Quick post today, as I’m heading out the door in about 15 minutes for the holiday.
So, short version: Just got ArtRage 3.0 Studio Pro, and I’m currently getting a feel for it. This is the 3rd piece I’ve done screwing around with it, from yesterday:
Just under 3 hours. All ArtRage 3.0 Studio Pro. The rocks are “stickers” in the program, but in my testing, I’ve found that they can be affected by other brushes/tools as well. Other than those, everything else is from scratch.
Enjoy.
1hr. Mostly ArtRage, with the linework, lettering, and shadowing.
Now, who says I don’t love you?
Today’s daily piece, done on and off while I watched a few shows and worked on other crap. I was initially going for something pseudo-Lovecraftian, but didn’t like where it was going, so I decided to do something constructive with it, turning it into an exercise of light and shadow.
Somewhere under 2hrs ArtRage, then a few layers in Photoshop between filtering and shadows/highlights.
Sometimes, as an artist, we do art that we just really don’t care for. Today’s daily practice (12/15) for me is one of those pieces.
(Click for full-sized image)
Just shy of an hour. ArtRage, with minor filtering/tweaking in Photoshop. I didn’t like it 15 minutes into it, but rather than succumbing to my urge to scrap it, I brought it to this point. Didn’t even bother thinking about the creature should have to accessorize it other than the minor tattooing. There reason it wasn’t taken further was do to my being done with it.
The dailies from the 4 or so days previous (a couple of which have had WIP versions posted via Twitpic) are all things that I like, which I plan on spending a bit of time finishing. Not this one, though.
Still, I thought I should share, if nothing else than to give others insight to how my brain works at times.
That’s right. I’m going to put you to good use. YOU CAN BE A PART OF MY ART.
As an artist, much of the time music is heavily played while I’m working on a piece of artwork. Different music can induce different moods, which in turn can be reflected in said artwork. I have a number of good Pandora stations for this, but there’s a certain type of music that I’m lacking.
Some of you may have seen this “trailer” recently uploaded to YouTube:
This is an example of exactly the kind of music I’m looking for.
Sure, there’s a list of a handful of the artists/songs (though the last may be a soundtrack?) that they sampled from the trailer:
AudioMachine – Akkadian Empire
Groove Addicts – Zero Hour
Audio Network – Mars
AudioMachine – Lachrimae (VadoskiN DNB mix)
Wild Rumpus Music – Blame It on the Falling Sky 2.0
John Murphy – The Last House On The Left SCORE
However, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I want epic, energetic, combat music. Instrumental, with perhaps a splash of intense choral vocals. Something that, when you close your eyes, your imagination is ripped wide, your body starting to pulse with subtle waves of adrenaline. Again, the video above is a good reference for the type of music I’m looking for.
Here’s what I need from you:
Artist/Composer – Song
There is no limit to the amount of suggestions.
I’m going to take all of the info I’m given, and feed it into seeding a new Pandora station, for playing when working on certain pieces of artwork. Potentially, they may get played while gaming as well, but the art is the important part.
In turn, I’ll present this to you, via Pandora station URL. I’ll likely also list what songs work for me, versus what songs don’t, so as to further refine the station, and to give you a better, more expansive idea of what I’m looking for.
Go. Go forth and bring me your lists. Actively shape and contribute to my creativity.
(The first comment with a new account has to be moderator approved, but any comments after that are auto-approved. Just an anti-spam precaution.)
Uhm. Yeah.
So here’s a WIP of the current piece I’m working on for my daily exercise.
45min into the piece, most of which has been randomly fucking around w/filters & brushes. I’m totally out of my comfort zone with this…
(Twitpic link, click image for full-sized version)
I seem to be onto something here– it’s a good thing this is digital, otherwise I’d be scared as fuck of touching it any further.
The last 5 days were put on hold to prioritize a charity piece for short notice. While I won’t be able to disclose the specific children’s charity that it’s for, I’ll at least be able post the picture and give a description once the intended recipient has it given to him. The Mysta Remake/Remodel got backburnered so that I could get that priority done, but I’ll probably finish it up later this week, and post it here with progression details.
Moving along…
I dove back into dailies yesterday. No progression with this one, I’ve got a different lengthy post I’m working on for later today. Without further ado, here’s yesterday’s daily:
Just under 3hrs. Initial background and creature painted loosely in ArtRage, without any base linework used. Then ‘ported it to Photoshop, working around a dozen or so layers of varied filter, opacity, and selective erasing on the creature. Brought in foreground and background cloudiness. Rendered in the wreckage in the background with a couple of my custom brushes. Gave the eyes a touch of bioluminescence. Signed the bugger and called it done.
X-Posted to my LiveJournal
…Is being posted hot on the heels of the one from the day before.
ArtRage, then only slightly filtered in Photoshop, mostly for light and shadow.
Oh. Wait. I almost forgot. 15 minutes, total.
So begins Dark December…
Here’s the full process post for yesterday’s intended daily practice piece, started shortly before midnight, worked on intermittently, and finished this afternoon. All images are clickable for much larger versions.
In this case, I wanted to try out a new trick that Rooth shared with me for pulling the linework out of of an image that had been brought from Manga Studio into Photoshop. I opted to do something a bit more cartoon-stylized, and didn’t want to fuck with the feet, so I just worked under the auspice that something would be in front of them.
1) Linework, via Manga Studio, cleaned up in Photoshop.
2) Ported to ArtRage, did a quick paint-in of the background (under 2 minutes, as it wasn’t important).
3) Did a quick, rough render of the foreground.
4) Painted in figure color underlayers.
5) Subtle figure color tweaking/cooling via various layer types and opacities, with selective erasing.
6) Painted in face. More color tweaking/cooling.
7) Dropped face opacity to bring in linework subtly from underneath, and to soften the face a bit. Painted in midground.
8) Added various quick details to the foreground. Fleshed out face and bodysuit interior.
9) Ported it back into Photoshop. Used a mix of filter, overlay-type, and varied opacity layers of the image to help push/pull the depth and detail, with selective erasing.
10) Rendered in figure shadow via varied opacity black layers and a little bit of varied opacity mulitply.
Finally, I brought in a copy of the post-filtered, pre-shadowed image at a 13% opacity over the top, to soften the shadowing a bit. Drew in some quick lights inside the headgear/helmet, tweaked the in-helmet lighting, and called it "done"
Roughly 5 hours. More than I intended, really. At the point that I finished it, I was a couple of hours past the time I’d planned on investing in it, so as far as I was concerned, I was done. Lighting/shadowing is nowhere near perfect, but for a practice piece, I’m good with it. Aside from the linework being done in Manga Studio, this is all raw ArtRage with Photoshop finishing. No photo aspects pulled for texture or anything else.
I need to do some minor cleanup on the ones from last week, and then I’ll post them. Later this week, you’ll get a post on a relatively unknown, free piece of open source graphic/art software.
Time to make the donuts.
Here’s a character design for a different situation entirely. All pieces were rendered strictly digitally from start to finish, using Corel Painter X, with no utilization of photos for textures or any other aspect in their development. Also, as rough concept art pieces, these aren’t really supposed to represent finished works on any level.
During 2007-2008, I was doing various conceptual design work on and off for Red Juggernaut. One of the things I was involved with behind the scenes was fleshing out bits and pieces of their world setting. In this case they wanted a different take on a dwarven race, under the auspice of being evolved from the Australopithecus robustus. Or, as they were referred to in their setting of Terris, "Thulean Dwarves". Short, hairy, and not nearly as much facial diversity as a human would have. Initially it was suggested that they have a touch of similarity to the orcs from LotR, but that was scrapped.
First, I sketched up some basic options for body type, hair coverage, and head shape:
The preferred versions of each were picked, giving me a rough guideline of where to start.
The description of them puts them as a race living in the cold north, sharing some similarities to viking culture, that’s resorted to scavenging to to having fallen on desperate times. While seemingly savage to many outsiders, they’re actually fairly civilized. Here’s the initial 5-10 minute rough speedpaint that sent off, just to have somewhere ot start:
(This image is low res all around, so I’ve opted not to post the full sized version. If you really want to see it, click on the RJ Concept Art page link below.)
After the initial bit of feedback, I opted to experiment, and created a digital "paper doll" version, much like the ones that kids would have various different clothing options they could slap on. With this, I had the core template for the stance and body shape of the Thulean Dwarf, with extra detail put into the face, but the rest left open to be detailed with each iteration. This is the result:
Once we established that I was on the right track, I started slapping some different clothing items on them, working on maintaining a balance between being scavengers in a harsh, cold environment, and being showing some glimmer of civilization. My first shot at that was a bit too much on the basic side:
The next iteration was more along the lines of what they were looking for, but not quite there yet. On the one hand, it reflected more of the brutal northman scavenger look, it was still lacking some degree of the civilized aspect they wanted to show as well. So, while not directly on their concept art page, I’ve included it as a bonus piece for those curious to the process (and to be honest, there are some aspects of it that I was quite pleased with for what was basically a fast and loose speedpainting type of concept art):
After one more round of feedback, we came up with a "final" version, which gave the best feel for the race, and incorporated some aspects to reflect an alliance between them and the another world race that was more Roman-based. For concept art that’s not intended to be a "finished" piece, I was pretty pleased with how this came out, as was Red Juggernaut:
For those interested, here’s the direct link to their concept art page for the Thulean Dwarves. There you can find two other concept pieces for the race done by another artist (I’d guess they were the initial concepts before I worked on them– it was the first I’d seen them, and they weren’t presented to me for reference).
