Blackreach

Study of screenshots from Skyrim (Blackreach cavern)

Little well lit cavern study for my story idea.
All this made me want to play Skyrim again.

I still don't have clear painting process. I should watch more tutorial vids tonight.

and let the digital era begin

Scene 4 - background

This took..way too long.
It was fun practice.. one of many to come in the near future.

Real or Unreal?

Last painting assignment of the semester. one realistic, one cartoony..

bg

update Nov 20
after many revisions later..

Scene 3 Background

This is final now.. because I have to start painting it tomorrow. thanks for all your support fellas.

Salon

Mimi's Salon
Gauche on Watercolour paper (11 x 8.5 inches)

Not as clean as I wanted but since I'm working very small for an animation background that can't be helped.. Brush sizes only go so small you know.

Update Nov. 4

I'm not too happy with the character colours but didn't want to spend so much time on it.

This is the line work I painted over.

Lol man.. I just realized.. Those characters are huge compare to the door... and the whole room. this is an oversight indeed. Well, lesson learned... the hard way.

.. and School began. - Tonal & Hobos

I didn't really want to put up school stuff here anymore but as long as school exists, I won't be putting out decent personal works so Here goes. It's nice way to see progress too I suppose.

First we have painting.. I purposely desaturated this black and white painting in Photoshop because.. once I added white to make the foreground object opaque, it became all blue. So without unfortunate tints from black and white and the paper colour, I can judge whether I made the tonal work or not better.


Next, my hobo design. I wonder if they look too generic.. :(
Playing around with some expression/interactions..
Zzz.

Getting lazy. Random Update

My humble workstation

penciling in

basic colour wash

numero 2

Al Hirschfeld inspired.
The hands are bigger than I want them to be..

Acrylic - digital painting has made me an impatient person..

Preperation..

This one got scrapped.

This is what I settled for today..

First time using acrylic in four years. I wasn't that good to begin with so it was interesting..

Serveral things I learned. In order of importance.. sort of.
1. thumbnail very clearly before begin.
2. colour study before begin.
3. mix colours carefully so not every colour turns all muddy.
4. mind every brush stroke.
5. Don't even expect decent painting until I have done at least 20 of them..

thats it. little disappointed but I can't wait to apply what I learned to my next painting.

Catch!

Gouache on watercolour paper and cell painting.
I lerned some good techniques from this assignment.. but also made me realize in which area I was lacking.
Also special thanks to my late night critics: The Amazing Action Ape, Hail and Zila.
Additionally, it made me happy that we certainly don't have to use cells for animation but also ashamed for we have such a easy way out.

Compare & Contrast

Original

Master Copy

Scanning and changing brightness/contrast can never justify the paint's real colour so I'm not even going to bother.

I'm still at awe at the Disney background painters. I'm not sure how big this thing was painted but it sure has crazy crisp details in there.

Now that I look at them both on the same screen, I can see that I drew the perspective wrong. Maybe I should've traced it instead.

I was happy with it until I posted this. Wow, it's so different than the original. :/

Rushing never felt so good

I can draw mechanical objects better but I can paint organic objects better. :/
Weird little painting. Took me 2.5 hours.

If I can do something like this in 2.5 hours(not that I'm proud of it), I should practice painting more.

Today's bits

Today's Weekly caf sketch. its alright i guess. I need to find places to exaggerate and draw out body and such.

didn't chance much. just added people.. fixed shadow a bit. I wish foreground object would stand out more :/

night scene looks bit better than before. I do like the mother bug's silhouette.. i think i adjusted contrast on this bit too much. this one looks better than the real thing.

Unfinished piece of.... something

In progress
hmm My day on planet 7 doesnt look that bad at all. I'm actually impressed..
Things to fix are.. too much mid tone, I definitely need more highlight or darktones.
add more people outside, fix the background building part.. fix the colour on the glass bridge.

Now this, I have no idea where to begin with this. This is actually the first one I painted. I'll see how long it will take me to fix the day one and I just might redo this one..
but to observe what the heck does not work..
-light source?
-colour yellow doesn't seem to belong in the red tone painting..
-the bug in front looks terrible.. more details perhaps.

This one might have a chance of survival if i do something with the yellows in there..
playing with the colours in photoshop gave me an idea to give the whole painting even darker tone to really get the mother bug's silhouette pop out.. but its already 12:30am.. I'll rest today.

Spider!

After trying to come up with colour scheme, I realized I'm not quite 'amazing' at painting with gouache so I wanted to simplify things. Also added a spider :p I begining to get tired of this particular layout so I think it is wise for me to quickly get this over with without making anymore changes.

This Will Never End..

More I draw these stuff out, I keep finding areas to change and improve.. I gotta do something about that background..

You can only do so many same thumbnails before it kills you.

Lets start with the initial thumbnail drawing.

Top left corner. I still like it. Strong 'vine' shape and the sense of the height and scale. It's hard to capture that in the refined drawings.

Next. scribbles.

Went with a flow here. lots of things I didn't like. First of all, The main structure seems much frail and tiny. the alien plantation (aka 'vine') doesnt work in many ways. boring design, doesnt look like it can hold much weight. thats probably why the structure looks light. The building on the right (aka convenience store) haha. yah I dont want a store there. I had no idea what to do behind the pyramid(main) structure.
More scibbles.

Played with markers for the first time. Vines look weak, the building on the far right doesnt fit into the overall design.

Did this one right after. I really like how the middle triangular thing on the ground looks big. The tall building on the far left looks pretty good too. The main structure needs to be in the right perspective and I have to do something about the right building. Right now the angle is too similar to the main building and I dont like how its blocking the bridge. Too big, competes with the focus etc.. Also The shape of the vines changed too much. Lorenzo and Mai said it looks like spiderweb when I wanted to be more like roots. Need to be more vertical, straight and less curvy.. etc.

Vine Shape Study. Yes.. This seems about right.

Last thumbnails I did. Playing with people scale, background to reveal more space..
Second one I put the fallen triangle 'thing' as the focus. I kinda like it. Perhaps I will clear out some of the buildings on the side to open things up and add more plantation. perhaps change in landscape..

Good thing tim extended the due date because I want to explore more.



Suggestions and Comments keep me alive.

Yet another school stuff.

The infamous Rocket 7

Painting assignment.
Last painting assignment turned out to be pure half-assed garbage so this time, I decided to stop worrying about the painting turning out to be mediocre. So I just did it..


She stood, with arrested muscles, outside his door, listening. There was a strange, heavy, and yet not loud noise. Her heart stood still. It was a soundless noise, yet rushing and powerful. Something huge, in violent, hushed motion. What was it? What in God's name was it? She ought to know. She felt that she knew the noise. She knew what it was. Yet she could not place it. She couldn't say what it was. And on and on it went, like a madness. Softly, frozen with anxiety and fear, she turned the door-handle.

-Excerpt from "The Rocking Horse Winner" by DH Lawrence

As you may be able to tell I only had the bottom painting in mind when I started this.