NickyBeats- Wannabe Concept Artist

[n1frit]

Great result! How much time it takes off?

[NickyBeats]

Mike L - thanks man!!

dan liimatta - yea man, yours is looking awesome!!

S Ciaffaglione - yea i think your right, but im not sure if i should brighten up select areas of the background, or just tone him back. im afraid either way, he may become lost in the bg. ill figure something out.

n1frit - thanks man, im still working on it, but i think its taken me about 4 days, working on and off.

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VERY EXCITED!!!!!!

I JUST GOT MY NEW WACOM TABLET! INTUOS 4!!! BOOOO YAAAA!!!!!

now i can actually paint on my new cpu, and not my old one!! my old tablet wasnt compatible with windows 7, but this bad boy is! im psyched!

so anyways, here is my first sketch, just a test run! (of course its wolvie haha)

[NickyBeats]

trying out z brush for the first time. just made a head from the sphere base model. ive never sculpted anything in my life before, so to say this is a learning experience is an understatement! but im having fun, and trying to not get frustrated. any helpful tips or links to good tutorials would be very much appreciated!!

oh yea, and i somehow ended up copying the head on one layer, and couldnt move the first one, so when i rotated it for the sideview, they became siamese twins haha.

[Quinn Simoes]

Your Chow is looking good man, keep pushing it!

[LtPlissken]

This will be a nice edition of Freddy Krueger.

[Nibras]

Hey Nicky, your work is just looking better and better. It's great seeing all this improvement. There's a lot of strong dynamicism and I can definitely see the comic influences

[YihyoungLi]

Holy cow nicky! You're stuff is looking so awesome--especially the Zombie CHOW: great values/colors. Can't wait to see more!

[SMILEFACE]

MEGA AWESOME ROUND in CHOW BROTHER an I'm a big fan of yers too XD

[NickyBeats]

Quinn Simoes - thanks man! im planning on finishing it up, i spent too much effort on it not to polish it off. thanks for dropping by man!

LtPlissken - freddy kruger? haha, thats wolvie bro!

Nibras - thanks man!!

YihyoungLi - heeeeey man! thanks!

closed - for reeeels? wow thanks bro!!!

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some brush test/experiments

[tokotewhero]

lovd the last Chow man! very cool stuff. Youve got a really good sense of rendering form, but now i think you need to start thinking more about the lighting. and this is whats going to take you to the next level! for example in your chow you have set up this awesome scene of possibility! but your character is lit top down. what i think would have been kick ass is if you had lit him with a rim lighting from the sun set behind, which would put most of him into shadow(which you would think would be crap him being all in shadow) but then youve brilliantly put all these puddles on the ground which could bounce alot of the light back up at him. anyway thats just my 2 scents. awesome stuff man!

ps. the bot in the rain is killer!

[dan liimatta]

Pff ~ You forgot the deadline?

too bad - it seemed to be going well with the latest ChoW.

[NickyBeats]

tokotewhero - oh hell yea dude!! awesome idea! i probably should have thought of doing that when i was lighting him, but i guess i ended up just running on auto-paint mode, and went nuts with the highlights. i have a good idea how to go about fixing this, thanks a bunch man!! back lit, with bounced light coming from below... this is gonna be sweet! thanks again!!

dan liimatta - haha yea, i know.. im retarded. BUT! i do have a nice wip going from the chow, so i think im gonna try to really push this one, and get it up to portfolio quality!

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some character silhouettes done from a brush i made..

[Mike L]

Your gestures keep getting more energetic! Are you going to take any silhouettes to a paint stage?
Good stuff!

[NickyBeats]

Mike L - thanks man! i might, but who knows i just started this weeks chow, so i may not even finish that in time, the way work has been lately.

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chow sketches...

[dan liimatta]

I like the eyes - but damn it will be a busty teenage princess you are making if the dresses show any of it

gl & I'm in on it as well - just starting today ~

[NickyBeats]

dan liimatta - yea i know i forgot she was only a teenager haha whoops.. this next one is a little more teen-ish.

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more chow sketches

[Magic Man]

Looking good! Your form is coming along, watch the proportions and cleanliness of the pieces though, too much sharp scratchy strokes makes it hard to read. Keep pushin friendo

Daz

[NickyBeats]

Magic Man - thanks dude!! always get a tickle in my testies whenever you drop by!!!

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some bizarre alien coloring job! ENJOI!!!

[rumpenstiltzkin]

oh i dig the colored one from post #1359!
and the chow looks cool too, i like the color tests

[NickyBeats]

rumpenstiltzkin - thanks man!

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finally! decided on a comp!! ok, so heres the story...

this poor young woman stands over her mother's coffin, praying for her soul in the afterlife. she was lead to the sarcofagus by her two guides, whom act as her eyes. she was blinded during a very sacred ritual that is performed when a new queen is crowned. her mother, the former queen, had fallen ill after being diagnosed with an incurable disease, and despite her personal physicians attempts to cure her, she died. the youngest queen in the expansive history of the noble Seren, she was now forced into the sacred ritual without having the cushion of years of experience to comfort her in her confusion and ignorance of the ceremony. at the age of fourteen, she was made to drink the holy elixir that would irreversibly deteriorate her eye tissue, until they will eventually become just encrusted cases covering her sockets. she is now alone having no other siblings, and is forced to listen, as her mother is buried, and she is left in utter darkness, never to see her comforting face again.

[NickyBeats]

started to block in the greys.

[Ven S]

You make picking skin color so easy

[NickyBeats]

Wanderer_ - haha thanks man, but i usually just let overlay layers take care of the more tedious parts.

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last update for tonight. im poooooooooooooped!

[Windmaker]

I always feel humbled by such huge threads. Not only is your dedication admirable, but so is your progress. It's always a pleasure to see a how a person has progressed, and how hard work does actually pay off. Well done!
Other than that, I'd recommend more drawing. Do figure studies and concentrate on nailing the correct proportions of the figure. If you do this your pictures will improve dramatically, because, in my opinion, your biggest problem right now are proportions.
So, just focus on the contours and rhythms of the figure. Don't waste time on rendering, while trying to solve a drawing problem
Keep up the awesome work!

[tokotewhero]

Nice! this one is coming along really well man! that intuos 4 makes a huge difference eh!

[NickyBeats]

Windmaker - hey, many thanks for the kind words! and thank you for the advice as well!! i will try to make an attempt to do more line studies.

tokotewhero - thanks!! oh my god yes!! love the new tablet! its working like a charm!

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so another update on this one, just a color pass on overlay layer to get a feel for the color and lighting.

[NickyBeats]

. . .

[LtPlissken]

I so much like the sad story behind this painting.

[Lav]

either you did something with your updates or your sketchbook broke my internet :o

edit; nvm it's fixed! Nice update but your recent painting could use just a bit more values, you can still keep a dark atmosphere while adding a bit more highlights here and there and creating a bigger contrast.

[NickyBeats]

LtPlissken - thanks bro!!

Lav - uhhh, hope my sketchbook didnt do anything bad. but, yea im still planning on adding some more lights in there, to better define edges, and to seperate the figures and casket.

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some soldier ideations, in silhouette.