Revising Shemising

I'm trying to practice revising and refinement. So here are some revisions of the pieces I've been revisiting.

Revising the speed paint from Monday.

This one is being a problem child. It wants ALL the attention because the contrast and depth are all wonked. What do you want from me, ice rock?! USE YOUR WORDS. (I'm losing my mind, is it that obvious?)

Continuing to push the obelisk cave. Trying to pull those right formations into a more emphasized foreground.

I tore apart this piece. My instructor Chris Petrocchi, drew on it a little and that freed up my mind to remove the existing structure and just try something else. I think it's looking better. Even when I'm not exactly happy with a piece I feel like I'm at least learning, the way a deranged transient learns that cement is really hard from banging his/her head against it. Or maybe it's not really like that. What day is it?

Just changed the color scheme around. I think it looks pretty neat in cool colors too.

Also, my blog has nearly 5000 page views? People actually look at this? I should put up something great for everyone. Here, enjoy this hedgehog cuddling a raspberry for your troubles:

Revisions and Speed Painting

Woah, blogger changed the edit layout. Trippy. here are some new things I've been working on.

Continuing to revise my formations piece, messing around with colors and value:

Making some adjustments to another of my previous paintings, still a work in progress:

And here is the process for a new painting I did today:

^ ~2 hour speed painting.

^Refining and integrating the form/ environment.

^Adjusting light/ color. I will come back to it, it still needs a little something I think.

Then I decided to do a technical line drawing of the structure for clarity:

I was told at a portfolio review at GDC that doing line drawings for complex paintings was a good idea since it helps the modelers. It makes sense to me. I should do a back view, but I'm out of gas for the moment.

This and that

Here are some different scraps of things I've been working on...

^New one hour paintover. It's pretty faithful to the photo, but I messed with the color some.

^ New thumbnails I did this morning. I need to show gameplay/ character progression better, so I am trying to do a couple pieces that give a sense of movement through an environment, with cover and a destination.

^Revamping an old 1 hour painting. spring show is coming up, I am looking at messing with a few of my pieces and seeing if I can make them nice for submission.

^Technical drawings of some of the formations from the above piece in line.

 ^Idea for a space ship. Not finished.

^Tinkering with my old man environment piece.

Village on the Sea

Here is a village I did yesterday as part of my personal project, The Old Man and the Sea.The rules were that the genre had a feeling that was post-apocalyptic + sci fi, the location was a village on a man made structure in the middle of the ocean, the village condition is poor, weathered and broken down, and the population is 500-1000 people.

I looked at a lot of sunken ships and oil rigs when I was thinking about the piece, my thumbnails are in the previous post. I wanted to do a ship wreck, but thought it would make more sense in a deep sea scenario if a ship hull got incorporated into a deep sea structure like an oil rig. keeping it sci fi, I took the idea of a cruise liner and moderned it up a bit. I thought it might be neat if the people from the village had salvaged its reactor core and were using it to power the village.

Here is what I ended up with, step by step.

My rough under-drawing with the idea of what I was thinking.

Basic blocking in of the shapes.

Some refining, messing around with the atmosphere.

 

More detail, messing with colors.

Further refining. I thought the reactor glow was too cutesy, so I messed with it, tweaked some things that weren't looking right.

I'm showing it at a critique this evening, so I may have additional changes to make after I get some feedback.

Some stuff

As ever, things have been busy and crazy. Lots to do this week, but here are a few things I've been working on.

^ More thumbnails for an environment painting I must do this week. I've been trying out different thumbnailing styles. Some are repeats from before. The ones on paper I did after we all got kicked out of the computer lab because it was over capacity. We only had a mechanical pencil, a couple of dying markers and a pen between us. I'm so used to computers I forget to come prepared!

^Working on some ships. I am trying to get looser and was thinking over spring break I'd make a project of designing some of my own brushes to help me with this. I think using only a limited number of brush types may be contributing to some of my problems.

^Some 2-3 minute futuristic tram car thumbnails.

^Continuing to work on grandpa robot legs for a class. I am trying a new style which I think is helping. I think maybe I need to find a way to marry my strengths with my painting practice to create a style that is a middle ground and adaptable for a variety of projects.