New Project - Angelo's 4th birthday invitation

New drawing project - Angelo's 4th birthday is fast approaching, and he's going to have his first real birthday party. We're going to have a pirate theme - because pirates are cool, and Angelo seemed to be into pirates not long ago. He's back on the Buzz Lightyear train again now - but I'm sure he'll enjoy a pirate thing.

So I'm putting together a invitation thing for it. Here's the front cover.

Hoping to get it done in under a week. Then I have a pirate ship shaped pinata to make. Fun fun fun !

Dunesteef Bonus extra - Finished

I seriously doubted I'd be able to get something like this done in a week.

But it is finished. Here it is :



Added from last time is the church, a reflection of the trees in the lake, some tweaking of lake colour, and an inner glow added to the dam components to make it look a little more shiny.

And here's the final version with the story title, by-line and Dunesteef logo.



I'm pretty pleased with what I managed to accomplish and I hope the guys at the Dunesteef like it too.

Next - the cover art for the old 'Halloween in July' episode. I think I'll be doing that at a little more of a languid pace !

Dunesteef Bonus extra - Tree colour, church started, Plaguebird added

Almost done.

Very embarrassed right now. Saw that this episode was posted with other art work. Felt very hurt / miffed for awhile. Said as much on Facebook. Then was asked if I had seen the 'part 1' bit on the title. I'm doing the art for part 2. Groan.

Dunesteef Bonus Extra - Sky and trees

Clouds added to sky, block colouring of trees continues. Two more days to go.

Dunesteef Bonus extra - Even more glass / trees started

The dam is almost done ( at least provisionally ) and I've started block colouring the trees in the background.

Dunesteef Bonus extra - More glass

Lorenzo has been having a small nap, so I've neglected doing the vacuuming cleaning ( which I'll have to do a bit later ! ) and instead I've been doing more on the glass dam. It's slowly coming together - but will it be done in time ? Three more days to go...

Dunesteef Bonus extra - Glass texture / colour

Been working on the glass walls of the dam today. They're looking okay so far.

Dunesteef Bonus Extra - Still more water

This evening's progress. Tiding up the water outlines, added a surface to the lake and shaded shading layers to the waterfall.
Whew.

Dunesteef Bonus extra - Water detail

Got some more done today - pleased with how the light is looking on the water.

Dunesteef Bonus extra - Why not ?

After I sent in the image of the 'With Mars in His Hand' image to the Dunesteef podcast, I got a message back from Rish, one of the guys who runs it. Turns out they hadn't got any art ready for a soon to be released episode - and he asked me if I could do something for them, specifically a dam made of glass.

I was a little bit hesitant to do it when I found out that the window of time was just over a week. Then I was reminded of Rish's mantra for 2012 'Why not?'.

Why not indeed ?

So I said yes. I'll get something along the lines of a dam made out of glass done in nine days.

I pieced together a composition last night and did some rough outlining - and I've been getting in vectors and some developed hand outlining as well this evening. So far I've got this :



Not too bad so far. The tricky thing will be making that dam look like it's made out of glass. I'm sure I'll be able to work something out !

Stay tuned.

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Provisionally finished

I think it might be finished. Time to send it to the Dunesteef top brass and see what they think.

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Branch, colour spots, textures

This post is specially for my Mum, who I promised an update for tomorrow morning!
Hi Mum !

Not a great deal that's super obvious here - but the branch colour has been increased and filtered, the body joins on the robo-bee have been coloured and shaded a little, and there are some subtle metallic textures worked onto some of the body planes of the robo-bee.

I would have done more tonight - if Lorenzo had decided to go to sleep at a reasonable time, instead of howling into the night ...

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - More on wings / branch detail

A little more development. Secondary wings have reflective effects now too. I did a bunch of detail on the tree branch - but it looked pants, so I had to scrap it. Trying something new - it looks alright at the moment.

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Robobee colour / shadow

Things have been busy with the boys lately - and I've just started work again today. However - I'm going to really try and keep doing art stuff, because it makes me happy to create this sort of stuff, and I forget that when I'm not doing it.

Here's the progress :

I'm not super happy with the body colouring just yet - but it's getting better. I do like the wings, particularly the faceted reflections, I think they're looking pretty good. I just finished the robobee's shadow on the apple - which was more tricky than you might imagine.
Next step might be to add some detail to the branch, as well as refine the body more and add reflections to the secondary wings.

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Mountain and ground detail

Progress for tonight - some detail / shading for the ground and mountains. The colour is provisional, and I'll probably vector in outlines and then fill with a darker shade of red.
I'm getting sick of that big white robo-bee in the middle now, so colouring that will probably be the next step.
My drawing soundtrack for tonight was mostly Amiee Mann and the Portal 2 soundtrack, will some of Norm Sherman's new album thrown in for good measure. I can't stop listening to 'Heartache Over Innsmouth'.

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Ground and sky

Spent a little time on this tonight after I made a banana loaf for morning tea with the relatives tomorrow :
Added the mountain range vectors, the sky gradient and the ground colour.

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Vectors, apple, branch, crop

Today I've had some free time, so I've been working on the cover some more.
As you can see I've added some colour / texture / shading to the apple, a base colour to the branch, masked out the colour from the robo-bee areas and cropped the whole image to a square shape. You'll also have noticed that I've outlined the image with vectors and changed the shape of the wings ( the ones in the sketch weren't very good ).

It's good to see some progress here !

Dunesteef Cover #2 - With Mars in his Hand - Initial Sketch

Okay - straight in with the second cover project. This is for the 'With Mars in his Hand' story. Most of the action happens on Mars in this one - with the main character trying to bring his dead / comatose / whatever wife back to life. There's a sort of Adam and Eve thing going on in this one - and an image that really struck me was of these mechanical bees pollenating a special Martian tree. So that's what I'm going for in my image. Here's the initial sketch :



First step will be to outline this properly with vectors. I don't know how much of that I'll get done tonight though - Lorenzo is supposed to be asleep, but he's wailing pitifully instead. I'll give him another five minutes and then get him up.

Sigh. No rest for the wicked.

Dunesteef cover #1 - Final Version

There. Done - at least the provisional version is anyway.
Time to get a version to the guys at the podcast and see what they think.
I'm pretty happy with it.

Uberman - Some progress !

I'm back ! Did you miss me ?

With Christmas over - and the main story in Arkham City finished - I've been able to get back into some art. I would have liked to have this one done before the close of 2011, but that's not happening !

Here's some more detail on the dials, and the face of Uberman present. He's supposed to be wearing a monocle - but that could be on the side in shadow. I couldn't make it work visibility.



I figure this is almost done now. I have to resize, and get a background in.

Indoor Kids contest - Aftermath

On Tuesday a picture of my entry was posted on the Indoor Kids Face-book stream.

I was a winner.

Not THE winner mind you. I didn't get the Xbox - but, to be fair, I didn't think I would. Nor did I win a copy of 'Gears of War 3' - which isn't so bad, seeing as I don't have a Xbox on which to play it.

But I did win a book on the art and design of Gears of War 3 - which is what I had hoped I would win.

I was pretty damn happy.

Almost better than the prize was the short e-mail I got from the Indoor Kids hosts - saying that they loved that I had made them into a retro-gamebox, and the facebook person who said in a comment that my pic was his favourite.

So, that was a success !

I've been pretty busy with family stuff ( Lorenzo, for example, has been up for the last hour, and my attempts to get him back to bed haven't worked terribly well ), and Christmas is fast approaching - but I do plan on getting right back into the art, and finish of f the first of those cover pieces for The Dunesteef.

Oh great - Lorenzo is laughing maniacally now. That can't be a good sign...

Back soon.

Indoor kids contest - finished

It's done. I'm pretty pleased with it. There are things here and there I would like to have done better, but on the whole it's pretty good. As usual, I learnt some things about photoshop along the way, so that's always good !

Now I can get back to the podcast covers I'm supposed to be doing !

Indoor kids contest - 1 day to go

Almost done now. I'm REALLY liking the elf's magic sword. The glow is really easy to do in photoshop.

Still have to :
- Add shade to the rogue's arms.
- Shade / highlight the chest.
- Get a background for the demon room.
- Add glowing magic power fireball thingies to the demon's hands.
- Add a spider to the wall.
- Maybe tweek the masonry colour.
- Add the 'cartridge' backing ( I want the whole think to look like an old atari cartridge box ).

It's going to be close !

Indoor kids contest - 2 days to go

It's really picking up pace now ! I'm getting to the fun stage where I can add lots of colour, shadow and highlights.

I've also learnt how incredibly useful it is to have layers organized in folders and sub-folders so I can freaking FIND what I'm after. For example in the folder 'Elf Warrior', there's a folder for each bit of the body that's coloured - 'breast-plate', 'Sword', 'skin', 'hair', 'leggings' etc. These contain the base colour, highlight and shadow(s) layers. When the folders are collapsed, it's WAY easier to navigate the layers to quickly get to the bits I need to work with.

Having photoshop CRASH and make me re-do the colouring for the shoulder armor and the armored kilt / skirt wasn't fun though. Gotta save more regularly.

Indoor kids entry - more colour

Here's the latest version - it's starting to take shape now.
I'm not entirely sold on the purple stone - but it's better than the yellow !

Indoor kids entry - stone, chest, demon and colour

Here's the progress with 4 days to go :



I'm not thrilled with the colour at this point - I'll mess around with it via the 'hue / saturation' tool. Perhaps a cooler shade ? Blue maybe ?

The stone and wood textures were done by me as well - not ripped off real photos. There are all sorts of arcane secrets in Photoshop. Things involving channels and such. I don't even know what a channel IS precisely - seems to be something to do with colour, but apart form that I have no idea.

I really should find out some time.

Indoor kids contest - 5 days to go

With Viva and the boys away for the day - I was able to get a good amount of drawing done today. Here's the stage of play so far :



The basic outline of the elf-warrior is done, the rogue is almost done - I think I just have to do a more refined face. The masonry needs distressing, and the chest and demon need to be added. I'm not sure if I'm going to have the open door anymore - I was always a bit iffy on it.

Then I can get to the fun colouring stage !

Indoor kids - my replacement

I'm not great at drawing female figures either. This is a decent start though for my replacement body, based on my pose / proportions :



It's already imported into the main image - and I've started re-sketching / vectoring it. The sword is done, breast-plate, and I'm working on the face.

The Indoor Kids contest - getting bodies better

I find it hard to draw bodies in the correct proportions from my mind. It's probably why I tend to draw a lot of monsters and robots and things which don't have traditional proportions. I wanted the body shapes in this drawing to be a bit better than they currently are. What to do - what to do.

I decided to use some break time at work to take some photos of myself in the approximate poses in the sketch. I was able to use some of the props and costume pieces from the department, a tripod and a digital camera to capture these :





From there I erased out a bunch of the backgrounds, and imported the images into the current re-work of the original sketch.
I also changed the orientation of the sword arm on the left 'me'.



From here, I dropped the opacity of the photo images so I could sketch out the vague outlines necessary, with better proportions, with a tablet.



Better already !

It's going to be a little weird turning that left side 'me' into a armored sword-woman though.

Indoor Kids Contest - Sketch 1

A cool / funny video game podcast I listen to is having a 'do something cool for us' contest with Gears of War 3 things up for grabs. I thought I'd give it a go ( even though I have a bunch of other creative things I need to be doing ! ).

I did this initial sketch today while in a staff meeting. I've done another couple, but I think this idea is the best. It's only part of the overall idea ( though a fairly central part ! ), but it's a start at least.



The figures on the left and right of the door are going to be the hosts of the show, or as close as I'm able to draw them anyway ! The next step here will be digitally drawing in the line work. I'll keep you posted on how it's going. The entry has to be in by the 9th of December - so I need to get cracking !

Dunesteef cover #1 - Uberman - more things / small changes

This thing is progressing like a glacier - small, but inexorable advances :

Some colour shifting on the main chassis, so that the 'hood' can stand out more.
Moved all the 'dial' and detail stuff up more.
Mask-layers out some of the upper pipes so they slot into the 'hood' thingy.
More details.



Still excited about how this is going !

Dunesteef cover #1 - Uberman - more things

A few more details added in.

Dunesteef cover #1 - Uberman - stage 1

Haven't updates for ages. For that I apologize to my legion of rabid fans.

So, I recently got in touch with the Powers That Be from the Dunesteef podcast ( which is really cool - and you should totally listen to it ! ) and offered to do them some cover art work, and they said yes !

I'm starting off doing some for past artless-episode, the first one for the 'Uberman' episode. It was a really cool story which had the Nuremberg interview of a Nazi super-soldier, who was being held in some sort of containment device - which was described as looking like a cross between a deep-sea diving suit and an iron maiden. That image really hit me - so I volunteered to do that episode almost right away.

I'm trying a very different style for this piece - more pieces of block colour, which I'll shade slightly later on. This is a very early stage composition :



As I said - it's at an early stage so far - but I'm excited at where it's going so far !

Me and my boys

Me and my son Angelo ( 3 and a 1/2 years old ) and my son Lorenzo ( 5 mths ).

New sketches

These are mostly what I was doing at the Swimming Sports today. Good to use the time constructively !! :

Kinda a Jedi


Scary Ghost


Deathbot


Killer Robot Ape


That must catch me up a little with my 'Thing a Fortnight' backlog !

Coverwork - Drabblecast Art Reclamation Project

Hey there - thanks for stopping by ( possibly again ! ).

Here's what I've been working on lately. It's something for the Drabblecast Art Reclamation Project. They're trying to get a bunch of art for old episodes that didn't have any, so I signed up for an episode. This is for episode #52 I think - 'Eggs'. It came out on the day Angelo was born, so I thought that would be fitting in some way.



It's SUPPOSED to be like an electron microscope picture. It's about as good as it's going to get in that way. Not perfect, which is annoying, but there you go. I had a heck of a time with this one. I had to ask a very talented friend for advice on the texturing process ( which I then promptly ignored when I discovered the 'texturalize' filter option in Photoshop ! ). It's vaguely successful I guess - and it looks alright. I'll try and tart it up a little more - but I don't think I can make it that much better.

More rehearsal sketches - Thing a Fortnight

Some more drawings from production down time :

Power Armour #2

Alien Armour Suit

Knife Grrl

Encounter Suit - Hightlighting and background

Highlighting done ( pretty much ) and a new background added. I like the circuit board pattern ( though I might need to have a different eye colour now ! ).

Encounter Suit - first round of shading / eye highlights

Really liking the new techniques I've learned. I mean, they're nothing amazing - but clipping layers are very useful !

Encounter Suit - first colour application

I've been working on this little drawing for a wee bit now.



I've been learning how to use solid colour layers combined with mask layers to quickly colour a picture. It's a really good technique for a couple of reasons. First - you can tweak the colours REALLY REALLY easily afterwards. Second - it's VERY easy to colour in areas efficiently via the fill tool in the mask layer.

I know it doesn't look like much now - but it'll pick up once shadows and highlights are in.

More as it happens.