Fighting robots

This week'll be robot week, to remedy how I normally don't draw robots.  At some point I hope to force myself into doing a car week... but right now I don't have that kind of willpower :P

Also trying a new way of painting.  For this one I started out in black and used the black layer as a mask to lay in early colors.  It was an interesting experiment.

Steps:

Lunch doodle

30 minutes lunch doodle.

Lanthian Priest Colored

Could not resist coloring this guy.


Holy priest of light. Part of his duty is to patrol around his temple at night to bring light and peace. The blade he holds is ceremonial, a ward against the evils in the shadow.

Lanthian Priest

A true believer in light, the high priest almost starves himself to purify his spirit.

The King

To balance out all the line drawings, here's a quick (30 minute ish) lunch value sketch.

New card

My best card to-date.  The process was surprisingly smooth and there were almost no changes from sketch to color.

Haven't managed to beat this one in any of my newer cards yet, but hopefully my next one will be better :)

actual card: http://www.tcgbrowser.com/mobile/card.php?id=7736

Sett Archer sketch

Same universe, different culture.  I'm not quite sure where this one's going to go yet.  Hopefully I'll figure things out at some point.

Astra Trader Sketch

I loved writing fantasy stories in high school, and some of the stories evolved to hint at a larger fantasy world.  I hope to make a game out of this world at some point, but I thought I should begin doing sketches now rather than waiting for myself to learn scripting... which in theory would happen once I feel happy about my art skills... which may never actually happen :P

The world's populated by humans of different racial and cultural groups, rather than high fantasy humanoid races like elves or dwarves.  The people of Astra is kind of like real-life Gypsies.  They roam about solo or in groups as traders, seers, or mercenaries.  There are no known Astra settlements or kingdoms on any map. Adding to the mystery and taboo is their ability to work strange, voodoo-like spells that do not belong in any officially recognized school of magic.

Breeze

There's a really nice breeze in my apartment right now.  Instead of working on my WoW cards, I really felt like doing a quick doodle before dinner.

It's really relaxing :)

Study

Did a lot of eyeballing this time.  Maybe by tomorrow morning I'll begin to see all the problem areas...

Photo reference: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Sa89d1cd2ZMbbrEMwWqenG22ArooDorJpDHOjphbi8yXpsUJKnyiMriCF15DgwMQHYwWqCzMmlu_DyjSlZgqO3wEE1OdJVaSiXa13MspXJd_dgXUCRG9jwa0N4tqPCsvdaI8uz3Am-A/s1600/Catedral_Alexander_Nevsky.jpg

Study

Study from photo. There are very obvious vanishing points in this photo.  More interestingly, the middle row of buildings are obviously not parallel with the rest of the set-up.

Just saw off my friend who'd been staying with me since Diablo 3 launch.  Had a great time catching up with her.  I also have a lot of pent-up energy to draw now that I haven't been drawing in my own time for almost 3 weeks!  So back to the daily studies I go.

Diablo 3 Launch Event Speed Paint

It's unbelievable I have the honor to help making a game of this kind of quality.  Even more crazy, I got to paint at the launch event!  This was my first live demo.  Doing it for fans rather than fellow artists who are likely way better than me helped me from getting nervous.  Having 2 good friends on stage with me was amazing also.

The demo was 30-40 minutes.  Didn't look at time, too pumped :P

Study - skull

30-minute skull painting.

Fiddler

Had a great time at Renaissance Faire yesterday. We saw many wonderful performances, but there was a band called Circa Paleo that really stood out. Their music was of professional quality, and the lead fiddler of the band had an inspiring amount of positive energy. I'll always remember her, who puts full effort into her work and enjoys it whole-heartedly.

 Painted from a photo we took.

Study

cleaned up and blocked in local colors and where the shadows go.

Study

Decided to try to do a study from photo.  Didn't realize how complex this would turn out until I started doing it.  I still have no clue how to deal with structures that do not fit into a 90 degree grid...

ref photo:

http://www.dreamstime.com/rococo-architecture-style-thumb20077340.jpg

Study

Tried to think in terms of watercolor while coloring digitally.  Halfway through the process, I realized that I'm masking in a way similar to how some colorists would mask their comic book work.  I like how this process forces me to simplify stuff, and would love to explore this more.

Mask layer below:

Study

Spent half an hour learning how to use path tools to make my own perspective grid. Short exercise today, gotta run to work!

On the plus side, I found an awesome watercolor artist on Deviant art yesterday.  I'll be doing studies from his paintings this week.

Source:
http://fav.me/d11t9j1

Study

Gino suggested that I could use an actual ruler to draw straight lines on my cintiq.  The simple elegance of this solution blew my mind.

Study

New one.  Reference:


http://fav.me/d4w90yx