City for a Hero

This is an environment for an internal comic book hero project that my friend and I are working on. Still a WIP but it's getting there.

Sketchbook

I've been playing around with Autodesk Sketchbook on our Asus tablet PC. It's a perfect fit for me. I love that I can just grab it and sketch like a regular piece of paper, it's not as big and bulky as a Cintiq, and while I still don't know all the bells and whistles to Sketchbook, it's pretty intuitive and great for quick studies and simple values and line work. Photoshop is still great for paintings, but it sometimes feels too bulky for getting stuff right out of my head and quickly sketched out. Sketchbook's brushes and default settings get me right to work, taking the place of loose thumbnail drawings that I have to scan later. Here's a few quick studies I've done for a what started out as an idea for a children's book but is quickly becoming something a lot more epic in nature.These are very loose sketches, probably a few minutes each, I don't consider any of them finished, just trying to get better and faster with the software and also get the ideas out of my head while I still have them.

New Year, New Software

Wow, it looks like a very long time since I posted anything here, but that doesn't mean that I've not been busy. I've also been playing with some new software and techniques. One of the things I really want to make sure I learn this year is Zbrush. Here are a bunch of quick sketches I put together. I set the timer for 10-15 minutes, I keep it at the lowest subD level, using the move brush only. It's taken a bit to get used to the interface and navigation but I've gotten a lot faster in a very short amount of time. The best way to learn it is to get out and use it. The first few were a bit rougher but by the time you get to the last one I was able to get a lot more detail in about 5-7 minutes and then could play around and adjust a bit. Next I'll add some divisions and start playing more with the standard and then clay tubes brushes.

Just about there

I'm going to take a look at it and see what it needs. Maybe add a few things here and there as well as some detailing on the Cup. Barring any new feedback, this is basically it :)

Update

Had to change the wings, they were really bugging me. Also changed lighting, light source and moved The Cup back to the center of the pic instead of behind the King.

Game Six Update

Here's an update. I wrestled with what The King should be using as a weapon and I came up with the idea of a flag with the old school Kings logo. Also sketched in some rocks and a bit of snow, just messing around with that for now. I'm not sure how much I should make this a "finished" painting or maybe just keep it in the loose "concepty" phase. I also changed the aspect ratio and put The Cup behind The King character. Open to feedback.

Game Six WIP

I started this painting after game two of the Stanley Cup Finals. I blocked it all in rather quickly, but then I got so caught up in watching the games and the subsequent celebration of the Kings victory that I didn't get back to it right away. My initial idea was just a King vs a Devil. I sketched out a bunch or rough thumbs, did some online research. I saw a lot of "Archangel casting Satan out of Heaven" type of themes, but I didn't want mine to look overly religious, so I started thinking about some old Frank Frazetta paintings. I had something in mind and started sketching.

To my dismay, disappointment, embarrassment, etc, I found a Death Dealer painting that was similar to what I was already starting. I didn't want to rip Frazetta off, but I found it might be cool as a parody\homage, so I stuck with what I started and tweaked it to look more like the Death Dealer V painting. After I blocked it all out, I decided to add a Blue, Canuck and Coyote.

Once it was all in place I found that I still had to design what they were all going to look like. What exactly does a Blue look like? My team and I had worked on The Guardian Project last year. It was an idea to merge Stan Lee comic book characters with NHL mascots. Because of this, I was very sensitive as to how I wanted the characters in this painting to look, so I spent more time away from the painting and back into my sketchbook. I also decided that I didn't want them to have any weapons, too violent, and no hockey sticks, too cheesy, so I just changed their hands and arm poses, especially with the devil. I also started to define what the King was going to look like.

I soon began to realize that I was spending way too much time designing the peripheral characters, so I just went back to my original them, King vs Devil.

  

Once I had this settled I could now really concentrate on the characters, lighting and environment. I didn't really have a light source or lighting color established, which is of course a mistake, even though I had a general idea of the lighting direction. I also started thinking about the King standing on some kind of a wall made of ice or maybe even a slope of ice. LA isn't exactly a cold place, but I thought it might lend itself to some cool colors (no pun intended) as well as tie in the overall hockey theme, not to mention a nice contrast with the reds of the Devil. I also started to think more about the King's design. My original ideas were kind of a knight in shining armor look, but this LA Kings team is not the old finesse team of the Gretzky days. These guys are big, strong, fast and in your face, so I decided if I'm already doing a Frazetta kind of theme, might as well make this King something from a Conan movie.

 

So here's where I'm at. I've noodled in a cliff, like maybe he's defending an ice ledge, a cave or something. I also removed the purple from the cape and gave him a set of wooly boots and animal fur on his cape.It feels like it's coming together so thought I'd post all this process up for some feedback.