Landscape Thumbnails

My two color and composition starts for the landscapes for thesis. I'm hoping to condense my story into about two paragraphs, at which I'll post it up here on the blog. In the meantime, enjoy these and hopefully they'll both be finished Thursday.

Minor Character Design

A human villager for the sci-fi Ramayana. I wanted to do an ortho or even just paint out that big staff, but I got a little pressed for time as tomorrow's going to be hectic! I thought the staff might be able to be thrust into manufactured wells - basically holes in the ground with which water can be retracted. The staff also filters the water before it would run out the spout. Once finished, the spout can be pivoted back into the staff. Water might be scarce - especially clean water - and they would have these manufactured wells to make water more of a communal thing, which pressures people to consume it with care and not take half hour showers. Having people like this little dude who are the ones who can withdraw the water is extra pressure to be considerate about consumption.

ETA:
Redid the face and colors.

More Character Silhouettes

It's been way too long since I last posted. Classes are really kicking off and I've been working on thesis. On the interim I've been working at a bookstore and cafe. It's been pretty alright.

I'm starting to collect work to put up for this semester, but I'll start with something for Advanced Character Development, which I am taking with Sean Murray, lead concept artist at Big Huge Games in Timonium. We essentially have a semester-long project to focus on in a small group. I'm already enjoying the creative dynamic we share - I think the right enthusiasm in a team can be very productive.

We are currently designing minor characters for a hypothetical video game inspired from the Hindu epic The Ramayana. Of the nigh-30 silhouettes I drew, these five were my favorites.



A few monkey villagers, a few human villagers. That short little guy with the huge staff-thing was the group favorite and so you'll be seeing him return as I develop his design further.

Bioshock (linework)

Ariel Bioshock, originally uploaded by Ntkufreak.

I've got nothing to put up yet -- still working on getting my final work all together for the Game Art class. So in the meantime, here's the linework I did for the character painting a few weeks ago.

I was really pleased with these lines -- but it was also the first time I ever liked the colored, painted version as much as the linework. It was a good exercise nonetheless.

Also, in the painted version, his shoes don't look quite as ridiculous considering Bioshock takes place in the 1960s. Whoops, my bad.

In other news, I SUPER need to spruce up this blog.

Thumbnail Practice

Took one of my thumbdudes (#52 on the first page) and painted into him with grays to play around with interior shapes. Next time, I should pick one that is a little more humanoid! But it's still good practice.

Bioshockin' Weekend

Ariel Bioshock, originally uploaded by Ntkufreak.

I always liked how Ian Jackson manages to post things every MWF without fail, quite admirable really. It gets a little complicated from my summer dwelling since I have no internet, but I will do the best I can to stick to some kind of schedule until I have proper and consistent access.

In the meantime, my summer class is almost over. I will post up some images of the texture process, but until that's done, here's personal work. I just beat Bioshock (very behind the times, I know) and loved it, especially the subtle design for Jack, who you play as, despite it being FPS. While I know this isn't Jack's true design, this was how I imagined him -- though I forgot his wrist tattoos. I always did like them too, damnit. Oh well!

Quick Character Silhouettes

So one of my projects this summer while getting ready for thesis is to build up the concept portfolio. I spent a little while churning out a bunch of tiny dudes, and I'm going to take a handful of these and take them the next step of character design.

Regardless, I thought it might be cool to post these up - and see if anyone has any preference firsthand, hahaha. I already have some ideas for which silhouettes I'll take, but I always like to get outside input.

None of these took longer than a few seconds, and were all done with a black Copic marker. I really like the Copic for its nib and brush tip -- the thin tip on the Prisma marker I always found useless.