Jungle Clearing

Hey guys,

Here's a environment piece for the project. I made some new foliage brushes from a bunch of brush silhouettes I found on Hans Bacher's fantabulous blog and while painting this I tried to use some things I learnt from some Oga Kazuo studies I did a while ago:












And here's a little panel from the same story sequence:












I'm thumbnailing a bunch of WW1-style characters at the moment so hopefully I'll be able to show those soon.

Cheers,

Nick.

Character Busts etc.

Hi there,

Here's some more work I've done the past week or so:

I've been sculpting some busts for secondary story characters. I'm mainly focusing on other race drivers at the moment, but I'll evenutally broaden to more diverse character types.

























Here's a story/mood piece. I'm trying to work on some scenes with less direct lighting:












I'm planning to make some 'Top Trumps' style trading cards (using character sculpts and vehicle designs) to go with the book (whenever it's finally done!). I want them to resemble old cigarette cards from the early 20th century. Here's a mockup of how one side of a card might look:











That's it for now - cheers!

Exoticism!

Hey there,

These are some environment/lighting tests for the Race for the Globe project:



























More stuff soon - Thanks for looking!

Excitement!

Hi there,

Here's an image from my Race for the Globe project showing some death-defying stuntery in the city of Dustrum:












And here are the trams themselves. I kitbashed some photos together and painted over the top for these:














More soon - cheers!

A Baby and a Bot

Hi there,

I've been super busy lately with a project my wife and I had in the works for nine months or so that has recently been released:
















The past couple of weeks has been amazing, but mainly taken up with changing diapers, cooking meals, doing housework, gawping adoringly at the little fella etc. As a result, there's not been much time for art of course, but I did managed to finish this robot mechanic design for my Race for the Globe project. Hope you like it!















More stuff soon hopefully.

Cheers!

Showdown at Gelada Temple

Hey there Blogwatchers,

A couple more thingies from me. These are some practice environment/storytelling shots from my Race project. I watched a documentary which had a segment about Gelada monkeys stealing crops from villagers in Ethiopia. I thought they were so cool/evil-looking that I had to have a sequence in a Ta Prohm-like temple where the hero's attacked by EVIL MONKEYS. I really want to do a stylised sculpt of one of these guys too!




















I also worked a bit more on the leaf-blowin' heavy. I need to get some better poses going on and tidy up some sculpting too:












This is probably my last post for a while, so I'll catch you guys again soon!

Cheers!

Society of the Grotesque

Hi there,

Here's some new bits from this week. I'm trying to get back into drawing with a good 'ol Colerase pencil again. Things were a bit wobbly at first, but once I got into it I really enjoyed myself. I always seem to go a month or two between drawing traditionally and every time I remember just how fun it is. Anyhoo, these are some secondary characters from my Race For The Globe project (remember that thing?):















I had fun doing the sculpt of the leaf blower guy and thought I might make a little buddy for him. This is a rough sculpt and paintover to see if the idea's worth continuing with:


















More animals for the nursery:




















I should have some environment pics for The Race thingy soon.

Cheers,

Nick.

Dygun, Old Sculpt, Walrus Love

Hello. Here are some things I done.

What better way to spend a couple of hours on a Sunday afternoon than by kit-bashing some photos of Dyson products together and creating THE FUTURE OF BALLISTIC ARMAMENTS:










I was rooting through my external hard drive and I found some pics of a sculpt I did a few years ago. The character went unused, but I thought some of the drapery was pretty good:














I told my wife I'd do some pieces that we could put up in our nursery and seeing as the sprog could drop any day now I thought I better start practicing doing some cute stuff:

Grunt Sheet and Studies

Haro!

Here's a design for a character I'm planning to work up in Zbrush over the next few evenings. Most urban vinyl/animation maquette-style figures you see tend to be contemporary or futuristic and I wanted to do something medieval/fantasy based. It should be fun to sculpt this guy, I reckon:












Also, here are a couple of quick studies I did today. I wanted to concentrate on lighting and colour and not have to stress my poor little brain out with composition, so I found some layout drawings by God of Vis Dev, MARCELO VIGNALI and painted on top of them. So yeah, I felt like a cheat doing these, but hopefully I learnt something from it.


















Bye!

Practising Vehicles

Hello there,

I decided to practice some vehicle concepting this weekend. I wanted to try and create some designs that were a little more refined and believable-looking, rather than the simplified forms that I naturally gravitate towards. I still find it hard to achieve sophistication, but I feel like I learnt a thing or two in doing these.

Building Blocks

Some style tests for that Robo Rejects idea:























Should have some new things this weekend if I can tear myself away from LA Noire...

Riveting!

Here's a vehicle design related to my 'Race' story idea. I've been tinkering with this for the past few evenings:



















And a close-up of the little guy:




















Here's a colour study for the story. I based the lighting on a frame from True Grit.













More soon.

Cheers!

Some Fings

Here's a few things I've been tinkering with. Another foray into the unforgiving world of colour. The car doesn't look like it'll make it:












Drawing hands is most hard. I thought I better do a few studies to try and be less awful at 'em.














BLORP! BLLLOORRRRRP!!!!

















This a photo of a ship breaking yard that I tweaked and painted into:











Cheers!

Leaf Blower Vinyl Pipedream

Hey guys,

Got around to finishing this sculpt of a fella with a leaf blower machine. It'd be cool to get this 3d printed - hmm... More stuff soon.

Cheers!

Stuff and Nonsense!

Some more bits. A bit more progress on that sculpt for the comp at CGFeedback. I've got an assignment to do for a Nathan Fowkes workshop I'm doing at CDA so I don't know if I'll get to finish:












Some little tribal dwellings for part of the story in my Race project. Maybe a little too twee, but the tonal practice was much needed:



















The original pencils:















I'm working on some characters for that Robo Rejects idea as well. Will post them soon. Cheers!

More Bits and Pieces

Last week I spent most of my free time moving apartments, but here's a couple of things I managed to get done:

A little screen mockup for a game idea I'm tinkering with. It combines elements of Lemmings and Tetris with some funny little robots thrown in as well:













A bit of sculpting for that Clement Sauve comp. I'm not sure I have the patience to take this through to completion, but it was good to mess around in Zbrush for a bit:




















I've been looking at a lot of Soviet Propaganda posters/cartoons recently, as well as Samurai Jack/Scott Wills' work. I wanted to try out some graphic looking little characters in that kind of style:

Early Birthday Gift

Here's a fantastic picture that friend and Blizzard cohort Paul Richards drew for me as a birthday present. He's totally captured me in every respect in this piece - my penchant for tea and Victorian contraptions; my oblivious, smug expression; the spectre of death looming just behind... It was a real surprise to get such a cool gift - it's up there with the Lego castle I got for Christmas when I was 7 in the Pantheon of awesome presents.

Cheers muchly Paul!




















My smug face for comparison:

Clement Sauve comp doodle etc.

Haro,

This is a sketch I did for a mini comp over at cgfeedback. The contest is a tribute to a fantastically talented concept and comic artist named Clement Sauve who passed away at the age of 33 a few weeks ago. I only just discovered his work and I'm gutted that we'll never get to see all the incredible art he would have produced in the future. Try as I might this sketch didn't really turn out that close to his work stylistically, but I might plow on with it regardless and turn it into a Zbrush sculpt. To explain, I see all these migrant workers cutting grass on the side of the road as I walk to work (pretty much the only pedestrian in Irvine!). I think leaf blowers and strimmers look pretty neat so I thought it would be cool to do a stylized version of one of these guys and pose them up like an action hero (in the sculpt, not this sketch!) with all their hardware and accessories.




















And more weapons from a few years back, apologies for the turquoise glow - we've all been there:

More Randoms

Here's some stuff. Some little silhouettes of freewheeling monkeys. I got a sense of deja-vu doodling these and remembered that I once had to spend a month modelling a monkey in a Halo outfit called 'Master Chimp'. Those were the days...













Some weapon concepts I did for a freelance gig a few years ago. I have a bunch of these somewhere...












Drapery studies. Just trying to accentuate and stylize here and there.