Cthulhu Cultist

Some horror and character stuff, getting old ideas from old sketches out before I dive back into learning more environment design and more software.

More characters

Stealth Assassination Unit

Funny thing, the power went out in my house and I lost the sketch I was working on, from the back view, color comp and so on, luckily, I saved a line drawing of the front view as JPG to show a few friends and ask for feedback, otherwise I'd have lost everything, I'm not sure I'd go back to draw everything all over again, but well, here goes.

Assassin stealth unit, an idea I've had for a while for a co-op infiltration video game. It'd be cool to one day realize it as I have no shortage of ideas for characters for this little world.

WIP

After a brief hibernation (slacking too much and just playing videogames), I have started drawing again, it feels SO good to be back, I didn't remember how much I enjoyed drawing until returning from this break.

Quick thumbs

Some really quick thumbnails testing speed+efficiency on environment thumbnails, something Im not so experienced at! ... but I wanna be!

Film studies!

I'm having one of those moments when Im starting to feel like a one trick phony, a magician who carries around a bag of cheap tricks, I've been doing everything mostly in a digital sculpting+keyshot pipeline and it shows for the better and worse.
Lately I've been going again into traditional media and drawing, doing a few thumbnails each day to help my design sense and to get away from software, the problem with software is that everyone has it, I need to avoid it now.

I may or may not post some thumbnails later, for now, I'll be doing some composition studies from the Beethoven of cinema, no one other than Kurosawa.
I'm not sure where I'll arrive without this keyshot+zbrush pipeline that I've been doing for such a long time, but I know I'll want to be there.

Chasing Blood

Revisiting some lesson files from Alex Figini course at Learnsquared. Cool to see how many things I pick up that I hadn't noticed before in the first run.

Jump Shot!

Another presentation shot

Fixes!

Keeping track of this. Fixed the absurd rim light I first had (was worth a shot, but was not looking good in comparison) and also fixed a few pixels that were not rendered well.

I guess I just had tunnel vision at the time, did not notice such obvious things.

Assassin robot!

Turn around based off an old sketch from Alex Figini class at L2!

Weapon designs

TO keep track of progress, some more weapon designs for the next character!

Mecha Oni - Test

A test before I figure out some stuff! Mostly keeping track of progress

Environment practice

Some more environment practice, inspired by Metal Gear Solid and John Sweeney

Market place

Some environment design practice inspired by John Park and Hawken.

Research L 14

I've decided to invest in environment design, I am forever in love with character design, the clothes, the little details such as small scars, motifs and visual values a person or creature can carry, but it's starting to feel like comfort zone, and as such I need to expand, to grow, I'm not sure how much of good quality these next environments may be, as Im still learning, but growth is something that happens to you, growth is not necessarily good and as long as we stick to good, we'll never have real growth.

The concept just really came to me, I chose an image that inspired me to do this concept but it was the concept I liked the least, or felt drawn to the least, I notice that the bar is often set too high when doing these, I go over ambitious to make something really really cool, and I get crippled by it's possible awesomeness when it's not working my way. I guess I'm afraid I can't pull off the ambitious or really good idea I have, so I went with a lesser one. I still get bothered when this happens, when I'm crippled by how cool a briefing is, but I guess it's just natural as Im not used to do environment designs, if it was a character or prop, I wouldn't have these worries.

I need to teach myself to find better reference, reference that works with me instead of agaisn't me too. I find that it does 80% of the job when I find the right element. Pinterest seems the best ally, as it suggests many other similar images based of one that I deem really good, into a narrower search.

/end ramble

More sketches

More sketches, refining the sketching process more, amazing that I thought I had my sketching skills honed enough, but you can always be more efficient at what you already know how to do!

Anyway, just experimenting, nothing crazy.

More sketches

Some more sketching done while I am on the vacation month. Trying to find a balance between refinement and looseness, to be presentable enough... as my sketches tend to be very dirty and quick, but not in a virtuous aesthetic.

Sketches!

Some sketching from this week. Greek architecture studies. Trying to get better and faster at sketching, finding a balance between fast and eye candy

blackmarket

Just throwing another test I'm experimenting with.
Not happy at all with the outcome, but it was a good test to map where I've failed with this process and also get where I failed before this attempt, using this same process.
I guess it's why I made it, to try to level up, and like it is in life, you're not gonna win every time.

I guess the core reason I failed is because I relied too much in a 3D blockout, like I've done before and failed because of it. Now I know, it'd be much better in efficiency and style if I had photobashed a background instead.

Another reason why this didn't work is because I'm constantly looking at old .PSD files and checking how I integrated images with keyshot compositions before, this is to save brain power, but every image is different and may require light and color tweaking reverent to their environments, I keep trying to bruteforce it to work, but hopefully this blog entry along with this sketch will be a reminder, to keep me from doing this same mistakes.

 I guess I should have researched of concept art'y ways to rig a face expression quickly, I was lazy, laziness doesn't get anyone anywhere. Posting bad art in my blog doesnt bother me, this is just a sketch blog with my dev notes. In this case, the benefit of having my art exposed greatly outweights any bad reputation.

Gypsy punk!

I haven't made new work relevant to subcultures in a while, I liked when I first started fiddling with that topic, it felt right, it felt fun.

Research steps on new character

Been a while, or maybe it hasn't, it feels like it has, because I haven't done a character like this in almost a year now. It's not because I didn't want to, it's just other stuff got in the way, client work, personal life... so much has changed lately. And I'm grateful for every change.
Anyway, I'm working on a series of still shots to showcase a new character for the my subculture themes.

Here's a fraction of the research, grabbed really quick out of my ref board software.

And the initial sketching, very crude, I know, but was just to guide myself, didn't have to show these to any client or anything, so kept them very crude, still felt good to show them.

Alien works!

I’m gonna call this one done. I haven’t been true to myself with these creature assignments lately. Sure, I learned a lot of new art theories but I’m missing out in the fun,it feels like client work to do these... I need to re-analyze the work I’ve been doing.

Creature design week 3!

So, let's recap, most of this creature design stuff won't end up in my portfolio, nor is that my intention, so I'm happy to produce an high ratio of failures, posting them online only allows me to grow a thicker shell when facing my work as nothing more than experimentation, it's like a public wall of shame, of course, I'll try my best to do good work, which would end up in my portfolio but at the moment, if I succeed in injecting key theories in my work, (i.e. the correct mixing of human skull anatomy and animal skull; weight distribution on the poses, etc) then everything else just becomes secondary.
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Teaser shot of my next work, which I'm still experimenting on how to bring more Scifi into creature design, while solving anatomical features that make sense for the character.

Scene tests

Testing some keyshot scenes, as presentation bonus from last work.

The Tooth Fairy

This is not my most proud export. But it is considered (by me) a beautiful ugly child, whom I love. The final image is not one of my favorites, however the process that led me to it was enjoyable and I think I have achieved some growth with it, I turned something around that was not looking like something I'd make, to something looking like a work under my signature.

It's good to have a grip on that, which was a major critic during my college time, where I liked to explore endlessly.  I may or may not go ahead and do an environment with this one, I just don't like it enough to keep going with it.

I have other ideas that I'm more keen of. Nonetheless it served as a case study, measuring brainstorming techniques and testing assignments and notes from a creature design course.  But then again, if you like your process and work, repeat yourself, if you don't, repeat yourself.

2/2 Chimera design

Added a saddle, not 100% happy with it, not sure if I'll use this process again unless I really have to as the materials tend to get muddy when overlayed in PS.
The process of mixing a komodo and smilodon skulls work fine though, I think!

Chimaera Test 1

Creature design test follow ups!
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More creature sketches

Another sketch on creature design. It's so hard to do, but so fun at the same time. I'm learning to enjoy making this more than finishing them.

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Creature design

Testing a few parameters of creature design lately. Rough sketch, quick stuff, just to test. I should have spent more time on it, but I think I’ve studied enough and a bust like this was never portfolio material to begin with.

I should spend more time on the next creatures, I often find a good profit of proliferating these ugly sketches and studies very quick, but there's also a great deal of improvement on doing these as a long project. I should spend more time figuring out a better test shader as well.

WIP Sketches // Void Cultists

I’m trying to get myself back to personal artwork. I’m doing enemy design inspired by Lovecraft, some weird cultists, with a supernatural vibe. They are kind of in the loose side, as I’m exploring a lot, and changing my mind a lot as I go, but I think I’m finally starting to register a more concise conclusion!
I’m hoping to break a lot of ground, experimenting, let’s see how it goes.