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.

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:

More Cardstock

Still experimenting with cardstock. The surface doesn't hold darker values well, but the smooth texture is wonderful for my workflow. Very cheap alternative to using Hot Press illustration board, especially if you plan on a digital finish.

Graphite, coloured pencil, digital

India Ink, digital

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:

Environment Sketches

I've been meaning to do this for a while: I took the last two days (three if you count this morning) and completed a several environment sketches. Soon I'll be comfortable to the point of intelligently abstracting environments without references, and then my work is going to seriously level-up!

Most of these are referenced from my photos in Old San Juan. Such a great art opportunity!

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.

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.

A mouse? Really?

Did a demo for one of my friends, looking to paint in Photoshop with a mouse. I used a Rick Berry painting and tried to emulate it some by using Warp, Liquefy, the Smudge Tool (sparingly!) and mostly harsh lines. I learned in the process myself!

In closing, if I were teaching a class on digital painting, I would require the first project to be done with a mouse. I like how intentional one must be under that restriction.

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

On Venting Emotions

I don't handle emotions in a typical way. I don't escape or suppress them, but I rarely get to express more intense things, like crying. Over a year ago I rationalized that crying wasn't going to help me out once I understood why I wanted to cry, and what I was going to do about it, and how it wouldn't be worth crying later. I don't get to experience the present often, and I am going to pay dearly for that, if I haven't already. 

I don't believe this image counts as venting through art. I drew this fenced-in tree when I couldn't really do anything else. It wasn't how I felt at the time, it wasn't a need I expressed, and it wasn't trying to understand myself better. It was, physically, performing the only task I could—no, not out of anger or grief—out of confusion. I don't need anger or grief to create something, especially when much of my images come from outside of myself. 

In closing, good afternoon! I hope your Saturday has been relaxing, regardless of stressors.

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. 

Fan Art

I often think about artists that inspire me. I have tons of little doodles of their characters. Today, instead of doing homework, I paid tribute to one of many good sketches from Ayato.

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.

Let's down to fashion!

More from the DS, including the FFFFOUND reference below.

80's Animation

You may view the animation to the speedpaint here.

Welcome to the… 80s?

Today I used Colour Dodge. Uh oh!

Thank you, FFFFOUND, for another excellent reference.

Lauren is not cold.

Gift for a friend of whom I haven't seen enough. c: