Art Jam 10: Monster

Monster done in the last Art Jam!

When talking about what we were gonna do, we decided to go for a monster. And lately I've been playing Shadow of the Colossus on the old PS2 (in case you don't know it is a killer game!) so I was kind of inspired on doing something with hair and stone. I tried to keep it as rough as possible, not minding much on the details or something that appeared to be noodled a lot.  This is what came out.

Check out EDSFOX's and Luis Larm, and Adan Flores monsters, everyone has a different style, which is great!

And here is a picture of that day. Edsfox on the left and me on the right, courtesy of Adan Flores .

Art Jam 9: Morrigan Aensland

eldropper's version

2 weeks ago, the Art Jam subject changed suddenly from dudes to babes so, we obviously picked Morrigan as our subject of study. I did my piece and EdsFox did his, and as usual , we colored each other's drawing. But he requested as a personal favor that my coloring this time was more of a painted style, instead of comic book-ish. This was indeed a challenge for me, but I wasn't gonna back out of it. At the end he liked my work. 

But, I did wanted to color mine too, because I just thought that a Cell Shaded look it would end up being perfect for the drawing. Here is how it ended up.

Artline (by me)

Edsfox Version (full view pls!)

And here is Edsfox lines colored by me in a painted style. 

At the end, it doesn't matter which is your style, or what techniques you use, what matters is that you feel right doing it and that you like the result of your work. I't doesn't have to be perfect, it is just another step closer to achieving your goal of becoming a better artist.

I'll update this post with a video of the sketching of the art line later on. 

Cell Shaded Wonder Woman

It started out as a warm up, but sometimes this babies just have a life of their own. Soon I realize that It could turn into my very first Wonder Woman piece, so I just went along with it.

And just after I began coloring it, I decided this could be my very first Cell Shaded experiment. I always loved how MetalHanzo and Lastscionz do their his anime-ish coloring so this was my shot at it. And I have to say I like a lot the way it came up. I'm too planning on doing many more like this one. It can't hurt to have different styles on one's art repertoire.

The sketch

Here is the Chamba piece I used as help on the tecnical side, you know, the Layer modes on Photoshop. More of his tutorials here.

Coffee Shop Sketch

I did this one as a warmup for my Gabby sketch. Warming up is really important, I bet everyone who draws has experienced a better set of art lines after 4 hours of working.

Gabby sketch

I'll have a Mocha-Frappuccino-coffe-latte

Here is a sketch I did while having coffee the other day. The model is a friend of mine, I needed to practice drawing from life, although it came out too comic book-ish.

Art Jam 8: Mecha!

For this week's Art Jam, EDSFOX had an interesting idea. He remembered that the new Thundercats Animated series trailer was just released a couple of days ago, and how epic it is. Since we had already done Thundercats art, we stayed with the "epic" feeling and he suggested something of that magnitude:

Mechas!

I used to love Robotech as a kid and of course the Evangelion anime is no exception. Mechas are uber cool and I have never really tried to do one. So naturally I agreed.

This is my first mecha ever. I tried to used that technique used in the making of concept artwork in which you use blocks of paint with just an idea of what you want and you keep adding and subtracting as you move along. It was a very interesting experiment! I had a log of fun while doing it, and I think I will do more of these in the future.

I recorded all the process.

Hope you dig!

The Legend of Zelda Tribute

By Odin, at last it is finished.

This is the longest I have ever worked on a piece, not because of the size of it, because I didn't do it in one sitting but over the course of 3 months, a few hours at the time. Also, I needed it finished it cuz' I want to include it in my portfolio for a special project that is in the making. This is it, I will explain this step by step. Don't think of this as a tutorial, but more like a general description of the whole process.

1. Sketch

Being a tribute to one of my favorite games  I wanted to do something that felt complete, I mean with full characters and a decent background in some sort of surprise battle. I also wanted to do a mix up of two of the Zelda games, (Twilight Princess and Wind Waker) so I chose the Lost Woods as the scenery, Link for the first game and Ganon for the second game (my favorite versions of both of them).

2. Tighter Lines

Once the characters and the background have been placed, I started to tight up the lines of the sketch. Doing digital art gives you the advantage of working really fast and to be able to correct things more easily. I concentrated myself on the details such as clothing and the faces first, then I moved to the trees and the rest of the forest. I used reference shots for Link's Shield engravings and his uniform, as well as for Ganon's outfit. I did took the liberty of putting some medieval boots on him.

3. Inks

Then it comes the inking stage. Here I just winged it, trying not to put much thought on perfection or something really squeaky clean. This was all done on Sketchbook Pro so I took the opportunity to experiment with some of the pencil bushes, giving them the appearance of inking brushes with a lot of texture, specially on the shadows of the tree branches. I just tried to have fun with the whole thing.

A couple of detail shots

Now, on to Photoshop CS5. This is where it gets fun!

4. Color I: Flats

  

 This stage is kind of new to me, and I learned it thanks to the fabulous Art Jams that I have been rocking with my buddies EDSFOX and Martegod. Flattening is just creating massive blocking of colors separating all the parts of the illustration. This is the part of the process that tends to be a little bit tedious for me. But, that being said, it is extremely helpful later on. I keep this on a separate layer just below the coloring layer. I used bright and contrasting colors so when I use Photoshop's Magic Wand (Shortcut W ) I don't have a hard time selecting the chunks of color. The fact that you are able to select anything on another layer is just ridiculously time saving speeding things up, boosting your productivity to the maximum.

5. Color II: Base color

Using the flats as my base, I separated each of the base colors I will use for each part. Some of them changed a bit during the process, but you get the idea.

6. Color III: Light Source

I used a visual map for the illustration, pointing out which parts I want to bring out more, maybe with a lot of detail or with a specific kind of light.

With my base color and my visual map ready, I state my sources of light so I can start to color accordingly.

Again this is just a guide. Things may change as I move along.

7. Color IV: Wrapping it up

I focused on the two characters using the beam of light as the main source, I wanted it to kind of reflect on everything around Ganon. I used this as the premise of the illumination and color placement of the illustration. The ambient blue on the background is just to give some contrast and depth to the piece.

8. Sweeting things up.

For the finishing touches, a couple of Hard light tricks and Screen glows here and there, just to sweet things up.

I could describe my whole coloring process as kind of a mood setting using color theory, the message you want to communicate and my gut feeling. You have to know when to stop, and strangely, one nows when it is ready. I admit I have to study more color theory so the jobs can get better, but as with everything, it is a matter of watch and learn.

That's it! Again, it was a tough one but I had a lot of fun doing it all the way.

I hope I don't disappoint all you Legend of Zelda fans everywhere. If this serves you in some way my mission is accomplished. And as always, all comments and critics are welcome.