In The Details

Welcome back, friends! It's been some time since my last post. While at the tail end of recovering from a chronic illness I am pleased to show some more current work on my blog. My standard for work has become faster and more detailed since working in the gaming pipeline, an experience I am very grateful for! See for yourself:

In case you are interested in my creative process, please view this animated gif showing the entire construction of the last image.

Game In The Works

If you follow me on my Facebook page, you'll already know I've been the art director and lead artist on an MMO start-up. It sports some exciting classes, some of the coolest races I've seen to date, and even an engrossing story! Most of the new art is non-disclosure, so you'll not be getting many related updates in some time. Until then, things to whet your appetite!

A diverse line-up of playable races 

Token Human-race, specializing in light-melee and time-manipulation

It's hard to remember to update a blog when you're busy on commissions. On the bright side, I'll soon be uploading those here, as well! 

Prometheus

Isn't it about time I did Sci-fi? As much as I enjoy the genre, I rarely gave it any art love. After seeing Prometheus I felt compelled to screen cap one frame of every shot. Here's what I have so far:

Greetings, All! My recent endeavors have been more focused on art than ever before. My sleep schedule has truly been tempered around the idea of freelancing, a much needed adjustment that prepares me to squeeze as much out of each day as possible!

Here are some collections of warmups and photo studies I have completed in the last week or so:

Wallpaper!

I've been on a blog kick recently. Within the last two days I've saved over four-hundred images. If you like fashion inspiration as much as I do, you'll check out Twisted Lamb. It's run by a fashion artist in the game industry, and she is superb. 

The two drawings seen here are from that blog. The full-sized image is 1920x1080, so feel free to make it your new desktop image!

Chaotic Figures

Following the portraits, I decided to offer figurative commissions in a slightly different style. The focus was on keeping dynamic strokes and gestural quality through to the finish (something I try to do normally). Below is the collection of finished sketches:

Next up is are ink drop portraits. Hope this example encourages more people to try this style:

Life Never Gets Less-Crazy

One of my favourite things about my life—besides having the greatest friends in the world—is being constantly entertained. I literally cannot remember the last time I was bored. This is due to being an artist constantly trying to see my world objectively, but also comes from being thrown into situations bigger than myself on a regular basis. 

For example, in the middle of creating new work for this contest via ImagineFX, I had to apply for a last-minute passport after winning a contest to SIGGRAPH, a convention I wanted to return to this year, but couldn't afford. Now that my new images are done, I have to finish a cohesive concept portfolio as fast as possible. After that's done, I'll be finishing an EP package for one of my favourite hip-hop artists. From there I'll be completing two more designs for a snowboard company. From there, I'll probably hound Arenanet the rest of the year until they blacklist me or hire me. 

If I'm lucky, somewhere along the line I'll get paid! 

Here are the three images I completed in the last seven days. New record!

Jonathan Duncan: ORIGINS

I owe a good bit to videogames. Ever since I was in Middle School anyone that knew me could attest to the fact that I was always drawing videogame characters from copies of Electronic Gaming Monthly or taking videogame guides into English class for mandatory reading time. It started out as an obsession, but after I matured (maybe) I came to appreciate games rather than have an unhealthy obsession with them. 

Metroid was one of my favourite franchises. It was by unlocking concept art in Metroid Prime that I knew I wanted to do concept art in videogames for a living, and Samus Aran is by far the character I've drawn more than any other. After a mother of an old friend found a rendition of Samus painted on her basement wall from around eight years ago, I decided to give it another go, for old time's sake:

There's something endearing I've lost with the newer version. 

Maybe it's the broken arm or the glam-rock boots. 

Guild Wars Post 1

Working on several images to develop a new class for Guild Wars 2.

Bad Time Zoo, 2 of 2

Gift for SIMS and the Doomtree crew

If you're a hip-hop artist, you're good at what you do, and you're looking for an artist, send me a note! 

Preview of some promo art for SIMS. Decided graphite would be a good start for this sort of thing, with minimal Photoshop on top.

Check out the entire Doomtree crew for more excellent hip-hop!

The Underground Railroad: Eros

An image on human trafficking—the emphasis on the external.

Yet another preview for the Senior Show. Hope the nudity gets approved. From my point of view, emphasizing the sensual over the sexual should be permitted.

Artist Spotlight: Adam Law

(Photoshop over Colors! on the Nintendo DS)

Even without the bounty hunter name, Adam Law has been an inspiration of mine. I used to frequent his old webcomic forum back in the day, but since then he's moved on to bigger and better things. Over the last three years I've made it a habit of doing sketches of his characters during my Christmas Break.

Check out Adam's work on his website and sketchblog.

More Gift Art

Sneak peek of some more gift art, some refs.

 I'll post the finished wallpaper sometime soon (if I get my way!).

Touch up of a sketch I'll flesh out later.

Chronomage WIP

She's gonna freeze some serious time, so watch out, okay?

Illuxcon is gonna be so much fun. I'm going with a great group of students, and I'm so pumped to meet all those great artists in person! 

Nope, not done yet.

Some more progress, in animation form! (5MB)

Still has a ways to go yet, Hobbitses. It should be done on time for Altoona.

I'm reworking this image from my Arenanet 'folio. I'm going to buckle down and develop it. Buckling down things, developing things, I need more of that.

Also, messing a bit with another SIGGRAPH image.

And here's the animation in GIF form. 

NOTTA GALA

Two of my dear friends had an art show recently. Here's one of the images I submitted—that one DS sketch with some Photoshop on top of it.

Let's Down To Fashion! Part 2

Trying to make my females look less like Powdered Toast Man.