Friday, February 08, 2013

Back Blog of Posts...


Hey You!

Well, it's been a while since I've posted, but in my time in Edmonton I've been offered the opportunity to become a more "permanent" member of the set change crew for Celebrations/Jubilations...

I'll now be traveling to Edmonton and Calgary each changeover and will be getting salary as opposed to hourly, which is awesome!

It's certainly nice to have a bit of a job safety net and the ability to relax and enjoy my art a little more now...

I jumped into freelancing pretty hard after I quit my last job this past summer in an attempt to make some survival money, but I haven't had the opportunity to really focus on improvement and building a strong foundation until now!

It's been years since I've really taken the time to get back into art, so I am now trying to find a balance in just creating at random to keep it fresh and improve at a constant rate, and still get some high-quality finished pieces to showcase in my portfolio.

This week was focused more on quantity than quality,  so I've been playing around with a couple more tests and ideas I wanted to try out...

...and here are some of them!


...First off, the rough blocking in of colour of the last sketch I posted... 

I was originally going to go with a traditional fantasy feel, but as it progressed I got this "Neo-Fantasy" idea going... I will still be finishing up with this one later, but the Goblinish creatures in the foreground inspired me to do this sketch of a Neo Goblin...

 
    

I got to thinking about this "Neo Fantasy"  idea... 

..Probably not the first to do so, but just the idea of classic and original fantasy races and creatures, but in a more sci-fi setting...  Like if Goblins and Elves survived past that medieval "Middle Earth" state, where their technological and societal advances and histories would've taken them...

For instance, Goblins would be likely to have dirty, cheap, bio-mechanical enhancements and dark technology, focusing on power and destruction...whereas Elves, quite on the contrary, would have an advancement toward light, sleek technology, highly focused on universal energies and a growth based on natural cycles and spiritual enlightenment.

I think I may continue with this idea further very soon...

I am focusing on improvement in various areas, primarily personal fundamental re-training, but some major areas I need to get better at are realism, environments and hard surface design (like mechanics, electronics, vehicles, spacecraft, etc...)

So I have worked on a couple spacecraft concepts...


  

All the ship designs began with silhouettes, rather than line drawings. Just random solid black silhouettes, then I use white in passes to slowly pull out shapes, depth and details.  Because the range of tones are all there (from dark black to bright white), it's easy to colourize and add different effects to them on other Photoshop layers...

This is starting to become one of my favourite techniques, especially for designing sci-fi elements... It also led mt to create some Mech designs...One of which ended up in it's own finished piece-!






I really like how this piece turned out! I thought of polishing up the background, but I really like the illustrative, almost graffiti like style it has.  I find the chaos of the surrounding environment brings  focus to the central mech and creates the right sense of intense, gritty, mayhem I was going for.

...Speaking of gritty mayhem... The last two images for today...
  


More tests at getting some detail and realism to my digital art... There's still line in the first, and they both have elements that lack realism, but I'm getting there!  

My next post will feature links to a couple work-in-progress orchestral pieces I am working on for a novel realease trailer for "Walk of the Red Wolf"  by Amanda Heller!
 
Thanks for stopping by! See you soon!


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