Gorgonzola's Noodlin's!

[D.C.]

Thanks for the thorough explanation on figure drawing books.
Really cool concept work, reminds me a bit of Zelda The Wind Waker. Also nice brushwork on these environment studies.

[Gorgonzola]

Thanks D.C.! Hope the book list helps you out. I love to share information as much as possible, so if anyone else has any questions, feel free to shoot 'em.

Here's a final update on that little sketch of the plains. There's a lot wrong with it, but as a quick imagined environment there are some qualities to it that I enjoy...

[Gorgonzola]

Well, this is probably the fastest I've ever updated...here's where the turnaround of the girl is at the moment. Still a loooong ways off from being called finished.

Once this basic mockup is done, a "rendered" action pose is still planned, as well as details of the shield, dagger, and sword.

[Gorgonzola]

Here's the finished turnaround of the girl - I'm debating if I should leave it fully lit like this, or actually flesh it out a wee bit with some shadows- I might leave that for the "rendered" action pose. Thoughts?

[in2eternity]

I like your graphic style and those anatomy studies are just amazing! Thanx for useful info about anatomy books and this large reference sheet - definitely will try this out )

[Gorgonzola]

in2eternity:Thanks!

More value studies and life drawing - 30 seconds, 1 minute, 5 minutes, and 11 minutes.

[n1frit]

Great study, creatures and characters! You could create illustrations! Your skill move ahead) And keep posting!

[Gorgonzola]

n1frit: Thanks! I have some illustrations planned for the next few months, so I intend to post those as they move along.

In the meantime, an update on that little concept bundle I'm making for the ol' portfolio: The girl for the moment is sorted, so now it's time for the environment for the monster she'll be hunting (Which will be a dragon of sorts, for sure.) Whenever possible, I like to figure out the environment of a creature before the creature itself, since that dictates the behavior and physical qualities of the creature. So for the dragon, I wanted it to live in a cave, and have the entrance for the cave to be incredibly forboding - like it was perhaps the remains of an even larger beast from long ago. So that's where these explorations went.

Originally I imagined a more rocky/desert environment, but as I explored a bit more I started to think more about Yellowstone park and some of its geography...I particularly liked the idea of there being some clues of a natural forest, then this blown out desolate area where the dragon lurks. It makes it seem like it destroyed the surrounding area to mark its territory.

[Gorgonzola]

A quick detour from the environment concept - here's a page from the ol' sketchbook. These are some alien mule ideas for an upcoming illustration.

[Gorgonzola]

Another update on the cave - I liked the last two thumbs I did, so I went with that and expanded the idea. Originally I wanted the creature to live in a more isolated area, but this won out in the end. It'll work out better for me later, when I do a set of storyboards off of this - the girl will have more areas to hide as the dragon chases her about.

There's a good chance that I might flit back and do a better take on this cave, but I'd like to see how far this goes first.

[Gorgonzola]

Here's the alternate cave idea that I'm currently building up alongside the other...right now, I'm leaning towards this one - I think it's just the better composition and design of it than the other.

[Gorgonzola]

Not much new, just some more pages out of the digital and traditional sketchbooks.

[Gorgonzola]

Wrapped up the environment dragon cave concept this week - so here is the color comp and the final of it!

[Swiezy]

Your studies about landscape and dinosaurs are awsome! I will watch your thread with pleasue.
Salute

[Gorgonzola]

Thanks, Swiezy.

A few more pages scanned...working on the dragon portion of the concept series next, so I'll start posting some of that in a bit.

Also, I got the lyrics wrong on the Beatles song...so these dinosaurs are all sorts of messed up in their singing.

[Odayga]

Really love your character designs, enviros, linework and movement!! Beautiful! I'm really glad I stopped by in here! SUBSCRIBING

[Mike L]

Great sketches, love that line work, confident stuff!

[Gorgonzola]

Odayga: Thank you!

Mike L.: Thanks!

As I prep some portfolios to send out to companies this past week, I started work on the dragon portion of this little concept series thing.

One thing I knew that I didn't want was for the dragon to fly. For story purposes it would have made the girl's fight against it incredibly implausible because of the huge advantage it would afford the dragon. So wings were clipped and he became an earth-bound scaly.

Other than that though, I had only the vaguest ideas of what I wanted this thing to look like. So off to the internet I went!

I collected a bunch of reference of gators, komodos, crocs, monitor and basilisk lizards and threw them up onto a gigantic Photoshop mood board. If you've never done this before for a project, I'd urge you to give it a shot. It definitely beats having to search for crap on your hard drive and it's all in one spot. If I was working traditionally I'd do the same thing, just print it all out.

From there I did some head sketches to get a general feel. After a few of them I thought I had some decent ideas, so I started to try out some full body designs.

I like the idea of making the dragon look like an overgrown monitor lizard - I'm thinking when I go to board the action sequence I want him to move about like a giant lizard, darting here and there, so I want him to look like he can do that - No sluggish creatures here.

He's still a bit away from being a final design, but I think I'm zeroing in on it...

[Gorgonzola]

Some pages out of the ol' analog sketchbook...take a gander as to what I've been watching recently.

Also, for some reason had the urge to draw cars...that's odd.

[surus]

Keep on posting these body / greyscale / shadow studies! Great stuff!

[Odayga]

Your creatures ROCK! Loving everything in here, phenomenal environments as well!!! keep it up

[Gorgonzola]

Surus: Thanks! I'm going to switch gears on them a bit, but those studies will probably never stop.

Odayga: Thank you! Now that I think about it, I dunno if I've drawn a whole lot of creatures lately...maybe I should rectify that...

For your perusal: A busted little digital still-life. The drawing is all sorts of bad in a lot of places in this, but I like the color and light I was able to achieve in it. This is what happens when you're used to actually doing a line-drawing beforehand then try to fix stuff as you paint - you get f*cked up cups.

Something I still have trouble with is getting photoshop to respond as sensitively to me as painter does - I find I can get the sort of looks I want from Painter waaaay easier and faster than Photoshop does, which is funny because I more or less use them the same way (No opacity pressure, just size variation.)

[David79]

beautifull concept mate 5 stars O_O
ur creature are just a feast for the eyes ;D

5 stars man!

[Gorgonzola]

David79: Thank you very much! Love the avatar.

So! Here's some more painting fuckery - The mish-mash that could be called a face is from painter, while the...thing...is from photoshop, done after poring over D@niel's sketchbook (which really, is just spectacular.)

Both of these were done roughly 10-20 minutes each, and would not have been saved if I didn't find some quality about them redeeming. So these little scribbles survived a binning.

[Gorgonzola]

Currently between hopping from one wedding to another, so no time to really scan and upload anything...instead, here's a quick environment paintup I did during lunch today. Done in Painter.

[Psychotime]

Oh man, this is great.

[Gorgonzola]

Much appreciated, Psychotime!

Back from all the weddings and day job stuff, and I finally had a chance to sit down and scan stuff in. So here are some pages from the ol' sketchbook, and some zbrush sculpts! Hopefully this will make up for loooong period of no updates...

Zbrush sculpts were done in about 30 minutes each, the sketches are a variety of imagination and observations from the LA Natural History Museum.

[Gorgonzola]

Random little thing done during a few lunch breaks. In case you don't catch it, I was watching Sinix's awesome, AWESOME youtube videos when I started this...

In anycase, it was a lot of fun! Great way to help push my sense of color, which I think I was only half-successful with. Blue-head was done trying out some gamut masking stuff.

[Gorgonzola]

New sketches from the ol' sketchbook...

[AustenFM]

Been too long since I dropped a proper comment in here. Im still flabbergasted by all those imagined figures studies on the last page and this one. Great sense of physical form and perspective on the foreshortening on limbs in top notch. Lovin' all of your character and creature concepts as well. And those creepy dragon caves up top really imaginative, while they were in the grey stages i thought it was a frigid ice environment, perhaps another avenue for you to explore?

Awesome work, you always make me feel lazy D: