Chris Reilly's Sketchbook

[Scriar]

Heres a sketch I did, was going to finish it but didnt really see it going anywhere. And an entry for this months gnomon competition, subject is 'Forest Edge'

[Scriar]

Entry for the Creature of the week challenge plus wips. Would like to do more but my wrist has been playing up.

[Scriar]

Realised I havent updated my sketchbook in awhile.

Currently about to start my Dissertation for my final year of illustration at Plymouth university. And im also about to start a module where Ive decided to illustrate the 7 deadly sins as characters, still deciding on a context for them leaning towards game characters, or as possible designs for a series of bookmarks.

Found out today that the penguin book cover competition has started, so I think im going to have a go at the childrens brief of designing a front cover for the grimms fairy tales.

Quite a lot of work to fit in, ive started driving lessons as well. So can probably see why I havent updated lately. Definitely going to be a exercise in time management this year. So much I want to get done before I graduate, the ultimate being to have a job to come out to by the end of this year.

Anyway on to the artwork.

This is an elf warrior illustration I recently finished, had quite a lot of trouble with the bottom half of the image and a problem with the illustration being too dark due to my new monitor being incorrectly calibrated. Hopefully it looks okay now, still dont like the bottom half of the image and I feel the face doesnt have a great expression, anyway could pick apart this image all day lol but time constraints mean Ill have to call it finished.

Ive been making more of an effort to keep my blog up to date, so theres lots of wips of my recent illustrations on there, as well as ones I have started, stopped and have left to rot lol

[Scriar]

Trying out a sketching method I saw on Feng Zhus latest video. Quite liked drawing this way might try it more often.

As for subject matter I just had the loose idea of designing 3 lizard like characters that each represent a different class of character in a game, so theres a warrior, a shaman/mage like character, and a brute.

[Scriar]

Sorry for the lack of updates, drowning in work at the moment (about 16 to 17 hours a day). Almost finished my 7 deadly sins series, can see the progress on my blog. Starting Wrath tomorrow, then hopefully will have some time to go back and improve the others so they are a consistent quality.

Started on my Macmillan entry, will actually submit it this year ;p, will probably start it properly after xmas, im also planning to do the penguin Grimms fairy tale cover. Need to get my dissertation out of the way first though><

Heres some quick head studies that I've done recently, second one I added a wash of colour to see of I had done the values right to start the base colour. (reference http://www.portrait-photos.org/), and the last is a bunch of ship silhouette designs for an imaginary rts game, in a bid to start ticking the boxes of what I need for a concept design portfolio. Starting off with hard surface designs.

Lastly I finally upgraded my graphics tablet, I have an Intuos 4 large now which is really nice although not too fond of the sandpaper like surface, and its really helping with my wrist problems since Im forced to use my whole arm now and not just an isolated area.

[Illeander]

Nice scout ships. Do you always work from silhouettes?

[Scriar]

Illeander: thanks. Yeah, I studied the Skillful huntsman book a lot when I first got it and found this was the technique that worked best for me. It really forces you to get all of the generic ideas out of your head and to start thinking of more unique designs.

[Scriar]

Final 3 recon ship designs. I haven't done any of this type of stuff before so I learnt quite a lot.

One of the main things is definitely to make sure I have my perspective correct in the silhouettes before I move on to the finals as I could of saved a lot of time.

I definitely should of made another pass to refine the silhouettes to I think as a lot the time I spent doing these was redoing the designs as they didn't feel quite right.

[Scriar]

Finally 'finished' my 7 deadly sins series. I was going to go back and improve them but I think I would rather move on to work on other things using what I've learnt from these illustrations.

Larger versions can be found on my blog or my tumblr which Ive started using recently: http://chrisreillyart.tumblr.com/

[Scriar]

Study of the corner of my desk, fairly quick, could of used more sharp edges on the cup and monitor I think. I made the wall pattern by creating the shapes in a different document, and then turning into a brush. The vines are copy/paste after being drawn.

[Scriar]

My assessment is just over a week away since I finished early Im going back and improving my illustrations. If I can I want to completely redo pride so need to get these smaller tweaks out of the way.

For envy I have made the following additions:

- My tutor felt it would help improve the narrative of the illustration if the witch was being enveloped in a green light to help emphasize that the witch is being lost in her envy.

- He also pointed out the shadow under the widow was too long, and the texture of the table was too 'planky' like floor boards. So Ive tried to address those critiques.

- I decided I would improve the narrative of the illustration and create more visual interest by adding letters and a book (if you zoom in its entitled snow white and the 7 dwarves ;p ) floating in the water like substance. This is to add movement, and to emphasis the witches life is flowing away as she is lost in her envy.

Im also currently working on some christmas cards to sell on the 10th at a vintage fair my friend is organising. Im using it as an excuse to finally get around to painting some dragons lol Heres what I have so far.

[Scriar]

Version 2 of my Lust illustration. Mostly aesthetic changes such as the circular wall to add another geometric shape to the composition which helps to frame the points of interest and makes the picture more dynamic I think.

My tutor suggested changing the colour of the bull as it introduces envy into the picture which confuses the meaning. Because I changed it to blue I decide to change the colours of the floor and skin tones so that they relate better to the rest of the image.

Made the female figure larger as she wasn't dominant enough in the picture considering she is the main point of interest next to the bull in the previous image she appeared subservient due to the decreased size in comparison.

I couldn't figure out how to get the tongue that's licking the lips to stand out more without zooming in, so I guess that part has failed.

Realised it looks quite loose when zoomed in this much, finals are viewed half size so I guess its something I should be aware of, not going to worry too much about it.

[Scriar]

Revised versions of Greed and Gluttony.

[Scriar]

Heres is my version of pride. Its meant to be a take on Lucifer falling from heaven, due to his pride. Ive also recorded the process for this one which i haven't done before. It crashed on every save, and deleted 2 of the iterations show it skips some stages unfortunately.

Think ill have to do this more, its quite useful looking back and see how badly i buggered up each part of the image haha

[Scriar]

Speedy, trying out something different with the smudge tool.

Assessment tomorrow, so can finally focus on getting my dissertation out of the way and doing some other stuff for my portfolio

[Scriar]

Bug thingy doodle, not doing much art at the moment beyond the usual figure drawing, and daily art grind that I tend not to post since im sure people get sick of seeing it ha. Have to get my dissertation done unfortunately. (Its on Frank Frazetta so at least its an interesting subject, amazingly my tutors have never heard of him >< )

[JailHouseRock2]

Liking the new direction your taking your personal art! Careful with that smudge tool tho, dont over use it. Keep em' studies coming too!!
Great stuff, keep posting!
Matt

[AllyAlbon]

Very nice environments happening here! Really want to see more of them. Really like the " forest edge" pic and would love to know how you did those plants.

[Scriar]

Jailhouserock2: Thanks, I see what you mean about the smudge tool haha
AllyAlbon: Thanks, Ive made a small animation for you to show how I did them. Basically I use the lasso tool first, then apply the base colour with a large soft brush, then I add the shadows, again using a large soft brush as it gives a nice diffused look as leafs tend to spread the light and shadow across their surface so there will be lots of gradients.

Then I start adding details, some highlights, inner glow as leafs refract the light as their translucent therefore the the light will cause them to glow. After that its just refining, adding a bit of photooverlays or texture brushes depending on the look your going for.

Then unlike ive done in the demo you would just keep going refining such as cleaning up edges, defining the texture, adding smaller shadows to suggest leafs above, behind them and so on.

Hope that helps


Just a small update, Ive been spending all my time doing my dissertation as mentioned so I dont have a lot of time to do art , finished chapter 2 today yay, so end is in sight Here's a leaf demo, and a shot design environment that I am working on at the moment - as you can see its just in the sketch stages at the moment. Will be taking this one to finish for my portfolio

[Scriar]

Update on my shot design changed the characters around, started adding colour etc

[Scriar]

Asaro bust - planes of the head study.

[Scriar]

Random quick portrait study, and an update on my shot design environment. Just started adding in textures, adding some story elements, improving lighting etc.

[Scriar]

This is my final shot design, and my last painting for 2011

[AllyAlbon]

Thanks for the tutorial, really interesting technique. Love your newest environments too!

[Brahimpag]

Hi ! , i can see that u have a nice scop there ...

maybe , do a few studies ...

and , about ur last artwork, u have added too many color ,so it looks distrupted .. !

keep it up

[Sajok]

Love seeing how far you've come, Scriar. Really inspirational. Your last posts are a real testament to it. Well done, and good luck with your dissertation!

[Scriar]

AllyAlbon: Thanks, hope the tutorial was helpful
Brahimpag: Thanks for your critique, I think I see what you mean, ive added another version below that hopefully has a more unified colour scheme.
Sajok: Inspirational? haha you have just made my day Thank you. Yeah actually finished the dissertation now, finally..first draft anyway lol

Here's a speedpainting - first painting of 2012 and another version of my shot design trying to unify the colours based on Sajoks critique. Currently working on some wow 'fanart' never actually done any before. I thought it would be fun will post some progress when it looks less awful lol

[Scriar]

Some more Asaro head studies, decided to not follow the reference completely as it helps me to remember that you only need to change the shapes and proportions of the different planes to get someone's unique look. Forgot to clean up some of the edges, ahh well, probably lack of sleep, its 2.25 am here ;p

[Scriar]

This is a Corrupted night elf illustration I'm working on at the moment since I wanted to try something different, I thought it would be a good challenge to do a illustration with a specific I.P in mind.

Process was rather messed up on this as originally it was just a character that I was doing a black and white value sketch of next to some reference to have a go at designing in a specific style. I then decided I wanted to do it as a full illustration, so I used one of my other finished speed paintings as a base background, and then integrated the character into the scene, and changing it to make sense.

Trying to go for a Felwood type scene, if I remember WoW right lol, its been 3 years since I played it (Currently playing warcraft 3 and its expansion, better later than never I guess).

Basically thought of those green spire type things that corrupt the land and the creatures surrounding it, I know night elfs in the lore are meant to be close to nature so I thought it would be cool if the corruption extended to the night elf effecting its magic, making it some type of hybrid druid type thingy

Think my sketch is done now, so will just concentrate on rendering.

[Scriar]

Update on the night elf, decided to make the scene darker as I think it makes it moodier, as well as being for practical reasons of making the glowing elements stand out. Some rendering on the armour etc

Forgot to mention Ive now booked to go to the NFTS open days for their new game design course and the production design one. Still not sure about doing an MA (never considered it before seeing that uni), just keeping my options open at the moment, playing around with the idea of perhaps looking into a uk based Atelier as well for an alternative route.