Sketchbook: Nick Shardlow
Hey all
Planning to use this as an image dump-type thread mostly to force myself to show more work.
Currently doing a personal project which will involve some design for characters, architecture and environment all with a somewhat Nordic theme, hence the sameyness.
Comments and feedback are welcome.
Cheers!
Planning to use this as an image dump-type thread mostly to force myself to show more work.
Currently doing a personal project which will involve some design for characters, architecture and environment all with a somewhat Nordic theme, hence the sameyness.
Comments and feedback are welcome.
Cheers!
Replies
Quick question if you don't mind. When you're designing characters, how do you go about creating their faces? Do you already have an idea of what they look like and paint them from appropriate reference, or do you just wing it and paint it all out from "feel"?
Hope you'll keep showing more!
Stuff from today...working towards more architectural detail. Needs more refining but I reckon the direction is more or less coherently defined now.
Love the character concepts, wish you'd have numbered the silhouettes though
Keep 'em coming, it's looking great!
All in my inspirations folder !
Yo Malin! haha yeah I reffed some Chinese and Japanese faces there, my idea was to get some discontinuity between the architecture and the people..making some weird hybrid culture. May or may not work in the end!
Today's thing. Last level of detail now - pushed myself to try for good quality of line and accurate perspective.
For some reason I didn't much like the banner hanging above the fireplace, for me it kind of gets in the way of my mind's eye when I imagine stepping into the building. Could be just me, of course. It usually is
As for the whole hybrid culture thingy, I definitely think it will work. I think I meant more the character design overall, not the faces per se ( didn't make that clear, sorry ). There's one dude among the four more finished full-body concepts whom I think looks a tad too much like a shaolin-ish monk ( second guy from the left ). Again, just my opinion. Also, couldn't help but feel he would freeze his feet off dressed like that, your environments look freakishly cold!
Ah I see what you mean now. Yeah, I don't think that guy will make the final cut. Deciding between furthest left or furthest right for my turnarounds..
Today's. Really quick colour studies and a finished prop.
Both of the characters look good but I like the one on the furthest left the best. Will be interesting to see the finished character later!
Tried to push to a final on an enviro today.
Crits still welcome.
More character today
Things from today:
So, uh, the environment, I'm really glad that you added the opening of the ravine/gorge piece you made earlier in the background. It ties all your environments together neatly, which was sort of the only thing that I could think of feedback-wise for the ravine/gorge environment, it didn't hint at a story of some kind in the way the other environment paintings did, at least not for me. Of course, that might be because I'm claustrophobic and was busy feeling that those massive, narrow walls of rock were about to crush me ( take that as a compliment
Looking forward to moar awesome!
Harleybone - I have some ideas for how you can get started. The first would be to make sure you have a good monitor and a good graphics tablet (Wacom Intuos for example). Then open Photoshop and get acquainted by doing lots of value study from photos and life if you can get out with a laptop or something. Photoshop is shipped with plenty of good brushes so only start looking for crazy texture brushes and stuff after you feel comfortable with the basic ones. After that start with colour studies from photos and life and get a feel for the colour mixing (additive when working with monitors as opposed to subtractive like oils).
As I said, if you have learnt to paint traditionally, just follow the same process of study and you should be more than ok.
Read plenty of forums too. polycount.com, cghub.com and conceptart.org have oceans of information and inspiring stuff!
Last pic for this project:
The lighting made by the fire in that picture is pretty sick and looks well placed. However, I can't seem to put my finger on how that fire makes such a large splotch of light to the left and seemingly only one such concentrated area. I'm sure there's an explanation but I'm just not seeing it at the moment.
Thanks again!
Haha, I'd love to help out with concept ideas, give us a shout when you're in the mood for a little concept grind mate
So, my explanation for the firelight would be along the lines of the angle of the viewing plane relative to the angle of the planes of the planks along that wall creating a Fresnel reflection. But if it looks wrong it's probably wrong no matter what fancy stuff I can come up with!
Experimenting
The experimenting is looking nice, I guess you're sticking to the snowy theme then?
Short value studies today, thinking about settings:
Second one with castle overlooking lake environment for some reason immediately made me think of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel, and the mention of Sholomance that is made in it. Sholomance was supposed to be a school for black magic if memory serves me right. Would be a cool concept to explore, in my opinion that is
Third one made me think of some kind of temple city structure. Kind of Aztec-huge-obelisk-for-human-sacrifice-rivers-of-blood-thing
Looking forward to moar!
more enviro studies and things, super rough; hopefully i can refine these two
WIP design for a cheap old hoverbike
Gotta say, that vehicle is fantastic.
Flying car today:
I like your city environment studies! Regarding your environment pic with the river, I think we talked about it already, that it feels a bit heavy compositionwise in the left corner. Dat corner man, it just steals my attention all the time, probably because there's another very similar building in the same corner. Maybe the repeating shapes of the skyscrapers get a bit too monotonous overall, would have been cool with some kind of superstructure with a more dynamic shape in the city skyline.
Very exciting to see W.I.P of interiors! Are you going to keep it very strict designwise for the final version as well, or are you going to incorporate elements to hint at the cultural setting?
Love the vehicles, any chance of stickers of some kind ( or some other ornamentation ) on the cheap old hoverbike? ;D
Keep it up, looking forward to moar awesome!
Yeah the comp on that river picture went to shite pretty quickly - I changed it a lot over the course of the painting so it never really had time to settle I guess. Oh well, onwards!
Trying to keep a slightly minimalist feel for the apartment interior to contrast with the market shop interior I'm planning. But I want to have something colourful there, and possibly Egyptian.
Stickers are a good idea, thanks! I shall add them if I ever find time..sure you can appreciate :<
Today's painting: night-market entrance
The night-market entrance painting looks awesome, love all the little spotlights near the wall and on the stairs! Some thoughts, there's a lot of reflected light on the ground? I could easily imagine this to be due to it having rained recently though. I also feel that the palm tree crowns should receive at least a little more light from the spotlights at their bases and the surrounding lightsources? ( I guess that depends on the strength of the spotlights of course but there's a bunch of trees that I usually pass by on my way home that are lit by spotlights in the ground, and they recieve a fair amount of light despite their height, so I might just be thinking about that too much )
Today's enviro
It might just be me but I thought that the light feels a bit 'washed out'? I could imagine that scene being set in strong sunlight with a bit more warmth
yeah, you're right, now that I look at it it's lacking in highlight values.
sketch today, didn't have time to take this to finish :<
Good job!