Friday, April 27, 2012

Practice

Ugh, designing characters is damn difficult for me. Especially doing MC:s (maincharacters, so I tend to iterate alot :) here's my latest attempt at Tombgrave, and the badguy "dreadskull". 



I'm trying to get better at fundaments of rendering. In doing so I've picked up on doing the exercises outlined by the eminent Thomas Scholes (Idiot Apathy) at Conceptart.org back in 2006. They've forced me to rethink stuff I thought I knew, as well as obtain new knowledge. Great stuff. Here's the link> http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=76955

Rummaging through the old Ca.org forums made me feel truly nostalgic, as it was an instrumental resource for me in beginning to try and learn this craft (2005). It's not the same anymore, more focus on getting cred, selling "learn the secrets to great art" DVD's and asspatting than learning and critiquing IMO. 

I know this stuff is boring as hell to look at to most, but it's been useful for me to do these things! I wont go into detail and explain the exercises, go and check for yourself :) And as always, please critique me if you have the time and feel like it :)
Exercise 1> basic sphere
Exercise 2> (ver. 1 of Peer project)
Exercise 2 > Matching Color and Greyscale.
   
Exercise 3 >Different Colored Spheres in White light.  
 
Also, please look into this page if you want to learn about the fundamentals of color. It's a bit advanced, but well worth it ;p
http://www.huevaluechroma.com/index.php

Friday, April 20, 2012

Murder Ballads

I guess these guys are finished. I was thinking about them in terms of pen and paper RPG characters. Now back to studies!













 














They go with this song.. :)




Tuesday, April 17, 2012

More Noir-ish portrait wips

Two more to go I think, and perhaps make a Step by step Gif or something. WIP! Listening to jazz and coming up with these guys and rendering them is the business XD. They remind me of a sorta Christina Aguilera, Natalie Portman mix (DROOL), and something like David Carradine :D


Sunday, April 15, 2012

Crime City Portraits WIP...

Hello! Here are some portraits. I'm trying to go towards a more painterly approach, but still retain some controlled and nearly graphic shapes (No airbrush!1). I'm trying out a "halfway to black" system to choose my values, as outlined by Scott Robertson in his rendering matte surfaces DVD:s. Essentially it's about first picking the average value for the light of a material/color, and then going halfway to black to locate the average value of that shadow. So for example, if the light value of a material is 50% bright, the shadow would be 25% bright. In doing this I kinda create a value gamut, so that I can get some control. Previously I've just winged my values, going for what looked right. Ambient occlusion can create darker values too. Still WIP!


Monday, April 9, 2012

Colt Tombgrave WIP

Can't quit on this guy just yet, there's a story that needs to be told! :D

Edit: Did some tweaks, not enough to warrant a new post.


Thursday, April 5, 2012

Stuff

In trying to become more controlled and aware of planes, I've made the mistake of making all edges hard. I do however intend to become more painterly, and leave the airbrush out as much as possible, cause I think the "3D" render is boring. I take more pleasure in viewing something by Zorn or Sargent, than I do Ingres or Beaugerau. I like Gregory Manchess's rendering technique. Every stroke is made with confidence and purpose! The pose of the knight is rubbish, and conveys nothing except the design. I always need to remind myself to put my characters in a story context. I also tend to flatten things out to the image plane, and not use the Z-axis.















Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Bunchafaces!

Bunch O dudes for a detectivestory!