Forgive me it's been too long since my last post. A lot has happened in the past months, including some personal things & experimenting with new digital illustration techniques (some of which are posted on my tumblr).
Here's one of my more recent commissions, a book cover for a private client. It was no easy feat working on it, including coloring the whole thing in grey tones. But for the most part, it turned out much better than expected. It was a great learning experience for me for experimental inking & a different method of coloring.
Been a few months since I last updated and was very busy with my personal projects, including this one. It's part of my Monster Fest 2013 sketch challenge in which I wanted to draw one of my chosen monsters for the month of Halloween. Unfortunately, I was able to draw roughly 20 (with a few I haven't inked). Now it will be finished, with my goal being the end of next month. But in the meantime, here's part one of my Monster Fest challenge.
From top to bottom: Slenderman and Slendermane, Chimera, Naga, Hellhound, Kasa-okabe, Sphinx, and Mermaid
Took me pretty much all year to complete him and I'm so glad he's finished! Hopefully, my next maquette/sculpture won't take a year to complete. Though to be fair, that mostly consisted of my lack of motivation to finish this guy, mainly because he's filled with so many tight spaces! Never again and will plan better next time.
Anyway, enough of my mini-rant. Here's Vritra, the main baddie of my graphic novel in progress in his full glory! Despite some hardships during making him, he was a lot of fun to work on.
Materials used: Wire armature, aluminum foil, small beads (for his eyes), Sculpy Clay, FolkArt acrylic paint, model grass crumbles (for moss), and wooden base.
A long overdue gift art for a good friend of mine, Alicia Schwalm. Drew her three favorite characters (Applejack, Big Macintosh, and Discord) from My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Did some more experimenting with digital painting and for my willing guinea pigs, two of my creature creations. On the left, a wolf-lizard like creature I named "Drarowk," and on the left, a creature that I'm temporarily naming "Aquaerpent." Out of both subjects, the Aquaerpent is perhaps my best effort. Still trying to work out on how to digitally paint fur, but at least it's a start.
As for the creatures themselves, I will make reference sheets of them in the near future, but for now, here's their current designs.
Featuring Chespin, Fennekin, and Froakie from the recently announced Pokemon X & Y.
My final illustration I did for an artist alley print. Though I will admit, it's probably one of my least successful pieces compositionally, and will more likely do a better one in the future. But for now, it's not so bad.
Twilight and her friends enjoying the afternoon with her friends. (Sorry for not including Spike. I had forgotten to include him while drawing this.)
It's another piece I did as a print for Nashicon. In my opinion, out of all four illustrations I did for artist alley, this is the one I'm most proud of. And I think it shows so much, especially in composition and coloring.
Finally some original art after a slew of fan art related pieces. This is one of those silly concepts I've been toying with for a while, which is essentially boils down to moth/butterfly riders and tamers. It's nonsensical and impossible, yes, but hey, I enjoy messing with concepts that are fantastical in nature. Admittedly, it's not one of my better compositions, but for a first piece, it's not bad. Also was one of the prints I had for sale at Nashicon.
Everyone's favorite vampire king--Marshall Lee. For while, I had wanted to draw Marshall Lee and it wasn't until a few months ago I finally got an idea of what I do. Initially, it was going to be finished by the time "Bad Little Boy" aired, but that didn't happen the way I planned it. But I'm happy it turned out well as I wanted to practice flat coloring. It is also one of my works I made prints of for Nashicon, which I ended up selling one of them.
I was commissioned about a month ago for a tattoo design. The client wanted a pig dressed as a bomber pilot with bronze wings, and this is the result after working on the design for a number of weeks. She loved it! And I liked how it turned out in the end.
And for the record, yes, I will be opening for commissions and at the time of this post, I'll putting up a page outlining my rates and terms. However, you are still free to email me regarding commissions I offer.
Just thought I show off some of my original inked artwork. All of them have been colored, and the first two were for digital ink practice in Manga Studio, which I've gotten the hang of by now.
Journey (PS3)
Mudkip and Swampert (Pokemon)
The Great and Powerful Trixie (MLP: FIM)
On a side note, this drawing was inked by traditional means, but fixed in Photoshop.
Finally, some fan art from my favorite game of 2012--Journey (PS3). Admittedly, it took way longer than expected to finish, mostly due to the character's intricate scarf and my original file being corrupted. I plan on doing more artwork based on my second playthrough, but here's a small version I did for Manga Studio and coloring practice.
Slowly but surely it's getting there. Just a few more furs, modeling the face, and smoothing out the rest of the features, and it's good to go. I've been sick for the past couple of weeks, which rendered me unable to work on my maquette (and two drawing projects). My ultimate goal is to have the whole thing done by the end of the month, which includes baking, priming, and painting. Will show the finished project after finishing the details later.
Because even a mudkip can evolve into a total badass.
Anyways, wanted to do some ink practice with Manga Studio, and since I've had this little idea for a Pokemon related art piece, I decided to go ahead and use it as my guinea pig of sorts. Could of did a little better job thinning and bulking up the lines in a few areas, but for my first ever success digital inks, it's not a bad start.
As promised, here are my animations from 3D Character Animation and Set-up. At least the first two since I may have to upload my third video somewhere else due to YouTube's policies on certain copyrighted music in videos. First up is the first project for my class, my little fearful retro robot.
(Had to re-upload because of incorrect video file)
Next is my second project, the grumpy Dr. Eggplant. And to be fair, it's not exactly my best and could have done a whole lot better, especially knowing what I know now regarding rigging and model skinning.
Finally got a hold of some of my projects from Digital Cell 1. They are a little unpolished for the moment, but with time, they will all be redone and presentable. Until then, enjoy what I have so far.
First animation I've ever done and in Flash too. Objective was the create animated piece of how to do something, whether serious or humorous.
Ferret character done in Toon Boom and the cat character in Flash. Main objective was to animate two characters talking in the same space. Dialogue taken from the film Knocked Up (which I haven't seen admittedly).
My final project for Digital Cell 1. We were free to do whatever theme or concept we wanted. Mine was personal as it represented some issues I was going through at the time (and still am). Done entirely in Toon Boom.
On a side note, I had done a third animation project for class, but it's an interactive animation. As such, either until I get my main art project site up or find a really good site for uploading flash files, it'll be awhile before it's seen.
Another set of concept sketches from 3D Character Animation and Set-Up for project two. This time we had to design our own One-Eyed creature and choose a personality trait, and animating our character acting it out. I choose "grumpy/angry" for mine, and the final design is based on an eggplant. I call him "Dr. Eggplant" because it's so appropriate.
It's been a couple of weeks and I thought I'd show off some work from 3D Character Set-Up and Animation. First up is some concept sketches and one final character sketch of my first project. The objective was to design and animation a retro style robot acting out one principal trait. The trait I end up choosing was "fearful." Will post the full animation soon.
