Marvel Mix 4

Another 3 redesigns. First up, Spider-Man. New thing I came up with was the 8 lenses on the mask, for obvious spider reasons. I thought that people wouldn't like it much, but I've already had this posted on Tumblr and DeviantArt, and the response has been amazing; seems like everyone likes the idea! Also I gave him Vibram shoes as I thought they would suit his agile personality. Next up, Phoenix. Nothing too fancy or clever here, just the bird logo is a bit 'interactive' with her physique. And last, Doctor Octopus. I was a bit cruel with his design, but I thought that he could've gone through some acident leaving him amputated, which drives him crazy, and because of that he builds the 4 tentacles.

I might take a break from Marvel, and do the same thing for DC characters. Anyone got a preferance? Suggestions? Joke of the day?

Talking Grandpa

I was comissioned by Schnark Labs to design this character, and illustrate 30+ images for a mobile app they produced for iOS. "Talking Grandpa" is now available for free at the iTunes store.

Marvel Mix 3

Another set of remixes. Gave Captain Marvel a 'window into the galaxy' type look, I like how that turned out. Wolverine is a midget scrapper, so he's super jacked, And psylocke doesn't use real katanas. Why would she when she can make 'em with just a thought? Wolverine and Psylocke costumes turned out pretty ... ordinary. Next set will be much better, I promise :)

Gelatinous Ghost

A quick creature I did after the Creature Forge challenge closed at cghub.com. I am still over there running byweekly 2D draw challenges.

It has no eyes and relies on touch only, hence the tentacles flying all over the place. The little thing touching the ground bottom left is the tongue, feeling out the ground. The creature itself comes off as being very dumb, and still I put in a giant brain in that noggen. Overall very quick "sketch", about an hour.

Tons more stuff being posted in the next few weeks, been very busy with the Wacom, just want to spread out the posts instead of bombarding.

Marvel mix 2

More Marvel with a bit of O.G. remix... I'm pumping out these concepts for fun instead of doing typical sketches. Any requests?

Lyssa

This design is 2 years overdue... Her name is Lyssa, and she is one of the boss characters from "Warriors: Legends of Troy". This is one of the images that made it into the actual game, out of many attempts to finalize her appearance. This particular drawing dates back to around spring 2009.

Funny storiy about the design process: Lyssa is the goddess of madness, so when I was designing her, I kept on drawing her body as very skinny and dried up, borderline dead flesh. Eventually a decision was made to have her be completely black as she is a nightmare in physical form. So i drew this image as a 3/4 view that went along with the model sheets I also made, and I really emphasised her beaing "dried up dead" :) So the model sheets and this image get sent off to the 3D department and a few weeks voila, my art director sends me the 3D model to look over... and i couldnt help but... smile. The dried up dead look was certainly there, well on most of her body. One thing that was different from my model sheets; Lyssa made a quick stop at the plastic surgeon's, and got a 5 cup size increase :)

RaptorCop

Earlier in the year I was commissioned to design this character, and illustrate the cover to its debut comic.

 

Enter: RaptorCop, a police officer that turns into a creature resembling a Utah Raptor / human hybrid.

 

So far, this cover is the only thing that has been published online. I'm looking forward to seeing the complete package announced at www.raptorcop.com.

The composition of the cover was completely me, so the little touch of the newspaper was a clever and fun way to kill boring space. :)

Marvel mix 1

Redesigning some Marvel characters with some O.G. flavor. Also trying a new way to colour outlined drawings... and I like it :) These are still essentially cell shaded characters; flat colour, 1 dark pass, 1 light pass, 1 bounce light, and outlines are brown set to multiply at 75%. Throw in a texture here and there and here you have 'em; Punisher, Green Goblin, and Lady Deathstrike.

 

 

Birth of the Phoenix

In my head, this is a scene depicting the first "breakout" of the powers leaving the character psychologically traumati... who am I kidding, I just wanted to draw a girl. Enjoy the progress .gif below.

Polara part 2: Cutscene Illustrations

...continuing on from the first post;

My second task for the "Polara" project was storyboarding the cutscenes between levels and then making them into final illustrations you see below.

 

In the end, I (digitally) painted around 30 of these, and seeing them all in-game come together to tell a story really made me proud to have gotten the opportunity to be a part of a great project.

Thanks team HOPE THIS WORKS GAMES, and I wish you much success with Polara and all future titles.

POLARA is now available on iOS and Android

Polara part 1: Animation

 

This week marks the release of POLARA, a sophomore release from HOPE THIS WORKS GAMES inc. for the iOS and Android platforms.

It is a freerunning platformer that I had the pleasure of working on, lending my talents in two areas of the game; in-game animations and cutscene illustrations.

For the animation part of the game, I was entrusted with creating all actions for the main character; these included a run cycle (some of the frames seen above), various types of jumps, and transitional animations between cycles and poses.

Instead of me uploading a demo reel for this game like I did for the "Legends of Troy" post, I've uploaded a trailer video (below) to get a better sense of the game, which might I add unbiasly, is unbelievably fun!

If you don't trust me :) read any review of the game, they are ALL very positive!
POLARA is now available on iOS and Android

...post continued on PART 2: Cutscene Illustrations

Oreh Gaia

Meet Oreh Gaia, the main character from the "Heroes of the World: Legend of the Earth Conduit" comic book.

If you are not familiar with this comic, head over to the HeroesOfTheWorld.com website and check it out. There you will find a superhero from your country, no matter where you are from. Very neat concept developed by my Sheridan classmates, Joe Bonsu and Mark Williams.

And here I am, showing some love by making a fanart piece :) what else is new.

Orko, the Royal Buffoon

Orko, the Royal Buffoon from the H-Man series.

My take on the character design was a bit more realistic than the original. I decided to show details of his face instead of it all being completely black. I think it makes more sense that way.

The real fun of this image was experimenting with the look of his magic fx. My secret: fire and nebula merged with a custom brush + radial blurs.

Maiden of Anguish

Lately for work I've been drawing a lot of cartoony characters, and as soon as the workload died off, I wanted to reset my brain by doing something opposite.

As some of you might know, I still run a CreatureForge bi-weekly draw challenge at CGHUB.com, and since this weeks topic was a Diablo monster redesign, I jumped right in. 

Enter: Andariel, the demon queen, maiden of anguish.

 

Didn't put much thougth into picking a character, she was the first one that popped into my head. Must be my preference for anti-gravity redheads.

 

Design wise, I didn't put any armor on her. Why would she need it since she is one of the most powerful characters in the game? Also, why would she need clothes if she is a demon from hell? Devil does NOT wear Prada.

Teaser

A little preview of what I have been working on, stay tuned for more info + art.

He-Man wip

This is the character that started it all for me, around the age of 6. For now I just posted this sketch so the interweb knows I'm still alive and kickin. As soon as i get a breath of free time from work, I plan on finishing this.

Kabutops got a 3D "Fanart" makeover

This week I received a message over at DeviantArt from a user called Tideger, all the way from Colombia, which put a smile on my face.

For some reason, this one hour quick doodle (left) that I did for fun (refer to original post), is the most popular image I've made :S   It is getting the most hits by a landslide over any image that I've spent many hours on, but I guess Pokemon are more popular than I could've guessed. Turns out one of those hits inspired Tideger to take the design into ZBrush and give it an extra dimension (right).

It is not the first time I've seen one of my 2D designs get the 3D treatment by other artists (as I work in the video game industry), but the weird, very positive feeling never fades.

You can see more of Tedeger's work on his blog or on the DeviantArt page.

Stereotypes 3 + video

Here is another one of my "Saturday Night" characters, the guido. 

Researching images of these thoroughbreds was ... shocking. I was really surprised at the amount of waxed eyebrows and duckfaces Google spat back at me.

Also, as something new, I've included a little demo video of how exactly I come up with these images. I have different methods of "painting", this is just one of them; the cartoony, cell shaded look.

Enjoy :)

Anatomy

How can that not be the most interesting thing to draw?

I haven't done an actual anatomy practice in a while, so I wanted to test myself and see how much of my kinesiology classes still remain in my cranium.

I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome, as I got about 90% correct without any reference. The rust came in the form of all facial muscles, which is not surprising since they do not show through the skin. Also I was stuck at the hands and feet, but this hiccup was no match for my collection of anatomy books, and my ability to read the index.

Now... remembering all the names of the muscles is a whole different topic. I might squeeze by with a passing grade :)

Hulk, the Incredible

"HULK SMASH!"

Easily Marvel's best character... or at least my favorite. 

This one is a bit different. I used a looser brush, not caring about achieving a smooth look. Looks more painterly as opposed to my usual smoother style.

I also took a few tries on the anatomy in the early stages. I did not want to simply do spot on human anatomy with this one. I was going for asymmetrical muscles that seemed to be fighting each other for space to give that little extra effect of showing the strongest one there is.

The Darkness

DeviantArt had a little contest to draw a single page for the Darkness comic last month, so I decided to jump in.

Unfortunately I didn't have time to ink / color it due to other projects taking up most of my time, but still I had a blast drawing with pencils. It has been such a long time since I've drawn anything "traditionally", so my eyes appreciated the rest away from the monitor.

Now that I've been through the process of researching the characters, laying out panels and drawing sequential art, I wouldn't mind being a penciler for a few projects  ;)

Rotten Apple

An opportunity came my way to design an infected apple for a client. I designed about 20 of these before the final one was chosen. The client did not pick this one as the final because of the face of the worm, but it was my favorite of the bunch.

Contrast

I just wanted to paint nice blues and this came out.

Graceland Mansion

A depart from the usual. A little test for the environment digital painting side of the brain.

Stereotypes 2