Recent WIP

It's been a while since I posted anything here, so I thought I would share my latest WIP. This is a concept sketch, i've been working on a little bit every night, for the past few nights. I've been hammering out the lighting structure, and form, ... getting pretty close to a point where I see how the finer details are going to work. This guy has gone through many iterations. I think I changed his feet and legs about 50 times. I haven't been sketching as much lately, so getting back into has been slow and creaky, but very fun. I've been absorbing all of the influences I can from the great artists I find on the web. There are so many styles I like, that I flip flop alot between wanting to do rough, impressionistic type work, and finer detailed stuff.



My canvas is so messy :razz:



Still messy.. I will eventually clean it up, when I'm finished. I'll post a followup when this guy is done.

• Now, next order of busniess is the halflife2.net MSPAINT drawing competition. I urge other Snarkpit sketchers to join. This contest ends Saturday. You have to draw a scene from HL2, using ONLY MSPAINT. Which, is akin to using crayons and wax paper. It was fun, though. Here's my entry.

Here's a liink to the competition. http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=25632

And a link to the comments section, of the competition. http://www.halflife2.net/forums/showthread.php?t=25633

Enjoy!

I really like the first image...but what are those blocks in the picture?

Finger: i would have loved to enter the ms paint competition! i trust
you can use Wacom devices and the like? im going on holiday tomorrow
though, so will have to give it a miss :sad: never mind

"There are so many styles I like, that I flip flop alot between wanting
to do rough, impressionistic type work, and finer detailed stuff." - heh, i know that one

as for the concept sketches.. i like them - almost like a licker off
Resident Evil 2 meets toxic waste :razz: the skin needs more texture
though, even if it is a concept - scales? or even the slime/amphibious
approach would be good

I love the first and second pictures, such perfect examples of concept art. The first is particularly cool for the fact it gives such a clear example of the creatures form. In the second picture the creature is given a little more attitude and depth, but for some reason doesn't seem as impressive as the first. In this one it reminds me a lot of the walking fish creatures from Final Fantasy X, which is perhaps the reason I don't like it as much as it doesn't seem so original.

Regardless, great work, and the HL2 sketch is amazing considering the limitations though I personally don't rate it too highly if those limitations are ignored.

I like the first one more than the second one. First one has a more consistent feel to it, kind of frog-like. Second one is good, but the feet and hands don't particularly look to be matching the rest of the concept. And geeze, you can do that in MSpaint?! I want a Wacom! :smile:

You're all right, the picture is definately evolving into something different than the original concept. I decided that I wanted to move away from the froglike, webbed feet, so I'm exploring some clawish stuff. Almost like a sloth mixed with a frog. He's not finished though, so we will see If I can pull the design together a little more. I find that rendering a drawing can easily kill the energy of the initial sketch, which has kind of happened here...hopefully I can regain some of that in the final rendering.

As for the mspaint drawig... lol, that was so aggrivating. There is no way to blend colors, or lower the brush opacity, so I just tried to do a crosshatchish blend of various solid colors. It was fun, but thank god we have advanced beyond mspaint.

Looking very, very good.

But yeh, what's the block on the sketch ?

That block was just a photoshop brush I made, that I haven't erased yet. Cool thing about digital, is you can clean up any mess.

Really like the first one, everything looks just right. Easily as good as a lot of proffesional concept art I have seen.

I think your cross hatching works very well, but his eyes seem a tad big. Looking at the other entries, yours must have been in the top 3.

Awesome stuff.

2^nd one is fantastic :biggrin: The shadow and lighting is all done perfectly well. Got a good grasp on ye olde lighting techniques young padawan ;-)

Here's the latest version of this guy. It's a little more polished, but still not finished.

Ooh, I like the tail, kind of reminds me of a scorpion with a stinger at the end. I would make the spear shaft a little longer though to make it, more, um, spear-like. Nice work anyways. :smile:

Awesome work Finger, your ability to work with light and shadows always impresses me! It's an area I need to work at and improve myself.

The creature doesn't realy look intelligent enough to wield a spear.
Let's not get into how impossible it would be to effectively operate
one with two fingers and a thumb of sorts.

The creature itself is well drawn, like all your other work. I'd like to see how you imagine he'd move.

Alien_Sniper said:
The creature doesn't realy look intelligent enough to wield a spear.

intelligent enuff? have you taken a close look at our modern armies?

/runs

Oooh I like the highlighting on that new one, really looks powerful and
bright and is possibly some of the most convincing recreations of
highlights I can recall seeing!

Considering the level of polish it has overall, I feel it looks a bit
rough around some edges. If you cleaned them up a little and made them
smoother, this could be of the sort of quality you'd expect on a book
cover or something.

Wow... just... wow!

Didn't touch him for a week or so. Decided to put him in an environment before I pushed on with the rendering. Still a ton of rough edges, as Reno pointed out.... getting there, though.

just an observation:

the environment of the area, looks detrimental to a reptile/amphibian master finger..

did you intend for it to look frigid?

/continues droolage.

tis just overcast :razz:

Argh....I couldn't escape your observation.

Wow, adding in the enviroment does loads for the picture. I'm
thoroughly impressed by this mate, definately the best I've seen from
you and thats no easy feat!

Finger said:
Argh....I couldn't escape your observation.

far be it for me to correct a master at his trade.. the pic was fine originally bud.

i hope, i didn't overstep :/

Thanks :dorky: . No Orph, I'm glad you pointed that out. It's hard to step back from your own creations, and critique them objectively.

I really like the latest, very, very cool.

Finger said:
Thanks :dorky: . No Orph, I'm glad you pointed that out. It's hard to step back from your own creations, and critique them objectively.

ok then, take your lizard/frog and make a second version, just for grins/giggles.

add this stuff:

• weatherbeaten the rocks, soften the edges a bit.
• increase the water depth up to the frogs forefoot, make it ripple from the immersion.
• make it rain, just a bit.. add just a few blurry droplets.
• add a leaf or two.
• increase the depth by- adding some fog, between the tail (farthest part of body away) and head (nearest).
• add moisture (dew drops) to pronged spear.
  </LI>

compare two pics when finished.

The polished look of the frog clashes with the harsh strokes of the environment.

True, Ferret. Still very much a WIP, and I'll take Orphs's suggestions into consideration as I polish it out further.

Finger said:
True, Ferret. Still very much a WIP, and I'll take Orphs's suggestions into consideration as I polish it out further.

please do it seperately.. i would hate myself for ruining your frog :sad:

I can't seem to stop poking at it.

Damn.

This reminds me of some really good artists (amateur) that I'm favorable of: Jullie Dillon and (I don't really know her name because the entire site is in Korean) the chick who runs tatoomcity

Awesome. Simply Awesome ... and bad ass ... but I use that phrase too much.

Now all it needs is a flame mammal of some sort to oppose the lizard ... who has opposable thumbs.

i see some of my comments applied :biggrin:

nice..very nice.

Evolution? Perhaps... But, whats next? :smile:

... and you managed to forget the latest one

Crono said:
... and you managed to forget the latest one

i musta been fixing that, as you replied.. thanx none the less :smile:

Next? I think just more tightening and rendering...maybe a skewered snark on the end of his spear?

I kinda liked the rocks having more definition as before, though they
certainly look more in tune with the style of the creature now. Perhaps
you could reach an equilibrium somehow, by making them a little more
sharp and defined?

The spear could use a fair bit of tidying but otherwise the creature looks pretty complete to me :smile:

yeah, I already changed the foremost rock, and one in the background. One was too round, the other, too pointy.