My 2008 sketchbook - enviro concepts, matte paintings and life drawings!

[nickmarshallvfx]

So i thought id start a new sketchbook for everything from 2008. Successful or not, ill try and post everything Its all about learning afterall, right?

So some of this stuff in the first post is from the last few months. Ill try and update regularly, but things are very busy this year, so bear with me.




Value Studies:













Couple of colour enviro sketches:









And a matte painting (currently still WIP):

Original Source Photography:




Matte Painting (WIP):




Ill post some life drawing stuff as soon as i get a chance to scan / photograph my sketchbook, so hopefully more updates to come soon

Nick

[indi_pops]

loving the stuff as always Nick

[Matthew Forte]

My god, that stuff is beautiful! Wonderful job

[nickmarshallvfx]

Thanks for the comments guys!

Ok, so here is an update with some of my life drawings since christmas.
Haven't had that much chance to do life drawing yet this year, so you'll probably see that most of these were done within the space of a couple of weeks.
Vaious media used, pencil, pen, inks and charcoal i think; and all done from life. I forgot to make note on some of them, but generally these were all done between 2 and 5 minutes:












































Apologies for the quality, i dont have access to a scanner, so i had to photograph these and the light was poor.

Hope you like...

Nick

[Muzz 2k7]

I've never bothered with weights ect. But now that Im taking this a little more seriously. I might just do so

Thanks

[Gabs1412]

All gorgeous work, keep goin!

[nickmarshallvfx]

Did a quick scribble on a little post-it note the other day coz my girlfriend had left at least 2 inches of clean post-it underneath her work notes that needed to be exploited. The post-it went into my pocket and i found it again today and decided to paint it up quickly in photoshop coz ive got far too much work to do and needed something to stop me doing it

Post-It Note:





Quick Sketch:





Nick

[ruben_g_ramos]

I love your environment concepts. Are those first three done in pencil? If so, how long did it take you to draw those?

[nickmarshallvfx]

Thanks Ruben. As to your question, no, all the environments here have been done using Photoshop. A couple of them started life as small thumbnails in my sketchbook, but bear little relation to the end product now.
In case you still want to know about time, the environment sketches took around 2 hours each, with the matte painting coming in a lot higher than that, not sure exactly how long on that so far though, sorry.

Here is one more quick sketch for today. As a quick note, thanks a bunch for all the stars people, I made it up to 5 for a while, and while it was shortlived, ill keep striving to produce better quality work this way, so its all good





Cheers

Nick

[indi_pops]

great work Nick as always! keep it up

loving the life drawings

and the post-it note, pure genius hehe

Indi

[nickmarshallvfx]

Testing some custom brushes that I downloaded from I-NetGraFX. So far i love em!

[Master Chill]

Heya there,

like your environment paintings and especially your value studies a lot mate - I should say, please continue, but If I see your last post, I'd rather think to myself, I should better be making that as well ^^

So keep it up (that fits best I think :p )

Cya

[nickmarshallvfx]

Thanks for the comments mate, here is another quick one, still testing brushes:

[Oranje Joe]

sweet enviroes i like the one from the posf it note

[nickmarshallvfx]

Thanks Oranje Joe

New one, took too long:

[Oranje Joe]

i like it alot

it reminds me of indiana jones (just saw it)

i like the way you used the trees to frame it but i feel like it has three planes

the very front trees, the pyramid and the far trees

it kind of draws from the interest in the piece and makes it hard for the eye to explore back into the picture

also once the eye finally penetrates the tree line is unaturally level and makes it rather monotonous

D:

i feel mean

and hypocritical

but tis good

these things, i think, would only make it better

[Xezor1324]

Wow, I love your environments. Your gray-scale ones especially show depth very well. However I do agree with oranje joe on the last piece, some mountains in the background or something added would really make it come alive.
I like the painterly feel of your landscapes, keep up the good work!

[BlightedArt]

Testing some custom brushes that I downloaded from I-NetGraFX. So far i love em!

http://pic4.picturetrail.com/VOL762/.../319355319.jpg

I like this one a lot, and the colours are actually fine as they are, but I'd also be interested to see something like this with more saturated colours and with less "clutter" toward the bottom of the image between the two cliff faces somehow.

I'm not saying it'll make the image better, just curious is all. Keep up the awesome work.

[nickmarshallvfx]

Oranje Joe, Xezor1324 - Thanks for the comments guys. I agree about the lack of distance stuff. The problem i had there was that i couldnt make it too cluttered as there are 2large characters in the final painting in front of the water, and i stuggled with the background competing with them a bit. Its a very valid point though and something i will have to address in the future.

BlightedArt - Completely agree with you on both counts. There is not enough focus and depth on that painting and i wasnt brave enough with the colour pallette to begin with. I tried pushing the contrast when the painting was done but it looked too contrived because there wasnt enough colour variation. I downloaded Whit Brachna's environment painting video from Massive Black yesterday and that has given me some new ideas on colour and painting in general so ill keep working at it. Thanks for the crits mate

Nick

[nickmarshallvfx]

Spent much more time on this one that i normally do, and its been good to take it further. I still plan on repainting the sky in this one, as per some incredible advice from Kian (some of which ive already implemented).



Nick

[Hybrid_75]

I like the enviroments especially the black and white ones. I'm not sure why I like them better than the colour ones, maybe a better tonal range? keep up the good work.

[nickmarshallvfx]

Thanks Hybrid

So ive been trying to practice working loose and with large brushes recently. Gotta be a bit more brave with my brush strokes and just go for it.

Here is a quick sketch from today to that effect. About 3 hours work this evening:



Nick

[Virinun]

Your inviroments are very nice. I love mood and light in your colour ones

[nickmarshallvfx]

Thanks Virinun.
Was messing around with value and came up with a quick 30 min sketch for COW. Not gonna participate, just messing, my characters are weak, but i said id post everything regardless...

[thespianmonsalvo]

Wow. Simply gorgeous environments. They feel real and tangible. Great job.

[frayrob]

Hi Space -Saver I've taken a look at both your S/Books there has been a lot of improvement esp in the quality and surety of your strokes .The fact that you just went for it on your 3 hr sketch really shows it has that quality that i like to call soul when you don't really think too much about the technical side of things and go for it it comes from a different place deeper within you i don't want to sound new age but you know what i mean .The city scape before it is really great but it doesn't have that "feel" like you have left a bit of yourself in it
also thanks for your imput and help much appreciated
Best wishes "OLD ROB"

[nickmarshallvfx]

Quick speed painting inspired by Paul Lasaine and the other amazing talent that worked on the Lord of the Rings films. Bout an hour spent on this one this afternoon:



Nick

[nickmarshallvfx]

The finished version of the cityscape that i posted earlier in the thread. Had some great crits from Kian along the way so i have to say a big thanks to him for the help.



Nick

[xenomorph-designs]

I must say your work just keeps getting better and better. Loving the recent cityscape. Great job on that! Keep working on characters as well. The one you posted earlier in this thread was pretty good in my opinion. You should expand on it.

[nickmarshallvfx]

xenomorph-designs - Thanks mate, glad you like em. I might just keep working on the characters after all...

Nick