Sunday 19 December 2010

Dragon!


I realised I hadn't painted any dragons in a while.  Drew this one recently for fun.  Always liked dragons that had a bit of personality in their faces, and wings that look like maybe they could actually work. 
Not really finished, but about as finished as it's likely to get.

The Egg Thief


Been working on a painting.  Not quite ready to show yet, but here's a detail.

Saturday 11 December 2010

Deinotherium


Just in case you hadn't seen enough weird prehistoric elephant-like animals today, here is a Deinotherium. Apparently it was the 3rd largest land mammal known to live -- larger than modern elephants.

I've obviously used something of the skin texture of an Indian elephant here. I often dislike it when artists draw too heavily from living animals when reconstructing extinct ones, but a bit of speckled skin maybe isn't too big a crime.

Friday 3 December 2010

WIP - Jonathan Strange

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke is a wonderful novel, I thought.  It's quite an interesting take on fantasy.  It has a very historical bent, which adds a lot of authenticity to the crazier fantasy elements that show up later on.  Love the imagery -- great stuff to draw, generally.

And here is Jonathan Strange, as I thought he might look. The novel suggested a sort of exaggerated realism to me -- though maybe it would, because I think I kind of have this style stuck in my brain after Brink, but nevertheless it seems good to use here. Using Ingres's portraiture a lot for reference -- he worked during the same time period as the novel is set (though in France, not England), so it seemed pretty appropriate.


Earlier WIPs



Most recent

At the moment I'm not entirely disliking the direction it's going.  Needs magic paraphernalia to let everybody know it's not just a weirdly proportioned 19th century-type portrait.  And more texture/material variation. And a different hand position.  And stuff in the background. Lots more work, anyway!

This isn't the way I normally work for this sort of piece (I hate changing the size of my canvas -- means I screwed up the composition, or wasn't thinking ahead enough) but it started as a tiny doodle that grew, and that is the way of this sort of thing.  Luckily it's a portrait and not a huge multi-figure illustration.

Thursday 2 December 2010

Website Update!

Please go have a look!  I ought to have more work going up in not too long a time -- it's looking a touch bare at the moment.  The best part, after nearly four years of working at Splash Damage, I've finally got enough released concept work to show. Craziness. Plus I changed the gawd-awful colour scheme and header graphic. Mmm, skulls. That one is a king vulture.



The work is from Brink, an FPS developed by Splash Damage and published by Bethesda Softworks.  I managed to wrangle the enviable task of designing of the characters.  Great project to do it for.  We had loads of creative freedom.

Check out the CGSociety feature if you are so inclined.  There's some neat info and other concept art to be found.