Some More May Sketch a Day Stuff

 

These are all studies, the top one to show the technique I used to do the bottom ones. The video shows the whole process that took just over 2 hours in five minutes. The bottom ones are studies of the excellent BBC series War & Peace. I did them on my Cintiq Companion while freezing a frame on my TV. It was hard to get the colours right and I think that was probably, next to the composition, the biggest challenge. I really enjoy doing them but I prefer using reference but then overlay my own designs and ideas on top of it. 

ArtStation Challenge - "The Journey" first entry.

Hibernation Error

I've been meaning to join this challenge for a while and in between work I've been tinkering away at it. I finally feel I have enough to show to post a proper entry. I had this idea in mind of a long space journey where the hibernation system fails and kills all on board except one. An almost classic Sci-Fi trope but fun to explore nonetheless.
During the IW Demo Day last month I had a chance to show a little bit of my process of this painting in front of an audience. It was fun if not a little daunting.

I started with a quick thumbnail to figure out my shot and/or composition. I planned to kit-bash the whole thing in 3D but it's always good to have a rough idea of where you want to go.



I did the kit-bashing with the help of my own 3D models, Daz3D and free kits I found online. Although my PC is pretty swanky it didn't like this scene when I was done adding all the models. I was going to render it in 3DsMax but the high polycount meant I would have MentalRay render for days just for one image. So I took it to Keyshot which did a fantastic job in just a fraction of the time. I assigned materials and emissive objects in Keyshot and did a few render passes like the line work you see here. It give me a good idea of where everything is, especially as this is quite a dark scene.



This was the first light setup that I played with and I really liked the sense of danger but it didn't really feel like an hibernation room... I'm still tempted to go back to the red colour...



After a full render with lights and materials in Keyshot I took it to Photoshop to add atmosphere, texture, colour, and more light. The next step is to paint in more details, make it feel less like a render and more like a painting. I might also need to make it a little more clear the other people are deceased and that the system failed.



Thank you for taking a look, please stay tuned for more. In the meanwhile I appreciate all feedback, comments and critiques.

Cheers!

PS. This was copied from my ArtStation Challenge page, please have a look at updates and feedback here: https://www.artstation.com/contests/the-journey/challenges/5/submissions/3720

Tetsuo!!! Tribute to Akira and CGchub challenge entry.

Last Sunday I spend mostly on the couch watching tv and sketching away in my sketchbook. It was quite some time ago since I managed to render out a drawing with pencil. It really is satisfying though frustrating when you mess up and have to erase. Especially since my eraser is rather big and tends to erase more than intended.
Anyway, I made this drawing for the CGhub.com challenge; "Experiment Gone Wrong". I couldn't really come up with an original idea so I borrowed it from my favourite anime. I have to recommend you read the original manga novel. It's a classic that resonates still in the back of my mind.
Let's hope I'm not disqualified for the challenge... :)