http://imagus.cgsociety.org/gallery/ imagus's gallery of images en-us 120 http://imagus.cgsociety.org/gallery/624180

Character Design entry in the Square Enix "The World Ends With You" competition at DeviantArt. Original sketch pencil on paper. Inking done in Manga Studio EX, coloring done in Photoshop CS3.

Initial Concept sketches done in 1-3 hours over two days. Final drawing and entry completed in two sessions over one day under tight deadline.

Link to view entries: http://browse.deviantart.com/projec...ithyou/?order=5]]> Wed, 23 Apr 2008 07:12:50 +0000 http://imagus.cgsociety.org/gallery/617892

One of twelve quick character/creature designs I did a while ago, originally inspired by a Bobby Chiu exercise. I took this design and brought it through to a more final version.

I recently re-discovered the piece and thought it worth adding to my portfolio. Having re-discovered the design sheet file as well, I may do the same with some of the others.

Both original linework and color done in Photoshop with a Wacom tablet.]]> Mon, 07 Apr 2008 06:01:16 +0000 http://imagus.cgsociety.org/gallery/559000

At ConceptArt.org, there is an activity sub-forum called Creature of the Week, or C.O.W. Each week, a topic is given, and artists have one week to develop a creature that fits that topic's spec.

For the 100th C.O.W. challenge, rather than a single concept, the organizers decided to make the challenge a bit tougher: 100 creatures in 30 days! Each participant would select 10 descriptions from a list of 30, then create 10 thumbnail-sized designs (up to 150x150) for each description.

The challenge started on October 1st, and ran until October 30th, but I found out about it on October 17th. This left just 14 days to complete all 100 creatures, or nearly 8 per day! I nearly decided to pass on the challenge, but decided that it was time to kick the "impossible" reflex to the curb. After a first day run of 7 creatures, I decided to go for it full-force.

12 very busy days later, all of the designs were complete. One more day for touch up and finalization, and the piece was done. End result: 100 creature designs in 13 days.

There ended up being 45 entries for the competition, and though mine definitely wasn't the best of the group, I'm still very happy with the results. It was a great challenge to overcome the odds and complete the piece, and this project has confirmed that creature/character design is something that I truly enjoy doing. Despite the work and hours involved, I had a lot of fun, and enjoyed the process from start to finish.

All work was done using Adobe Photoshop CS3 and a Wacom Intuos 3 tablet. The creature designs were all created at final (150x150px) resolution. This was my first completed C.O.W. entry at ConceptArt.org. Other information:

Final Entry Dimensions: 2000px by 2000px (CGPortfolio Image: 1600px by 1600px)
Best day: 17 designs (x2)
Worst day: 2 designs
Average Designs/day (12 days): 8.33
Total files: 102 (100 creature PSDs, 1 layout PSD, 1 final flat image)]]> Wed, 07 Nov 2007 22:56:03 +0000 http://imagus.cgsociety.org/gallery/542147

This is a finished version of line art by David Cousens (www.CoolSurface.com). It came from the "New Media Coloring Book Volume 2" thread at ConceptArt.org. In this thread, artists post their line art, and other artists color the lines using whatever techniques they want.

Since I knew that I wouldn't have access to a tablet at all times while working on this piece, I decided to go back to my old, pre-tablet methods, using only Photoshop and a mouse. I picked up a few cool new tricks along the way, but definitely reminded myself why I got a tablet in the first place.

I'm sure it's not perfect, and that I could probably spend a great deal more time adjusting and tweaking the piece, but I decided that it was time to call it done and move on to other works. It was a lot of fun, and a great exercise working with someone else's lines.

Work done at actual size, 945px x 645px over 3 days and a total of (best estimate) somewhere around 10-20 hours.

The original post, with uncolored lines, is here, and the Coloring Book thread itself can be found here. The tutorial the piece was originally created for is here, though I didn't see it until long after I'd finished the piece.

Final version posted with permission. Enjoy!

UPDATE: According to David, this piece has been published in the November, 2007 issue of Digital Arts magazine, on their "letters" page. I sent them the piece shortly after posting it here and, apparently, they liked it! Very cool.]]> Thu, 20 Sep 2007 17:43:58 +0000 http://imagus.cgsociety.org/gallery/353338

This image is my first CGTalk Gallery entry, and a bit of a departure from my normal style. It started out as a quick freeform pencil drawing, done with one-take lines and no eraser, on a sheet of typing paper.

When it was done, the drawing had really taken on a life of its own, so I decided to color it. I scanned in the image, keeping it at full size, inked the lines using Illustrator, then imported it into Photoshop for coloring.

The concept for the feel of the piece was a weathered look, as though looking through a thick, slightly tinted, dirty, pockmarked pane of glass. This added some depth and dimension to the image. After setting up the overall textural effect, I colored in the various areas, added the lamp glow, and added shading to the image.

Comments and critique are welcome, especially impressions of the piece's mood and interpretations of the subject.

Original Size: 3368px x 2588px @300dpi
Gallery Size: 1024px x 787px @72dpi]]> Wed, 03 May 2006 18:29:40 +0000