CthulhuTech RPG concept art

[Undertow]

I posted this in the Personal Projects thread as well. In wanting more feedback I figured it'd make sense to post here too. This a very small sample of the work I've done on the pen and paper RPG CthulhuTech. My share of the workload has been over 60+ concept sketches, cover pencils, art direction, talent scouting, and various logo's. I've learned allot over the past year and a half. As an FYI I had 0 experience with conceptual design/game design before this and had never drawn, never mind create mecha or creatures before this. Keep in mind these have not been set up for professional presentation. Feedback is greatly appreciated. Either way, thanks for taking a look.
-Mike V

WIP with logo roughed in for placement

finished pencils, digital paint will be supplied by Daniel Horne. Unrenderred areas are to be finished in final paint.

Rapier stealth mech with pilot for scale

3 of the Tagers (PC's) for the game. Symbiotic warriors. Humans bonded with dimentional creatures. The host takes on an appearance similar to the creature and with time the creature actually evolves and the host begins to take on their abilities in human form as well.

A bunch of early mecha sketches done in painter.

early mi-go drawing done for S&G's

[flex mathews]

hey mike, those concepts are looking awesome. i love those taggers especially. i cant wait to start working on some stuff.

[Undertow]

I can't wait either Pat.. soon, VERY soon. BTW, Cake said he's down to do some work on the book too. I'll be giving him some hot crunchy creature goodness to draw. This book is going to be so cool, I think I'll be geeking out over it's release more than the folks that have been waiting forever for us to finish the damn thing
-Mike V

[Ssenkrah Semaj]

As an FYI I had 0 experience with conceptual design/game design before this and had never drawn, never mind create mecha or creatures before this.

To your credit I cannot believe that the above statement is true after looking at these conceptual designs. If that is in fact the case your work is truly an inspiration for me to stop giving up whenever I attempt to draw anything mechanical. I love the concept of organic versus inorganic, it is present in a few of my own ideas and am upset to see it done so well.

The only thing I can say is the mechs that look the most original are all in outline form in the left corner and the colored mech. I would like to see those mechs drawn at full scale, the others look a little like they were taken out of Mechwarrior.

[look]

I really like the Tagers design. The Mi'go and mechas look cool too.

[Sapphire]

Those mechs look like they could be designed by Feng! Extremely cool, I'm SO jealous of you guys working on such an awesome concept. If you ever need another concept artist or something...

[Undertow]

72 views and 5 replies? YGBSM. I'm not asking for much here, just a response of "you need to work on x" or "I'd like to see more of X" Has this forum really degraded this much that no one is willing to offer up constructive criticism. I think that it's obvious that I didn't start this thread for ass kissing purposes. They'd be geared towards professional presentation if that was the case. Come on people, say something!

Ssenkrah: thx for the compliment. I've been drawing for a while, just nothing mechanical in nature or creature related, I swear to you that I'm not lying keep your faith brother! I tend to pick up things really quickly as I'm a visual learner I can stare at a portfolio of work for a few weeks and start picking out the bits and piece that I like and incorporate them to my work. In the case of the mechanical stuff I bougt the 2 mecha DVD's by Feng off the Gnomon site and learned allot. I also spent a month amassing various types of mecha reference and building one hell of a folder. From there it was a process of picking out the little details that I liked and incorporating them into what I considered a logical/natural design evolution off todays technology. With creatures, it was all staring at Kekai's work (Prostate Sunrise) and figuring out what I liked about his creatures. Cross that with a bunch of insect studies and organic shapes from nature and voila, I created some critters.

Look: Thanks for the compliment

Sapphire: you're too nice Sarah, thx for the compliments

[salaryman]

wow, this is great stuff, really great.

it's going to be hard to crit, but...

maybe something a bit dirtier? The grime of and unpleasantness of Lovecraft's world?

not really a crit to be honest, other than that, this is an inspirational take on the subject!

thanks for sharing!

[Sapphire]

Undertow: Ouch! Didn't mean to uh... be too nice, I just couldn't come up with any particular constructive criticism at the time, and was happy to see some of the results of what you had been telling me. One thing I can see is one of the three symbiote figures (the one on the left) is leaning precariously backwards, as if he might fall over. I would like to see the colored versions of these. Also, I'm not fond of the way the logo covers up a good portion of your design on the first panel you posted. Maybe if it were all inked, it would be fine, because right now the title is pulling so much weight that you lose those fine details in the tentacles and the faces, especially near the title itself.

Also, for the mechs, the gray background with the black ink and the white really pops out... I think that's a really effective method for drawing those.

You've begun to shade the logo too, that's quite cool. I am slightly confused on the lighting direction; I assume it comes from the left side, since that dark alien's head is brightly lit, but his tentacles don't seem to be getting any of that direct light, even though they would be closer to the source than the alien's head. Maybe this is simply because the head is of a shinier material than the tentacles, so I just thought I would point that out, if that's not the case.

[Undertow]

for clarification, I wasn't ripping on any of the people that responded.. more the people that jumped in, took a look and left. Heartfealt thank you for the advice salaryman and sapphire. What you both had to say is giving me quite a bit to think about. I will absorb your comments and attempt to apply them to the next batch, or for rework if I add these to my portfolio. Maybe I'll try sketching up one of the tagers tonight for fun and attempt to make it a bit dirtier. I'm mentally having a rough time overcoming my cleaner design tendancies. Sarah, with regards to the figure on the far left. I originally drew him solo and noticed he was a bit off then as well. When I tried to digitally place the 3 of them on what would seem to be the same plane, I had to over rotate him to get him to fit which obviously made it even worse. I'll probably end up adding those fella's to my portfolio so I will redraw them and fix the balance issue. On the logo.. might you have any creative ideas as to where I could place it instead of across the top like that? I tried messing with it but only ended up getting incredibly frustrated as I couldn't get it to work properly. A little out of the box thinking would help drastically because my brain is fried. I think my composition is hosing i all up. Thx folks, keep em coming!
-Mike

[darth massacre]

Geez I was hoping for a big download!



I think the Tagers should be closer to the one in the middle on a design perspective. Since they're formerly humans but have been taken over. Of course I may be clinging too close to "The Flood" from HALO....I just thought it might be more impactful with a more deformed look.

Hit and miss for some of the mecha. I think its cool you took a dive and created the mecha designs even though you've never done it on such a scale before. Nothing risked nothing gained truly applies here. Good job.

[stoph]

i love the concepts, however the only thing bugging me at the moment is the title page...

the organic dude on the bottom left isnt balancing out the composition of the picture. it is long in the face and as such doesnt protrude enough from its position, whereas the girl on the bottom right pops out just that little bit more. in my humble opinion it just needs something to balance it, thats all

[Sapphire]

Actually, I think placing the title on the bottom would work even better, because then you'd have all of these figures spilling down towards the title, which I think would be a nice effect and would give you a chance to look at all of the monsters and such before you notice the title. I guess it all depends on where you want your focus first. Since the design trails down to just having a few tentacles in that space, I think you could cover up the ends of some of them without a problem.

[Undertow]

Darth, thanks for the input good stuff. With the tagers it's one of those things where the writer says "make this guy creepier than the rest and stream line this one". I didn't want them to all be of equal crap in the pants factor, I tried to set them apart by their names. The one in the center is called the Nightmare. The one on the left is the shadow, and the one on the right is the phantom. Thx for the heads up on the mecha, I've been wondering how they would be received. Don't suppose you have any suggestions on what might work with them?

Stoph, you're totally right with the line art. When I did the thumbnails I didn't have all those characters there so in the final the balance was thrown off a bit.. hopefully we can try and even it out with color.

Saphire, why didn't I think of that? I'm definitely going to have to try that out. I kept shrinking it and moving it around on the top 1/2 of the page. Too much of a traditionalist with cover logo placement.. it wasn't allowing me to think outside of the box. Thanks a million. I'll post some more stuff tonight btw.

[Ink_Monkey]

Hey Undertow I just seen this thread or I woulda responded sooner fer sure. I'm with ya on how ppl just jump in and look around without even leaving a response even if its not a crit ... a pat on the back and "hey good job" is nice to cuz then at least you know your heading in the right direction and it get your spirits up to .
Well I got no crits for ya right now so I'll just say "Wicked job buddy...Can't wait to see more" . Are you going to post some of the paints here when there done? I hope so.
Well I'm outa here, Later.

[Prehistoric]

alright mike,

i left a crit in your sketchbook about the first drawing having to do with pencil texturing. as for the rest of this stuff, my crits are based on the concept. the mech warriors look really good, but i don't see much "cthulhu" about them. i see cthulu monsters, then i see mechs, but aside from the shape i really don't see a connection between them. i think the mechs could use more of the organic nature of the creatures. i'm pretty sure that what you're going for is a marriage of horror and sci-fi, but right now they look like they're just dating. maybe you could show through some of the mechs to what's inside. like maybe the interior spills out into the exterior at the connection points (joints, gaps in armor, that sort of thing). or if the mechs constrict the creature's growth, you could show some creature like stuff growing through the mech, like weeds in the sidewalk.

anyway, there's my two cents.