I'm thinking more inking

More inking with my cheapo Chinese fountain pen, what fun!

Weird Science Fantasy no 27 cover

Bought an old EC comic, Weird Science Fantasy no 27 published in January 1955. Got it for a song, its only in fair condition but the artwork inside is intact. Not bad for a comic thats over 50 years old anyway!

Amazing cover so it's good subject matter for a bit of practise with the pencil and pen. Who said rock n' roll was dead? Me.

Recognise the helmet and retro style? Wally (yes Mr Wood again!) invented it. Actually someone'll probably mail me now and say "Hey actually it was Ditko/Crandell/Frazetta/Kirby/Feldstein/Davis/etc or a million other guys. Maybe so. But Woody did a pretty good job of it didn't he?
He certainly did. And all before we even had colour tv's. 1955.....gulp.

Heres the original -

Woody

So I had a go today at copying a bit of Wally Woods artwork from an old Mad magazine.
Pencilled it out and then used my trusty fountain pen (a Hero 329 if you're interested, great cheap Chinese fountain pen. Cost under a fiver new including postage from China. Its designed along the lines of the Parker '51 and '61. A classic apparently and its great to draw with its very fine smooth nib. God I'm a geek)

Yeah, anyway good old Wally, one of the very best comic artists there's ever been in my opinion. His work on "The Outer Space Spirit" with Eisner is just breathtaking, he defined that whole '50s sci fi look and you can see his influence everywhere.

He had some tough times before the end poor devil, scratching a living in a cold damp room trying to make a buck before he took his own life with a pistol to the temple. His health had deteriorated so badly he was blind in one eye, virtually paralysed on one whole side of his body and most of his internal organs packing up. But he carried on working. Unbelievable.

Inky

Quick sketch and then inked using a fountain pen, nice tidy way of doing things actually. Looking at the scan I realise his heads a bit wonky. Newspapers are great for digging out subject matter for a quick scribble! Its supposed to be Rupert Murdoch by the way!

Tom Waits 'n' stuff

The top 4 scratchings are supposed to be Tom Waits, I kinda think the bottom left one might be the closest to looking like him, but maybe its just because I'm squinting.

Had a go at a couple of older faces, the lower left face is an old African tribesman photo I found on the net but I haven't done him any justice.

The one on the right is an old Oriental, this old guy had a face like leather and a cute little kid hanging off his back.

"Knife to the eye!"

I've just treated myself to five Goon trade paperbacks by Eric Powell and I've got to say he is in my opinion one of the very best comic artists (and writers!) in many years. His style is reminiscent of Will Eisner, Wally Wood and even Jack Davis. They're some of my favourite artists so I'm in heaven having something new to read and look at.

Ive got to thank my mate Neal Sutton for putting me onto him (well, for actually buying me one of his comics so cheers Neal!)

So I spent some time copying a few faces from "The Goon" comic (25 cent edition, I didnt want to bend the books too much) just for fun and just because its such a pleasure studying his work. I tried using a brush for some of it but I'm still pretty ropey at that, probably the shakey hand doesnt help from all the caffeine.

I can really recommend his work to anyone who appreciates a classic comic style with some of the best most unpretentious and fun writing I've read in a comic book for years.
Keep an eye out for his "Chinatown" book coming soon.
"Knife to the eye!"

Spooooooky

Heh, a quick comic panel experiment, pencilled in Prismacolor and then inked with a micron and a Pentel GFKP pen brush (which is a really great pen brush but you can't really see it in thsi scribble...must practise some more) Then into Photoshop for a quick splash of colour.

I really just wanted to try and capture a bit of that EC comics Wally Wood, Bernie Wrightson feel. Love those old books.

Think I made a bit of a monkeys ear of it but it sort of gets the effect I want.

Happy Halloween!

Job done!

Well I finished it after a few late nights and teeth strengthening coffee. I had planned to put in some very complex background but I really want to practise more on figure painting and leave the environments to Mr 3D Max and his good lady Vray.

Certainly learnt a lot from the process which was the whole point of it really plus I've got a nice picture to put on my website...which needs to be completely redesigned soon.

Think I'll go and get some sleep now.

Coffee is good for your teeth

Apparently coffee protects your teeth from some forms of tooth decay, latest research shows. Well thats some good news at least, I'll have a cup before I go to bed.

Heres a quick update to that "scene" I'm painting, pleased with its direction though the background could end up being anything. Ain't it exciting?

Still all a work in progress and anything could change but thats the fun of it. Getting to love this Intuos drawing tablet now - the best investment I've made in a long time.

And I did think she looks nice against a coffee background, it might set the tone of the piece. 'Ark at me setting the tone, dontcha know.

I said I'd paint a scene!

Ok, here's something I'm painting in Photoshop. Its gradually developing from a very rough idea of a spaceport (possibly...).

My first attempt at painting a scene.

Ever.

Working from photographic reference for the face, I might possibly incorporate some 3D into the background if I bottle it but the aim is to paint the whole thing and kind of make it up as I go along.

This is just a small part of the image. The whole image is 2400 x 1800 resolution and this character takes about a third of the screen. The face has taken me four and a half hours to paint from scratch(ignore the hat, thats just a stand-in). I'll post more as soon as its worth posting. I'm having a blast. Oh and ignore the eyebrows too!

Do no be alarmed

Floating Anarchy

I decided to get some Photoshop (7) practice last night and had a speed painting sesh. Totally hooked again. What started out as a blob ended up as a ...blob. But a colourful blob!

So here's Harvey the floating anarchist Pitta larvae, fresh out of the hatchery and floating to a swimming pool near you.

I'm chuffed with the little feller, he took about an hour. I will definitely do some more but will try and plan it out better next time! Yes there's shedloads wrong with him but he's colourful and I like that. You should see the other 25 versions.

Rusty space marine - low poly

My first attempt at a low polygon game character (3472 faces) with normal mapping. I did no preliminary drawings, just jammed and came up with this. I think I'll plan the next one out a bit more as I had some problems with the undercuts when it came to normal mapping him in Max9. In fact when it boiled down to it the normal mapping was really unnecessary, good experience though!

Modelled in Silo2, UV'ed in Max9 and rendered out in Max 9. I'll try out some of Ben Clowards shaders soon if all goes to plan with the next character.

Wireframe ...........Rendered .............. Plasticcy!

I was pleased with his "attitude" and think it might be interesting to rig him up and pose him.

Anyway, he's kind of finished and I'm now working on a character inspired by the work of Moebius and Bilal (thats the plan anyway) I'm a sucker for the European artists.

More soon...

Steve puts title just here...

Umm, how daunting - more new toys to play with.

Ok, this is my first Blog and its just a bit of a vanity project for me to keep tabs on my progress as I start to explore the joys of 3D character modelling.

I've been an 3D environment artist for gawd knows how long (14 years) and its about time I had a bash at this whole next-gen character thing. I might post some of my old pre-rendered and realtime environments up here at some point because it looks pretty....I might not.

I've started using a cool piece of software called Silo 2.0. Its a subdivision modelling tool which also has displacement painting capabilites. Heres my first effort at a character from a month or two ago.

And a test render in 3ds Max9 with Mental Ray.

I shall try in the future to write some tutorial type stuff for anyone reading who's interested (once I get the image posting sussed)

Currently I'm working on a low poly normal mapped character so expect more posts soon.