Thursday, May 14, 2015

Brainstorm Contest WIP

Grizzled Superman
I've been working on a Superman redesign for the Brainstorm concept art Facebook group. 

In this version, Superman believes, despite his godlike powers, that he can never be strong enough to defend humanity from the wicked perils of the universe. Knowing that his abilities are dependent on starlight and that Kryptonite renders him as vulnerable as a mortal, he gathers and wears Kryptonite the way that Kung Fu masters wear wrist weights. So shackled, he trains his body and mind so that when he sheds the Kryptonite his powers are redoubled. Resultantly, his healing factor has slowed, he has aged, and his travails have left him scarred and a little bitter, but he has found even greater strength.


Tuesday, April 21, 2015

Week 12 - I Gotta Post Something, Right?

This has been a crazy busy week. I didn't have my usual gusto when it comes to working on portfolio projects, but here's my progress on Ko, the dinosaur samurai:
Not as far along as I wanted to be, but progress is progress. More to come this Friday!

Sunday, April 12, 2015

Week 11 - Of Dinosaurs and Internships

This week I worked on two different projects. One, you saw the early phase of last week, and here is the progress:

The Way of the Dinosaur. See what I did there?

The second is something I'm trying to add to my portfolio in a hurry. I applied for an internship at Disney Interactive. The internship would be doing concept art for a Marvel IP game, so I want to show them I can draw and paint superheroes. It takes a lot longer to create an ink look than to just PAINT something. You can cheat more when you're painting.
Psylocke WIP

Friday, April 3, 2015

Week 10 - I finished the Flint King!

That's one in the ol' portfolio bank. Eager to start the next project, I've begun work on another character piece and have been working on a lighting and rendering study from a reference photo.

The Flint King - Finished

Ko, the Dinosaur Samurai

Lighting Study. Reference Photo: Marcus Ranum

Friday, March 27, 2015

Week 9: More Character Art

Last week I accomplished a lot on this guy. This week, I accomplished just as much, but it's not as apparent because this is the rendering phase. I want to make this illustration as polished as possible to demonstrate my rendering and finishing abilities to prospective employers. Here's the progress:

Getting warmer.
He's not quite done yet, but I'm still considering this a victory because I'm really coming to understand what goes into game art like this:

Copyright Riot Games
 In need of a break from the Flint King, I also started the design stages for another piece of character art. This guy is Ko. Ko is a samurai. Ko is a triceratops. Trisamutops?

Thumbnails for fun and profit.
Hopefully next week will see the completion of the Flint King and some significant progress on Ko.

Friday, March 13, 2015

Week 8: Enough cutesy stuff!

It's time to shift gears away from Seven Bear Itch in this blog. Back in my January 29 post, I made a commitment to improve and polish some work that I started in a previous class. Well, this week I did just that, and below are the "before and after."

Before.
After.
I'm happy with the progress that I've made on this piece. It's slow going because this is the furthest I've taken a full-color digital painting. I'm still defining my process. I'll be working on this more next week and hope to have it finished at the next blog post.

Some things I learned from my work this week:
  • Some kind of background is important for both presentation and seeing color/value relationships. 
  • I benefit from a "painterly" process. I can't treat concept art the same way as photo compositing.
  • Custom brushes are amazing once you know the brush engine. I would rather use a custom brush made from a texture photo than said texture photo as a layer. With enough time, I'd rather build my own textures using brush strokes.

Cheers!

Friday, March 6, 2015

Week 7: What I learned at GDC

I spent this entire week working as a Conference Associate at GDC. It was a valuable experience, both as a networking opportunity and in terms of helping me pick a direction for my portfolio. Here are the core things that I learned:


  • The Game Industry wants you to be specialized.
  • I should have a separate resume for Artist positions and another for Game Design
  • Even Game Desigers have specalizations. There are Combat Designers, Encounter Designers, and Systems Engineers. These are all subsets of Game Design. 
  • A Systems Designer focuses on mechanics and manipulation of data for game balance and interesting user experience. This 
  • There are no Game Designer/Artists outside of the Indy Game sector, and even within it, someone who is so generalized in their skillset is rare, and so their value is not implicitly understood.
  • I need to choose a focus, and I'm a little further along on the Concept Art front.
  • If I'm going to show Game Design work, something small and polished is way better than something grandiose and unfinished.
  • The above probably goes for Concept Art as well.
  • I need to learn Unity.
  • I need to do more coding.
  • There are more Artist positions available than Game Designer positions.

...So that's a lot of to-do list type stuff. The bottom line is that I should focus on concept art. I need to spend the rest of the semester producing 5 or 6 polished art pieces that show the best of what I can do. If I complete one every other week for the rest of the semester, I will achieve that goal. Here goes nothing!