Gridur's GameGFX SB

[Gridur]

Hey folks!

I've been a member on CA.org since far back, but been away for quite some years. But I still make digital art, and have ambitions on game production and such, so I thought it might be a good booster to start up a SB thread here again! It's always great to see others creations and watch each and everyone of ye grow artistically!

Right now I'm pretty much floating between jobs, so I hope to have some extra time to work with art related stuff, maybe start working on a BBRPG that I've kept in my head for ages now! So first out in this SB will be a WIP of a character I'm working on for that game!

It's a Wasteland Mutant kinda fellah with cannibalistic tendencies. I will add more details in way of weapons and general tools of the trade on him as I make him!
The thing I ponders most on right now is what kinda background I should do. Should I go full in and make a environmental thing (which I can admit I'm pretty lousy at) or should I just make a simple one to give the character the spotlight?

Anyway, here's the man:


By fagertveit at 2011-10-02

[Gridur]

Been adding colors to my creature this evening, it's slow work, me being quite unused to working digitally, but it's getting along pretty nicely anyways!

Next step is to give this little fellah a appropriate background setting and maybe additional light fx, any tips or suggestions is happily accepted!

[Gridur]

I won't take this one any further.
What I can take away from this one is that I need to get more loose in my rendering, right now it looks quite flat, this probably has a lot to do with the flat background, but also the color of the overall character.

Next time I'll try to work with different rendering techniques. I will also try to start working with some speedpainting, never really put any time on SP'ing, so I really need to start doing them pronto!

Here's the finished mutant at least hehe C&C's are welcome!

[bish0p2004]

I like the rendering of the face on the black and white version, and the jeans on the colored version. The figure as a whole looks quite stumpy and short, almost like a dwarf and I don't think that this is what your intention was. The legs and arms are what give the character that appearance. Also, I'm not too sure about the halo you've put around him or the background...but then again, it's a character concept.

[Gridur]

Tried to squeeze out a couple of landscape thumbs after reference material t'day, took quite some time, and the result is quite bad really, just tells me how much time I need to spend on landscapes really, and that's what this SB is for right?

@bish0p2004: Thanx for the post! And you are totally right about the arms and legs length, I tend to make my characters head bigger than they should, and I guess the limbs a bit short, I will try to balance it up more in the future but I think it comes much to preference as well, I like my characters to have a bulky Glenn Danzig kinda look, it has a certain kind of "FOAD" feel to it, and Glenn sure ain't a skyscraper hehe But I really need to do stuff that goes well to others than myself! And the glowing outline is pretty much due to my lack of imagination to make a suiting background, so it sure is lame and a quick fix to a problem I need to tend to in future designs! Thanx a lot for the input!

[Gridur]

A quick study, trying to get into shape with the wacom again, but it goes mighty slow, really need to start sketching more, I probably need to put aside a couple of hours a day to get things rollin' properly

[Rotor]

Thanks for dropping by my SB.
Looking good, I like the solid rendering.
Although the wasteland dude is a mutant, be sure to check the anatomy. If the creature has stubby arms or a long neck, make sure to really point that out as the guy looks pretty regular otherwise and some anatomical things can make what you worked on as horror look even comical. Just dropping this here.
Looking really promising otherwise, keep on trucking man.

[Gridur]

Bought a new sketchbook this Monday to get more active on the sketch side of life, started the whole thing with some faces just to get it running so to speak, I'll try to put at least an hour a day sketching from now on to get my skills up

Rotor: Thanx for the drop-by mate! And you are right with the mutant stubbyness, I need to do more solid ground work and crosscheck with refs more, I've been a real lazy boy at working with references hehe.

Here's the first sb page!

[Chris Sanders]

hey man nice start. one thing i notice from your form has no reflected (bounce) light which gives your forms a flat look. here is a usefull link that illustrates the properties of light (the top one especially useful). when you get a grasp of light then your characters will have a lot more believeability.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...d.php?t=223686

other than that your proportions look fine. keep studying and cranking out those creatires!

[Gridur]

Keeping my sketchin' up daily as I've planed, the new sketchbook was quite bad, it had no grain what so ever, and I like to draw quite light usually, and the graphite won't stick to it the way I want really, anyway, it's great as a quick sketch paper never the less, so I've been pumpin' out sketches at a steady flow!

In earlier sb's I've been a bit picky on what to post and not post, it's quite scary to browse some of the awesome sb's here and try to get some quality to ones own, but then I think that this is a place for my progress and development, so the really important things to post is really the parts that I feel I lack skills! So I will try to get a bit more casual on my posts, just letting it come in a steady flow

Dog-Faced: Thanx for the input man! And when I check my colored stuff you're absolutely right, I lack the bounce light on quite many things, the only place that I consider being somewhat up to the task is when drawing noses hehe, I've had some challenges on that part of the face, so there I really have put down some sort of effort on getting the light right as it's such a complicated structure! I need to think in these terms for all forms in the future Thanks again for the comment!

Here comes todays sketch drop, some figures and faces

[Gridur]

Heya!

Got some more figure studies for t'days update. the first two is from ref whilst the others are freebasin'. Waiting for some moleskines to appear in the post, I hope to do some more color studies when they arrive, but until then I'm stuck with the sketchbook I bought last week, it's quite bad with no grains so I just do quick studies in that one, and I need to do those as I got a lot of work to do when it comes to posture and hands n' feets.
Anyway, here's a selection of the last days work!

[Gridur]

Started working on the design to the Forlorn Fest website yesterday. I didn't know how to go about it, but then I got the great idea that I need to do a Theodore Kittelssen type of design and then all the pieces fell together! So I went right at it and started by doing these drawings. I will be doing more elements for the site, but I'm keeping all graphic on a graphite level, giving it the right Nekro feel

Forlorn Fest is probably Sweden's biggest Black Metal festival that is held in Umeå in December this year! It's real grim and cold (much snow that is hehe) so it has the perfect setting for the music

[NeonDuck]

nice work, your rendering is looking quite cool!

I reckon you should watch our for your process a bit, you seem to get caught up in all the rendering before you've nailed down everything. The result is that your characters are nicely rendered, but proportions and perspective are a bit out of whack. in those cases, hard as it can be, it's usually best to stop drawing, take a step back, assess where you went wrong, and then try again with the knowledge you've gained.

hope it helps, keep drawing!

[Gridur]

Heya!

Finally got my Moleskine sketchbook, it's sweet as hell to work in, but progress is going slow, me kids are a bit under the weather, probably cached a cold or something.

NeonDuck: Right you are, I have a ton of problems with perspective and proportions when it comes to figure drawing, the only solution as far as I can see it is that I sketch my ass of, trying to nail them figures, I'm really lousy at using the eraser (I really never use it) so I rather start a new figure if one feels bust hehe, but I should try to start up with a harder pencil to get the basic figure nailed before I go in and put down the more solid marks.

Here's 2 spreads from the new Moleskine, the last page is a concept sketch for my little game project! Might refine it in Photoshop later on, but there's a ton of things I need to correct (and I really need to work on my hand renderings).

[Gridur]

Heya folks!

Today I've been studying rocks, not to much though but it's good to draw to get some light and shadow training, trying to fix that rock as a 3d object in your head and paint it with light. Anyways, managed to do a SP for International sp day as well, so I'll post it as well! Hopefully I'll keep the flow rollin'

[Gridur]

Today I've been doing some leg studies, I really need to get the kneecap thing working out, a real bugger, more of these will appear in the future no doubt. Continuing to work with figure sketches and general gesture exploration, more of that later though.

[Gridur]

Heya!

Time for t'days update, been doing some sketching on different parts of the face, most front on, tried to get a 3/4 in there as well, but it's a wee bit on the tiny side of things. Also struggling with them legs, and trying to simplify figure forms to work up my gesture drawing pace. Most things are way to stiff, but it's all about development I guess! Doing some 2 min gesture drawings from refs as well, but I keep those in another sketchbook atm.

Anyways, here's the image!

[Rotor]

Hey man.
I think you're pretty well off here, tons of good sketches.
I think your rendering is good, but construction could use some improvement. Maybe learn some quick and easy measurements for the human body to be able to check them on the fly, like how many heads is the person tall and broad, where is the right place for the pelvis etc.
Some good stuff in here, keep them coming.

[Gridur]

Heya folks!

Been off for a while, but for good reasons, I've been down n' dirty with coding a game this last week, pretty simple tetris thingie, but it's in HTML5/JavaScript, so it's really fun to work with the technology!

Anyway, I thought I should do a small update so that this SB don't collect dust, and so happen to be I have some quick concept sketches of the blocks for the game! I've just scanned the buggers so I will start refining and color them in Photoshop, and after that I hope to release a Alpha of the game, so keep yer peepers pealed for that one!

Rotor: Thanx man! And you are totally right, I've always had a problem with general figure proportions, but been to stubborn in old ways to tackle them, but this time I won't let my grumpyness stop me! I just saw that 2 Loomis books have gotten reprinted this year, so I will purchase those, one of them is great for general proportion practice! Thanx for the feed!

[Broderick]

good job on your studies, some cool character designs as well

[Gridur]

Heya folks! Here's an update on the game I'm working on, these here are the blocks that you put into the zombie grinder hehe, it's a messy business but someone's goto do it!

Broderick: Thanx a bunch! Glad you dig the designs

[Gridur]

Heya folks!

Just wanted to give the SB a quick update, been hard at work with Zombie Grinder this week, and I just uploaded the second iteration of the Alpha version of the game, and as this is the first version with a bit more polished graphical design I thought it was due time that I handed you guys a link to the game.

The game is written in JavaScript and HTML5 so as long as you have a updated browser you should be able to play it right away, I've tested it in Firefox, IE8, Chrome and Safari with good outcome. Anyway, heres the link http://zombiegrinder.fagertveit.com

And here's a ingame teaser

[Aragah]

cool stuff bro, youve got a great handle o anatomy

[Gridur]

Hey guys!
Been hard at work with Zombie Grinder, and not much sketching done due to this, but I have made a title screen for the game that I wanted to show ye!
I really feel that I nailed the grittiness that I want to have in the game with this one, so I will work with the same textures in the ingame UI, but I don't think I will manage to fix that till the next release as I've been asked to up the gore and blood level x100 hehe

Aragah: Tnx bro! Glad you enjoy the anatomy, I must get into more gesture sketching though, and cloth, that's two big weaknesses that I have!

And here's the title screen! And you can play Alpha I3 over at: http://zombiegrinder.fagertveit.com/alphai3

[Rotor]

Looks very gribbly, I like it a ton!
Gotta agree though, needs more blood.
Keep it up!