Sketchbook for Matt H.

Darkstrife

Hellow Everybody new guy here, I'm matthew and I just wanted to dive right in and get started with developing this digital sketch diary. A little about me, I'm a graduate from the Art Institute of Phoenix and have been pretty dedicated developing my abilities as a concept artist. I have a really bad habit of not showing my work and getting feedback so it's a habit that I'm trying to break here. I'm going to try to be fairly active in updating with WIP's and things, so I hope you folks enjoy.

This is my current WIP a kind of story book scene with a knight resting beneath a tree who's just heard a noise. I really enjoy doing scenes and like to try to tell a story as best as possible with what I'm doing.



I wanted to throw up a few other things as well just to have a bit more of a record. This is stuff is more recent work.

Some Stuff I've done.



Realistic Ninja Turtle. My personal favorite. Raphael



These are some sprite frames I've been messing with Game Maker and have been animating out some idle animations. For this character. Your typical demon barbarian from hell.



A demon army that I got an idea for when I was playing Doom one night.

Darkstrife

Did a bit of work today pushing it forward, It's coming to together little by little.

Darkstrife

So I'm pushing forward little by little. I upped the resolution now that I'm starting to get comfortable with and am going getting stronger details on it. I've been down some detail in the face. I'm going with a sort of studded leather armor for the guy. I've been jumping around trying to work on this painting as a whole rather than just focusing on piece at a time. Got some background mountains started and am working on blocking in the grass.

Daven

Hey nice stuff so far. I see you're really trying to push form and material and that's great, but here are a few tips:

-With your cloth shadows and composition in general, you need to identify your focal points. It's easiest to do this with lighting and saturation. Your hues are off to a good start, but it's time to do more lighting experiments.

-Keeping background objects in a smaller range of mid and light tones (light and dark) will help with the illusion that they are actually farther away. You can still show shadow, but it helps to lighten it up to give the feeling that there is some sense of atmosphere between the viewer and the object. An easy way to look at this is the way Fog of War is used in games.

-Also, really work on composing your foreground, middleground and background elements early on. Right now you seem to focus on one area and stick there for a while; it's a hard habit to break trust me.

I did a quick paintover to illustrate some of what I'm talking about. I hope it helps

Darkstrife

Thanks for the feedback I really appreciate it. I do tend to fall into the habit of tunnel vision and always forget that I'm doing it. Thanks for pointing it out. That paint over really helped me out too, it gave me some ideas and direction and is much appreciated. I did a little more detail work on the armor and blocked in the forms on the character a bit more. I'm avoiding going into too much detail now and am now just blocking in all my foreground, midground background elements. and am just getting everything established as you advised. Once I get those established I'm going to go in and experiment with the lighting.

I originally was planning on going to have him backlit. But the foreground lighting in your example is giving some ideas. I'm thinking I want to use the light to add shine off of my metal objects and draw attention to them. Like the swords pommel and hilt and the metal studs on the armor.

Also I didn't know if it was intentional or not but the rough painting in the front gave me the idea of putting the really tall grass in the front so I can get some natural organic detail in there. I was thinking of throwing some dandelions and weeds in the front big and bold to ad some color and maybe a caterpiller on a leaf or something. Still thinking on it though.

This is what I got so far. Thanks again Daven. I really appreciate the guidance.

Darkstrife

Well first day of the week I've gotten a chance to really work on this project I think it's coming along pretty well. I got rid of the shield and backpack as the fore ground grass was adding enough interest. I think I'm close to this actually turning into something pretty good.

Darkstrife

So I was getting a little burned out with my current project and decided to take a little break. I was feeling nostalgic and decided to do a portrait of Raphael from the teenage mutant ninja turtles. I wanted to do something where the turtle characteristics were more pronounced. The scales are inspired from a galapagos turtle.



and Without the mask




a fun little excursion from the previous project plus a new avatar to boot. But now I'm feeling ready to dive back into my composition.