Moai's Sketchbook

[Moai]

No comments? I'll show you.

The next person who doesn't comment has to answer to THIS guy!



After working on Rylee's adventure for a while, I decided that that was enough for one night and started doodling. I then proceeded to sit there for three more hours and paint this guy. I hardly ever spend that much time working on a piece in a single sitting; usually I get ancy and have to go do something else. This one, however, remained fun and interesting throughout, and went smoothly from the first gesture line of the sketch to the last dab of pixels. I could use paintings like this more often! Still a little rough in spots. I'll tighten up a few areas, add some texture overlays, and colorize it tomorrow.
As far as techniques go, this one was influenced by some photos I saw of some creature demos done at the New Zealand workshop, as well as the work of Rich Doble. As for the creature itself, its a predatory alien descended from insect-like ancestors, which over millions of years evolved an internal skeleton and other vertebrate-like adaptations. The the bump with three dots is its eyes, and the hole in front of that is its nostril/heat sensor pit. The bristles on its back detect vibrations in the air, while its padded feet detect vibrations in the ground. The teeth at the ends of its jointed jaws are long, for grasping prey, while the teeth further back slice prey into edible chunks. Its claws help it hold onto prey, climb, etc. It really doesn't have toes, just tough, sensitive pads.



Worked a bit more on this guy. The fun thing about drawing these aliens is that I don't have to be accurate with the muscles, since they aren't from Earth. All I have to do is make them look muscley and not outrageously implausible.



Rylee's adventure is coming along as well. I'm actually getting a decent sense of light and color now. Now I just have to render! Obviously, I drastically changed the composition, first making Rylee and Carmine (the dog) face the same direction, so that they weren't pulling the composition in separate directions, and I added some more interesting tree shapes in the background. That was working better, but the space was still too big and empty, so I zoomed in on girl and dog and brought the trees, ferns, and logs in a bit closer. I'm liking the composition much better now, for its own sake and also because it's not so vast and intimidating for me to paint now! I also added some mushrooms and glowing butterflies for some magic. Mushrooms, butterflies, fairies, and dandelions are repeating elements in the pictures I do for my cousin.

[Moai]

I worked some more on this critter this morning, so for now I think its done. I'll be painting some more of this creature and its relatives soon, though.

As a member of the small speculative evolution community on Deviantart, and because I simply enjoy writing, I also wrote somewhat at length about this creature's natural history. Read it or don't.

Native to the Eastern Temperate ecozone of the planet Naraka, Arthrognathus horribilis, commonly known as the Narakan snapper, is an archetypal predator of the arthrognath clade. The snapper is a broad, barrel-chested creature, adapted for quick lunges rather than extended pursuits. Despite weighing only around seventy pounds, the snapper's enormous jaws enable it to tackle prey much larger than itself, quite a feat for a solitary hunter. In addition to their size, the snapper's jaws are also notable for being jointed. Indeed, the jointed jaws are the only obvious signs of the snapper's arthropod-like ancestry; in all other respects it has converged remarkably on the vertebrate condition. The distal segments of the jaws are equipped with long grasping teeth, while the inner segments contain rows of slicing blades, which efficiently reduce prey to easily manageable slices. A second pair of pharyngial jaws help draw the mutilated morsels down the throat.
The snapper is well-equipped with sensory organs. Three pairs of eyes are located on lateral bulges to the rear of the skull. Having multiple pairs of eyes gives the snapper a wider field of vision, at the eyes themselves are immovable. The snapper's vision is much weaker than human vision. The openings to the front of the eyes are heat-sensor pits, much like those found in pitvipers. Small pores in the corners of the snapper's mouth act as olfactory sensors. Breathing orifices are located in a deep fold behind the snapper's "scapula;" the necessity to keep these orifices open is one of the reasons for the snapper's sprawling posture. Tall bristles on its back are themselves covered with thousands of tiny hairs, which detect vibrations in the air. Sensitive pads on the snapper's feet detect vibrations in the ground. The snapper lacks true ears.
The snapper also lacks toes. Its feet terminate in rough, textured pads for traction, while the front feet sport curved claws for gripping prey and climbing over obstacles. These claws are proportionally much larger in juvenile snappers, which are born in the trees and must climb more often. Though the details of the bones and muscles differ, on the whole the snapper's girdles and limbs are quite similar in structure to earthly vertebrate limbs.
The snapper's life cycle betrays its insect-like ancestry. Snappers mate in autumn, and mating is the only time that adult snappers tolerate each other. The female's reproductive organs are located at the bottom of the abdomen, while the male's are located at the tip of the lower jaw. During mating, the male literally takes the smaller female's body into his jaws, which takes away the female's option of escaping; it is partially for this reason that the snapper's jaws became so large. After fertilization occurs, the female digs a burrow at the base of a large tree, and lays two to three dozen small eggs. After developing through the short, mild Narakan winter, the eggs hatch into tiny larvae. The larvae has undeveloped limbs but well-developed jaws, and use those jaws to bore through the wood of their birth-tree. They seek out other wood-boring organisms to eat, and also readily eat each other. After spending a few months in such a manner, the larval snapper emerges from the tree, climbs high on the outside of the trunk, and secretes a tough cocoon over itself. Roughly three weeks later, a fully-developed, though small, adult snapper chews its way out of its pupa. Using the large claws of its forelegs, it carefully climbs down to the ground, and begins its life as a terrestrial ambush predator. At this stage, weighing only about ten pounds, the snapper is itself highly vulnerable to predation. Few snappers reach adulthood.
Though quite a bit smaller than the average adult human, Narakan snappers should nonetheless be considered extremely dangerous, as their jaws are more than large enough to inflict mortal wounds on humans. Tourists are advised to avoid dense vegetation, where snappers usually lay in wait. Those who do encounter a snapper are advised to run away as quickly as possible, as they will not normally pursue prey more than about ten meters.

[Moai]

Another update on this one. I really need to get crackin' on this, both because Christmas is a little over a week away, and because I want to have fun again. These "obligation pieces" can be a bit of a pain in the ass.
I'm trying to be brave by creating some higher value contrast in the areas that I'm painting on. Only partially successful so far.

I'm a bit perplexed by the lack of comments.

[Turisas]

Nice job on every update so far, Moai.
Just giving a little hello before going to school.
I'll take a look on your posts more closely during the holiday, I'll assure you that.

It seems that the lack of commenting is pretty much everywhere at the moment for who knows what reason.

Have a nice one, Moai.

[Reject-D]

i felt so bad that you didnt have any comments i had to give you one! nice drawings i love the creature looks sweet!! try to work on lighting more contrasts between shades and lights.. they look a little dull but besides that i say great job!!!

and hey i feel ya.. no ones commenting my sb either..

[Moai]

Turisas- Hey, man! It's been a while. Good to see you again.
Reject-D- Thank you as well. You're absolutely right in your critique of my latest painting, but as you'll see in this post that no longer matters now. But thanks anyway. I'll give your sketchbook a visit, since you commented on mine.

I'd had a feeling it would come to this a few days before it actually did. My painting for Rylee's adventure was...not...working. I had Rylee, the girl, in a pose I have no close reference for, so getting a likeness was difficult. Also, what looked like an expression of wonder on her face when I was zoomed in and painting looked like either fright or expressionlessness when I was zoomed out. The colors and values were resisting me. It wasn't fun at all, and I knew that forcing myself to finish it would be painful. So, I gave in to the inevitable, and started over with a completely different painting.

This new painting is more successful than the last in every way. Both Rylee and Carmine (the dog) look more like themselves. Rylee's expression is more characteristic of her. They're no longer in a shadowy forest, so I no longer have to fight to keep things from being dark and scary. I have numerous useful photos of both of them for these poses, including some in similar lighting conditions, so correct proportions, likenesses, and shadows are easier to achieve. My skintones are better and my value contrast is better. Holy shit on a popsickle stick is this painting easier and more fun.
Even so, though, I'm sorry the first painting failed. I had high hopes for it.

I don't need to tell you which one is which. I'll post some of the reference I'm using later.

[Pseudocognition]

asdlfhsalkf awwwwwwwwwwwww holy cow, the little kid's faaaaaaace! So cute! So cute that I need to make every word loooong for emphasis!

I like how the dog is a character in and of itself, if someone had told me to draw a kid riding a dog, I would probably neglect to give it some personality. His/her look of "WTF BUTTERFLY" reminds me of my cats when I get all up in their faces.

The best part of this sketchbook--this page, anyway--is the back and forth between DEATH MONGER MONSTERS and the cute illustrations

[Moai]

Pseudocognition- Haha! Thanks! Trust me, though, my painting has nothing on the real thing. She's adorable and I love her. I'll post my reference pics of both of them later. As for the dog, he's also a member of my extended family, so I really couldn't help but give him a personality. He has great expressive eyebrows and a wrinkly forehead, so I try to capitalize on that whenever I draw him. Both the girl and the dog are very goofy and loveable.
Good point about the cute pics and the monsters.

So, here's what I've done since earlier today. I've rendered her shirt and jacket, basically. I'm liking the sense of form I'm getting with this painting. And I'm especially liking how fun and non-stressful this painting is turning out to be, as apposed to the last version.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

The curly hair and lighting on the childs face make really do add umph to the precious factor, and the expression is so child-like! What expression do you want the dog to have? The ear position makes it look a bit...uncomfortable?

Only critique-y thing I can say colorwise (which you most likely know already) - the orange of the butterfly is too pure in comparison to everything else...making it a bit shocking to the eye.

[Carbono]

Cool Stuff as always, Moai. I loved the Snapper when i saw it on the Creature Artists blog, and couldn't resist coming here to comment on it!
I love how "powerful" the mouth looks like, looks like it can break rocks in half!

Great stuff!
The Kid and the dog are great too, good to see you drawing humans

Cheers man.

[Moai]

Aphotic Phoenix- Thanks for the comments and critique. I don't really want the dog to look uncomfortable, just rather perplexed by the fact that he has a butterfly on his nose. I'll change his ear positions a bit. Also, I desaturated the main butterfly a bit, and may change its colors more when I actually start rendering it.
Carbono- Thanks! I'm glad my arthrognathan's mouth looks powerful, since it's meant to be able to break through shells and bones and such.

So, here's what I've done today on this. Except for any odd fine tunings and changes I might do, Rylee is done. Her hands were extremely difficult, and I'll have to look at them with fresh eyes tomorrow to see if I want to change them. In my primary reference photo of her, the pose of her hands are kind of weird, since she's a little kid and fidgets. I tried to modify that a little bit. I think I'll add some butterflies perched on her hands.
Tomorrow I hope to finish the dog, and on Tuesday I hope to finish the whole darn thing. I'll need to be efficient with my time if I actually want to accomplish that. Or, to put it another way, quit wasting my time on the internet!

[Moai]

I painted Carmine, the dog, today. The rendering's not as tight as on Rylee, so I may polish it up a bit tomorrow. Or I may just say 'Hell, I'm on a tight deadline with this one, and they'll love it even if a lot of the brushwork is a mess."...I'll polish it up a bit, but not much. I have to finish the rest of this.
The tough thing about painting Carmine is that he has two systems of light and dark going on. There's light and shadow, and the natural color variation of his coat. It's difficult to combine these two systems, and I wasn't entirely successful here.
To give him the right personality, I changed the position of his ears a bit, and added a wagging tail. Now he looks happy and eager, as any dog on a colorful adventure should.

[Moai]

Done. Or, done enough.
Merry Christmas, ConceptArt.org.

[TheGnoll]

happy holidays to you man.
this sketchbook is amazing man, i think the lack of comments in some bits was just caused by some painfl jawdropping.
You show a hellove lot of motivation and dedication, and the fact of getting lost in that "geeky" as you call it attention to concept is something you should be proud of, and i wish i had...most of all you manage to put that together to some impressive skills...and thanks for writing stuff in your posts, you might be surprised but some people actually read 'em (i do )
and i know you've got some useful suggestions for me buried somewhere, i'd be really happy to hear them sometimes

thanks for sharing!

ciao

[Rezeroth]

Happy Holidays too my friend!!

[Lander]

Love your stuff man. Happy holidays. Love a post on your first page. You need to practise colors

[Moai]

TheGnoll- Thanks for the comments and praise, man. I'm glad you read my writings here. I'll definitely critique your sketchbook sometime.
Rezeroth- Thank you!
Lander- Hey, buddy. Happy holidays to you, too. Haha, well to be fair, I did need to practice colors (and everything else) back when that comment was made. To be honest, I still do.

So, here's what I worked on yesterday. I got it in my head to paint some sort of pulp magazine type alien invader, the kind that looks like a cross between a bug and an octopus and holds a ray gun. This is what came out of it. It's my best creature work so far, I think, and I'm very happy with it. Like my Narakan Snapper, it was also fairly easy to paint (even the technological aspects!), and I did the vast majority of the work in one sitting.
Since I enjoy writing, I wrote at length about this creature's natural history and evolution, and even wrote a bit of a novel outline about the history of its relations with the human race. I won't copy and paste it here, but you can read it in my Deviantart, if you want: link. I spend almost as much time writing about it as painting it, so I'd appreciate it if you gave it a read, if you have the time.



Below are my steps in painting it. Basically, I quickly sketch out the major movements and masses, then just dive straight into rendering. I modify the details and the design in the process of painting. If I feel the values need changed, I either go into Levels (ctrl L in Photoshop) and change them there, or duplicate the layer and change it to Multiply, and erase that layer or lower the opacity until it looks good. The lighting is kind of ambient and generally from above, so the values are there to describe the forms and features as much as they are to describe light and shadow.
Though it looks like I'm working in grayscale, I'm actually working in very desaturated color. Once I'm through rendering, I increase the saturation (ctrl U), alter the hue (ctrl U, again), duplicate the layers and play with blending modes, etc. until I find a coloration that I want. I work with very desaturated colors first because it allows me to focus on rendering and value without worrying about color, and because there's an element of surprise when I increase the saturation and see how the colors actually look.



In addition to the main version above, I also created a number of different colorations that I liked. Here they are.



That's it for that critter. In other news, I just now created my own blog! It is called, appropriately enough, Moai's Blog, and it's pretty empty at the moment, but I plan to fill it. If any of you have your own blogs or homepages, send me a message and I'll add your link to my blog! Weeeee, the internet is fun.

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Neat. ^_^ I like the first color incarnation the best, not only because the color scheme is more natural, but also because the others are almost too mono-chromatic. I love playing with the "replace color" tool since it allows variance of range, hue, saturation, and brightness...and often find some interesting color combinations that way.

[Moai]

Aphotic Phoenix- Yeah, it's a lot of fun letting the randomness of Photoshop's hue changing tools and layer blending modes create new color schemes. Thanks for the comment!

Well, school begins again today. Though it's been less than a month since school went out, I realize today that I've missed it badly. I'm continuing on with my figure drawing and art history classes. Here's to a good new semester, full of fun and growth!

Before I go to school, though, here's the rest of what I did last semester. I have twenty minutes before I have to leave and a lot of images, so we'll see if I can upload it all or if some of it will have to wait.
The images that follow include some of my best figure drawings yet, as well as some drawings that I'm not that proud of. In the second half of the semester the class got into simplified masses and cropped compositions, which are important, but I still felt that focusing on these things distracted from my main reason for taking the class, which was to simply practice drawing the darn figure.
Anyway, the drawings.

Edit: Looks like the rest will have to wait until this evening. Oh well! Have a nice day, everybody.

[Moai]

And here's the rest.
The figure drawing class I'm taking this semester looks to be a good one.

[markexih]

Happy New Year Man!! (and Merry Christmas too)

Wow!! strong beginning for this new year.

that Open Canvas sketching with friends stuff sounds great, how does that really work?
it would be nice having a creature sketching session with you someday.

hahaha that creature combination list exercise is really fun isn't it?, i did that a lot of times when I was young... however with a lot of more primitive techniques, i writed down the animal groups names in tiny papers, then i put them on a plastic envelope, shake them a little and then took two or three little papers to start drawing.
I think I'm gonna start to do that once again... I miss the old good days...

I like the design of the wildebeest-weasel, you could still play adding alittle more gnu features, like a mane in the neck.

The Gyrrll is very interesting, i love the design, as well as the whole story behind the species, however when i imagine the "octopussy" in motion i wonder how he moves his neck, or how he rotates his head, i think right now the shoulders limit the range of movement of the head a little, It would be cool if he had a cat like neck, it would be very intimidating to see the Gyrrll stalking like a lion or a tiger, but that's just me.

the Narakan Snapper is very cool, the skull reminds me a little to wayne barlowe's daggerwrist from his expedition book, but of course with a lot of much stronger jaws. in comparison with the detailed head, the body looks a little simple, but actually at the same time i like how they make contrast with each other.

the Rylee's Adventure 2 picture is very cool, i love the expression in the little girl's face.

the Ribbonlegs Invader... man you almost wrote a entire book for this one.. heh heh, it was really fun to read, I think that from all the creature designers I know you're the one who put a lot of extra effort in the background story and natural history of their creations, hope you continue sharing with us all those amazing creatures living in your head, as well as all those amazing stories behind them.

I'm anxious to see what you'll be doing this year.

Oh.. and yeah... I changed some letters in my name, but it still pronounces the same way, heh.

Take care.

[dkounios]

happy new year / merry xmas to you too man!

I see you're already at it with the anatomy! good stuff as usual!
looking forward to some more of your kick ass work in the new year!

[Turisas]

Hey Moai.
Bare with me for a day or two more.
I have taken a closer look on your updates, but so far I haven't seen any bigger mistakes in your stuff. There has been a few pictures that have that something that bothers my eye, but I can't name any yet.
I'll try to grab my eyes and take a much closer look tomorrow and perhaps reply then.

I'll propably edit this message whe- errr... -if I find anything to give constructive feedback on.
I promise nothing.
Hope you had a good holiday.

[Moai]

markexih- (Checks to make sure your name is spelled right) Hello, friend! Thanks for the comments.

that Open Canvas sketching with friends stuff sounds great, how does that really work?
it would be nice having a creature sketching session with you someday.

Yeah, it's really fun. You just have to download a certain version of Open Canvas. Version 1.1, maybe? Either way, it's a free version, and lets you draw online with others. It's really very simple to do. I'd like to sketch sometime with you too.

The Gyrrll is very interesting, i love the design, as well as the whole story behind the species, however when i imagine the "octopussy" in motion i wonder how he moves his neck, or how he rotates his head, i think right now the shoulders limit the range of movement of the head a little, It would be cool if he had a cat like neck, it would be very intimidating to see the Gyrrll stalking like a lion or a tiger, but that's just me.

On both this guy and the Narakan Snapper I designed them without having much of a neck. I actually like how he doesn't have much of a neck. It reinforces the heaviness of his head, and it makes him seem more alien. His eyes are able to point in different directions, also, so that makes up for the lack of mobility of his neck.

the Narakan Snapper is very cool, the skull reminds me a little to wayne barlowe's daggerwrist from his expedition book, but of course with a lot of much stronger jaws. in comparison with the detailed head, the body looks a little simple, but actually at the same time i like how they make contrast with each other.

I got Wayne Barlowe's Expedition when I was very young, and it was a huge influence o me. Occasionally I subconsciously channel his designs when I draw. There is definitely a lot of daggerwrist in his head. Other have commented on the lack of detail on his body as well. To tell the truth, I would have done well to do at least one more rendering pass on this. But I didn't.

the Ribbonlegs Invader... man you almost wrote a entire book for this one.. heh heh, it was really fun to read, I think that from all the creature designers I know you're the one who put a lot of extra effort in the background story and natural history of their creations, hope you continue sharing with us all those amazing creatures living in your head, as well as all those amazing stories behind them.

Yeah, partway through writing that piece on the Ribbonlegs, I put in the message at the front that it was going to be a "damn novel." I enjoy writing, and as I wrote that piece one idea came right after another. First I imagined the species' biology, then its evolutionary history. Then I imagined its place in the universe, and how it might come into contact with humans. And then I imagined the stories and histories of the humans that it encountered. To tell the truth, the story took almost as long to write as the picture took to paint!
Thanks again for the comments, man.
dkounios- Hey, bud! Thanks for the comment. I hope 2009 is going well for you.
Turisas- Hey there. I'm looking forward to hearing what you have to say. I really don't get enough critiques.

So, today I drew a spider monkey.Well, not so much as a spider monkey as a cicada-mosquito-marmoset. With a little bit of Megalancosaurus mixed in. Just your average arboreal extraterrestrial metazoamorph.
This is very much a WIP at this stage. The lines and heavy shadows give it kind of a comic booky feeling, but I plan to paint this and model the forms, so that feeling will probably go away. I like the background, but it's still at an experimental stage.
I promise I'll do more than creature designs and figure drawings this year!

EDIT: I also want to keep on pumping my blog. If you have a website or a blog of your own, lets trade links!

[Moai]

Here's the first batch of drawings from my new figure drawing class. I'm loving the class so far. The teacher is really into anatomy and proportion and learning to see the figure in different ways. We've practiced drawing the figure with curvilinear and straight lines so far.

Also, I'm going to plug my blog again. It'd thrill me if you visited, and if you have a blog of your own, I'd love to trade links with you.

[JailHouseRock2]

Wow really enjoyed looking though here man,
some really awesome stuff.
love the life drawing,

please keep sharing,

matt

[Carnifex]

phew! going prrrretty strong. wow o.o
(almost) believable creatures aswell

[Moai]

JailHouseRock2- Thanks, man!
Carnifex- Hey, man! Thanks for the comment!

So, here's an update on my bugmonkey alien thingy. I haven't worked on it in a few days, but I'm still telling myself I'll finish it. It's one of those paintings where rendering seems more like tedious work, rather than an interesting activity of discovery and decision-making. Oh well, though. I started it, so I'm going to finish it.
Also, some sketches of creature related to my Narakan Snapper several posts above. These include related species as well as different points in its lifecycle.
If you want to know more about its natural history, read here.

[Katfayheirti]

Wow Moai! Your rendering ability has really grown since I last saw your work and your creatures are looking even more amazing!

Keep at it!

[Joey-b]

Hey moai,

Great proggress in ur book, i loved seeing the process on the girl and dog
thanks for sharing