Master Pug's Sketchbook

[masterpug]

So, I was going to delete all of my posts on my OLD sketchbook and then continue to post...but the SB was 8 pages long so I decided it better to just start over.

For those of you who have never seen me before, I am the Master Pug. I am not a full time artist, but hope to be some day. I have a degree in Studio Arts from the University of Idaho; and my current artistic focus is learning this darned digital paint stuff. As I go, any help / comments are always welcome. I LOVE CC!!

This first one here was one of the later posts of my last SB, and the rest are just some of the "better" things I have done. Might as well start with a bang, eh?

Oh, since my scanner is down right now, most of the posts will be the digital stuff I am trying to do. I know not all of it is good or even close to what I can do with raw materials (pencil and pen and ink being my favies); but I am still learning. Anyway, as Mario always says, "Here we GOOOOOOOOoooo......!!!!"

*removing old items to consolidate also so they thumbnail updates - out with the old and in with the new!*

[zeroe]

Hey hey, I like your interesting use of colors and imaginative character designs. There are some issues with anatomy, composition and the like, but the basics are there I think...nothing a bit of practice and persistance won't solve. Keep at it.

[masterpug]

Zeroe: Thanks! I am trying to do a bit more with it - more characters in a shot and such but haven't gotten it to work yet. Also need to work more with environments. Hopefully this next one (since it is recent) shows I have come along a bit. The composition isn't bad, but I wish I could have worked on a more detailed BG besides the abstract. Still, I think this will be one in a series, so it might not matter.

Here is the newest. If you read the above you know that this may become one in a series (the whole series being 5). This one is titled simply "The Bitch". I am afraid I can't get any more detailed on this character other than the title. 'Fraid that would give away too much.

Anywho, got scanner up which is why I could do this piece at all. I am SOOO glad I did. Hopefully this means more work, which means more posts, which leads to more people looking at the posts, and more recognition. As they say in art:
Step 1 : Make Art
Step 2 : ...
Step 3 : Profit
*Edited for same reason as previous post - now no nudity, welcome back kiddies!*

[masterpug]

More sketches. Actually did these BEFORE the one above, but didn't get around to getting them scanned until today. I am noticing that the Thread is not showing the most recent as a thumb in the Sketchbooks section. Not sure why. If anyone knows how to fix this, I would be greatfull. I'd like the newest post to show.

[rig4red]

"Oh my God who is flying this thing! ......... Right, that would be me." ~Wash

"DIVE DIVE! FIRE ALL GUNS IN ALL DIRECTIONS!"

[masterpug]

rig4red: Haven't heard from you in a while. Glad to see you joined up if only to be enigmatic.

Here is the newest I have. All sketches, nothing really finished. Hopefully that will change when I take the most complete of them below to the "final stage". I do realize that the Death Knight (obviously I am feeling in a Blizzard mood as you can tell from the post) is a bit off balance in the large pic, but I am not sure if I am going to fix it or not. I probably should, but it might be something I just acknowledge and let slide. As you can also tell, I did adjust his armor a bit from the previous sketches.

[masterpug]

So, I had to shrink this sucker down a lot to get it to upload. Hopefully you can all see where I am going with it. Not sure if I want to do comic style coloring or try painted. As we have seen, my paint needs work. Maybe comic first and then paint over it later and have both. Hmmm....
*more finished version of this in later posts - and like the other posts, taking a much more handled way of doing attachments

[masterpug]

Fresh off the old brain grill. Still a WIP, and by no means final. The type was really because I wanted something that LOOKED interesting even if it doesn't make it to the final stage.

[masterpug]

Latest update on this pic. Still working on it, but closer to done than it was!

[Jeff Bartzis]

thanks for stopping by my sketchbook, and leaving a comment.
I really like your sketchbook, the character designs are really cool, and I like the amount of detail expressed with each character drawing.
Keep it up friend.

[Angel Intheuk]

Eh up masterpug! thanks for your comment and poppin by...took me a while to get round to browsing again and I'm really liking your stuff. The deathknight especially, I have problems keeping my colours flat (I mean tonally) and tend to overwork and have to pull it back, do you use masks?

[George Abraham]

Trancelucent over the text thing looks cluttered. I think it will look better making it look like a background, like a map or stained paper or something.

Perhaps not making them pitch black could make them appear behind the character or some overlap tricks. or perhaps just reducing the amount of text.

[masterpug]

Jeff Bartzis: Thanks for returning the favor. I will stop by your SB again here in not too long. I promise to keep on drawing, even if my posts are infrequent.

Angel Intheuk: I know what you mean about the color. That is one of my few semi-successful works with color (as you can probably tell most of my stuff is B&W). Thanks again for coming by, and many happy returns!

zaorr: I agree the text can be distracting. In truth, the piece isn't finished, but I don't have the persistence to work on it right now and have been drawn away to drawing other things. The idea is to have the text fade into a background (unreadable for the most part); so in the end it should not be a problem provided I can draw a background.

So, big post this time. There is some graphic violence, so the young may want to back off this one. Since I already have some nudity, I don't think it is anything out of line. Anywho, thanks for those of you who have stopped by since the last post. While I can't say I will be posting like this all the time, rest assured I do plan to continue with my art - wherever that takes me. ^_^

[masterpug]

I know it has been a while. I am trying to get the thumbnails to work so it shows the most recent work beside the SB name. Anyway, here he is. I give a big thanks to Jason Chan and Massive Black for posting the digital tutorials without which I would still be at a loss for working digitally. This one is all digital in Painter and took me about an hour (including cropping and converting); though the file isn't that big.

[daveneale]

Good to see you keeping up the practice-will be interesting to see where you go with the digi's. One thing I think would be interesting is to do more facial sudies-some of your faces are a little flat. Not all, but you occationally fall into the "thin straight 2D nose" trap (it's a slippery trap to avoid-I know!). I've been sketching people on the tube/in the street a lot recently and it helps a lot, especially to notice just how varied faces are out there. Keep up the good work!

[masterpug]

daveneale: Thanks! I have been working on faces a bit more. Nothing to really show yet. Still working more on classic media than in photoshop, but I still dabble.

So, new stuff! Not a lot to post, but it is starting and I am warming up. Finally got that pesky scanner working again, so YAY! See you around the org!

[element1988]

i really like a lot of these, those swords designs are cool, but this piece sticks out to me. The pose and the design is just crazy awesome man i would really like to see you take this further.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/att...7&d=1233088053
^dunno if that will work.

[masterpug]

element1988: Thanks for the post. I know I don't get around here that often. Anyway, I was thinking of taking that one further. Lots of people tell me he looks too much like the Crow (movie) but I don't think every evil clown looks the same, do they? I might redeux this one but not sure yet. Most of my attempts to go back over old drawings fail - but I might give it a go.


To all you others, I swear I am still working! These pieces were mostly done for fun and to help out my Game Master with his D&D campaign. Hope you like! Maybe it will even earn my thread some stars.

[krel]

Diggin those ink/pen-sketches! Love the cross-hatching

[masterpug]

krel: If you liked that then you are going to LOVE this. I got back to doing some pen and I felt like I was possessed. Probably my favorite thing to do right now. I am amazed at how much life I am getting out of these recent ones, especially the bird-monk there. 005 Microns for the win!

Some recent pen-work I have been doing. No, not working professionally, yet; but I do want to keep working. I have a goal to work on something or draw something new every day and I have been working strong for the last 2 months without breaking stride. Between that and 45 hour work week, it can be a lot - but totally worth it!

[Hyptosis]

Love your ink and lines. Looks like stuff out of roleplay manuals, right up my ally. Keep up the great work and creatures.

[xxPurple Nugxx]

Hey your character designs are very enjoyable.

[masterpug]

Wow, been a LONG time since I have been back.

That fat kid: Wow it has been a LONG time since I have seen you around dude. I mean, I haven't really been checking or looking (was bad and stopped really working at art for a long time), but I am glad you came back to look! I will make it a point to stop by your thread. I really appreciate your feedback, always good to have a crit or two. ^_^

So, below are some of my new paints. I realize that a few of them I went a little further than I needed to (see the one that is really well rendered in the face but the flaming arm is terrible? Yeah, like that). I have been drawing literally every day without fail for 2 weeks now and lordy has it been good.

These are basically the newer; I did a speedpaint of a Megaman version of the ink drawing down there which for a 2 hour paint I don't feel came out half bad. Granted, it doesn't have the polish of the others, but I think I am okay with that.

As always, any crit is more than welcome.

[masterpug]

Hey all! Back again. More pencil sketches and one all digital. Any CC would be helpful. I feel like my pencil work has come a long way and I have been grinding really hard at it. They say (and by they I think it was actually DaVinci) the drawing is the basis of all art. Granted, they aren't stellar and I have dropped back to a more cartoony style. But again, CC very much appreciated. ^_^

[strangedawn]

Nice sketchbook!.i can see you have some good concept character ideas and your line art is good.My tip is i think you should also try to draw life drawings or with ref image or study more on anatomy books or figure drawing books to make your character much more alive and better.(i like post 20 and 24 the bird and the colored works)by the way your coloring is looking good just keep pushing you are doing good.i want to see more.Take care always=))

[masterpug]

strangedawn - Thanks for stopping by! I really appreciate it! I actually took your advice and did some studies. I took 1 hr on each one. Obviously, could be better. I think you are definitely right and I need to do some more work at it. Build us some speed and confidence with the digital media.

Anywho, here is what I came up with. Did one in Photoshop and one in Corel from the same image. Photoshop is in the middle there.

[masterpug]

Moar sketches! So, trying to do more digitals. Did some heads for you all. The 15M was just for that one head, not all of them. Not that good yet. The other "well" shaded head was about an hour playing around, but the result was okay I think - CC away!

[masterpug]

Newest thing I did with Painter. Still on my old laptop (7 years old now and still trucking). Probably my most successful digital paint yet; but I realize there is still some work to be done. Originally I wanter her "hair" to be jellyfish tendrils but decided to try urchins instead. I think it works but might have been better the other way. Might go back later to mess with it a bit.

[masterpug]

New headshot! I tried doing some full body things but I hit a block and couldn't get my head around it so I went back to doing a head. I think it works pretty well. Obviously it has no background, but I may go in and add one at some point. Oh, and I know the eyes are funky - going to fix that tomorrow.

[teapo]

hey man, thx for dropping by the sb judging by what you've posted so far-- your colors are improving heck of a lot hmm.. i'd say try studying from still life(s) and photos?

i dig the pencil work and the nice thick lines that give it the 'cartoony' feel is interesting i want to see more studies too!