Zbrush blast from the past!

Roodstown Spearhead & Rock sculpting

 I havent seen this stuff in so long, but after chatting about zbrush with Scott Purdy there, I took a look and thought people may be interested see what I was up to way back in 2008-2009. Some were even from a 3D comic I did for college.

These were all done in the digital sculpting platform zbrush. I remember I used to sculpt traditionally with clay at the same time. Was mad into researching into the history of sculpture from classical to Bernini to Rodin! I learnt so much from those days.

I did keep up normal 3D, picking up and putting down, that was a journey too, starting with 3ds max, to sketchup, cinema 4D, and now playing with blender. But zbrush isnt something you can use usually in archaeology, sadly.

Man I miss that sometimes though! Sculpting in the round was so much fun. I have to go back at some stage! Time! Where is the infinite time I need! :(

Experiments in Film Noir

Some pieces from a while ago. Explorations in simplification to mostly just shape and light. The challenge was to tell a cinematic story and still make it feel film noir even with the simplification. This way of working, while not really painterly, it is very direct, clear and fast. I have to say its a great experience watching it unfold and alot of fun trying to simplify everything to their core shapes with minimal volume. Also find it leave lots of room for interpretation, for me anyway!

Typical Imperial Reik Town: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay

Another fun image I got to do inside work at Cubicle 7, for the Enemy in Shadows: Companion game, showing what a typical town of the Empire would look like, along the thick Reik river. I had alot of fun working on this book with my producer Zak Dale Clutterbuck, it was his idea to depict what a stereotypical Reikstown could look like, usually he would come up with a strong brief, like with the previous two I have shown, the Berebeli and the Emperiors Legs Inn, and then I would go off and play with it, with input along the way. At this stage I had done quite a few illustrations for WFRP (Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) so was a fun challenge to put that altogether into one. But I also tried pushing the design by working with a certain amount of chaotic layering, a good way to quickly break out and see what fun one can come up with.

This game is out now and available here:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/293881/WFRP-Enemy-in-Shadows-Companion

Charcoal sketches

More sketches with a more charcoal horror feel, done recently

Post Apocalypse sketches

Before anyone says anything, I have been actually doing sketches for a while on the side on this subject, then this coronavirus made it all too real! Still I still like the sketches :)

Old Character Thumbnails

Thumbnails from a Personal Viking Rus Game, 2018, I believe each was done in about 15 mins each

15 mins Thumbnails from a Personal Viking Rus Game, 2018

Thumbnails from a Personal Viking Rus Game, 2018, I believe these took a bit more like 20-25 mins each

Another trip down memory with more little thumbnails, this time character ones. I believe these were all done in about 15-20 mins each, was a great way of exploring character options quickly which I picked up while doing the Character design course with Kory Hubbell over at Game Art Institute back in 2018

Old Colour/Mood sketches- a trip down memory lane

Little Colour & Light explorations while I studied cultures from around the world as well as some landscapes

More explorations of cultures around the world, as well as scenes, some of these I think I spent over 2 hrs on, maybe even 3 hrs, been a while!

Rus Viking game- personal project, establishing vibe to the game, then exploring different modes for some scenes, befores and afters, one of these shows a sketch which I added another 30 mins to an hour ontop of

Little 15 mins colour & light mood explorations, trying different colour combinations to see how subtel additions of colours can alter the mood

Recently I was doing a presentation in work, during the prep for which I realised I had aload of these old colour sketches lying around which I have never shown, I thought it would be cool to let the best of them see the light of day. I do alot of this kind of thing nowadays in work so it was also great to see where I came from to compare to now.

These were daily practice sketches I did for years, while I read about the architecture, archaeology, costume, geography and some vehicles from various cultures. Of course I did  buckets of other sketches, studies, character pieces, all done in the hope of internalizing alot of this. In these though, I was experimenting with different kinds of lighting scenarios, materials, compositions, perspectives, colours, value keys and moods, all the while doing Nathan Fowkes courses in schoolism

These were mostly done in an hour, but some were done in as little as 15 mins while others 30 mins, and others in the 1-2-3 hrs mark. Was a great little exercise which it helped me hugely and provided a very solid base for me that I wouldnt be able to do the work I do now without it.

Victorian Film Noir

As some of ye may have noticed I have been playing with Victorian settings for the last while off and on. Just love the mood and feel of the period, and I keep finding more inspiration in it. At the moment listing to "Confessions of an Opium eater" and recently been binging on 'Sherlock Holmes', would love to do a story mixing the two, maybe making Victorian Film Noir, is there such a thing?

Schloss Grauenberg sketch & Final

Another behind the scenes, showing the initial line drawing and then final for the Midnight Elope at Schloss Grauenberg done for my colleagues over at Cubicle 7, it was for our Rough Nights & Hard Days game in the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay universe. More about the game here:

https://www.cubicle7games.com/product/rough-nights-hard-days/

Castle Grauenberg- Rough Nights & Hard Days

Just another behind the scenes, showing the initial line drawing and then final painting for castle Grauenberg for Cubicle 7's Rough Nights & Hard Days. More about the book here:

https://www.cubicle7games.com/product/rough-nights-hard-days/  

A grudge comes calling

Just another short 1 hour long daily (ish) sketch, with a couple of hours added ontop after I liked it. Not as finished as I would like it but its supposed to be a sketch in the end. Reading recently about the 16th-17th century Irish in Spain. After the fall of the Gaelic world, many traveled to serve in the Spanish armies throughout their Empire, often returning when a new rising occurred back home. This image was just an idea which came to me while sketching. Many of the Gaelic nobility had a prickly sense of honour and often would bring their grudges with them to the new world.

Victorian Streets sketch

Taken to exploring and researching about Dublin recently, as I have mentioned before. Thoroughly impressed by how much of a 18th-19th century architecture survives and been using that as inspiration for sketching Here just one of my daily speed paints tidied up somewhat. Tis fun to do this sort of thing, explore, test out ideas and think things through and if it goes wrong through in the bin, as most of them do! This one I liked enough to finish up to show.

Warhammer Fantasy- Kemperbad- sketch & final

A bit of a behind the scenes for the Kemperbad image, showing the initial sketch and then the final. This was done for Cubicle 7 Entertainment's Rough Nights & Hard Days RPG recently released. I often like to start with black and white like this as its a great way of brainstorming the design of the graphic shapes. Sometimes its just a silhouette but here Im playing with the shadow shapes and working out the rhythm of the elements with something called permutation, where one movement is continued by the next, e.g. each elevator support in a different position, creating a movement. The Book can be found here: https://www.cubicle7games.com/product/rough-nights-hard-days/

Luggershall Market Cross

A black and white sketch I did for English Heritage about a year ago. It was to show a market cross in Luggershall, Wiltshire, UK during market day

Victorian Harbour

Another quick one from the weekend, just playing around really

Romantic landscape

Just developing a more traditional style of speed painting, while researching the 19th century

Georgian Costume Sketch

Just keeping the figural practice up while studying Georgian Dress

Volcanic Pancake dome Speed Paint

A little speed paint done in about 1 hr and a quarter. Been reading and sketching Volcanoes for the last few weeks, and here is shown a particular volcano type found on Venus, called pancake domes. 

17th century sketches

Messing around with a more gestural textural way of paint sketching. Been exploring 17th century recently too, here is a Dutch character I have been thinking about

Making Hobbit: Entrance to Rivendale

People were asking to show my process when making an image, and while getting rid of files I saw I still had some of my sketches from this piece so decided to show this part of the process.

I usually start most of my pieces with traditional pen & ink, exploring the idea in its most basic, broken down to line. Here you can see me exploring different shapes & compositions in line form.Traditional is great in this stage as it forces you to just put ideas down without the ability to undo, this can lead to unexpected results.

I then scanned these in and explore some of my favourites more in digital. First with digital line drawings, which in this case didnt get me much. So instead I started to explore more the shapes in the scene with black & white and then with greyscale. You can even see some simple black shapes at the top for bridge designs I was playing with. I spent alot of time in this one exploring different graphic shape designs and settled on a bridge that looked like a parabolic arch, the perfect arch, actually discovered by the Sassanid Persians but not really explored properly till the 20th century. Since the arch is mathematical perfection I thought it perfect for Tolkiens Elves.

Digital is great here in these later sketches, as you can edit easily like flip things, add or substract from them without any damage etc, which would be impossible traditional and so in this case it would limit what you can achieve. Overall, these kind of exercises are great, breaking everything down its simple lines & shapes, before developing further with form, texture, colour & light etc