Marco Ferrigno's Sketchbook

[marcoferrigno]

Creating this sketchbook is what I imagine going to an AA meeting is like, standing in front of a bunch of people and saying 'I have a problem'. Im not too botherd that my work isnt perfect but a quick scroll down the sketchbooks then reminded me of how competetive the industry is. Pretty depressing hello that was.

Hello! My name is Marco Ferrigno and Im a student studying VFX at staffordshire university UK, Im in my third year now and half a semester through my major project. Ive been encouraged by my tutors to seek outside advice and criticism for the work that I am producing so Ive decided to start up a sketchbook, its been a while sinse Ive been on here but the forums still look like their bursting at the seems with new material which is great.

If you guys could take a look at my work and recommend a certain direction you think might be a good idea to travel in or notice something wrong with my work please point out,

Thanks guys.

[Flaskpost]

great decision! and welcome!
i really like the sillhouette of that gun guy.
as for advice, have you thought of what/where you want to work/with?
like, have you decided on concept art? then just look at the gaming companies where you want to work and what kind of things they do.

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

I like the minimalistic and cartoon like way you paint, but may you could anyway try to give your pictures some more complexity because they leck of 3dimensionality. For example the soldire guy. You could work in more planes and render them out. The pice with the spaceship needs a lot more of value separation. You seem to create all the feeling of space simply/mostly through perspective. So one direction I would suggest you to travel in is the studying of creating 3D space, for example with atmospheric perspective, using a wide scale of values, and so on. Hope that helps.

[marcoferrigno]

@ Flaskpost : Thank you, I have done some research into portfolios, Im going to FMX in stuttgart germany in april and my idea is to produce a portfolio of concept art that covers all areas of design, for the moment im focusing on vehicles but I aim to do creature design and enviroment art aswell. the point i want to prove is that im adaptable.

@ Matelo : Thanks, Ive had a couple of people mention similar points about the ship being too flat, its based on a maya screen grab as an underlay and its something ive only started doing recently so i still have to develop a better pipeline for the process, do you think that the vehicle below the ship shares the same problem as i tried to improve the technique with this one,

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

The Vehicle has a lot more 3dimensionality but this is mostly caused by the angle you drew it in. You create most of 3D space by perspektive. Value separtaion all in all just means that, the farther an object (or a part of an object) is away from you the more its values are washed out by the atmosphere. That means that values get lighter and the contrast gets lower. You may also make some castshadow or refelction on the ground to make your object touch the imaginary floor so its not floating around. I made a quick paintover. Hope this helps. Thx by the way for stopping by my sketchbook. I dont know if I got your question right (sry for my english) but if I understood correctly these pictures on my SB are not really what i see myself geting into. These images are actually more a illustration like thing I guess. They are just images that I created within my studying process of digital painting and rendering. I kind of designed my own charakters of course but if I wanted to produce charakter design I would probably try to paint diffrent versions of the main design, draw them from diffrent angles to show of the design in a whole, show some close ups form various details and they were just as tight as its necessary to read them. Then if by the art director or whoever one gets chose I might do a rendering that would end up as a picture similar too the once on my SB just hopefully WAY better

[marcoferrigno]

Thank you matelo, your feedback is very much appreciated. I get what you mean about the atmospheric distortion. As for the shadows i ujderstand that this literally helps to ground the subject in the canvas, this raises a point that i also need to take my presentation a bit more seriously. Thank you for taking the time to annotate what you were writing about, its.nice of you to take the time.

[marcoferrigno]

Some more concepts:

I feel that interiors deffinitley are not my strong point, there something Im really trying to push at the moment but I keep thinking there always be my weak point. Do any of you professionals out there have weak points or is this not an option?

This is some slightly older work but I am taking account of the advice Ive received and will bear it in mind when im making my current concepts.

Let me know what you guys think,

Cheers.

[asa]

This is a very good start
I would try to simplify things to brake them in parts and work one part at a time
for any design you can brake the whole process into steps that you can address without worrying to much about the others but still keeping a very good control over the big picture
for me the Feng Zhu free videos on his youtube channel were very good in this sense of braking everything into parts and suggesting a few ways of dealing with each part
I think they can help you too

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks asa, Ive been in contact with an artist over the last few days who has been really helpful and recommended a similar approach, with a strict dead line and a pre-negotiated body of work Ive found my self rushing things quite alot and listening to you guys thoughts helps highlight this problem.

I will make sure to have a look at Feng Zhu's videos.

A king fisher drawing from last month:

[marcoferrigno]

Been looking at Feng Zhu and Miguel Lopez's work in Nuthin' but Mech. Really nice styles and Ive seen some similar styles on the sketchbooks here so I thought Id have a try at emulating that style and creating my own concept as part of the work load for my major project at university. Ive tried to take into account the feedback and criticism that Ive received in the replys Ive had in my sketchbook.

let me know what you guys think,

Cheers.

[asa]

yes, I have the same problem with rushing the design and than having to solve a lot of problems in later stages
and this only makes me lose a lot of time
I believe that taking the time and solving all design problems in the early stages of concept art creation process like thumbnails and first sketches
actually saves you a lot of time and makes a stronger design after all
very cool this spider droid concept

[Flaskpost]

looking good! the feng zhu videos are great. i really like listening to Bobby Chiu´s videos on youtube too.
i think asa nailed it with doing lots of thumbnail sketches, multiple versions of the same theme/idea is the way to. doing lots of iterations
also just doing studies of things and painting from life.

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks asa, Yeh over the last few weeks Ive began to depend on outside opinion for alot of the work that Im producing at the moment, which isnt always practical so Im just going to have to figure a way of being alot more observant and critical with my own work, I find reference to be the best measuring tool for that but there isnt always a real life equivilant to what your designing.

By the way, Salut! Ce faci?

Thank you Flaskpost, My drawing skills always seem a little sharper after some real life sketching, when I feel my self getting really sloppy I normally start sketching animal photos which helps neaten things up.

[marcoferrigno]

My entry for this weeks COW and another bird painting.

[marcoferrigno]

Couple more concepts, A hovering camera droid thats operated by a very basic AI and Ive redone the costume variations for the engineer concept I posted earlier on, I think a simple figure in multiple costumes gives the impression that I can work faster than four costume variations that have been laboured over for whats probably too long by industry standards.

[Flaskpost]

good shit dude! i really like the interations of the hazardsuit guy! only critique would be to maybe play around with the sillhouette more.
would be cool if you chose like 3 or 4 and developed a bit further, adding another level of detail, and then choosing a final one and develop even further
really fun and useful way to work i think

[Mepainter]

Oh my! what a talent in creating concepts for fantasy/science fiction! i see a great potential a head.
keep posting

[marcoferrigno]

@ Flaskpost : thanks dude, Ill follow your advice and develope a few of them further. I understand what you mean about the silhouettes all being the same but I wanted to put an emphasis on the design aspect over the demonstartion of my artistic skill, earlier this year I attended FMX in Stuttgart germany, alot of the scouts and company representatives there said they wanted to see more Speedy stuff that hadnt been laboured over too much so that they could tell that Im able to produce work quickly enough to meet their time constraints. But I do agree with you in my own opinion.

@ Mepainter : thank you mepainter, appreciate the words of optimism

Heres a work in progress of my submission for the C.O.W contest, its a bull short nosed ring tail. With concept design I believe the way forward is to create something that pushes past peoples standard preceptions, so for me the struggle is to create what appears to be an original concept yet has enough familiarity for people to understand it. need to work the values in on this one, just a basic paint over so far...

[marcoferrigno]

Tried adding a little more value to the security guard concept, this is a WIP at the moment, the colours are now a bit too sharp and nasty for my liking.



some quick concepts for a robotic arm that would help to dock ships in a hangar enviroment

[marcoferrigno]

Some more work, concentrating on creatures now for the moment.

[Matthias Kinnigkeit]

I like your latest stuff man! You got some nice concepts there with some cool presentation. Im curious to see your process and dont forget the value separation particulary regarding the Alien. Furthermore you could add a lot more contrast around the face area because the face is where people naturally look first so it adds a lot of realism to your pice if you imitate the human eye and add the vocal point there aswell. Of course these aspects are more relevant for illustration like work but you may want to think about it in your concepts aswell. But its a cool design. Keep it up Im curious to see more.

[marcoferrigno]

Thank you Matelo, Im warming up again to be honest with the creatures its been ages since Ive done any. Thank you for the advice, looking at those concepts your advice look alot more obvious and ill make sure to bare that in mind in future.

Some more beasties.

[marcoferrigno]

[marcoferrigno]

More bugs and beasts, really need to get some thumbnails uploaded, got a sketchbook full of them...

[kevin_]

really like your designs, very interesting! hope to see more work from you!

[marcoferrigno]

Some more work for my major project, decided to revamp an old concept aswell (sky cow)

[asa]

awesome creature designs
hei, esti roman?

[marcoferrigno]

No, an romanian old friend of mine lived in Cluj Napoca for a few years when she was younger but grew up in Baia Mare, Mara mures. I picked up a tiny bit of romanian language whilst we were there but i speak really poor fractured romanian.. or should i say 'nu romanesc, inteleg mici'

[fireframe]

Your creatures remind me of Wayne Barlowes work. Very similar feel to them. Some damn nice stuff you got here.

[marcoferrigno]

Thanks Fireframe, Wayne Barlowe has been my biggest inspiaration for creature design sinse I was in college.

You have some good work on your sketchbook, ive left a little idea on there for you.