Kveldulf Model

An old creature model from Guild Wars. All that fur felt like it took forever to paint. Here is a link with a better pose. He has two tails. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/File:Kveldulf.jpg
Kveldulf was also tricky because of all that soft edged alpha. I did a bunch of work to get the fur to sort properly and not have lighting seams. There are many technical issues with producing game models and interesting tricks to work around them. It might surprise some people to find out how much of a game artist's job is not actually making art, but instead handling technical problems and bugs that crop up.

Help the Hodges

On January 21st a massive art auction to help the Hodge family is underway. The family is in a pretty bad situation. Check out the site here for more information: http://www.helpthehodges.com/

They are also collecting direct donations.

messing around in the new Art Rage

quagmire

quick sphinx

Tengu

I'm compiling all the art I have from this last year into a printed sketchbook. I'll be selling them at the Emerald City Comicon and likely online as well once everything is together.

While rummaging through files I found the Guild Wars Tengu concept. The art itself is a bit crusty, but I like him. I do wish he had wings. I'd wanted them to be more goblin like. In the end it is the animation that really made these guys special. I loved what Bobby did with them.

Painting Note

It occurred to me this morning that I haven't given thought to what kind of painting I really want to strive for. Because I work in games I naturally veer towards trying to render things out, using somewhat realistic lighting and textures, the same way I'd go about making a model. I'm applying what I know about that to what I'm doing in real paint.

Not that I'm unhappy with what I am doing. I just hadn't thought about it in those terms. This idea can keep me open to trying new things. That is kind of awesome to know.

quick sphinx

Good bye Moonshadow. You were a wonderful beast.

Stegosaur quickie

Quagmire

Yakkington Progress Art

For anyone interested here is the Guild Wars Nicholas and Professor Yakkington wallpaper from start to finish.

This is one of two sketches I drew in ArtRage to begin with.

This second sketch is the concept I decided to go with.

Bed Time

Here you go Ada.

Giraffe happy times

Moa Bird Papercraft available for download! :)
http://www.guildwars.com/community/projects/wintersday_papercrafts/

Dragon Hunters Painting Final

I've gotten about as far as I think I can on this image. There are issues with composition and lighting and color etc. I like this picture, the characters are ones I like and I like the feeling. I also like where I was able to take it to. It is time to move on and paint something else though. Move on, keep learning, try to keep positive.

The production of this painting from initial sketch to finish is here.

Painting Highlights Note

I've been running into a bit of trouble getting acrylic highlights to pop. I'm not sure if this is chemically sound, as in it might do goofy discoloration over time, but it's something I tried that worked pretty well. To get really bright highlights in my acrylics I added neon colored gauche into the colors I mix for highlights. For instance, neon pink gauche into a bright red acrylic.

It could be the kind of acrylics I'm painting with are making me fight for colors. It might also be how dark I tend to go makes me fight harder as well. At any rate, I've found a work around for it for now. Might be useful to someone.

Real paint does not work like Photoshop. Both are lots of fun though.

Also, it is slowly sinking in that you can mix mediums. Seems obvious, but I forget the obvious things when I'm doing. Looking back later it's suddenly all so clear.

Guild Wars Papercraft Available

ArenaNet is releasing a set of Guild Wars papercraft. I made these patterns for fun a little while ago. I'm excited to see if anyone posts ones they have put together.

New patterns will be released over the next few weeks. Check them out here: http://www.guildwars.com/community/projects/wintersday_papercrafts/

Dragon Hunters skin and wash WIP

I'm focusing on the foreground and forgetting about everything else for a while. Worked on the human skin tones a bit, tightened a few details as well. I'm not able to get the paint to go lighter the way I'd like, so ended up doing a dark brown wash over parts of the dragon knight to push the depth. I've been doing very short bursts on this image, maybe 30 min to an hour each time. Most of that is humming and hawing over what to do next. Still a long way to go.

One thing I didn't do for myself was to put together photo reference. If I had some nice photos of lighting and materials I might not be struggling as much.

Have a great nap everybody!

Dragon Hunters first color pass

quick heads

Dragon Hunters WIP values

Added a white wash over the background to decrease the contrast. I think I went a little overboard with the highlights on the foreground. I'll knock some things back and re pick out my brights later. I'm in a limbo area where I'm really starting to dislike this image, but that is coming from fighting with it and looking too closely for too long. Just have to push past this phase and keep trying.

kiarrrrr

quick heads

quickie

Dragon Hunters color wash and detail

Added orange details to the big dragon and knocked them back with a yellow wash. Added white highlights and knocked them back again with another yellow wash. I used a black sharpie to pick out some extreme dark areas on the foreground characters. Added color washes and some white highlights to them as well. I think it's looking better. I'm a little worried that this approach is causing me to work harder than I need to to get the result I want. Time will tell.

Right now I'm thinking about contrast. The foreground will have the highest contrast. Our brains register that first, so I want people looking there. I need to do some work to bring that out. Also, the background is still higher contrast than I like. I need to knock it back some more. Maybe a thicker white wash, then some more thin yellow to warm things up again.

Dragon Hunters base color

Light color washes added. Lookin' heinous!

Dragon Hunters first bit of paint

Beginning the sepia tone pass. Just threw some dark color in to separate the foreground and background. This dark color is doing what I was hoping it would so far, popping the characters off the painting. Next I think I will try something a little different than what I've tried previously. I'm going to assign colors to each character before going in with a brown tone. Should be interesting. I'm thinking blue/green/yellow on the dragon knight, red/green on the lady knight, and yellow/red on big meanie back there.

Dragon Hunters WIP pencils

Finished the pencils. Time to paint!
~scary~

New Painting

I'm beginning a new acrylic painting. It's about a couple of dragon hunters.
Here are the initial pencils.

quick rawr

Mask +5 bonus to completion

From Halloween Mask 2009

From Halloween Mask 2009

From Halloween Mask 2009