a bit 'o mornin' life drawin'

from yesterday morning's long pose session at hancock center. i generally dread the early morning, but there's something therapeutic about painting while not entirely awake. i don't really remember how long i spent on this, maybe an hour and a half or two hours? cintiq companion is fun.

test sketches

couple of test sketches for a thing i'm working on. still haven't matched the style to what i've got in my head, but i think these are in the right direction. gotta push my shapes and colors more!

doodlin'

missed life drawing this morning, so i doodled me a dragon.

a truck

it's a truck! quick warmup study.

skull study

so, i recently got a skull for my birthday (a plastic one)!

a sword for an undead king

here's a sword concept i did a bit ago for wraith king from dota 2. i think this is getting made, but who knows?

lich gonna have your mana

howdy blog! here's a concept for a lich set of armor, for dota 2. its pretty much finished in 3d, and ready to go, just gotta finish marketing art and presentation stuffs, then its off to the workshop!

more dota 2 stuffs

this just got accepted as part of a larger bundle (hud + loading screen). woot!

check it out here.

and here's a few concepts for the character clinkz, of a similar theme. i think one of these will get made at some point.

character illustration process

several months ago, i did some character illustrations for a local company, and wanted to show some of the process. pretty straightforward: sketch pose, line work, color/value block in, and clean up! still working out how to get it efficient, but that's the journey, eh? will post some of the other characters later.

i wouldn't be happy either if i had to wear all that gear.

DOTA 2 store

hey, you! yeah, you! go buy my HUD's that recently got accepted for DOTA 2. 

Thunder Spirit and Timber Fury

forgot to mention this earlier. happy day!

art test + dota 2

here's something pretty light hearted. a silly art test i took for a gaming company a month or two ago. i didn't get the gig, but had more fun than i figured i would creating the imagery.

and here's a quick weapon for earthshaker from dota 2, which will hopefully be created soon. more coming soon, my poor neglected, blog. i promise <3

we meet again, blog

whew, been a busy few weeks! here's a few concept paintings from a mobile game project i've been working on over the past few months. more to come!

life drawing + brief surface pro thoughts

life drawing from last week. sorry for the lazy cut out job. 

these are from the surface pro's first life drawing outing this week. it was a lot of fun, though a little uncomfortable. going to have to really experiment with my setup! 

so, overall, the surface pro 2 has been great. its been a joy to work and play on. it's pretty much what i expected it to be: a mobile art station. it runs photoshop beautifully, among other art programs, while also functioning well as a tablet (games, internet browsing, etc). i've been quite impressed with the battery life so far, though i need to do a few tests from 100%-0%. from what i've seen so far, i should be able to get approx. 5 hours of heavy painting time in. 

not everything has been all sunshine and rainbows, though. the pen accuracy is all over the place. in the top corners, the accuracy is completely terrible, and over the rest of the screen, it's very inconsistent. not that its unusable, as i've done lots of drawing on it already, but, for a premium device, is unacceptable. i spent a week, or so, troubleshooting and researching, and it seems that the issue is fairly common. after chatting with microsoft tech support a few times, i've concluded that this is a hardware defect. a replacement is being shipped to me as i type this, so hopefully that'll remedy the issue. 

one other strange issue, which i've yet to figure out is this...

i think its an issue with wacom's drivers, as they're needed for photoshop to even recognize pressure sensitivity. basically, if i have opacity set to pen pressure, and the "tip feel" in the wacom settings in the control panel set to the normal, medium setting, i cannot get an opaque stroke when i press down fully. i mean, i'd have to press with all of my manly might in order to get an opaque stroke. that's just not cool. i remember reading somewhere that wacom is aware of issues with win8.1, so hopefully they're going to fix this. again, not a big deal, and it doesn't make photoshop unusable, but it sure is annoying.

fresh digital paint

another fresh paint sketch, this one was a bit quicker for whatever reason. may have to try out a portrait or something soon. 

Fresh Paint 2

Another Fresh Paint warm-up sketch. Reflections are hard. Note to self: get more materials practice in.

Fresh paint sketch

Did this today with the Fresh Paint app on my new, fancy-pants Surface Pro 2. Really been enjoying this device. More to come, soon!

yes, more animals

more animals! mwhahaha! really been enjoying these.

color studies

been posting a lot of studies recently.. will have to post some original art soon. but, for now, here's a few random color studies i've done from photos as warm-ups over the past month or two. quick and dirty.

aminals

decided that it's high time i started doing some animal studies. figure i need to increase my visual library, and going between mechanical studies and organic studies is probably a good start. also, i noticed my portfolio has a severe lack of creature concepts, which i cannot abide. there is something, super top-secret, that i'm working on which will certainly help my portfolio in that regard. more on that later. bwhahaah.

clearly, i had a lot more time when i was drawing elephants.

skullz

skull studies from photos. note to self: buy some skulls to study.