041113_ too long

It's been way freaking way way freaking too long since I've posted and I am done with that. That being not posting. I've been getting caught up in the crap of being a professional and liking games like CS:GO too much. 

Of course, playing isn't bad, in fact, I make new distinctions about art every time I play another video game. Working in the industry certainly makes you attuned to every little thing about the craft of game making. 

I recently began playing Age of Empires II HD with some of my family, like old times, and I've been really blown away by how much is done strictly to serve the the player. There is no slavishness to realism in the visual sense. Horses are as big as houses, etc., everything has a consistent visual hierarchy which makes discerning what is happening on screen actually feasible.

But that's just a ramble. Someday I might try really writing/talking/videoing about these nice visual qualities in games and all of the smart decisions that are made by some art peoples in the games industry.

Enough chat. Here are selection of scans from the past couple of months in my sketchbook. I'm ashamed that there are not more that I actually like. I've allowed my relationship with my sketchbook to become a little too casual. All of these are pretty much graphite and ink.

My tools of choice for anyone that is curious:

.05mm Pentel Twist Erase mechanical pencil

.03mm Copic Multiliner

.03mm Pilot Hi-Tec C

Thanks for looking.

eth.

pulp sci fi sky

 Hey everybody, I'm finally getting back to being able to make work after a particularly busy last week and I've been wanting to add some new work to my portfolio that deals more in specific genres, like science fiction, while embracing what I love visually about those genres. And so, this came about.
Originally I just wanted to do something with lots of atmosphere that embraced the look of old pulp science fiction art like that of Frank R. Paul. This is a far cry from Paul's work but I am in love with the bold graphic yellow backgrounds of those old covers and was interested to see if I could adapt it to a more contemporary look. Anyways, this is what happens after I tinker with it for a bit.

1.5 hours in PainterX.

This second image is a sketch that I did when the idea for the coral hive trees struck me. I quite often find myself coming up with ideas purely because of the way I imagine light would interact with it. Shape is, of course, extremely important, but sometimes I just want to see color shifts.

I'm really interested in exploring more of this pulp material to see how one could adapt monsters from that era so they would fit into a present day sci-fi horror film! Soon to come...
eth.