2013: Thinking of Art class

Another class we have is Thinking of Art, where we learn new techniques, art design, colors, and other fun stuff. This year it's been focused on digital art, and this is what I have done for it so far. The first assignment was to come up with 20 character thumbnails for heroes and villains who had to share a theme but look distinctive from each other. The second assignment was a character mashup where you had to do a game character in another game style, or which I choose Ezio and Mass Effect. Not all that pleased with the latter however: I like the basic design, but the art is not at the standard where I am at now, and it has been bugging me so much that when I have time I will probably end up redoing it.

2013: Concept Art class

Getting closer and closer to being caught up with recent work now! Let's take a look at some of the things I did for Concept Art class that I am happy to show. The first thing I want to show is an assignment where we had to take a picture of ourselves with a certain emotion, and then amplify that through digital photo manipulation and painting over it. The picture I took of myself looked like sadistic glee, so I ended up with a violent-happy biker ork.

Second is an assignment that spawned off of the previous one. We all had to vote on the one we liked best, and then come up with 25 quick thumbnails and an equally quick initial speedpaint based on that character, based on a brief that would accompany it.

 

The character we voted on (not mine).

2013: Shadowrun.

Here is something I had a lot of fun and frustration with. When I made this, it had been a while since I had made an elaborate piece that was also purely for myself, so I decided to fix that. I had recently played Shadowrun Returns along with a friend of mine, so I decided to draw the characters we had made in our individual games and bring them together. Not happy with how my Ork guy turned out, but the woman is preeetty cool.

2013: Rampart WIP.

This is still a WIP, but I wanted to share it nonetheless. Of the Combaticons I did back in 2009 I still like Rampart (one of the few ones I came up with myself) the best. It's a clunky, bulky robot that looks like a cross between WW2 and Cold War machines, how could it not be my favorite? I wanted to learn myself to better use Maya, and so I decided to turn it into a full fledged character model. It's not done yet, since I keep working on it in the little bit of free time I get between schoolwork, but this is where I'm with it now. The black body is just a place holder until I am ready to fill out his inner workings.

2013: Lizard Dude.

Earlier in the year I did a quick drawing of a lizard man in a modern-ish setting. I took a liking to it, and when I had nothing to do one day, I decided to work it out a bit more in photoshop.

2012: Batman

Before my first year at the HKU started I decided to try another big project in the small bit of free time I had left. I decided to do a series of redesigns centered around Batman, focusing on the concept of him as an urban legend in a modern gothic city that would balance the more fantastical elements of the character with the realistic.
In this Batman fashioned himself after a 19th century urban legend called the Bat-Man, a monster that preyed on the wicked. He dressed himself in a garb similar to what the Bat-Man was reported to have (tattered gray clothes and a black hood to hide his mutated face), but wore the standard suit beneath that. I based this look on the Gray Ghost, a character from Batman: The Animated Series that served as his inspiration.
I never got to do other characters besides Riddler (a private detective who becomes obsessed with the reports of the urban legend turning out to be 'real'), Penguin (standard criminal armsdealer who tries to hide his deformities with his clothes) and of course the Joker. The latter I was pleased with at the time, but now I wish I had done something different with him, since crazy violent psychopath Joker has become incredibly overdone at this point. Still, I like the concept of him actually looking like he fell into an acid bath with resulting burned, bleached skin and loss of hair, needing makeup and wigs to hide the damage done to him.
Looking back at this makes me feel better about my 'skill' when it comes to drawing hands. I still could be better at it but wow, at least I have improved compared to over a year ago. 

2010: Assorted Transformers Animated work

One more entry that's Transformers related. This is another case where I adapted pre-existing characters into the style of the Transformers Animated series, which was very stylized and cartoony. I also worked with others to make sure these character updates would actually fit in both the style and setting.

Rotorstorm reference.

 

Lineart for the Rotorstorm character.

Final color art for Rotorstorm. 

 Reference for the Xaaron character.

Initial Xaaron sketches. Wanted to make him look like an old warhawk, reflecting how he was characterized in the comics he originates from, but I ended up deviating from it in a pretty big way.

Final Xaaron colors.

Character designs I never got around to doing more with.

 The combiner Devastator in Animated style, using the three pre-existing Constructicons from the show. Since I had only three to work with instead of 6, I went with a symmetrical combination where the two big members would each form half the body, while the smaller member formed the head.

Project Combaticons (2009).

Here is something I did way back in 2009, when I was still a fan of the liveaction Transformers movies. I wanted to adapt their style and apply it too pre-existing characters. In this case the Combaticons, a group of commandos that combined to form Bruticus. I did not want to do just the main five, though, and instead made a full team that also incorporated characters from other series that I felt would fit in with them. They were joined by several new characters I thought up in co-operation with a friend of mine who goes by the handle of GreyKnight, when I felt I needed more members but did not know who I could go with. Never finished this project (half the team is still missing), but I am still to this day happy with the pieces I did get to do, especially their combined form.

Of all of my older work, this might be the one I am still the most proud of. It required a lot of time and effort and I still feel like it all paid off. After this project I did several other Transformers pieces, but none that were on this scope of ambition or even half as good. In a way it was a good finale for the time of my life when all I would  draw was robots. It was after this period that I went through some downtime, doing very little art wise, before the HKU helped me rediscover my motivation and start a new period where I would start to diversify and learn new techniques.