It's alive!!!

After several weeks of tinkering, this is *finally* done! And couldnt have done it without my friendly neighbourhood animator

It's been fun, but think i'll call it a day now

And *if* you're a fan of dota, you can vote for mok the courier on the steam workshop here...

> STEAM WORKSHOP <

Monkey Biz - Part Deux

...still busy with this little fella, but almost, ALMOST finished

*EDIT* check it out in 3d in your (desktop) browser!

SKETCHFAB

Monkey Business

Been working on this fella for the last few weeks...still work in progress!

school's (almost) out

Been busy since the last update with my CGMA anatomy course - just one week to go,
so here's some of what i've been up to.

And a few random other sketches.

So nothing to shout from the rooftops about, but i would highly recommend the course. Its Great!

Maximum Resolution

After a bit of a hiatus towards the end of last year, i decided to roll my sleeves up and and get back on the art horse for 2013. There's a lot of room for improvement across the board, so to get things started i warmed up with some quick studies of some pics by various more talented artists...

After that a few more general studies were in order...(some more finished than others)

There were a few lunchtime speedpaints, which led to some crocodile related fun, and a quick session of zbrush - something i hadnt gone near in far too long!

And some more lunchtime Zbrushing...

A couple of lunchtime speedpaints - "Africa"

And figuring there's no harm in tackling a bit of anatomy i started from the ground up...

...and once i'd done that, i figured it'd be even better to do even more, so i registered for another course - and last week i started an 8 week CGMW course in Analytical Figure Drawing. First assignment was a truckload of gesture drawings...

And thats it for this month. For the sake of completion i'll add this final pic i did at the end of last year, another study from the excellent "Excalibur"

Space Cadet

not much to show at the moment, been working on some other things non-photoshop related for a bit

there is this though - a lunchtime sketch i've been noodling at on and off for a bit...

...And we're done!

Blogocalypse!

Been BIZZAY the last few weeks, mainly to do with the CGMW classes, so going to dump all that in this update...

The last few weeks mainly involved taking some quick thumbnails and bringing them to a higher level finish...which is what i did. Look!

Giant Robot...

 ...Giant Spaceship..

...Giant MAHOOSIVE Robot

Also had an older pic published in Fantasy Flight Games Warhammer book (no, not the cover)

DeathWatch - Honor The Chapter

Heres the actual illustration - A space marine stepping through a hole cut into a blast door.
Like i said, its from a bit earlier in the year, so definitely might do a few things differently now.  Had a few problems resolving things compositionally - the central figure was straightforward enough, but the figures towards the extremeties were problematic for all sorts of reasons...

Here's some of the initial sketches/progress

As far as process goes, i thought it'd useful to block out some lighting reference in 3d > important to note that it was *just* reference, i didnt use it as a base for a paintover. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but, that wasnt the case in this example.

Anyway not sure if it was worth the time setting things up (modeling and rigging the block in character from scratch for example!) but a useful exercise all the same...

...as for other developments, i was pleasantly suprised to see (a slightly misspelled version of ) myself popping up in VERTEX - a 300 page downloadable pdf filled with gameindustry art tutorials.

And for the sake of Google searches, best mention this here > ALDAN WILSON is Aidan Wilson

There, thats settled then.

CGMW - Week 2

So this week was all about how to draw using 2 point perspective, maintaining an initial 3 value structure to the image and THEN adding more specific lighting on top

A lot to cram in, i sort of managed but obviously theres only so much you can get done in a couple of hours...anyway this is what i did!

And if anyone's interested here's another process gif - like i said before fairly simple
1) initial drawing and blocking in main values (foreground, mid-ground and background
2) Detailing
3) Lighting pass + Atmospherics and Effects (smoke, glows etc.)

Next week is supposed to be spent on just one piece, so it's either going to be *GREAT* or a total trainwreck...eek!

mind expanding

Finally got a bit of time to blow off some of the cobwebs round here, so best get cracking

I've just started an online course with CGMW
http://www.cgmwmasterclasses.com/environment-design-for-games.html

1st week assignment was to pic some movie stills/photos (saving private ryan and lawrence of arabia in this case) and break them down into simple values - foreground, middleground and background.

Fairly straightforward and about 90 minutes each.

And for good measure, I'll even throw in a couple of animated gifs breaking down the process i used.

And if anyones interested, it can be really useful to take a picture into photoshop and use the "cutout" filter to show the value patterns in your image. I used it on some film stills, but its just as applicable to your own work.

The next assignment is similar, only this time we get to draw anything we like...so er, what could that be?

right now i have NO IDEA. Lets hope that doesnt last too long...

*edit* oh, i was also interviewed for a german games website! Skip to 10.45 for POWERFUL ART INSIGHTS...http://www.gameswelt.tv/29326/crytek-uk/studio-tour-aus-nottingham.html