So as I spent some time working on the color image, I began to notice lots of little painting problems. One of them was that I was having some issues with painting values. So I went back, I took some time to look through some value paintings that were similar to what I was trying to achieve. I spent some time painting them, and kind of studying and learning from them. I set specific goals to try to learn from each one, and then I did a few iterations until I felt like I had learned what I needed from the given painting. Below are a few that I worked on, along with some of the goals that I had set for myself. After each iteration, I would analyze where I felt like I had made a mistake, and what I needed to do to do better the next time around. 

Now here are some very rough thumbnails.

These are some line drawings that show the concept fleshed out in more detail. People walk down the stairs and up onto the platform to be turned into a water elemental.

This was the first image that I decided to work with/flesh out.

This was my first rough attempt at working out this space. I picked one of the thumbnails with the small statue. This is my first attempt at fleshing it out in an isometric view.

Then I went through a few iterations.

So I've moved onto the line drawing phase now. Here's an isometric view of it.

Well, new project, new piece of work. Here's what I'm working on.

I came up with the idea of a magical grotto where people kind of willingly enter, give up their old lives, and are transformed into water elementals.

Here's my moodboard:

Here are he rough sketches:

Hey guys, here's my latest update. My friend suggested that I go with the thumbnail at the top of the image. I then adjusted it to make it more like a willow tree, added the elements that I thought will make it look better, I added what I thought were the interesting design elements. (For example, I was influenced by Shinto shrines, and keeping things as something sacred. ) So here it is for now, and I'm going to blow it up and make it big. That's the next step.

Here are some of the thumbnails for this. I'm leaning towards the one on the far right.

So I've started on a new project. Something much simpler. I thought it would be nice to do a small prop piece. The idea that I had for this one was to do something small that focused on a marriage between two people who's factions art at war.

This actually made me think of two things. The first is the disharmony that this can cause amongst others. For example, there's that movie "Look Who's Coming for Dinner." For those who haven't seen it, it's about a white woman and her dad being introduced and having dinner with her black boyfriend in the '60's. How do you deal with being an outsider? This is the kind of thing where, both people risk being excluded from both groups and being labelled as a pariah.

But there, is another side to this as well. This is a chance to create something new, different, better. In many ways, this will require both of them to be trailblazers and create a new path; their own path. The hardships, difficulties and strains will be very intense, but if they can use this "suffering" as growth, they can build something strong than what was done before.

For now, I wanted to capture this small moment because increasingly, it seems as though to create something that is more fulfilling or honest or truthful or maybe even suits us better, we must break away from past associations and allegiances.

So basically, this tree is going to symbolize that. It belongs to one faction, however there will be emblems of both sides on the tree. This couple must take the best parts of themselves to go beyond the drawbacks of their respective factions and allegiances. The tree is neutral though. It is part of nature. It is not a part of any faction, or allegiance, we put that meaning on the tree. The tree is that deeper part of ourselves, and we often decorate or turn it into what we want, or try to make it mean what we want. But ultimately, that tree was there before the couple met, and (unless there's a major war or disaster) the tree will be there after the couple have met. So by meeting at the tree, you want to sort of try to tap into something that goes beyond allegiances, politics, or petty rivalries. Perhaps we are looking for that part of ourselves that goes beyond these things.

I'm leaving it at this for now. I'm calling it done, there's more that could have been done, but that's about it for now.

Here's the same thing with a little more clean up and hopefully a little more focus. Not perfect, better hopefully. The next step will probably be to blow it up and paint it a bit bigger and then add color. Let's see.

Now, I took the thumbnail and actually applied some proper perspective, (or tried!). I sat down in Blender and made a few roughs of the layout of the scene just to give myself a sense of size and scale. I wanted to make especially make sure that the bull was going right.

I also noticed something that was beginning to happen as I kept working, especially after this image. I was beginning to zoom in and start focusing too much on detail. I was starting to lose myself in a small part of the painting. Just not helping, I had to almost, pull myself out and remind myself to be quick and broad. In many ways, this has been very challenging. I'm doing a lot of techniques that I don't normally use. It feels a bit weird and awkward at times, but I'm glad that I'm going through this. Experience is the best teacher. More updates to come.

 

Wow! So big up to Kajfa. He game me some solid feedback and pointed out a lot of problems.

1. What is this going to be? Trying out some painting techniques? A portfolio piece? 

2. I've also been showcasing this artwork on a blog and it's a bit unweildy. It needs to be set up in such a way that you can scroll through work to work with one click. Not more than that.

3.  The anipull is too dark. It's getting lost in the mix. In fact, I think everything is getting a bit lost in the mix. The whole piece is getting a bit mixed up and the composition is getting lost. There are value issues happening.

4. There are scaling issues that are happening here.

5. I'm also getting a bit lost in detail and I've been feeling that way. I think working in broader strokes might be more helpful. Reducing the size of the image by about 75%.

6. I went back to a thumbnail stage because I realized that I had glossed over some important details which are to solidify what I like about the thumbnail
A) Is it an emotion,
B) a nice perspective,
C) how the environment is lit
D) the composition.
E) A clear sense of shapes.

7) These are where the thumbnails stand so far but there is one last step for me in the thumbnail stage, I want to make sure that:
A) The scale on the thumbnails 
B) Depth
C) Perspective

8) Once these are in place, I can scale up the painting and paint in the focal points in more detail. I don't want to get overwhelmed with detail, which is a problem I fall into many times. 

Played around with some new brushes and tried them out to see how they'd work.

Spent some time working on the bull and the house now.

I spent some time painting in these trees now.

Even more painting now, the trees are not quite looking right. I'll need to spend some more time here.

More painting, I'm now painting over the lines.

This one was tough because I'm not used to painting in greyscale. This has been a challenge for me because I'm really trying to sit down and figure out my process a little bit more here. Ah well... let's see what happens.

Here it is with all of the finished linework. Someone circled the left portion and pointed out that it's messing up the composition a bit. I'll be fixing that in a little bit .

Here's the farm with more linework. It's looking quite "busy" but once I start painting things in I think it should all clear up. I think. :D

Here's the farm with more finished linework.

I'm adding more linework detain in now. I wanna be clear on all the forms before I go and greyscale them in.

This is like a quick rough paint up but it should indicate the lighting and shadow of the painting.

I touched up the image a little more. I added some mountains and apple trees to guide the viewer's eye a little more. Take a look, and crit away!

Here's the farm in a bit more detail now. I've laid out some more specifics with the farm, ani-pull (a mechanical bull that pulls out crops as it walks), and the ground temperature device on the right. It's still a bit messy but laying things out now. I think I need to either make the mechanical bull on the left smaller or the machine on the right bigger.

I made another rework of the greyscale painting. This is more of like a rough drawing with a few small forms painted in. This is going to get into more detail and specifics but for now, I'm laying out where everything is, and exactly what it is. I'll probably go over the animal (I'm calling it ani-pull because its a robotic cow that pulls out vegetables) and the ground measuring device on the right and the gnomish farm in more pencil just to clarify things a bit more. I'll also get into the trees a little more but here's how things are shaping up right now.

Started on a grey scale of the gnomish farm. A few points, I removed the bridge cuz it wasn't really making sense and the perspective isn't matching up with the thumbnail so I need to shift the horizon. I'm going to redo it. Here's the progress for now

I took the two images that I liked and made a slightly more refined thumbnail.

I tried to fix up the thumbnails and add more dynamic lighting.

Gnomish Farm

I decided to work on some concept art for World of Warcraft. I thought it might be fun to start out with a Gnomish farm. Something simple I guess. Or fun for me. I'm starting with a few basic composition thumbnails and I'm going to gradually add more details etc. I've been trying to work on my process, so I followed the thumbnail "loop" process that Rob Brown laid out in a youtube video.

Characters + Backgrounds = Game

 

Once we’d settled on both character and background design, the two elements were brought together, along with some rough UI
 

Other elements like lighting and fog were added to give the game its final look!