Friday, September 24, 2010

Fantasy Flight Games

So I have been meaning to give this update for awhile but I keep forgetting. Over the summer I was extremely fortunate to get work with Fantasy Flight Games. They had me illustrate for one of their trading card games. I just wanted to express how great of an experience it was. Zoe and Mike were great to work with, it was really a lot of fun. Hopefully I will work with them again soon.

The product I worked on should be released sometime in December so expect to see the art and everything around then. Be sure to keep a look out for it.

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Beowulf Step by Step Part 3

This is the final part in my Beowulf step by step series. The process for this one is the same as my previous pieces so first off I will re-quote myself; "I treat my digital work the same as I do a traditional painting. I start with a finished drawing then do a flat color wash as an underpainting. I also change the actual color of the linework as well, this I do in my traditional by tracing my drawing with colored pencils, or by printing out the drawing in a different color before mounting.

After that I roughly block in my colors and values, colorpicking from my original studies, it helps save lots of time.

Then I re-work and refine everything, make any appropriate changes until I finish. That is a very rough summation of my process but I figure it helps."

There are a few things that were unique to this piece. Mostly as you can see I had to pay particular attention to the edges of certain parts such as the wings of the crows. While I start off blocking them in roughly I then go in and create specific hard edges to them. Since in the end I do not want hard edges I go back in and repaint and soften them. This may seem like extra effort for no reason but I find that it helps me more specifically control my shapes.

So this is a run down of my process as always if you have any specific questions feel free to ask.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Beowulf Step by Step Part 2

Man it has been a busy few weeks. Writing can really consume your time. I am sorry for the delay but here is part 2 of my step by step pieces.

My process here is pretty much the same as before, with some slight changes. Such as you can see between steps 6 and 7 I altered the colors from what I originally had. I used a colorize layer in Painter for this, I really really love the way it works. It allows me to change any color I want without altering the value. The only other significant difference that is seen is in the early steps where you can see I started off by planning out the highlight shapes. This helped me figure out how much contrast I would need in certain areas for focus.

Since the rest of the process is the same I will just quote myself for the rough explanation.
"
I treat my digital work the same as I do a traditional painting. I start with a finished drawing then do a flat color wash as an underpainting. I also change the actual color of the linework as well, this I do in my traditional by tracing my drawing with colored pencils, or by printing out the drawing in a different color before mounting.

After that I roughly block in my colors and values, colorpicking from my original studies, it helps save lots of time.

Then I re-work and refine everything, make any appropriate changes until I finish. That is a very rough summation of my process but I figure it helps.

But if anyone has any questions about my process I will gladly answer them. I hope you find this informative."

I hope you enjoyed my process.

Sunday, September 5, 2010

Hey Look I Made a LinkedIn

Hey.... I made a LinkedIn, so go check it out. If you happen to have one feel free to connect with me.