N D Hill's Portfolio Review Thread

[N D Hill]

Greetings all.

My name is Noel Hill and I'm 28. I received my BFA from a state university that had more of the typical amorphous fine arts focus. Any technical ability I might have now, I have only as a result of participating in communities such as this and receiving feedback from thoughtful, helpful community members. I have a little professional experience, mostly creating illustrations for paperback novels for small publishers and a few RPG design jobs. I'm looking to expand my professional viability in order to be able to work in house as a concept artist for a game dev studio. I probably would specialize in creature design but would like to be able to offer a range of marketable design services including characters, environments, characters and tech. I also seek to develop my technical capabilities significantly and train in traditional realism. This fall, I will be studying full time at an atelier out in San Francisco.

It's always been personal conceive and fully conceptualize my own IPs and present them in a variety of forms. Not unlike what Wayne Barlowe and Ashley Wood have been producing through Inferno, Expedition and World War Robot. I'm doing that now with a world-building project tentatively titled 'Threshold.'

Below are examples of my work that probably best represent my current skill level.

I look forward to any feedback and advice.
Cheers.
Noel

'Threshold' Creature Concept: Imp 2011


'Threshold' Creature Concept: Paragon 2010


'Threshold' Character Concept: DeVries 2011


'Threshold' Character Concept: Jacobs 2010


Last Man Standing 3 "Underneath it all" Illustration. "Inglorious Lobsters" 2007


1hr 45min Self-portrait: 2011


'Devine Pulp 7' 2010: "Dogs of War"


'Devine Pulp 6' 2010: "Come on back, baby"


"After Twilight" copyright 2008 Permuted Press.

[Andrew Sonea]

There are two things I think you need to work on if you want to take your art to the next level. First being your colour. And second being the use of value for composition.

In terms of colour all of these are very "dead" looking, and undersaturated. They all have unnatural and grey colours and it weakens the sense of light in the images. Try doing some still life studies or copy masters to try to get a better handling of how to use saturation in the light, the shadows etc.

A problem with all of these images (except maybe Underneath it All) is that there is no clear focal point. The eye has nowhere to rest and sort of wanders the image. If you were to use values more carefully and save one or two areas for high contrast it would be much better. At the moment the composition of all of these is pretty weak, largely because of this.

You have very interesting designs, but they suffer from how you paint them, and these images on the whole do not hold together as a strong illustration. Work on the two things I mentioned and I am sure you will go far.

[N D Hill]

Thanks. Yeah, I need to do a lot more painting from life and get back into master studies. I can't wait to be a place where I'm immersed in that traditional instruction. In the meantime, I've been painting and drawing mostly from figure and landscape stock photos. I make whatever odd model drawing sessions I can find but should be drawing more on site. I just found a copy of James Gurney's Color and Light as well and will be diving into that to hold me over until I'm out at the Atelier. I'm moving from Portland Maine to San Francisco and will be attending the SH Atelier.

[Jason Rainville]

Building on what Andrew said about colour, part of the problem may be that there's not enough contrast between what's being hit by coloured light, what's more desaturated and actual, local colours.

It seems that you suffer from something I've been wrestling with, and that's treating light and colour like a coat of paint rather than something that's transparent; the coloured light, instead of affecting the local colour (skin tone etc) it being flatly applied as if it was paint. It's most noticeable in the last 4 images.

Studies would be the answer, as it so often is. Try to get some good images of neutral lighting situations, and of harsh lighting like you seem to enjoy; try to get a feel for how lightsources are separated, ho they differ in intensity and how the local colours show through.