SCAD Concept Art Speed Paint Challenge

Alright guys, its another edition of the SCAD Concept Art Factory Speed Paint Challenge submission! This time we are doing a 3 hour concept piece about cyborg crustaceans versus fungal natives and combines environment, architecture, vehicle, character design, and architectural design- WOW! so here it is after 3 hours and a additional 2 hour tweak.

I will go back and rework the foreground tree when I have time since it seems have the same saturation as the one in the immediate background.

RIFT Colossus Challenge- Life Elemental

Awww yeah, finally finished my concept piece for the Rift Colossus challenge. Though I wanted to do all six elementals (fire, water, earth, wind, life, and death) I have narrowed down to two that are more obscure and challenging to do and they are life and death. Life was rather hard to tackle because you do want it to look too much like earth and its kinda weird saying that I am killing someone with life damage. I figured life would be kind of like a cancerous vegetation growth that continues to grow till it over flows its boundaries much like the Yavimaya forest from the Magic the Gathering Series.

My inspiration for this piece is the Corpse Flower. How ironic that something that is used to depict a life elemental is named after something that is related to death! I wanted to throw together a piece about creation and destruction with the two elementals because they go hand in hand, neither one is stronger than the other. So here is my process leading up to the finished Life Elemental concept painting.

I first laid out the base color I will be using predominantly through the scene. I normally use purple and yellow as my color palette but this time I decided to go with blue and green since it fits with nature more. I will be using purple and yellow more in my death piece because purple is more unnatural and exudes a mysterious atmosphere.

I then gestured out the silhouette with the base tone that will make the creature pop up from the background. I chose a reddish purple because the corpse flowers have that violet red petal.

I then added in vegetation to the layer below all my subsequent layers since it will be pushed back by the flowers coming out the creatures body. I also went ahead and rendered in objects that will be pushed back like the arms and legs. I referenced bristlecone pine trees because they have that unique twist to the trunk along with the beautiful crevasses produced by its knots.

I then painted in the more prominent objects like the corpse flowers and the left arm which is larger.

I finished off the character concept with final details like the dots characteristic to corpse flowers, the teeth to enhance the fantastical quality of the creature as well as tweaked the saturation so that the creature will stand out from the environment I will be creating.

I blocked in the environment into two major portions, the sky and the ground. I used some texture brushes to indicated where trees are going to go.

I then refined the background further to get rid of the texture brush place holders and started working on aerial perspective. I refined the water fall since it is so far away in the background. I also used a but of Sfumato on the bushs in the background. I also saturated the foreground so that it stands out from the desaturated background.

Started to add in some palm trees.

Now I have to work in the foreground.

Then I add in final details.

And to finish off the piece, I tweak the saturation more so that I have a series of contrasting layer with darker colors, lighter colors, and darker colors to make my environment and creature stand apart from one another.

So that's it for my Life Elemental. The entire process took me about two days nonstop. Stay tuned for DEATH!!!

Baba Yaga environment and architecture concept

The Weekly Sketch Challenge for the SCAD Concept Art Factory is a continuation of the Baba Yaga theme. This time we do architecture and environment. Last week was creature and character.

Concept Art Factory Underwater Vehicle Challenge

Our new challenge in the Concept Art Factory for May the 7th is  "futuristic, underwater military transport going to war". Here is my rendition for today's challenge. We had a total of 90 minutes to finish the speed painting.

A race of squid like aliens combine technology with biological organisms to create a troop transport vehicles that fire augmented squids as defensive weaponry. The missile ports on the back of the craft is reminiscent of pores in a Suriname Frog. It also has a hangar that holds squid like mechas for deployment. The main engine is a triple helix design similar to the gungan ship from Star Wars but it has a webbed membrane around the spokes so that it could effectively tread water. The two fins are used to angle the ship so it can rise and fall. The membranes are selectively permeable so water certain things are allowed in and out of the craft.

See more of the concept art submitted by my fellow classmates, check out http://conceptart-factory.blogspot.com/.

Finished Creature Design Concept

I finally finished my design for my Creatures Anatomy class. This is a value study for the creature I will be using in an illustration later. The premise of the story behind the illustration goes like this:

"A group from a village deep in the heart of Siberia has decided to investigate a small town in which no one
has heard from in over a week. As they get closer to the isolated town, they see several trees have been
leveled. These trees, as well as several others still standing, have several deep “scraps” on its surface.
Nearby, they discover large footprints with massive claws that are arranged in the fashion in which a
quadruped walks. As they follow the footprints through the village, they discover the bodies of the
townspeople have been aligned under underneath the surface of the snow. They are covered in a film that
looks to preserve the bodies. While cutting back the film from the victims, a small portion of the substance
touches one of the villagers face and a tingling sensation instantly occurs. At closer investigation, they see
that there are severe bruises all over the victims and puncture holes on the left and right side of the temples.
These punctures seem to be the only cause of lost blood. They villagers follow the footprints from the village
to the edge of the forest where the come across a large construction made from the trees found the area.
The construction has a wide opening that goes into the ground. The villager’s face that came in contact with
the film is now completely paralyzed."

My design for the creature incorporates parts from various animals. The body references a walrus, the hands are like moles for digging, the frills around the neck are like the dilophosaurus's, it's tongue can extend and retract like a chameleon's and the tongue spits out poison. The animal is toothless but its jaws detach like a snakes so it can swallow a prey while it lies in waiting like a wolf spider in a burrow or an ant lion. When it swallow's it's prey, the prey is stored in a pouch like sac in its throat like rodents where the creature then secretes a film around the prey. Back at the burrow, the prey is left to age in a marinade of digestive juices filling a transparent membrane sac. The creature returns periodically to drink the fluid from the sac for nourishment since it is hard to come by prey in the siberian region.

From top left clockwise: Study of head (notice the frill used for sensing the size of tunnels the creature moves around in and the tongue that spits paralyzing venom), Membrane Sac with a hapless prey still inside, Three quarter view of the monster in its entire glory, the pouch for storing prey (one is a transparency so you can see how the prey creates a bump in the skin so you can tell whether the creature has been eating or not).

Completed Sketch Challenge

Finally finished my speed paint challenge for the Concept Art Factory. Unfortunately the painting was delayed because of the Career Fair at the SCAD Savannah Campus.

Our theme was Evil, Medieval, African racer, with animals. I took influence from the Oliphant from the Lord of the Rings.

SCAD Concept Art Factory first meeting

I am so excited! SCAD finally has its official Concept Art club called the Concept Art Factory. We met for the first time and are about to make it official. Our officers have been decided and everything is underway!

Check out our blog:

concept-art-factory.blogspot.com

Concept Design Development: Chronicles of Marduk- Aeon's End

So I have been working on a personal story for about 3 years now since I was in high school, but it wasn't until now that I have actually started concept design for characters. All the time before was dedicated to getting the story fleshed out and I think it's in a stage where most of the essentials are down.

I made a series of silhouettes to get the general form of mechas that will appear in the story. There will be generic designs for normal government issues as well as more customized designs for specific characters in the story like the Pope.

I made sure the designs had some sort of thematic quality to them such as the body shape made from triangles and circles to hint at the gracefulness and the danger each model presents.

I kinda liked the thin frames because it has such a huge contrast from the bulkier look. That might be why I liked Evangelion designs. One of the main thing my story focuses on is the advent of psionics and the ability to amplify electromagnetic waves generated by the brain. The mechas must have a way to generate energy to power the psionic device. So I decided to use the circular structures on the back of the mechas as chargers which absorb electrons and other energies in this sci fi world to replace energy lost during psionic discharges. I really liked the design for the Pope's mecha (pope mobile XD) which has the weird tentacles coming from it. I refined the details for the silhouette.

The clam shell design was influenced by a Youtube music video for Vivaldi.

So this is the design I have come up with. It is a mecha with one face, but it is a mixture of two drama masks, one smiling, the other sad. I played around with other mask ideas but I thought the dual masks represented the dual nature of the Pope thus reinforcing symbolism and making the design more iconic.

New Temple of Cartoon Mojo Sketch Challenge Submission!!!

Hey Guys, I just submitted my Sketch Challenge for Wolverine at the Temple of Cartoon Mojo:

Yup, Oliver Twist and Wolverine. I have a feeling that this is going to be a rather Warm-Hearted adaptation of Charles Dickens's famous story.

SCAD Atlanta Boards Up!

I was telling a couple of friends about a site or a forum specifically for scad students so that we do not have to create groups and stuff on facebook. Just finished the beta for it and so I have opened it to user registrations. Just register and provide your scad email so that admins know that you are scad students and then once you are accepted, have fun and check out all the boards and join in discussions!

Click the image below to enter the SCAD Atlanta Networking Board:

Samurai Jack Sketch Challege

SCAD posted up another sketch challenge for the Temple of Cartoon Mojo. This time the theme is: Samurai Jack! I loved the series and watched every episode until it was taken off of Cartoon Network. Now I have a chance to show how much of a fan I am of the series XD

I kept the buildings and style relatively similar to the original Samurai Jack, but I took the liberty to make Jack more realistic. I have recieved mixed reviews about it all, but I am rather happy about the way it turned out. One thing I would've done is the way I drew the beetles. Ah well, I will revisit the piece in the future.

Back From Taiwan and a Merry Xmas to you all!

Well I returned from my trip to Taiwan and I am about to go celebrate Christmas Eve with some friends from SCAD. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will be updating with photos from my trip to Taiwan as well as new works I have completed. As of right now, I am preoccupied with my Demo Reel for animation so that I can show potential employers so stay tuned for more...

Friend's Blog Please Visit

Hey Everyone! I had a lot on my plate this quarter at SCAD, but FINALS ARE OVER! Sooooooo that means i have more time than ever to update my blog so check back for updates on new projects and other goodies. I will be in Taiwan until december 12 so I'll update with pictures from my trip. Now, I want to give a shout out to a friend of mine, Trevor Pledger. He is a pretty awesome comic book and sequential artist who has been a colleague of mine for quite some time. Check out his blog, you'll love it:

AWA TOMORROW!!!

I finally finished printing 10 copies of my print along with 10 copies of my 7 different greeting cards! I can't wait till I get into the dealer room and set up shop tomorrow!

Print Done!!!! Tutorial Steps Included!!!

So I finished my first print called "Beach Kiss", I know it's a bit sappy but I like stuff like that lol. Here are a couple of images of the piece at various stages:

I started off with the Inked line work which I scanned at 600 dpi and placed into photoshop at 300 dpi. I editted the black and white contrast using the Curves option.

Afterwards, I set the line work layer on multiply, created another layer and flatted out each "object" with their natural midtone color.

I created a separate layer for gradients so i can establish the direction of the light source before I start rendering.

Then on another layer I render out the different objects and planes.

Then I add in the highlights and additional background objects like the clouds and the sun.

Finally, I copy my line art into my alpha channel and make a selection for the line art. I then created the Dmax for the super black by creating a group layer mask folder with a solid color fill for 0/0/0/100 and another for 60/40/40/0. This process allows me to print out darker lines and keep the colors from going out of alignment when I print. The folder allows me to use a color hold on the palm trees by adding a color with a shade value lighter than the super black which pushes the objects into the background.

Dont forget signatures!

AWA and the Dealer Room

Hey Everyone, I am going to be at AWA this year and I have a table! I will be working with a fellow classmate named Irene Strychalski who is a fantastic artist. Check out her DeviantArt Page here:

http://alizel.deviantart.com/

I will be selling prints and greeting cards. On the side, I will work with anyone who wants a commission or caricatures of themself in Anime Style. Here is the link to my DeviantArt Page with samples of works I have done:

http://xvortexbladex.deviantart.com/

"Double Vision" -Website and Blog of a Friend Complete

Mark Ziemer, a friend of mine, just posted on facebook that he has completed his portfolio and uploaded them onto his website and blog named, "Double Vision". Recently he has been interning at Fanbolt. I highly recommend visiting his page because he is a very reliable and extremely talented Graphics Designer. He is also one of the officers for the Magazine team at the Atlanta Campus for the Savannah College of Art and Design- SCAN.

Here is the link to his page:


http://sylvisual.wordpress.com/

Website Header for Temple of Cartoon Mojo

During the July there was a contest for the Header Graphics for the Temple of Cartoon Mojo, a SCAD runned website featuring news for students studying Sequential Art. The old temple logo was created by Professor Nolan; the image depicted Shaolin Monks training by standing on one leg on poles. This is the one I did for this year's. I don't expect it to be selected, but at least I had something to do that could add to my portfolio. Enjoy!

 

Temple of Cartoon Mojo- Click Here

Send off for a Marine Friend

This week, a friend of mine who I knew since High School is about to get shipped of to Afghanistan. He had been through all the training phases in the Marines for almost a Year now so I really hope that he is careful while he's on tour. He's a machine gunner which is one of the positions with a pretty high casualty rate which really worries me, but since he is committed, I can only wish him luck.

Birthday Party Aftermath

So I went over to a friend's Birthday Part on Friday and it was one of the crazier nights I can remember. Beer and Vodka ran like a river and everyone seemed jollier than an octogenarian cracked up on Prozac. I got introduced to a new drinking game, I forgot the what it was called, but it involves the usual poker cards, an empty beer bottle, and a round of beer for the players. We each took turns drawing a card and each number meant someone had to drink like two is "you tell someone to drink", three means "me" so if I drew it I drink, stuff like that. After the people have finished drinking, the card is placed under an empty beer bottle- if anyone knocks it over, the person who knocked it over has to finish off all the beer they are holding. By the end of the night I had polished off 3 Honey Browns, 3 Coronas, 1 Blue Moon, and 1 Tsingtao.

It was fun, but after all that drinking I found it much more enjoyable to talk to my friends about how things are going since we haven't seen each other after we got out of School for Summer Vacation. In the middle, I left with a couple of my friends to talk outside about the stories for our comic strips when we heard fire alarms. Apparently some idiot in the other hallway had left their Hookah running. Everyone stared running out of the building, so I left with several friends to go eat at China Buddha before coming back and crashing from exhaustion.