Sketchbook: Ian Snyder

hobodactyl

Hey everyone, we're finishing up our game Gammon Trigger, and I'm starting concepts for our next game. Right now I'm just working on my concept skills and trying to get a feel for the world.

Crits are definitely expected!

For now I'd also like responses as to if my concepts are giving you any sort of feeling of a place, or if they're just too empty now. Blah blah, anyway, here's what I've got so far







Here's one of my first concepts, probably won't be using it but I still kinda like it :P


Right now I'm focusing on developing two distinct cultures, and what I'm showing now is what I have for one of them, so let me know if these guys don't feel cohesive to you. I've got a story brewing around, I'll post some details when I have some more interesting concepts to go with it

konstruct

INTRESTING INDEED- (I dig your handle btw, more things need to end in "dactyl")
anyways, I really like your use of colors and overall brushwork. The environments would benefit greatly from some atmospheric perspective though.

something you might want to take into consideration as far making cohesive designs, is the silhouette is easily the most important part. Before color, paneling details etc, try and get some shared forms in the silhouette and you`ll be solid.

Silhouette is important because its what the brain recognizes before all else, so no matter how cool your details are. If your silhouette is wak it`ll hurt the entire piece.

Awesome work though. keeping my eye on this one.

hobodactyl

Well, here's something I've been working on for the John Howe Fan Art submission for this month. Not too happy with it, so any crits on how it could be improved are appreciated! The theme was "Tilting at Windmills," so the idea was to show a quixotic endeavor. I immediately thought of Ray Bradbury's short story "The Dragon," so this is kinda an homage to that.

pangarang

hey your concepts are looking pretty alright! I'd say your executions a little on the lacking side though. Try experimenting with different brushes to get some textures. Also, one really helpful tip I learned from way back when - is convert your images to black and white and see how much they pop then. It's a great way to see your value range. It may be a small quick fix, but sometimes the smallest things make the biggest differences!

keep up the great work.

hobodactyl

pangarang: Thanks a lot for the tip; I knew that my images often come out flat-looking, and the black and white trick should help me keep an eye on that! I've been lazy about experimenting with custom brushes, as well, and a little worried about becoming too dependent on them, but I'll start practicing with them.

Here's a practice sketch for the Gameartisans treehouse comp going on:

hobodactyl

Feeling pretty scatter-brained, trying to decide on stuff to work on. Here's the beginnings of a new environment I may actually finish up :P I was excited to get it into Unreal Ed (I haven't messed with it before).

Starting on a stylized Viking-esque landscape, kinda mulling over a back story.

hobodactyl

Just got some stuff into Unreal 3, so I'm excited This is on my crappy laptop, so I'm pretty sure most of the shaders aren't working right

hobodactyl

Moar

hobodactyl

Trying to put some stuff into Unreal 3; haven't been able to mess with shaders and lighting much since I'm on my laptop.

hobodactyl

Haven't been happy with my results in UT3Ed so I'm messing around in 3dsmax trying to get it how I want it to look; I may play around with some toon shaders or something.

hobodactyl

Hoping to be able to call this done soon, gonna take a break from it and see if I want to add anything.

hobodactyl

Not calling it done soon I suppose :P Too many ideas for it!

Kawe

ooh, I like the stylized look.

that thing that looks like a waterfall could use some work. at elast from the image you posted. in fact the whole last image is rather unimpressive compared to the earlier ones.. I was expecting a whole village. like.. 3-4 more buildings and maybe a town hall on another island.

maybe try turning up the lightmaps a little? see how it looks with shadows that is.

hobodactyl

Kawe: Thanks for the ideas! A big problem is I'm still learning about lighting in Max; I haven't done lightmaps or anything, I need to look up some tutorials on that. Right now I just have 4 FDirect lights

I'll see what I can come up with to make it more like a whole village!

EDIT: Any tips on lighting are appreciated

hobodactyl

More work on this stuff

Ferg

Hey man, really like how this environ is coming along, especially the way you've stylized the water texture. I think it could benefit from some tweaking, though, the normal map on the water is little too similar to the rocks. Maybe scale it down a bit so it tiles more, and alter the swirly pattern a bit?

Also might want to try playing the the shape of the windmill sails where they intersect in the middle, for some reason the overlapping squared edges don't quite look right... maybe if they were all cut so they tapered in at the center and didn't overlap?

My 2 cents.... cool project man, def be watchin it progress

hobodactyl

Thanks for the crits, Ferg, I made some changes based on that!

I'm ready to call this finished, but any crits are welcome.

hobodactyl

Here's where I got today; I figured out how to get the shadows working how I want, but I think I need to fix a few normals and UV's still. I tried cleaning up the tree a bit, blah blah :P Worked on the sky a bit, too.

dark_lotus

TBH - I liked the slightly "murkier" version (the one submitted yesterday) - it has a nicer feel to it. Maybe tone down the lighting some to keep it slightly softer. Other than that - it looks awesome

hobodactyl

Thanks dark_lotus, I've been super busy but I should have an update on that soon.

Messing around with making an old friend, still a lot of work to do:

hobodactyl

Think I'm done with this d00d:


Might do some poses later.

curry23

Chrono! I never played Trigger, but I loved Chrono Cross in middle school!

zenarion

I love the way you texture, those rocks and trees are awesome!

hobodactyl

zenarion: Thanks!

Here are some concepts I've been working on.

Zephir62

hobodactyl wrote: »

This is just waiting to ooze with cool, if only you developed it more

hobodactyl

Thanks, I'll work on that! Here's another for today:

hobodactyl

hobodactyl

hobodactyl

Working on the Gameartisans minicomp:

hobodactyl

Update:

hobodactyl

Nothing too exciting, just a study of a picture from Jordan:

Kawe

the last image looks hot.. literally

hobodactyl

Kawe: Thanks

More practicin'

hobodactyl

Here's a new one; sorry, Bryan, loved your presentation too much so I wanted to try it with one of mine



EDIT: One with less zany proportions:

Japhir

very cool!

but i've seen that exact presentation elsewhere... by another artist. (can't find the image right now though )

ok found it: http://www.bryancavett.com/wip/merc_concept_ver1.jpg
i thought that his had the same background color as yours, but apparantly it didn't... :poly131:

RazorBladder

that kind of textured colour block presentation is intensely common among concept artists. Hawkins is particularly memorable for it.

hobodactyl

Japhir: Please read my post first :P

Razor: I figured it was pretty common but I definitely got the idea from Byan's concept Thanks for pointing out Hawkins, he's got really great work!

Japhir

ah sorry about that... . me = sorry, your character = cool

hobodactyl

Hey man no worries :P

Here's a new dude:

JGalito

the style of the rock structures, houses and the wind mill reminds me of psychonauts, as well as the textures and lighting.

konstruct

DUUUDE- getting better and better, those last environments and characters are looking pretty good.

sub_roland

Big fan of the last piece awesome little creature

hobodactyl

Thanks a lot everyone! I'm out of town right now but I'll try and get some new sketches up later this weekend

JGalito

i have made a few levels in unreal. there's a really good book that is made by 3dbuzz.com
another good site for unreal tutorials is http://udn.epicgames.com/Main/WebHome.html if you have any other questions i might be able to help. three levels that i made are simulations at a hospital and the other one is a simulation at the carnegie museum of natural history.

hobodactyl

Here's a new bad ass dude

Japhir

you're right, he's badass . very cool, though the feet look weird because of the huge boots.

JGalito

there is something wrong with the proportions and a little with the perspective. make sure that the understructure looks right in perspective as well as proportional before you get too detailed.

hobodactyl

Thanks for the crits guys, yeah proportions were a bit wonky Here's something I'm working on, any crits are appreciated; planning on adding details, but I'm not sure if that's enough

hobodactyl

WIP of my Character of the Week entry at CA; the theme is Red Sonja:

hobodactyl

hobodactyl

Guess my character of the week was too racy for photobucket :P Here's the new guy I'm working on: