Cafe Sketches: Talon Greyfeather

I know, I know.  I'm supposed to be done with the birdman...but most of these doodles were done at the cafe last Friday.  So I thought I'd share them.

Corbin Gearheart Concepts 01

Well, here's some quick concepts for Corbin Gearheart.  I know none of them will make the cut.  They look to sci-fi-ish as opposed to fantasy-ish.  But I just had to get these out of my system.  Hopefully I'll have more discipline on the next iteration (if any) and do my researches on clockwork men/robots before I dive into my sketches.

[Note]  I just realized that the poor 2nd guy will have a hard time raising its arms.  Oh well...

Playing with modularizing parts of Florence Cathedral, and spinning those into Hightower's cityscape and skyline.

Talon Greyfeather Head Concept

First off, Sam, I apologize for designing the same character yet again.  I'm most likely not going to develop this, as I don't really have a strong feel for this character.  This is just a "what if" concept of Talon Grefeather's head.  I thought it could be interesting to design him with slightly more of a human's head as opposed to just using a hawk's head?  I don't know...I could be drunk ;)

[Update 1]  A quick concept sketch of  Talon Greyfeather from this morning.  I don't know man, but it's looking a lot more like a bird to me now :o  Perhaps if I have time later, I'll paint over the face so it'll look slightly more human.  (On another note, yes, he will most likely have bird feet.)

[Update 2]  This is quite a lot of update for "I'm most likely not going to develop this" :P  As for the bottom design, the plan was making his head look less birdlike, but what do you know?  It's still screaming out bird!  I don't think the armor is a good fit for pirates.  I also like the leaner body proportion from the previous design more.  (On yet another note, am I glad digital painting class is happening soon.  I'm trying to paint a bird, but it's resembling more like a wookie to me :o)

[Update 3]  Yep, that should do it.  This will be the end of my Bird run....

[Update 4]  Oops...I lied.  Thought I would post something from my sketchbook.  Might as well...hehe.

Talon Greyfeather Designs

Here's my Talon Greyfeather design.  Not sure any of these costumes necessarily say "pirate" but I do kind of like some of the outfits.  Opinions?

The Bitch: Costumes First Pass

Just quickly threw something together without much thought.  Maybe I should be do more of these...

[Update 1]  Here's another go.  I have to force myself to keep my drawings looser than usual, otherwise I'd find myself jumping into details too soon and lose out on the overall design.

[Update 2]  Damn, those collars looks super uncomfortable if not restrictive.  Need to problem solve that if I plan to keep that design.

Dakota Simms Painting

Here's my (for now) final Dakota Simms design and painting -- I'm not totally satisfied with the painting but I think it was a worthwhile experiment and will be nice to have a "before" piece as I go into the Red Engine class.  Overall I like the design and colors, though -- I'm just more comfortable drawing and I think I might be happiest in colored line art.

Ready to move on to a new character / piece of art!!

I'm thinking about turning this thumb for Hightower in a larger scale line drawing.

The Bitch: Another Attempt

I know what I'm doing wrong...I am rendering and designing the character simultaneously.  Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I don't think I have the skills to be doing that quite yet.  It's almost like running before learning how to walk.  I need to get the design down, hardline it, then render.  So I keep telling myself.

[Update: My rendering always falls on the way too soft side.  So I decided to bumped up the contrast only to find a messy rendering technique completely exposed.  Now I guess I know why I choose the desaturated approach when rendering.]

Hightower, take two

I had Hightower all wrong. This place doesn't have skyscrapers, but buildings low to the ground. I Port Royal from Pirates of the Caribbean for a reference this time.

Painting is hard

Here's where I am on my painting of my line drawing from last night.  It's coming along okay but I am having a lot of trouble with the face.  I, too, am looking forward to the digital painting class!!

Capt. of the Bitch first pass.

For a change of pace, I thought I would try my hand at the Captain (every one else is).  Without the description of "super hot"  I would have conceptualized here as a punk rock chick.  I mean she has a ship named The Bitch and she is a pirate!  Anyway fun hairdo and she is giving you the bedroom eyes.  May try another couple designs with this one.

The Bitch: Painting

Boy!  Am I glad I enrolled myself in Intro to Digital Painting!  Why is painting so damn HARD???
[Edit 1:  It was so painful to look at my own painting, I had to do some cropping.]
[Edit 2:  Is it just me, or is it damn hard to look at your own work????]
[Edit 3:  Time for bed!  -__-  ]
[Edit 4:  Kill me with color!]

Dakota Simms Rough 2

Must...not...get...shown up by Katsun...

Captain of the Bitch Rough First Pass

When I saw Sam's post on Dakota Simms, Captain of the Bitch, I went to myself, hmm...MUCHAHA! I know I need to take a quick dab at it.  Here's a really quick rough sketch of her.  Most of my time went to designing her face.  I don't even know whether the body parts are in proportion to each other.  I just had to get this out of my system...before dinner.  Hehe.

I don't know what I'm doing brothers and sisters, but I'm on the top of the world right now!  I was just informed that I am officially in Viscom at CDA!!!  Yeah!!!  In regards to the second drawing on the bottom, grrr...I really need to start to look at references as I have no idea what pirates look like among many other things.  And figure drawing class tomorrow hopefully will help with my poses too...

Dakota Simms Rough

Took a little break from some freelance projects to do a quick character design of Dakota Simms, the independent pirate captain of The Bitch, which she operates with an all-female crew.  

Big Guy N' Little Guy

Had an interesting time with silhouettes on this one.  The image of a big guy and a little guy is a great one.  I can not help but imagine that the gnome character is a bit more lippy now that he has a giant, magic fueled robot guardian on his side.  I am spending too much time on the rendering and not enough on a plethora of designs.  For the time being, I think I should work looser then this to get a variety of ideas down first.  Oh well...  Next time.

Gnome Techno-mancer sketch.

I wanted to explore the Gnome Techno-mancer character before bed and instead found my self working on one sketch for an hour and a half.  Tomorrow I will do some silhouettes for the gnome and his automaton companion.

Lord Roberts

I wanted to riff on / steal Katsun's Lord Roberts design.

Dark Timber Painting Round 2

I scrapped everything except for the foreground trees and started over.  I think it's much better but I still have a lot to learn about painting!  This took me about two hours this morning.  I need to get faster, too!

If you're curious, here is a work-in-progress version that I saved:

I tried to block in bigger chunks of color first and work down into smaller details.  I think it helped quite a bit.  Then, once the pieces were in place, I could see where I needed to take color / brightness up or down.

Here's a black and white version...I tried to drop the painting into grayscale from time to time to make sure it was still reading.

Dark Timber Lineart (and painting attempts)

Continuing to develop my Dark Timber temple comps -- I got a line art drawing I liked but I really suck at painting.  Help!!

The Sleeples Silhouettes Batch 01

I dread making silhouettes.  But I feel like I am drawing similar forms over and over again. So here's an attempt, and to my surprise....same forms over and over again carries over in my silhouettes as well -__-  I guess I have a tendency to wanting to jump into details immediately, hence neglecting the overall shape.  I should probably limit myself to only BIG brushes when doing silhouettes.  Enough blabbing, here it is...

Note: After I uploaded the image, I realized the lower right ship has a "face" like front.  Subconsciously I was probably trying to make some type of face, just that I didn't know until stepping away and looking at it from up far.  So I'll probably go back and add a lower jaw to that "face"...someday.

Update: Grr...I am hating my silhouettes so much, I don't know whether to pull them down or jump off a bridge.  At any rate, here's a revised version, but my thoughts of jumping off a bridge still persist...

Sleepless Ship (Most Likely Not)

Sketchbook doodle over lunch. Took a photo with my phone and then traced over in photoshop. It's dubbed as the Sleepless Ship for now, but it really needs to be much bigger and BADDER! (Pardon me for the wonky perspective)

Here's the second one I did over lunch in my sketchbook.  I can already tell this is not going to be Sleepless, but hey, maybe it can lead to other ideas.  Approached this as if I was using markers in Photoshop. Not liking the yellow background (color of my sketchbook paper).

 As I was flipping through my sketchbook, I realized how much I've changed the design with the "marker" approach. So I quickly drew as loosely and as closely to the original sketch as I can in Photoshop, and came up with this... (Again, for perspective buffs, please don't take offense. It's just a doodle : D )

New Baldun quick sketch

Just wanted to figure out what the half-cracked mountain, interior village and valley village might look like.  Drew this really quickly on my tablet last night.

Lord Roberts Continues...

Unfortunately my allergy is keeping awake, so everyone gets to suffer with me  ; )

Did this on my iPad while in bed.

Sorry for swarming the blog. But here's another take on Lord Roberts from where I left off last night...
(After looking at the drawing, the beard and the hood match up is definitely odd)

Morning Doodles: Lord Roberts

Some doodles of Lord Roberts from this morning. I feel like I'm resorting to the same forms over and over again. Perhaps I need to start with silhouettes and graphic breakups in order to give him a more interesting shape...

Dark Timber Comps

I wanted to try some comps of the Lich's temple in the haunted Dark Timber forest...Very hard!  I think some of my later ones (heading toward the lower right images) are better but I'm still not 100% satisfied.  Once I get something I like I'd like to do a background painting.

Inspiraiton: Palenque, Ankor Wat, La Huesteca

Lord Roberts Round 1

Some quick sketch of Pirate Lord Roberts before calling it a night. Keep note, I haven't obscured his face yet. Not sure I am liking any of them. The description oh him is a lot more appealing than the drawings at this point. Oh well, good night moon...

Swiftwrath 3/4 with Tones

Here is a 3/4 view of my Swiftwrath design with grey tones.  I am having a lot of trouble picking colors -- either I go for naturalistic colors and it looks plain, or I go for more crazy colors and it looks like it is an airship crewed entirely by clowns.  Also I'm worrying that the railing and lack of details make the scale confusing -- if this ship is supposed to hold up to 200 people I think it should have more details, ropes hanging off of it, stuff like that.

For now anyway, I'm going to put this in my portfolio.  I am still happy with my ideation process; I like the shapes I went with and I am happy with how the orthographic came out.

Some ideas for Hightower

Some ideas for Hightower

More Quick Sketch of Mal Fortwhite

Did these while watching TV... (Oops! I forgot about the wings!)

Mal Fortwhite Quick Sketch

I made a quick napkin sketch of Mal Fortwhite over lunch today. I took a photo with my phone and did a quick paint over in Photoshop after I got home.  I haven't gone in depth with the story.  So I based Mal Fortwhite off the following keywords: chimp, monk, and wings.  Sorry :P