The Ruler of Dustrum

Hey guys,

Just a quick, flying update before heading back to the UK for a few weeks. I'll not be updating the blog until mid January, but I have tons of exciting things planned for the project in 2012, so watch this space!

Here's a quick bust sculpt of one of the major characters in the story, The Ruler of Dustrum:










Have a great Xmas and New Year everyone, and I'll see you next year!

Cheers,

Nick.

Wooden Soothsayers Line-up

Here's the finished versions of those silhouettes from last week. I tried out a kind of graphic-y, cell-shaded look for this rendering, but I don't know how successful it was. I'll probably go for something more painterly/rendered for the next character line-up.











I'm working on another character bust for the project and planning to do some aircraft (dogfighting biplanes, fat bombers, crazy blimps etc.) thumbnails next weekend.

Cheers!

Silhouettes and Studies

Hey there,

I didn't manage to get a great deal more done this weekend, but I did start to solidify the designs for the wooden elder/soothsayer characters who live at the oasis. I have the silhouettes pretty nailed down and I did some quick studies to get a better idea of how I want to handle the drapery and the different masks etc.





















Hopefully I'll get the finished designs done next weekend.

Cheers!

Approaching the Fortified Oasis

Hey there,

I'm working on that character line-up that I mentioned, but I feel like I need to do some more studies before I tackle the final designs. In the meantime here's a shot of Avery and his robot mechanic nearing the fort in the desert:










Also, here's a shot of me with my art director on the project. He keeps demanding that I add more bears to the story...













More soon!

Cheeyers!

Gadzooks! My brain!

Hi there,

I've been playing around with Dynamesh in Zbrush and it's really a lot of fun. It makes concepting creatures in 3d really quick and intuitive. Here are a couple of giant insects for the project:

















And here's how one such dreadful creature might attach itself to an unlucky host:











I'm planning to work on a finished character line-up for The Wooden Soothsayers next. Should be fun!

Cheers!

All Aboard!

Hey there,

Here's an illustration featuring the train from the previous post. I still feel like there are a ton of errors with this so I'll no doubt go back and rework it once I have fresh perspective on it. This is where it is at the moment though:











CTN Expo next weekend (wooo!) so not sure if I'll have time for art. I hope to meet up with some of my fellow bloggers at the event though!

Cheers!

El Cisne: The World's Greatest Locomotive

Here's a more resolved design for the trans-continental train I thumbnailed some time ago. I'm working on an image that features this train on a platform with lots of passengers boarding, but I wanted to get the shapes worked out in profile before I got too far into the piece.









I'll upload the finished illustration soon.

Cheers!

Welcome to Dustrum

Here's an establishing shot for the city of Dustrum, where the story begins:











Had fun doing this one and learnt a couple of things (which is always good!).

More soon!

Blizzcon Sculpt Update.

Hey there,

Just a quick BPR render in Zbrush after a little more polishing of this guy:











And here's a turntable of the full bust:

Cairne Bloodhoof Blizzcon Sculpt from Nick Carver on Vimeo.

Blizzcon Sculpt

Hey guys,

Here's the sculpt of now-deceased Tauren leader Cairne Bloodhoof I made for the Blizzcon charity auction that I worked on during the artists' demo:











There's still some work to be done on it, but eventually this is going to be 3d printed and given to the highest bidder. I'll make sure to upload some pics of the actual printed sculpt.

Right, back to The Race Project. What to do, what to do...

Shameless Self Promotion

Hi there,

No new artwork from me just yet, but I wanted to let you know that I will be doing a Zbrush demo on the Artists' Stage at Blizzcon this Friday. So if anyone reading this is attending the con, then drop by and say hello. I will be demoing along with Arnold Tsang and Justin Kunz so it should be good fun! The Artists Stage was my favourite part of Blizzcon last year and I recommend checking it out. I promise actual new art next time I post.

Cheers!

100 Horsepower Racer

Hey guys,

Here's a vehicle design for the Race Project that I thumbnailed out aaaaages ago. Hope you like it!

Cathedral of Industry: Story Frames

Here's a couple of sequential pictures for a particular part of the story. I'm planning to do a few more to try and see if I can get a feel for the action moving along between each cut.



















I often do quick 3d blockouts for these images to find the most suitable camera positions and also to use as a rough basis for the painting. Here is an example of something I might start with:











More soon - cheers!

Wooden Acting and Best-Dressed Hero

Hey guys!

Here's a couple more pieces for the project. First is a sculpt of a wooden tribal
elder. I thought it would be cool to have some characters whose faces are reminiscent of African masks. I'm imaging that there would be the creaking and cracking of wood when their faces animated. I think this was partly inspired by the scene in Return to Oz with the animated rock faces!















Also, I thought it was time that I gave the hero a more varied wardrobe, so I made a bunch of costumes for Mr Avery Esq. that correspond to some different parts of the story.














More stuff soon - cheers!

Angry Monkey

Hey guys,

Just a quickie - this is a design which I started with some doodles; blocked out in Maya and then painted over in Photoshop. I'm planning to sculpt and pose a bunch of these guys in Zbrush and make a little story diorama:



















More soon - cheers!

Battling Brigands and Rough Stuff

Hi there!

I've been a bit slow with my artwork the past couple of weeks for a number of reasons *cough*Deus Ex 3*cough*. Here's a character line-up I'm working on for a section of the story that takes place during a battle in a frozen wasteland. I'm hoping to finish this up soon and also maybe colour these guys properly.












And here's a grab bag of scraps that I scanned to show how my work often starts. This probably looks like filler, but I figured some people might be interested in my terrible little sketches. I know I like seeing this kind of crap!














I'm working on a sculpt of an evil, evil monkey at the moment and I'm planning to do some giant parasitic beetles soon too.

More stuff soon - cheers!

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.