penciljedi

So… the daily sketch has ground to a halt, as illness, scanner death, computer death (twice), work, the riders of the apocalypse and marauding pirate hordes have physically stopped me updating. I have a huge backlog of sketches that I was going to post at some point… but “some point” has become “when I have a trained monkey”.

The good news is that I’m making a real effort to clear my workload and get back to doing my own thing, which is going well. Expect some nice artz real soon.

Here’s one of the ones I never got to post

Last week I returned from Marama, Massive Black’s New Zealand held convention. An inspiring experience, the subjects ranged from the reality-changing zen responsibilities of being an artist, to cold hard business contracts. I find both equally useful. At the moment, though, I’m recovering from a bad fever and I’m not feeling particularly wordy. Here’s some Unit 16 pictures that I have neglected to post-

(Yes, that second one is Dr Horrible the muppet, don’t ask. Also I made a new watermark. My gallery is temporarily down for renovation, we apologize for the inconvenience.)

Once again, a lack of updates. I’m trying to give myself a regular day of the week to update but it’s proving a pain… I’ve been sick for a few weeks and I’m about to move again

But nevermind, I come bearing pictures. I went to Dr Sketchy’s today at the Butterfly Club in South Melbourne. Much fun. Being a digital artist most of the time, I forget how enjoyable physical media can be. Except when I become confused and look for the crtl-z when making a mistake.

The Butterfly Club is a cool place. Filled with old toys and paraphernalia from the 20’s to 50’s (as far as I can tell), the lighting and general ambiance makes me think of the living rooms of jazz musicians my mother visited when I was a kid. That or an anime serial killer’s abode…

There’s only a few minutes per sketch so it’s interesting to make the most of it. There was a theme, space, but honestly it’s tricky enough depicting a figure in a couple of minutes let alone adding a themed idea. I’m not complaining; I had fun, and an easy picture is hard to learn from… one of my favorite quotes- “ If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere. ~Frank A. Clark”

On to the pictures!

Miss Peachy Keen:

I enjoyed drawing her curves and awesome costume…. I really wish I had more time to add details in the corset and folds in the cloth….

Miss Peachy Keen and the Paper Moon

Not so big on this one but other people seemed to like it-

Miss Peachy Keen strikes a pose

Miss Sugar Lee:

In full gold body paint! I didn’t have the colours to do it justice (Nor the skills to render shiny gold skin in five minutes) Her golden short-shorts/bathing suit/leotard thing was cool.

This one reminds me of some old-school comics-

Miss Sugar Lee, Space Explorer

This is the only one I’ve spent more than the alloted time on- I got home and just had to finish colouring it-

Miss Sugar Lee, Exotic Bounty Hunter

And now- I’m tired as hell. I’m at that stage of sickness where I’m nearly fine but activities kind of wear me out. Also I have “It’s Only A Paper Moon” stuck in my head- they played some awesome music. I’m off to find the Ella Fitzgerald version in my music collection- later!

Edit: Oh, and I won a voucher for Outre gallery- very gratifying I’ll definitely be going again…

Title from The Video Game Name Generator

Yep, I’ve been slack lately. What with the new job and various personal happenings (Puzzle Quest and GTA 4), I’ve been able to excuse myself from updating. I’m going to make more of an effort to… well… make more of an effort.

Thoughts aren’t forming too easily lately, so no tutorial today. I’ve been messing around with canvas lately, seeing what effect I get with the mediums I’m used to. Here’s some of the results…

I’m reasonably happy with the small ones.. I’m going to try and do a bunch of them and see how they all look together. The copic markers turned out a bit gaudy though, I’ll probably just use them for highlights and focal points, etc.

As I sit here looking like a xenophobic dalmation-human hybrid, waiting for the dye to set in, I’ve decided to update the interwebs on my current state of being. I’m handing in my not-long-held title of independant game developer. Tomorrow will see me working at another Melbourne based game company… why I chose this day to do experimental things to my hair baffles even me. Having little to no hairdressing skill, the outlook is grim. Fortunately, I have a modest selection of hats.

I’ve once again failed to reach my target of one post a week. This is largely because of the many projects I’m currently involved in, the largest of which is a game I’ve been developing-

He’s a happy little fellow, except when he’s killing things. He’ll also be the star of a talk I’m giving at ACMI in a couple of weeks; I’ll be walking potential game developers through the steps of making and animating a model. I hope he’s not stage shy .

I’ve finished the art side of things, (it’s a fairly small game, we wanted something acheivable for a couple of people). It’s now up to the programmer and musician… good luck guys.

Till next time

-G

Well, that didn’t go according to plan.

My last post was more than a month ago. So much for posting every week, eh? Still, last month saw Christmas, New Year, and my birthday. I could forgive myself. On the other hand they happen every year.

To make up for the lack of focus, here’s something I’ve been planning to do for a while. Several months ago the excellent Pixar exhibition came to town. I attended on the last day, as I am wont to do, and wouldn’t leave until they gave me a showbag. After chewing on the crayons for a while, I came across this:

Not being able to resist a challenge, I decided I would colour this one when I got home-

And then I forgot about it. Until today! Here’s the disturbing result.

And while I was feeling so productive I decided to write a few tutorials as well. Phew.

Farewell ’til next week (maybe).

So, here we are.

Last week saw the end of my two-year long job at a game company in Melbourne. While I enjoyed my time there, (and the respect I commanded with fellow nerds being able to say I’m a game developer), the long hours left me little time to create things on my own. Honestly, such responsibility for my own time is a little scary.

Although I think I have developed in self discipline, I’ll have to fend off the siren calls of my couch and Mass Effect. This blog is partly to motivate my own projects, and partly to create helpful tutorials. I realize there’s a thousand and one tutorials sites out there already but they tend to be a. long winded or b. wrong.

On my last day, my awesome co-workers presented me with a lovely hair pin and these:

Copic brand markers are famous for being the choice of top anime artists. They leave a very stong and smooth colour on the right type of paper and blend together in a way that can look almost airbrushed. The drawback of Copic markers is that they are very expensive… about AU $8 each (I assume about US $7). As you can imagine, I was quite thrilled

Here’s the test I did shortly afterwards…

I usually use Copics for colouring only, as you can see the lines are pretty thick. It depends on the look you’re after. I used about half the set in this picture.

Tutorials to come soon!