C&c-Mod Concept arts

[Vaejoun]

Hi all,
well this is my first real concept art for a game.
I think you can read everything necessary on the picture. ^^

Command and Conquer - Zero Hour Modification: "Rise of Europe" brings the ECA (European continental army) into the game.
For my first concept its ok, actually I didnt want to work it out that much. But now it happened again. --°
I try to hold back on the next one.
This one took about 8 hours....much too long, I know.

Well have fun and wait for more.

Oh yes, the picture in the upper left corner is the construction icon you can see in the game. (I made the 3d models too)

http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/518126.jpeg

[Danilo]

He he EU force. Dont be so pessimist.
Anyway I like design.

[Jaycee]

I think it looks pretty cool! Its a nice and clean drawing,which would be easy for a 3d modeller to work from. Pretty good design too!

[Vaejoun]

Well, like I said I am the 3d modeller, so YES it was pretty easy. XD

The most difficult thing in painting such things is the correct perspective.
In such pictures the vanishing points arent that close to the viewer that I could draw tham near the picture on another paper.
Very difficult, to handle. Even if you know the main things about perpsective construction, its hard to get what you want.

Tomorrow I start on the next one.

[EVIL]

with such far away vanishing points its better to work with the whole paralel concept. hope you know math

[ApolloNuevo]

very professional presentation. great rendering as well, though i would lighten the value on the main body so some of your design work pops more.

-dan

[Vaejoun]

@Evil:
Yea I know what you mean.
it only becomes difficult when I want to turn the turret a little like in the picture.

[MrD]

That´s a great concept and really helps the modeller a great deal.
Keep them coming. The European Union should pay you for you public relation work for them. No United Forces of Europe worthing speaking on the horizon. :)

[Spacemanchuck]

looks kick ass. Maybe look at the nose of the canon, looks alittle off. Would only take a second to fix. Maybe Im wrong...

[Vaejoun]

Here we go again. Took me the entire day. This time I made the perspective myself (last time i used a 3d model as reference)
It was hard but Im satisfied. ^^

At first the tank had more brown and green colours, together with a warm shining as if the sun is sinking. But that looked so ....common.
I wanted the tank to look different, so I overpainted it and gave him this dark blue/green color. Its not the easiest thing to color a dark tank, because he usually doesnt reflect much light.

Well, I did it, this is the Leopard 2A8, the european main battle tank.
Have fun.

http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/519026.jpeg

[Cyrus]

The cannons on both tanks don't look like they're lining up with the tops correctly, and the second one also looks like it's curving slighty to the right. It only stands out though because the rest of the perspective is perfect.

[Vaejoun]

Hmm,...yea youre right. But I have to start anywhere. And I think this mistake isnt THAT bad. I try to get better with my next one.

Perspective is damm difficult. You can see if somethings wrong after just a few seconds, but it takes you hours to correct it . :dead:

[Fozzybar]

Yeah, there are slight perspective issues, the biggest one are the tubes on top of tank #1...they are in an obviously different angle...

I know that you tried to simplify the shadows, but also when simplified they have to follow some physical/perspective logic (tank#1: front edges, tank#2: top peak shadow)...also the shadow color on the first image is much better for readability than on the second...

Other than that i really like the artwork and they are presented very well (though the url is a little too dominant, it's distracting from the art)...

Why aren't there this yellow areas on the tank which we can see on the icons? I think they are a nice touch design-wise...

Keep em coming! :)

[Vaejoun]

I think painting a correct shadow is one of the most difficult things out there.
And on the other hand its one of the things you can very easy fake and nobody mentions it. ^^

I love painting this vehicles and see how I improve a little every time.

[Pavel]

it's cool to see some concepts at concept art forum! :}

[Vaejoun]

Finally, the third one. This one was much work, especially the 3d modell was very difficult, because of its unusual shape.

At first there was a photo from the net. I made a very rough sketch on a A3 paper and used this sketch as reference for my concept. With some changes.

I was half finished when I mentioned that the perspective was totally wrong.
:dead: >:| :nohope: :$ :x So...again.
After I worked the thing over it looked fine and I started coloring as usual.

The normal Pandur looks very boring, it is totally smooth (hope thats the right word) and all painted in grey. And so I added some dirt, texture and those darker parts.

The machinegun is a fiction, inspired by the german MG3.
Well, I didnt pay much attention to the wheels, except the first one.

In the game this unit is used as a skout. But it has a better armor than the skouts of the other groups and he is a troop transporter as well. He starts with 5 Soldier on board. thats because the Pandur is much more expensive than the others.

Its one of my favorite units. I call him "PAINdur", because if you have a bunch of them they become very nasty. >XD

Hope you like it

http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/521668.jpeg

[kidcrucial]

Very nice work. One thing that Fozzybar mentioned is the readability of the shadows. I think that if you were to lighten them up a bit, they wouldn't blend in with the subject as much. Other than that, I think these are really evolving nicely and keep them coming. I am kind of starting out like you and know what you mean about taking too long on a concept. I do the same thing and an otherwise "easy" drawing ends up taking hours. I guess speed comes with more reps so I'll shut up for now and get back to drawing! Good work. Let's see more.

[cuzzo]

these are great... i really love your colors

[Vaejoun]

Ok, I hope the link works.
This is the new commandbar and the menu for the general-points.
Its the first time I made something like that, but im more or less sattisfied with the result. Hope you like it too.

In the bg you can see two buildings. (I made all buildings and vehicles/troops)
the left is the kasern and the right the weappon factory.

http://img280.imageshack.us/img280/3834/sshot0080wb.jpg

[Calcaneus]

These are really nice! It makes me want to buy the game just to play that mod :D

I think these are impressive. I wouldn't be surprised if maybe westwood (do they still exist?) or someone else were to snatch you up. Hehe.

[Vaejoun]

@Calcaneus:
Yea, that is my big dream. Would be too good to be true.

[Calcaneus]

I think it could totaly happen! :wink: After your done I think it would be worth your time to send your updated portfolio around.

I'm curious though, it does kinda of have a nice feeling of your drawings coming to life but, why do you leave a portion of the concept in line drawings? Don't get me wrong, the way you did it still looks entirely proffessional.

[Vaejoun]

Thats a really good question.
At first i wanted to make it more like the works from feng zhu, you know, they look more like a (very good) sketch. You can see details but it still has speed.

But then I started to work it over and over and over and over and over.....
Now my pictures dont have much speed, but more details. Actually I want to make a drawing and scan it, but my scanner fell of the table. :dead:
So I have to paint it all in photoshop. A good and clear lineart is much work if you want to do it digital.

[Vaejoun]

Ok something new again. This is the picture for the challenge mode and the generel challenge. I wasnt sure which one is the best. I like the first two. The blue one is typical for the EU, but the secon one has a nice contrast, because of the orange/blue. It looks more powerful. And the last one ? Well, was more some kind of a try. Wanted to see how looks in red.

Please tell me what you think

http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/1462/challenge20pa.jpg
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/9118/challenge17rz.jpg
http://img73.imageshack.us/img73/3865/challenge34xz.jpg

[Vaejoun]

Ok, a new concept again. This time the artillery.
The MLRS - mobile launching rocket system (or something alike) ^^

I tried to avoid the thick outlines and give it a more realistic look.
Did it work ?
Hope you like it.

http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/532693.jpeg

[Icey]

very solid stuff!!

the randering is wonderful, but you don't have to aply shadow all over the car - like this last one is. Now it is very hard to distinguish the details... Hide what you have to and leave the beautiful areas in light :) - i guess u know this allready...

[sercoe]

wow your alwsome.. They look really nice.

very detailed.

[Vaejoun]

Finally something new:
I was bored of the ultra detailed vehicles, so I wanted to make a painting, that has more speed, but more details than a normal speed painting.
But it is very difficult to give something realistic light and shade. I think I will start something new and post it as a WiP in another thread. I hope I get some tips and hints that really help me to get a better feeling for it.

I tried to give it a more real look, but I failed totally. :dead:
To rescue my work I used some photoshop filters on the soldiers to make it look more abstract an rough. I use this as a base for later works.
Hope they will be better.


Ok, back to the picture:
The ECA infantery: The FELIN is the "soldier of the future"-project of the French compareable with the US "Land Warrior" or the german "IdZ" So he became the main soldier equipped with the german G11. I know it's an older weapon, but it has never been produced. And it looks cool. So we used it ^^.
And there is the option, to upgrade every singel FELIN with a machine gun. (The gun is produced by a firm in Belgium)
He gets more armor and becomes stronger, but slows down. To make the upgrade visible in the game, he changes his color into a green/blue. The soldiers are that tiny in the game that you can barely make the difference in the weapons out.

That was it, have fun.

http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/537575.jpeg

[light]

I really like this, and will download it when its done. But the thing that bugs me is the artillery. It looks like you just took the camoflauge texture and just threw it all over the image, because theres even some on the rocket launchers. Props on the interface, fits in perfectly with the rest of generals.

[Vaejoun]

Its been a while folks.
I think some of you have already seen my W.I.P. thread, but for those of you who didnt, I post the finished work here too.
I hope I get more C&c here than in my last thread.

To the picture: This is the ECA anti tank soldier "Milan". The picture doesnt really look like I wanted it to look, but for now I'm happy. Maybe I'll work on it later again.

I think for my next works I'll try something more sketchy, like the works of FEng Zhu.

Have fun.

http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/553968.jpeg

[ulvdemon]

I am really liking the concept work you posted. I remember seeing your anti-tank piece in another thread and seeing how that has changed, keep up the great work. Your MRLS looks almost exactly like the one's I've seen on my base. I can't wait to see more, good job again.

[Theo]

Your MRLS looks almost exactly like the one's I've seen on my base.

For concept art .... Im not sure thats positive?

Either way im glad to see atleast SOMEONE around here is into vehicle design. Its incredibly uncommon around these forums. Your rendering is neat looking and you got some cool shapes goin on man. Specially like the leopard.

keep drawin!

[Vaejoun]

Finally ! I have a new working scanner !
So I was able to use handdrawings again. ^^ Happy happy joy joy ! XD

This Picture shows the Special-Infantery unit of the ECA. (US has Burton, Chinese Lotus, and GLA this sniper guy)
The ECA has an armored Trooper, who uses a neutron gun. Kills infantery, cleans buildings and can blow him self up in a big ecplosion. ^^

At first we had no name for him, so we called him Desolator, like the nuclear soldier from Cnc RA2. Do you remember ? But then we thought about it and because many of the EU units have animal names (Kobra, Leopard, FELIN, Milan....) we decided to call him Venom. Ok its no animal but it siuts him. =3

The design was inspired by "Jin Roh", "Star Wars", "Unreal Tournament", "Cnc RA2" and some other things. I like it ^^ Not too detailed for a concept, it didnt take too much time and I tried many new things like other brushes, filters .... The Bg was an experiment, what do you think ?

Have fun.

This time I use a link, because you should see it in original size.
http://static.animexx.de/fanart02/fanart/36343/gross/556953.jpeg

[Vaejoun]

It has been some time, but I am back !!! XD

Here are some new concepts:

http://www.niefali.com/works/Manticor-g.gif

http://www.niefali.com/works/Tiger-g.gif

http://www.niefali.com/works/Gepard-g.gif

http://www.niefali.com/works/Manticorb-g.gif



---------- And by the way: My homepage is finnished:

Take a look ^^ www.Niefali.com

[Pixeldragoon]

Totally AWESOME dude. Great modwork.