Royal Alien sketch/doodle

Stream of thought type of doodle. I might revisit this later, redesign the dude and paint the background.

Gorb The Goblin

I was thinking about goblins, so I drew one :)

Love hurts

Troll-Dog-Gorilla sculpt WIP

I don't have the link to the artists website at home, so when I'm next at work I'll get the information

I found the concept above sometime last week and decided that I would hone my Zbrush skillz by attempting to sculpt it!

Until this sclupt, I was only playing around with Zbrush, doing random heads and getting used to the program again. I'm being tutored by co-workers here and there and have learned a lot specifically from my good buddy Mark Khair (check my links section!). I haven't ever attempted to really make something with the program before, so this has been a great experience!

Over the course of sculpting, I've realized that I probably should have started with a basic human rather than a fictional monster in an awkward pose. I've learned a lot by doing it this way though which will help me in my future attempts at sculpting :)

Composing the image above has shown me even more things that are off than what I was already aware of! This is definitely a practice that I plan to do more of in the future.

Anyway, that's the update for now. We'll see how it goes!

Franken-Stone

I somehow managed to figure out how to render something in Zbrush...although I don't know how to save it (above is just a screencap). Eventually I'll figure it out! For now, we have this! I was playing around with a cube and some brushes and I ended up with a gargoyle-block-face-guy :)

More on the way!

First Zbrush 4 Sculpt

Made while watching a Pointpusher video


More on the way :)

TAIL TOWNS announced & thoughts on crunch time

http://www.tailtowns.com/ - http://www.tailtownsinsiders.com/

We're on the home stretch! I haven't been able to post new work because I've been in crunch mode at work the last 2 weeks.

On the same subject, I just watched a 3-part documentary on Sly Cooper/Infamous devs Sucker Punch Inc. and in one of the parts they talked about crunch time. Since we're currently crunching, I thought I'd do a little write up about my time spent working extra hours thus far.

What I dislike most is that I'm loosing time with my girlfriend; but at the same time I'm getting more time to do what I love...make games.

Don't get me wrong - I am a believer in the ideal that everyone needs a balance between work and play. There are studios that manage to get by without crunch time (or very little), and there are those that are buried in it for months. My understanding is that the main cause for crunch time is project mis-management, but not just from a management position side. There are also other factors that just get piled up over time and a zillion things that can attribute to crunch time.

The thing that I've taken away from my experience so far (which, by the way, has been pretty minimal compared to other game devs), is that you see much more progress during crunch time, your workflow solidifies greatly both with your team and yourself, and it's such a great feeling to suddenly see a huge piece of the game that didn't exist a week ago be playable. If you deal with it in the right way a bit of crunch time isn't the worst thing in the world. If you end up pulling 70 hour weeks for months on end though...that's gonna crush your spirits.

We have a comparable sized team to that of Sucker Punch Inc. and I felt a resonance with a lot of what they were saying in the documentary, both good and bad. It's only increased my desire to continue to make video games for many years to come. The great people that I get to work with now and in the future, the new things I learn everyday that make me a better artist and person overall, truly make it a dream come true for me.

Over the holiday's I was playing a pseudo-boardgame with my family and one of the questions that I recieved was along the lines of "What would you be doing if you landed your dream job?". As I read the card a smile spread slowly across my face at the sudden realization that I was doing it right now; I was living my childhood dream. With a bit of surprise at hearing the words slip past my lips, I said aloud "I'm already doing it". I'd been so buried in trying to get my career started over the past few years and absorbing the joy that is the game development process that I guess I'd somehow glossed over the fact!

As she says in the documentary "They say that if you do something you love, you'll never work a day in your life".

At the moment, that statement feels true, crunch time and all.

Cheers :)

P.S. I'll be posting some development/study drawings for my D&D character in a couple of days! Be sure to check back!

First 2011 sketches

Just before the holidays a friend of mine at work was drawing the back muscles to help me understand how to draw them and afterwards he mentioned that I should hold my pencil like you would a piece of conte during life drawing. I (shamefully) haven't done life drawing for a couple of years and generally don't hold my pencils in that fashion.

So, while I was sketching the other day I decided to try and dust off the technique and I ended up with what you see above! I still have to practice rendering in this way but it was a lot of fun!

I'm going to keep doing rendered sketches like these to help me with my understanding and exploration of form, and I think it might also help me with future 3D sculpting in Zbrush and the like.

Happy New year :D

P.S. The above is an attempt at a new way of presenting my sketches, which I've sorely needed for a while. My girlfriend gave me some awesome Photoshop pointers but I've still manged to muck it up. You might notice some darker areas around the sketches which seem to be the result of my crapping masking job and possibly some compression artifacting. I'll try and clean it up when I get some time.

Fighter update with colour

Took the plunge and decided to attempt some colour on the fighter.

Inspiration for my Fighter/Swordmage character has been really tough. I just can't seem to visualize him in my head!

Schell Sculpt Studies

 

 I was tipped off to Jordu Schell by a friend last year and was instantly taken by his work. A few days later while I was waiting for Jeanette to get ready, I decided to draw from some of Jordu's sculpts and the above is the result.

I find some of my better drawings come when I'm waiting to go somewhere and I'm just doodling. If I don't know how much time I'll have to spend on a drawing I tend to care less about what the outcome will be and nearly everytime the result is one of my better sketches/ideas. Blasted fits of random inspiration! It's like trying to bottle lighting sometimes ;)

Check out Jordu's work - http://schellstudio.com/gallery/

LUCHADOOOOOR!

Koooooodo!!

I was out with my Dad on the weekend and we saw the "Mini Muchachos" at a Koodo booth. I was hesitant to get one...but Dad got one for me anyway!

There were 4 poses, most of which were just okay...but then I realized the potential for this particular pose as a business card holder! He comes with a little belt but pfft...forget that!

I did the illustration this evening in about an hour or so, just to see what he'd look like holding something that I created. I gotta say...it's freakin' sweet ;)

...and a little hilarious!

One-of-a-kind Mom & Christmas Dad!

It was my Mom's birthday last Sunday and Jeanette and I decided to take her to the One-of-a-kind show. My Mom is very "arts and crafty" so we figured it be something fun to do with her :)

We also made a birthday card for her and the image above was on the front. I did the drawing/"inking" (all digitally) and Jeanette did the colours (also digitally).

I'm still not very confident with my digital inking and I tend to forget about line weight here and there. Best example is the line on the top of the hat verses the lines of the bushes in the foreground. Shame on me!

I also did a little illustration for my Dad's christmas card. We gave it to him today, since we might not see him before Christmas. I'm still working on my ability to capture likenesses (especially with women) but it's sure fun trying to get them!

That's all for the moment, but I'm brushing up on my full-body character and anatomy drawing so that I can do my D&D character justice. More on that later!

Cheers!

The Heart of the Forge

I'm so incredibly stoked about my upcoming D&D campaign! I haven't played a real game since I was 12 or so and I'm playing with a great group of people too!

I've roughed out my character's backstory to help our DM get a feel for the character. His name (currently) is Arclight Anvilsmasher and he's the son of a blacksmith. He grew up learning the ways of smithing, while simultaneously learning how to weild a blade as a fighter. The catch is that his Grandmother filled his head with stories of ancient magic and epic battles, so his dream is to become a Swordmage!

The Heart of the Forge (above) is a sword that my character's father made to honour the family name and profession. Arclight's father wouldn't allow him to weild it, citing that he wasn't yet worthy. Hopefully my character will have it when our campaign begins!

Did I mention that I'm increibly stoked about playing?!

I'll probably start roughing out my character over the next few days and I might document his creation on here. 

YAY!

Thems fightin' woids!

Sarcificed some sleep to doodle tonight. Played around in Manga Studio and ended up with a fighter-type dude. I might take a crack at doing a background another day...

I've only ever attempted to draw my character from D&D once and that was during my first game at which point in time I hadn't really considered art as a career. I might give it another go soon, as I'm supposed to be playing in a campaign soon. I guess I'm more excited about it than I thought :)

Since I haven't played properly for years, I'm not sure what type of character I should play this time. I've been considering a really basic character to start, just so that I don't have to deal with extra stats and other nonsense. However, the image of a Dragonborn Swordmage is pretty badass, but I'm not sure if my DM would let me play one!

I figured that the urge to draw would have lessened after my doodle session, but I'm still pretty invigorated. Tomorrow might be a bit tough to get through if I can't make time to draw!

Warm (and furry) welcome back!

My cousin recently came back from a European backpacking trip and I did this drawing for her! It went along with a sweater that was expertly wrapped in an autumnal themed freakin' basket by my amazingly creative girlfriend! It was awesome.

I'm slowly gaining confidence with inking digitally and I'm learning how to properly utilize overlapping lines with each new illustration that I do. I'm still making a lot of changes in the inking stage, which  I shouldn't be doing really, but is easy because there's no worry about screwing up since I can always just undo or erase something and do it again.

I need to do more in my sketch phase to figure out what the final image is going to look like, which will save me time in the inking phase. For the time being, I'm focusing on my line work and general drawing confidence and glacially working towards maybe doing a black and white comic book.

Fan Expo doodles (mostly)

Most of these were done on the first day of the con while waiting for people to make their way to the artist alley. Others were done after the convention while flipping through Max haig's sketchbook that I picked up from the alley. Inspiring stuff!

I'm going to be selling books at the FREE Word on the Street show on Sunday September 26th. Tell your friends and come check us out! Did I mention that it's FREE?!?!


P.S. Doodles were done with either a Staedtler triplus marker, ballpoint pen, or prismacolour col-erase black. In case you were wondering!

Line quality experiment, the second

This is what eventually became of the first line quality experiment. I tried some different brushes in photoshop but ended up settling on Mangastudio's ink tools to get the job done. I could still use some more line variety and better overlaps to describe form.

Enjoy :)

Samurai Sketch

Dusted off the tablet laptop tonight to try and clear away some cobwebs. Found this under all the dust ;)

Made in Art Rage 2 with the crayon tool.

P.S. I ended up in a freakin' Samurai challenge on Facebook! Here was my counter-strike:

Line Quality Experiment, the first

Howdy!

I'm going to start experimenting with my line quality and I had this sketch laying around, so I decided to have some fun. I got carried away and added colour and a monster, but there ya go.

Next time I'm going to pay more attention to my lines and do some research before I start, but this was fun to do :)

Oh!!

Check out the site for the Monster Book!! www.davedind.com/imagination

Catch ya on the flip!

IT'S HERE!

TA-DA!!!!!

Right at this moment I have in my poession 99 copies of my very firstest book ever "It's Just Your Imagination"! The guys at Guerilla Printing (who are awesome) really came through on a topnotch quality print. I'm definately going back for a second printing once I sell the rest of this run!

I don't think I could be happier with how it turned out and I'm excited to hear what people think! One of the most exciting things for me is seeing how the art turned out and deciphering what I need to do differently next time to make it look even better! This has been a great learning experience and I'm looking forward to learning more!

A dedicated website is in the works where you'll be able to preview a couple of page spreads and even download things like wallpapers and avatar images! I might even have some posters and bookmarks that you can buy too!

Stay Tuned!