaps of fun over the last few evenings creating this character in a rather more naturalistic style than I'm used to. I only had an evening for each piece (the thumbs, design 6 and then design 5 respectively) so all in B/W so far. I'll do some colours and post them later in the week.

Check out Lynda Mill's Art

Check out this awesome post of original Blob2 art from the talented Lynda Mills; http://forgotten-hollow.blogspot.com/
Lynda, as much as anyone, created the look of the Blob and Blob2 games and her new Blog is a treat.