Here goes a little preview from the upcoming Rainbow Dreams project but before we take a tour I’d like to mention some person. When I saw Delney Carbon (DC) stuff I immediately recognize that he could do amazing designs for water culture in Rainbow Dreams universe. I’ve been working with many people and sometimes you just see the person that fits perfectly to the project.
Working in a such team where everyone is in sync is an amazing experience and it’s a great joy to see other guys came up with stunning ideas. DC already fleshed out water dancers and now furiously working on one of the characters.
Now, back to Aquapolis. Located at the west ocean Aquapolis is a huge city mixing various cultures and styles like a fantasy Babylon. It’s a hot spot or hub for commercial traffic from east to west and to many other countries. Officially the city is ruled by the group of citizens, representatives of noble families and guilds.
Read more…
Whoa… spend almost a day working on a single shot! I started with a pencil sketch, when scan it and repaint digitally a few times. Once I was happy with the look I printed it out on paper and traced the drawing with ballpoint pen and scan it again… can you imagine?!
However the result still wasn’t good and I was really disappointed. The graphic novel look (or, if you prefer, comic look) I was aiming for wasn’t there. It looked like crap actually and I feel quite miserable about it. In the drawing process this is a critical point, you either drop your artwork and admit the defeat or continue the fight. I choose fight and throw heavy artillery…
Current test comp looks like this, although the colors are missing (yeah, it’s gonna be a color novel, so you can imagine the workload!):
Usually Selena doesn’t talk like that, but you can get an idea of her temper and attitude towards humans. And I can’t help myself but it appears as spagetti western instead of fantasy tale!
Selena (the girl you see on banner) is a youth elf and skyship captain. She’s one of the main protagonists of Rainbow Dreams project I’m currently developing.
Selena was born and risen in elven tribe, living in tropical archipelago of Rainbow Dreams world. Her home is a group of islands lost in the ocean. There are huge mountains covered with lush and exotic vegetation. Countless rivers flowing down to the ocean making it looks like a riverworld. If you hike somewhere you’ll see huge trees and flowers with lots and lots of roots and vines. The foliage is so big sometimes that you can park a few cars on just one leaf.
Here is a recent concept art depicting Selena’s home islands seen from the beach. Obviously you can’t say it’s super exotic but just wait till the next shots!
These kind of etudes are totally spontaneous work. You don’t pre-plan it, making tons of sketches and carefully observing reality around. You just grab the stylus launch some paint app (in my case CS3 – I’m migrating slowly from PS7.0) and start painting. I like these sessions because it’s relaxing yet exciting at the same time. And they are fast, a few hours usually is enough.
Beware of the nudity (NSFW) before you proceed!
Read more…
I should name it as ‘How to paint an attractive asian female in less than 4 hours’ but it sounds lame. So here we go… making of Natsu.
Digital painting is always fun because you don’t know how things would turn out. If you’ve some experience, chances you are already developed you own painting pipeline or working style. So first of all, I’m addressing this material to the artists looking for the fresh input and some creative thoughts.
Each painting starting with an idea or feeling. I worked on the barbarian image (that Diablo III guy) and stumbled onto the drawing from deviantart (usually I turn my network connection off while working). It was half-nude girl painted by French artist ~darax.
I liked the idea and decided to sketch quickly my approach. The results were quite surprising even for myself so I skip the barbarian aside and switched to the sketch. The next 2 or 3 hours were a total blast with me painting like mad.
The final result, as you see above is quite unusual for me. I often tend to polish things up to the very last bit and even higher but this painting is somewhere between finished illustration and etude.
The title says ‘Natsu’ which means summer in Japanese (the kanji is 夏). I think it suits the image quite well.
Read more…
Actually there are many ways how you can sketch digitally and I’m still discovering new methods and tools.
For the sketching the ideal tool is your good old wooden or brand new mechanical pencils. They are fast, flexible, light and so on. Oh and you have a very precise control over your tools behavior. That’s the most important thing actually! Digital tools are fun but sometimes unpedictable or hard to control. The only problem with analog pencils is when you scan them into computer and your lines looks messy. Sometimes it’s not a problem if you need only guidelines for the painting (you’ll cover them with paint after all) but for the comic or manga style you need sharp and crisp lines.
Read more…
I have absolutely no idea if anyone is ever reading this… so chances are it’s totally useless to post anything here but I’ll keep experimenting for a while until completely abandon that blog.
I’ve many paintings in my work in progress folder and here is a recent one. Princess Ameli from King’s Bounty videogame. Before you proceed keep in mind that it’s a w.i.p. and beware of the nudity (NSFW).
Read more…
Recent Comments