Textures and Reveal again

Month 1 is complete! Here's some 30 minute studies, trying to paint textures using a full opacity brush. It's incredibly difficult, but I need to get this down if I want to handpaint textures quicker and more confidently.

In other news, Reveal is a game of the week over on Rock, Paper, Shotgun, and a highly recommended game on freeindiegam.es! I've always been concerned that other people will see the game and only focus on one aspect (typically, the magazines) but going by the comments it seems they seem to getting exactly what I had hoped out of it. I especially like Porpentine's description:

"Reveal feels like a spin on The Yellow Wallpaper with body image themes, a concept realized with absolute purity of design. One room, no exits. Just you and the wallpaper and the magazines.

I’ve always loved things like Cube, Haze, Silent Hill, anything where the architecture is suspended within the darkness of your uncertain thoughts. The constant question, what’s outside? But in contrast to everything I’ve mentioned, Reveal manages to surprise yet make perfect sense. Take the time (like a minute) to experience this beautiful claustrophobia."

You can download the game for PC here. Mac users and impatient people can watch the playthrough here (warning: spoilers!)

Bosphorus

40 min, using pressure-based opacity but still trying to paint in flat values.

Original pic link

Gestures 1-29-13

Most nights I do a few gestures, if only to put myself in the mood for drawing. These are some 90 second poses from posemaniacs, trying to apply Hampton's methods from last night. His drawings simplify the pelvis as a cube an the torso as a cube-sometimes-ovoid, it's good method for analyzing perspective.

Studies 1-28-13

No paintings tonight, but here's some studies I did after Hampton, brought to you by my crappy, crappy scanner.

Speedpaints 1-27-13

30 minutes each. From the tumblr mystic places.

Dishonored

For Polycount's weekly artjam, the theme this week was Dishonored (the game). I haven't played Dishonored but I wanted to join in.

60 minutes, from this screenshot.

Toys!

Stuff on my desk. 60 minutes for little Thrall there (upper left), the others are 30-40 minutes.

1850's fashion

Sketch notes, courtesy of OMG that dress. I've been trying to learn more about the history of fashion, in hopes that it will make my character designs more authentic/get me over my aversion to drawing clothes. 

I Love Spelunky (cont.)

They're less accurate than last night's set, but here's the rest of the minis. Poor mr. yeti, he isn't even close.

30 min.

I Love Spelunky

My minis are so cool. 30 min each, from life.

Yet More Textures

30 min. Color is hard.

Speedpaints 1-20-13

30 min, full opacity. There were more, but it's late and I don't feel like uploading them.

Speedpaints 1-19-13

40 min, full opacity with my square brush. Deviantart was slim pickin's tonight.
Not much to say, except that I seem to consistently exaggerate the value range within individual objects. Something to look out for.

Image 1 link
Image 2 link

Speedpaints 1-18-13

30 min. Tonight's paintings are brought to you by the polygonal lasso tool, wildberry tea, and liberal amounts of punk rock.

Image 1 link
Image 2 link

Oh man, are these almost....accurate?

Even more textures

Some new + a few revisions.

More textures

Time varies, kept forgetting to reset the timer again.
Didn't feel nearly as "on" tonight, but that's okay. Sometimes you've got to fight through it.

Speed textures

30 min each, trying out something stylistically different from my usual textures. The impact the grayscale studies seem to be having is that I'm more aware of whether the edges I'm defining are coming from hard brushstrokes or contrasting values. I don't have to blend my brushstrokes to create smooth gradients, it's enough to have gradual stepped values.

It's not intuitive knowledge or anything, it's just something the studies have forced me to be more conscious of.

Ruin speedies

30 min each. Brush with full opacity.

These were such good pics. They reminded me of this:

Speedpaints 1-13-13

30 min, from pics on cgtextures.com. Rollover for originals.

Values: we still have some serious promblems here.

Spedpaints 1-12-13

30 min, from photo. Trying a different brush out this time.

Film sketches

From Chicago.
Yeah, they're pretty bad. But it's the effort that counts, right?

~15 to 20 min each (kept forgetting to reset the timer).

Speedpaints 1-10-13

30 min, opaque brushes. Let's see just how badly I'm doing, shall we? Rollover to see the original pics.

Ouch! The proportions! The angles!

pic 1 link
pic 2 link

Speedpaints 1-9-13

30 min, from photo, full opacity brushes. The last ones are ~10 minutes each, trying to branch off and do something original.

Speedpaints 1-8-13

30 min, from photos. Opaque hard round brush only.

Also Umbrella Party is up on Indie Speed Run now. Vote for us here! And because I'm not too proud to promote entries that aren't mine, you should also play Caesar's Day Off, it's hilarious.)

WoW Interview and Indie Speed Run

So here's some stuff.

My interview was just posted on WoW Insider. I talk a little about my contest entry and what makes a good environment artist. I also own up to my deep dark secret: not actually playing WoW, something I intend to fix in the near future...

If you like the article, Jess and Peter's interviews are well worth reading, too.

Here's some hand practice. I didn't get it until tonight because I was.....dum dum! Making a game all weekend. I joined Jordan, Jon, and Adam for IndieSpeedRun. It was my first jam in over a year, so I was rusty to say the least.

The art I was going for falls somewhere between Every Day the Same Dream and Thirty Flights of Loving (both excellent, excellent games). Going low-res 3d + pixel art allowed me to do modeling, texturing, and half a dozen character animations in 48 hours without going batshit crazy. Overall, the game is a nifty foray into DDR-style rabble-rousing. Rally the people! Just don't say the wrong thing.

You can play it here.

Dingleberry, the confectioner elf

This is the first thing I've painted since last summer that isn't a study, although it DOES draw an awful lot from the goblins in Allods. That's completely intentional, I'm crazy for that style of painting.

His hand is crap, I know. Guess what I'm drawing more of tomorrow?

I also painted a horse. 40 min, from a photo.

Daily speedpaints, 1-2-13

30 min. value studies. The one on the left was done painting at full opacity, something I should do more often.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Paint and draw more. 2D really took a back seat to modeling and texturing last year, and I think staying too far within in my comfort zone has caused my work to stagnate.

2. Post more online. Fail more, and visibly. 

With that in mind, here are some 30 min studies to kick off the year.