Gold-tree

In keeping with posting Grimm Tales, here's a drawing I did in prep for an adaptation for Gold-tree and Silver-tree that never came into fruition. (Still hopeful that someday it will though :) For those not familiar with the story, it has a lot of similarities to Snow White and Briar Rose as I recall, complete with the evil mother and some other story details. Here's a link to one version of the story...

Grimm

Sketch and final for an illustration of a Brothers Grimm tale, "The White Bride and the Black One", that I did a couple of years ago. I just did a bit of retouch on the final version though, as it seemed far too light after looking at it again. The contrast works much better now. Another plus for Photoshop, using it with natural media, in this case watercolor, to improve the piece very simply. If I were to try and darken the shadows in watercolor, I would have a tougher time keeping the blending consistent. My hope though, is that it still reads as watercolor glazes. Be curious to hear others thoughts...

Mermaid Study

Study for a story I'm working on. Colored pencil and photoshop, playing with another new brush that gives me a nice watercolor texture.

Another Laid Back Legion Moment

Who says superheroes can't have relaxing moments... even superheroes of the future? This time Light Lass and Timber Wolf enjoy a little down time between missions of saving the universe. Enjoy it while it lasts, kids, Darkseid's got another plot in the works...

Winter Interlude

Took advantage of some unseasonably warm weather to do some plein air painting today with fellow concept artist Andrew Bosley. We've both been inspired by the posts of James Gurney and his ongoing discussions about painting theory. Today we both independently challenged ourselves in using limited palettes of color, in the attempt to better harmonize the overall tone of the painting. I've also been trying to get a bit bolder with the opaque quality of the gouache that I've been using, often falling back to much on the transparencies of watercolor. I was reasonably happy with the results, and certainly enjoyed the break of staring into a computer monitor for an hour.

Phantom of the Future, Phantom of the Past

Happy New Year to all!

In continuing with sketching up members of the Legion of Superheroes from before the new year, here's my latest, Phantom Girl, decked out in her 70's costume, including those great bell bottoms! I'm sure they'll be all the rage again in the 30th century, as you just can't keep a fashion statement like that down for long.

Hope to post more soon... along with some sketches in progress.

Season of Angels

Still see a lot of angels this time of year, which reminded me of this drawing I did a couple years back, and later modified to use as a sign in a piece of concept art. Seemed somehow an appropriate image to ring out the old year for a new... Wishing a wonderful 2008 to all.

Happy Holidays!

Wishing all a happy holiday season! 'Nuff said!

Duo Damsel

Nostalgia for old characters that I loved in my youth has brought me to some of the Legion of Superheroes from the 70s, along with the way out fashions they were famous for, mostly the work of Dave Cockrum.

I loved these stories as a kid, and the costumes seemed so modern, so NOW! at the time... Now of course, they serve as a great time capsule. But then, so does anything from a certain time period that hopes to envision the future. Who know? Maybe the kids really will dress like this in the 30th century.

Here, of course, is the Delightful Duo Damsel, gossiping with herself, probably about Bouncing Boy's weight or some such... you can fill in the gaps, yes, you.

The first of many I've got planned... we'll see how many come into fruition.

Crazy Jane

Been a while since I posted... busy times have kept me away, but am determined to post more frequently now that its December. Here's a recent Crazy Jane I worked up for my buddy Craig before he took off in pursuit of his dream storyboarding films... I gotta confess, working on some of these old characters made me wax nostalgic, so I may well be doing more revisits. Yee-ha!

Spooky

Bats in the belfry, courtesy of Kaitlin. Halloween's less than a week away!

Crashin' concepts

Concepts for the Crash Site map from GRAW2. By this time I'd started working straight into Photoshop, no pencil underdrawing, with some photo manipulation. Looking back on them now, I wish I'd have given them a more painterly treatment, but that's always part and parcel of looking back on one's own work, seeing what you would do different now.

Sheltered

Taking a break from showing concept work to post some more personal stuff... as I try to flesh out a story...

Conceptin' pt. 5

Two more, the common element in these being the crazy curves in the architecture. Thank goodness for shipping curves.

The Hydro Dam appeared in GRAW2, the airport/parking garage on the cutting room floor.

Conceptin' pt.4

Another concept for a map that didn't make it, but this was one of the first ones that I remember stretching the canvas from my original drawing to change the composition. The whole right third was added later in Photoshop, because I wanted to show where the bridge led to. By this time I'd learned to start making custom leaf brushes to quickly create jungle foliage.


Slightly older sketch where I was trying to show a bit of the diversity of color in what some of the buildings in an old Mexican town might have, along with some of the stuff you'd find on the streets that help instill life into it, without actually having to put people in.

Normal turnaround time on concepts like these are 1-2 days.

Conceptin' pt. 3

Details to be used for a monument that was to be the central point of a multiplayer map that ended up being used for GRAW 2, though again, the final design varied from some of these initial sketches. I'll try to show the composite I put together tomorrow...

Conceptin' continued

More GRAW concepts... these ones were used for Downloadable Content. I'm pretty sure it changed in the final design, but note how the top portion of the second drawing resembles a certain iconic mouse...

Conceptin'

Thought I'd finally get around to posting a few concept pieces that have been my bread-and-butter for these last few years. I'll post a few throughout the next week or so. These first couple are from the Multi-play Temple map for Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter, or more commonly known as GRAW. These were done before I really started working in Photoshop to establish mood... later pieces will show more of what I speak of.

More Belle

Putting together more pieces on building a new character... this is the fun part.

Belle

Beginning to feel out some ideas for some new stories and characters... Here's the first, fresh from my sketchbook. More details as I flesh them out!