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Sketchbook: wake

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polycounter lvl 17
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wake polycounter lvl 17
[EDIT-- many of the links of the first page are gone but i've replaced most later on in the thread]

Howdy howdy everybody. Been meaning to put my stuff up to public scorn for a while here, and now I'm finally getting around to it. I'm all 2D, at least for now, and of that most of my stuff is divided between photoshop rendering exercises, figure studies, and robotzzz. I won't inundate you with my entire artistic output up to this point, just enough to make you sick and not want to come back :) Though I would totally post some 1st grade crayon drawings if I had copies.

crits always welcome.

bot5.jpg
a little love for Marvin, the paranoid android from Hitchhiker's Guide. Rest of the body isn't as clean as the head-- someday I'll fix that.

concept4.jpg
1 hour sketch of a faceted alien-ish helm. Pretty happy with this one considering the time involved.

bot3.jpg
it's Malevolo, the fortune-telling circus bot!

figure3.jpg

figure2.jpg
some figure work-- top half are all 5 minute volumetric studies, bottom is a 30 minute value study.

object5.jpg
photoshop rendering studies. I'll tell you what materials I vainly tried to render if you ask nicely.

SP2.jpg

SP3.jpg

SP1final.jpg
...and last but not least, some self portraits. Manage to look butt ugly and slightly cross-eyed in the second one, and the third one I'm still working on. And no that's not my real facial hair, but a man can dream, can't he?

Replies

  • bounchfx
    dear god you look stunning in with those beautiful things on your face.

    haha, it looks good, and you have a very solid body of stuff so far, I look forward to seeing how you progress.

    I'm going to go ahead and assume the latest portrait is the most accurate in terms of likeness as well?

    I'm also curious, if you don't mind sharing, how long you spent on each portrait on average?
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Each one of those portraits is about 3 hours of work (which makes me cringe a bit), and yes the last portrait is both current and the most accurate in terms of likeness. As I mentioned in the earlier post, I'm going to try and really push myself on that last portrait, and give it at least a few more hours of work. Beyond that my DomWar entry sees the rest of my lovin.
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    quick update-- I've been working on the ol' face. I've cleaned it up but am by no means done, because now I look like a bronzed model/mannequin. Need to uglify m'self first.

    SP1b.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    aaaaaand a little more love tonight. Some general tweakery and then redid the entire ear. Because ears are hard.

    Not quite ready for the uglification and freckles yet.

    Oh, and no worries, the mustache is definitely coming back. As it's the icing on the cake, I need to make sure I hit everything else first.

    SP1c.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Ok, finally ready to call it quits. I spent a rather grotesque amount of time on this one (over 10 hrs), but I'm fairly happy with it and I think it's a nice benchmark of my current skill set. Maybe now I'll finally get back to my poor, abandoned Dominance War entry...

    Anyway, I'm interested to hear what anyone has to say about this if you're out there.

    -wake

    SP1final.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Posting a little more of the backlog while I'm working on other stuff.

    These are some of the shots I did for a story about a person rediscovering their imagination. I had about 20 scenes thumbnailed out and went on to render some of them. The concept/story isn't anything to write home about and as a whole it's pretty disjointed, but I was happy with how trippy some of it turned out.

    Cheers:

    SB1.jpg

    SB2.jpg

    SB3.jpg
  • shotgun
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    shotgun polycounter lvl 20
    yo

    i like the first version of ur selfp best, i dont think the more refined versions added anything new to it. my suggestion would be to be more thoughtful of your brush strokes initially, so u dont go back and refine them so much.


    as for the story, one idea to present progression is a shift in color intensity/hue, contrast, dramatic composition/lighting etc. i think composition is the main thing u should pay attention to here, and in all the other work here. it should be the premier factor leading ur hand and my eyes through each piece...
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    I appreciate the crit and think you're right on both accounts. For the self-portrait, the push to the more refined piece was more a technical exercise to see how far I could go. Laying down a strong foundation is something I still struggle with, which is why my next one I'm doing in oil on panel, and from life instead of photo reference. That way I can't do any cheeky photoshop things and have to focus more brushwork etc.

    Also, good point about the color shifting-- I had considered that in one of the pieces, though I should have taken the time to apply it more consistently throughout. I'll post that when I get home.

    Always more room to improve :)
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Finally getting some more stuff up-- not much, but I've been busy. Have the wonderful opportunity to sit down and chat with Ryan Meinerding tomorrow, possibly going over some of my work with him. For those of you not familiar with him, he's one of the rising stars of Hollywood concepting; he worked on Pathfinder, Ironman, and Gauntlet 7 Sorrows to name a few. It helps that he's a big gamer/comic book guy.

    Anyway, here's that color shot I mentioned earlier Shotgun, as well as a quick concept that I did:

    SB4.jpg

    concept5.jpg

    also, just finished this one before bed:

    concept6.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    More goodies. Well, one to be exact. Been bogged down with other biznaz so I haven't been getting as much drawing done as I would like, but after listening to my roommate extol the beauty and virtues of Yvonne Strahovski for a while (hard not to agree with him there) I couldn't help but drop everything and try a portrait. So yeah, once I finished ogling and started drawing this took a little over an hour from start to finish, no tracing.

    The 25 hour super self-portrait extravaganza and the sit-down that I had with Ryan are certainly paying off; my drawing time on portraits has dropped dramatically, even if the quality hasn't really changed. Color still owns my face tho, and probably will for many years to come, but I think I can deal with that... :)

    So anyway, the beautiful Yvonne:

    yvonne%20copy.jpg

    personally I think it's better in black and white, but then you miss her red lips and cheeks *sigh*
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Soooooo it's been a while since I last posted. Almost exactly a one year anniversary, hahahah. Unfortunately my old image hosting was through my university, so that's why all of my old posts have lost their images. I'll try and replace the ones that I have and remember, but most will be casualties of war I guess.

    Anyway, here's a few recent things I've done. Take a look.

    2dresser.jpg

    5witch.jpg

    11moon.jpg
  • bounchfx
    about damn time. looks great! love the rendering on the lady there!
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    [edit] Oh snap, there's an image cap of 16... I'm going to have to split up this next post.

    Time for a great big art dump.

    Most of the time I'm super picky about what gets posted on polycount, so I need to just post the good, bad and the ugly here to help me keep everything in proper perspective. (I'm not going to post the REAL garbage of course, just the tolerably bad :D)

    So yeah, this is all stuff from the last year, mostly personal work but also some stuff for small time games that I worked on that never went anywhere. It should be roughly chronological, the opening stuff dating from about this time last year and the newest stuff from the last month or so.

    down2.jpg

    niko-valuev%20copySM.jpg

    These next four are some concepts for those small games I mentioned earlier. And no, I had nothing to do with the name "Chromatactix" thankfully.

    9chroma.jpg

    chromatanks.jpg

    chromatanks2.jpg

    10kniggit.jpg

    Also while I'm on the topic, here's a video of another game I worked on, though this time I was a lot more involved-- I designed the game, did the UI (yeah I know it's rough-- this game was only intended as a proof of concept so I didn't go very far on alot of the assets) and rendered most everything else besides a few of the ships, so even as just a proof of concept I'm pretty happy with it.

    The first video is from very early on when we only had 1 ship type, the second is pretty close to where we stopped. Also, the ships move kinda wonky because when we capped this video all 4 players were early AIs instead of human players.
    [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1B84ATL4rf0]Video 1[/ame]
    [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr0rLEDiT8U]Video 2[/ame]


    hbomb%20copy.jpg

    These next two I did for my ill-conceived blog which thankfully no one ever read. (nor ever will.. I'll get around to destroying all evidence of its existence once I finally get a real website up :D) But yeah, I was writing about the Dr. Mercer character as well as how the Elizabeth character doesn't really work in Dead Space, so I did these as visual aids.

    isaac%20copy.jpg

    DrMercer%20copyB.jpg


    oh, and my header was far more fecal sounding than I meant it to be. Apologies :)
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Back to more regular stuff. It wasn't until around this last October that some figurative stuff as well as painting techniques started to click for me. These next several are a mix of 1-2 hour studies and some that are more around 5-8 hours.

    laby.jpg

    EMPRESSHEMM10.jpg

    Benecio60.jpg

    furhood260.jpg

    grant120.jpg

    LaRoux%20copyB.jpg

    Ye120.jpg

    Here's the full progression for the next piece. All told it took me about 4 hours, working from reference. (Please ignore the cauliflower ear :D)

    hairsticks30.jpg

    hairsticks45.jpg

    hairsticks60.jpg

    hairsticks90.jpg

    hairsticks105.jpg

    hairsticks130.jpg

    hairsticks150.jpg

    hairsticks240.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    femsuit4.jpg

    bigdude.jpg

    The rest of this is pretty much from the last 2 months. Later I'll get around to scanning and posting the anatomical studies in pencil I've also been doing recently. Oh, and the Famas WIP sadly was lost to time when my hard-drive went up in flames (note to self, don't name the C: drive 'Icarus'), though I'll get around to starting it up again soon. I need to get back into modeling before I forget everything I've started to learn.

    4russia.jpg

    famasWIP1B.jpg

    famasWIP1.jpg

    famasa.jpg

    vim3.jpg

    whalefreak.jpg

    These are from the 40k inspired portraits that I posted about in the P&P thread.. It's another project that needs more attention than its getting

    officerLOW.jpg

    captainLOW.jpg

    heavyLOW.jpg

    colonelLOW.jpg

    soldiers4.jpg

    sneakyarmor.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Here's the Frazetta-ish mutant child of my imagination. I wanted to do this one sans reference, and the best part is how freaking awesome I thought it looked when I was working on it. Then I posted it, the wool was pulled from my eyes and I have yet to cease cringing :'(

    barbarian6.jpg

    faceinthewall.jpg

    daemoness4.jpg

    royo5.jpg

    I owe Makkon for this one as I started it from one of his pieces in the concept thread

    makkonfinalC.jpg

    makkonredux.jpg

    The anatomy was going nowhere on this one so i cut it in half, mirrored it and went for the freaky look. Turned out ok in the end.

    abomination.jpg

    sjet3%20copy.jpg

    So there you have it, my life from the last 12 months in paintings. I'm interested to hear from you guys.
  • Czar
    Very nice! I saved your 4-hour lady progression images into my inspiration folder.
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    @Czar-- cool, glad I could help out. Just be careful on the ears unlike me :D

    Anyway, here's a new one I just did for the concept thread:

    skullbot1.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    oh, and these of course. I didn't sleep because of this piece, but I think it was well worth it. Also, to explain a bit-- I've found that I have some particular difficulty when working poses where the figure is clothed. I think I've just been working from nude models for so long that I'm just not used to it. So until I get up to snuff on the clothing end, I've just been starting pieces as if they were nude figures and then throwing the clothes on over everything else. It's time intensive, but has been working out alright for me so far.

    mezz6free.jpg

    mezz6full.jpg


    Also, I just need to get to a new page on this thread so I don't have to wait 5 minutes for all the pictures to load every time...
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    another one. I was reading about The Fountain this afternoon, which may explain why this piece falls on the more psychedelic side..

    transcendentilus3B.jpg
  • BunnyJen
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    BunnyJen polycounter lvl 6
    Really amazing work wake. I love the "cauliflower ear" lady and the 40k inspired stuff.
    Gives me a boost to keep going and improving my work. :)

    Out of interest have you studied anywhere for anything games or art related? Or are you self taught?
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Technically I studied Industrial Design at ND, but I spent an equal if not greater amount of time taking figure drawing and oil painting classes (I was very fortunate to have Maria Tomasula as an instructor). ID gave me a good foundation but ultimately wasn't what I wanted to do.

    The game stuff is self-taught. I spent some time during undergrad playtesting, and I spent the year after I graduated on rendering and to put together a team of coders. The game clip was our first shot to see if we could do it, and we're now working on a new project, though the coders are building the engine so it'll take a while before I really get involved :/

    So yeah, the short answer is a little bit of both :)
  • GoodAsNew
    I see some big development In your paintings comparing the first ones to the latest ones. you use both color and value much more comfidently in the latest ones.

    Keep working dude. :thumbup:
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    thanks GoodAsNew.

    a quick one to get the juices flowing again.

    rathbone3.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
  • DrunkShaman
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    DrunkShaman polycounter lvl 14
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    here's a progress shot on a new b&w portrait that I'm working on that goes along with the 4 previous dudes. This one's about 30 minutes in:

    gunner2.jpg
  • AlexTooth
    Hey thanks for visiting my sb^^ Cool style! Love the brushwork - i'll be watching :)
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    thanks Alex, and yeah np-- that's what the sketchbook forum is for :D

    anyway, this one was a blast to work on, even if it did take all day. I may still screw around with the collar and cigarette, but if I do that's for a later day.

    gunner6%20copy.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    another quickie from the concept tag thread.

    waketag3a2.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    progress on the next b&w illustration. I'm back to painter now and I think it's working out much better. This one is about an hour in.

    assassin2.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    aaaaaand this one is done too. Took more like 4 hours, but I think it turned out well and was worth the extra time. I think I still need to adjust my tablet sensitivity a bit for Painter-- some of my brushed go crazy at the slightest pressure.


    assassin4.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Mission accomplished.

    eatyourvegetables.jpg

    On an informative note, this one took about 2 hours and was started from a great paint by gauss in the concept tag thread. Having a palette already down to work from made it go a lot faster.

    And yeah, I think this is my first ever paint that has the potential to cause me nightmares.
  • Medestruit
    That's really freaking disturbing, for whatever reason haha. Would be really funny if you have it a cleft chin and then it'd look like a huge set of balls -.-
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    I was cooking the other day, when the phrase "blueberries orbiting tomato" suddenly appeared in my head. So I painted it.

    tomato.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Speed paint portrait, both b&w and color versions. The color is nice but I felt it lost something of the original along the way.

    turn1.jpg

    turn2.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    So I've been toying around with painter, looking at some different brushes, techniques and things, when I stumbled across this. It's basically just quick line illustration that I've worked over with a grainy blender, but the result is pretty strong I think. That's the best part actually-- I've taken a mediocre 10 minute sketch and turned it into something pretty cool :D

    study1%20copy.jpg
  • Medestruit
    It actually almost gives a water feel to it. Kinda funny for something done so quick, but with some more work that fast sketch can turn into something kinda stunning. Certainly provides a great base for further progress.
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    So I'm back from the dead (also known as Wyoming), and after all the critical feedback I got in my other thread on the mohawk girl I decided to do a second pass. Really cleaned things up, smoothed out the brush strokes, and adjusted the pose a little.

    So far I'm really happy with the result. In a few days a may come back and tweak it a little more, but I'm basically calling it done.

    Cheers:

    gunner6B5.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Also, for my own benefit I made a GIF of the progress on this one-- may as well share:

    gunner6GIF.gif

    [edit] just realized this set is backwards... funny how that turns out.
  • lampekap
    hi wake , amazing works
    u really know how to get shape into ur drawings, and then refine it really good
  • bounchfx
    huge improvement over the original dude. good progress.
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    I'm amazed that it took me this long to get a scanner... But I have one now, so I can start scanning stuff and having even more fun.

    A few months back I started working on some detailed anatomy studies of the skull. I haven't worked on them for a while, but digging this stuff out and scanning it makes we want to finish. That and I've been watching some of the Massive Black videos and realized that I don't have nearly as strong an understanding of anatomy as I need to.

    For reference, each one of these skulls is about an inch and a half tall. The first one makes me laugh as it shows I haven't worked with pencil in a while-- it took about three studies before I start to clean it up.

    skull1.jpg

    skull2.jpg

    skull3.jpg
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    Scanning these together made me think about Hexen...

    skullsanim.gif

    what a beautiful game.
  • Szark
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    Szark polycounter lvl 12
    wake wrote: »
    Scanning these together made me think about Hexen...

    what a beautiful game.

    Hear, hear! I replay it at least once a year!

    Nice work, man. :)
  • DarkStar
    outstanding Work!!! Great turn around, fit perfectly!
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    For some reason I got all nostalgic about Ultima VI, Space Hulk and other games of that era, so I decided to have a little fun with super low-res painting. These are really quick studies, no more than 20 minutes each, done in photoshop at a height of about 400 pixels. Loads of fun on this one.

    knights.gif
  • lampekap
    I love the scribbly style, reminds me of good old paint
    r u into pixelart by any chance? Id love to see some of those fully finnished with a interesting colour pallette and pixel art stuf like dithering
  • wake
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    wake polycounter lvl 17
    @Medestruit-- thanks man, I'm toying around with what to render in that style.

    @lampekap-- it took some work, but I'm happier with it the 2nd time around. As for pixel art, I've dabbled but haven't really done any finished work. It's such a reductive process it's a bit intimidating, but at some point I'll definitely dive in.

    @bounchfx-- word. thanks.

    @Szark-- hehehe, Hexen was probably more important to me than Doom. I've put a lot of hours into that game, all well worth it :)

    @DarkStar-- yeah I was pleasantly surprised on that one. Looks like I may actually be learning something with all this drawing...

    Anyway, here's more fun. Messing around with just 2 tones this time.

    quadtric.gif
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