Rob's Creatures, Beasties, Aliens, Monsters, and other stuff too...

[Rob Powell]

Welcome to my sketchbook!
Go to last page for latest updates, and more recent works!
I am Robert Powell, South African born, Canadian raised digital artist looking to improve my skills and knowledge in the area of concept art and illustration. I currently specialise in creature design, above all, mainly due to my insane interests in creatures, animals, aliens, dinosaurs, etc... Any sort of helpful advice is welcomed, do not feel shy to leave a comment, I can take whatever harshness you may give!

[Rob Powell]

some more stuff...

Crit's, suggestions, and comments welcome

soe quick gestures, some of Bridgman, and my own


another character I drew a while back...I think I drew the head and body separate for some reason...I think so I could draw a lttle more detail on her head, seeing as the body was a little bit small


It takes along time to say anything in old Entish, and we don't say anyhing unless it's worth taking a long time to say!


I drew a falcon skull a looong time ago and used it as a template and drew other things over top of it...such as this zombie bird head


this was a fun painting, took me about an hour to an hour and a half


Made a brush, made a stroke with the brush I made, made a dragon with stroke I made with the brush....

[Rob Powell]

Crits and suggestions are encouraged here! So if you don't mind I would appreciate a little insight thnx!

Here is a more recent Wip I'm working on...I'm no where near finished but I decided to show my progress and hopefully get some useful feedback on it...

1-Started of experimenting with silhouttes and was inspired by this one (what do you see, I see a few things but what interested me was this old alien face)
2-Just quickly went over with black (i guess to expand on the silhouette to help me see the character more)
3-Painted in a quick abtract BG...looks like crap, but that's what layers are for, I can change it later
4-Painted the face and layed in some base colours...still lots to do....


For the COW/EOWCrossover Bridge The Gap. Almost Done....

[Rob Powell]

My entry to C.O.W#210-Sound Round! (youtube edition)
The brief was pretty simple...'Here's a youtube video with a strange noise, now make a creature that make's the noise.'

Let me know what you think!
Any kind of feedback is highly encouraged, and appreciated!

[Rob Powell]

Found some of my earliest digital works, looking back on them maks me realie how much I've improved.
Also a Wip ofmy latest digital piece don for COW#211 Red-Hot, Speckled, Rock-Muncher. With a topic like that how can I not partake on the activity!
Anyways let me now what you guys think...but do kee in mind they are old works(cept the COW piece)

[DmnSpawn]

looking good, been seeing you in the Cow's and your dong great esp the inferno 2 tails. They make me jealous I didn't notice when it started.
Keep it up!

[Lightpunk]

As you say, there is a lot of improvement from your earliest stuff to now, well done! I would recommend putting some time in studying perspective, this will help give more volume to your designs.

I like the fish painting in particular, nice work there. Keep it up!

[Rob Powell]

@DmnSpawn: Thnx

@Lightpunk: Yeah, perspective is one of the many things I need to study.The fis was fun te paint, If only I spent a little more time on it, it would probably look a lot better, but it was for more experimenting with texture and brshes...

[Rob Powell]

Here are a few of my best pieces, both tadtonal and digital. Even thugh they are some of my best, it doesn't imply that they are flawless. Still lots of room for improvement.
I think I need to start doing some more pencil drawings soon, been caught up in digital painting, and haven't really drawn on paper,other than just sketches in a sketchbook.
Let me know what you think. Any commets, crits, and suggstions are always welcome.

[Rob Powell]

And here are a few other digital works I've done...Le m know what you think

The first 2 took me somewhere between an hour to 2 hours, I was experimenting with making brushes, made a stroke with that brush, then rendered the stroke to make a design




Was trying my hand at some kind of Graphic Design here, looks decent but not perfect

[Rob Powell]

Some wip of my latest COW...I'm almost finished and it's turning out quite nicely...
crits and suggestions are always welcome

[Rob Powell]

This week's COW is pretty interesting...threw up these sketches to see which I like better.
Any comments and suggestions are welome!

Will attach some pencil sketches later...

[Pat Thompson]

looking good man. i especially like the mecapede quickie and that skeletal vulture dragon 'ridley'. That blue and gold macaw is also amazing. however, i was the most impressed by that first figure study you posted - it looks like it should be in a textbook, very nice. Your traditional stuff have some very nice linework and style to them, something dynamic, that I'd like to see creep into your digital stuff more as well. keep up the good work and i'll see you around in the CoWs!

[Rob Powell]

@Pat Thompson: Thnx, I'm slowly pushing my digtal work to the level of my traditional, those fiures are thanks to George Bridgman's Book guide to Drawing from Life, I really need to get back to drawing from that book, I need to one day just sit down and draw page by page all or most of the illustrations. It really builds your understanding of anatomy and figure drawing.

My latest progress on this week's COW. For some reason I've struggled rendering the marsh creature, but maybe it's because there is no highlighting to balace it out, also for some reason I started working the lighting before blocking in the form on the other two, but it doesn't look too bad atm, once I push the form a little more I'll work on the lighting a little afterwards, still very rough, but any crits and suggestions are welcome.
Having lots of fun for this COW!

[rem92]

cool creatures ! and very nice anatomy studies

[Rob Powell]

Small update...
first pic is a few quick sketches done for this weeks COW.
The second pic are some very quick thumbs done for practice, it took me no more than 10-15 minutes for each one, the bottom two could've been pushed a little further, but meh...
Third are final renders of the Game Critter Quadruped for COW

[Flame_Unquenchable]

Hey Rob,

Just dropping by to check things out. I had checked out your Deviant art site a while back, so I figured I'd come over and check this one too.

Loving those anatomy studies, good poses and gestures. Do you have any life drawings? I'd like to see how those look. You've got really clean linework, which is really cool, it's something I struggle with.

I'd love to see that dragon portrait in color too!

Anyway keep up the good work.


~Flame_Unquenchable

[crowbones]

OK well I don't really have anything helpful to contribute, but I love your creature designs. And those dragon brush painting things look great.

[Rob Powell]

@Flame_Unquechable: Thnx, I don't do too many life drawings, although I should...just sketch as much as you can dude, if you struggle with something then that means your not doing it enough. an exercise that may help, draw two little dots somewhere on the paper, close, far apart doesn't matter, then draw a quick-straight line to connect the two dots, this helps with precision and confidence, I found myself covering pages with dots and lines, still not connecting them consistently though...

@Kerrimonster: Helpful or not, thnx for taking the time to look at my work and leave a comment

Small update...My entery to last week's COW the 4 Apocalyptic Mounts.
This is basically an unfinished painting, I may go back and actually complete it and add a bunch of stuff that I was intending to, but ran out of time, I may also just remove the saddle and straps, just threw them in there to show that the creature was rideable.

[strangedawn]

Ei thanks.Nice sketchbook!you have some good creatures and the pencil in the num 9 is really good mate nice studies and sketches keep it up, i would love to see more works post more=)))

[HonG-t]

Some of the creatures are really interesting! Keep it up

[Clur]

Wow! I love your creature designs, they've got a really quirky sort of charm. They make me smile.

I noticed that when you draw humans, though, you tend to give them really long noses that are a little bit out of proportion to the rest of the face.

Keep up the great work!

[Rob Powell]

@Strangedawn: Thnx dude. Glad your liking my pencil work. See below for more! ^^

@HonG-t: Thnx

@Clur: Thnx! And yes, human faces are my Achilles heel, especially the noses, my biggest problem I try to often to just wing it and eyeball everything instead of studying hard from reference, I am meaning to start an intense study regime, involving a few really good books and a sh*t load of google images.

For fans of both Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, here's a little pencil sketch of Jar Jar Binks and Gollum I did a few months back. The eyebrows are a fail on Gollum. These were really fun though, and took me about 2-3 hours each. I need to do this more often actually, the better at drawing you get the better final painted images will look.


Here is a light sketching for this week's COW. I'm excited about this one especially since I suggested it! First real traditional piece in a while, since Ridley, actually.

[zeichenwut]

Very cool looking sketches. Especially your creatures.

[MarcSampson]

nice creatures

[Rob Powell]

Figured it's time for an update, here's some of my more recent COW pieces as well as my first CHOW artwork...



details...

[Rob Powell]

latest cow piece, this was fun to do and took me a lot less time than I thought it would...the idea is that it is basically a floating Greenhouse, that uses small photosynthetic organisms to absorb solar energy. I kind of failed with the transparent membranes though, but I'd say it's not bad considering I haven't painted any transparent before this.

[SMILEFACE]

DUDE yer CREATURES RRRRRRRRROOOOOOOCCCCCCCKKKKKKKK my fav is the BLUE HANDED TREE HUGGERS XDXDXD

[ismo]

I like those Bridgman studies. It looks like you don't just copy the lines but actually try to understand the structure. You're doing it right.

Your painting still suffers from the lack of knowledge on how light really works. It's hard to tell where the light is coming from in these pieces and that tends to flatten the image. Try to observe and paint some simple objects from life in different lighting, for most people that's a big eye opener. At least for me it was.

[bbbbethhhh]

The Bridgman studies are epic, makes me want to do some myself. I also think the membranes on the last piece you posted look pretty effective just keep practicing, you can tell they're supposed to be transparent. The concepts behind your creature designs are brillaint