Olgr Design

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 With the sketch booklet out of the way I can finally put a post file together for this guy!


His armor was designed to look a tad more agile than the last character's design, which I accomplished by making the larger pieces a bit more flush. Ironically, after spending time designing out a really cool sword, I ended up using the placeholder sword from the initial sketch; it gave the design a visual area of rest, whereas the cool sword was too detailed and didn't leave a place for the viewer's eyes to settle (see the second image down). I also did a couple touch-ups to the the helmet of the last character, so I might as well repost that design too (bottom image). Cheers!

Sketch Booklets and Ron/Snape Sketches!

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  Today is a most excellent day! My sketch booklets for ctn arrived after a grueling week and a half of sorting out a year's work. The print quality is good--just a little darker than the original files were! I got them through MagCloud with Bridgit Underwood's recommendation. Thanks!

  In celebration of coming out of the cave I've been holed up in, here are some Harry Potter themed sketches! Different stylizations of Ron on top, and Snape on the bottom! 

~Here are the sketch booklets~

Color Palette Thumbnails

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   Let round two of my color palette exploration begin! I have been learning so much about how color conveys mood while playing around with this technique---it's been so much fun!

   In an effort to broaden my range of possibilities, I tried applying what I've learned to a different subject matter: sword design. I chose the keyword "demon" for the left sword, and tried painting in a palette that would convey the mood of that selected trait--which for me invoked a strong need for purple, with blood red accents. I then tried the opposite. Through my analagous palette test on the right, I discovered that yellow is the most heroic color to me when kept dominant in the warm palette. I used that knowledge to thumbnail out a "Hero's" blade--originally I had a splash of blue (triadic color scheme) in there as well, but found the effect was stronger without it.

  A September catch up post will be coming some time next week! Until then, color~

August Catch Up~

 

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   Oh man, we're getting pretty close here to being fully caught up in posts! These are a few select sketches and studies from back in August. Just sorting through everything, it looks like I continued to spend most of my free art time studying other artists. The top page has a few personal sketches though, including a dog with it's head fit in a box (I call it "Fetch Delivery Services"), and Dumbledore~.

  A coworker pointed out the highly talented Eli and Oli--they have a great ability to show character in their simplest shape designs, and similarly excel in their use of simple color--and I discovered the amazing animated short "The Reward" by Sun Creature Studio; their dynamic and energetic animations are incredibly inspiring! It was a good month!

July - Artist Studies

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  July was the month of study--I geared down and looked at a lot of highly skilled artists for the majority of the time. Loish continued to pump out gorgeous characters. Meg Park's blog was a full library of strong characters/personalities to goggle over and sketch. And David, of course, has such life filled illustrations to learn from. I think I have been steamrolling forward since this month, and have continued improving at a nice pace!

Color Palette Thumbnails

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   Now this is a fun way to learn more about color! I decided one day to practice harmonizing color swatches with simple palettes (monochromatic, analogous, etc.), and ended up stumbling onto a method to create really nice thumbnails that convey a strong mood--this is more of an illustrative method of working in color than a technical way. I might post a process for this technique in the future; it is actually pretty similar to the method I used when working on Transformers Battle Tactics (though that was much more focused on form than color).

  Yes Robin Hood is dying in the purple monochromatic palette--it felt like such a poignant color, so it had to be done. July catch up post coming soon!

Grimnir

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   I decided to break from the recent tradition of posting catch up art from previous months--here is something a little more recent! Armor is so interesting, as both a historic method of protection in warfare, and as a display of the wealth/power of a kingdom in ceremony. This armor was designed to have a visual avian theme in the detailing, for no specific reason at all....(I totally did it for a reason). It was a lot of fun, so I think I will have to do more on this subject in the future!

June Catch Up - Part One

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  We are rolling our way into June sketches---only a few more months to catch up on scanning! For part one I am including a few select artist study sketches I enjoyed doing at the time (top), and a couple figure sketches of beach volleyball players. I listed the names of the original artists/projects I was learning from next to each sketch.

  I will try to post part two--with a few personal sketches--later today!

March Catch Up!

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   It's high time I catch up on some older posts! Here are an assortment of sketches from a few months ago, when I started a good sixty/forty ratio of studies of other artists' work/and my own personal projects and learning.

   The bottom post contains studies of two particular artists from that period. Meg Park has such a unique aesthetic, and ability to infuse character into her sketches--I have especially focused on character expression from her (simply fantastic!). The other artist is a very talented young animator named Anita Gaughan, who knows how to convey mood and action in a seemingly effortless way--squashing, pushing, and stretching shapes in amazingly simple ways (just look at that Patamon!!). Next will be posts from May!

Gobbledygook Strikes!

  A quick little enemy concept for the archer game in which I played with designing in flat color!

Archer Redesign - Color Exploration Part 2

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  Color palette options 4 and 5 were the most popular last week, so I delved into further exploration of those flat local colors!

   It was really interesting getting the opinions of some of the other people around me. Multiple people said that the orange/blue/brown combo really reminded them of fall or another season of the year, and his analogous blueish costume felt reminiscent of water. Isn't color cool? It pulls such different feelings from people.

Archer Redesign - Color Options

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  Finally, after a year of monotony and painstaking labor I have accomplished something so groundbreaking, so earth shattering that you may not even believe I have done it: I stopped putting the date in the title....because blogspot already lists the date above each post for me! Yes, bask in my glory. 

  Oh and here are some color options for the archer redesign. Cheers!

020115 - Gesture Sketches

Major Flow Traceover

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  Behind every great character sketch is a life-filled gesture--a flow, or rhythm throughout the forms and how they relate to each other. To improve my ability to breathe life into my own sketches through posing I busted out the ol' 2B pencil and did some study sketches focusing on this flow. In the top image the majority of the gestures are copy sketches of master animator Glen Keane's characters. I sketched the major flow of action over a few of my favorite gestures to show just how much Glen pushes his poses. Amazing!

 

 

013015 - Golem Redesign

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  Alright, here is an updated concept edited based on feedback. I redesigned the shapes of the arms slightly, and broke up the stone into sections/added cracks to help show plane changes--further visually defining the form. Let's hope Ty likes it!

012715 - Golem Redesign

Head Design Exploration

Rough Sketch

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  He's grumpy, he's all rock, and he's coming at you! This last week I busted out my pencil and printer paper, and explored my Golem enemy design. My main goal was to punch the old design into the Archer's style.

  The general concept is that you must shoot the crystal in the golem's chest to defeat him, but here I played with having a crack as a more subtle target for the player to shoot at. One of my classmates (Piya from New York!) liked this scar and some of my other sketches with various shapes of holes, and had a great idea of having the scar crack open to reveal the crystal after each arrow hits (a visual clue to how much damage you've done to the enemy)! I like it!

012015 - Ghibli BG Copy Sketch

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  If there is one thing that never ceases to amaze me about Ghibli movies, it is the amazing level of the background paintings. I would like to start a practice of studying one background a week, which I suspect will really help me improve in this area. This specific painting is one of the early shots in Princess Mononoke where the the main character rides to the distant tower for news on a disturbance in the forest, which I have attempted to reproduce in a sketch on the right . Maybe I'll move into painting as well in upcoming weeks!