Silhouette Collection...

Any silhouette with colour around it is one that I personally like. The yellows are the 'maybes' and the red indicates 'villains', the green the 'good guys' and blue is possibly neutral.

I'm feeling a bit stale at the moment so I think I'll have a go at making my 'wheeler' silhouette creepier, it's a little too much like a squashed deer at the moment. I have a distinct lack of villainous silhouettes, or maybe I should just have one super evil one... Any feedback will be great, whether it's about merging two together or making something completely new. All help is appreciated! :D

For Future Reference: Allison Theus...

Most people know her for her awesome but minimalistic animations for Extra Credits but, not so secretly, she is also a very talented 2D artist. She featured in this months Imagine FX and I fell in love with her marker pen and ink drawings.

It's the detail that really captured my attention. Drawing the smallest muscles and knowing the skeleton and muscular structure of your fictional creature is just amazing to me, I'd just love to be able to have that in my work one day. Gorgeous!

She has many ways of finding here: Her website, blog, deviant art and tumblr.

Influence Maps...

First off for my Noble Plant-woman:

 These two images above are colour references, especially the one directly above.

This image above I'd LOVE to use as a basis for a new character or to make a previous one more creepy. I love the way the roots look like they're crawling up the hill :D

Here's one for my dragon-man:

They're both mostly textures with some ideas for shape in the first map. These are the only two characters I have a clear idea for but more research is on the way!

A Bit More Quick Photoshop Work...

I didn't get as many done as I'd hoped today but I'll jump on again either later tonight or Sunday. Still good progress though!

Quick Photoshop Character Work...

After Phil recommended that I should start really getting to know my characters fully, with all their details and positions I thought I'd have a go at creating them quickly and simply in Photoshop:

The image above was to see if I could capture the essence of the character quickly and with little detail, as I want it to seem elegant and innocent at the same time. It worked pretty well I think!

I wanted to do a series of positions for each of my characters first to get to know their personality, the way they move and the way they would hold themselves before I start getting into their finer details. It's really quite fun seeing them come a little more to life just through their positioning so I'm looking forward to seeing what comes next. There's much more to come, this is just update one! :D

Feng Zhu Character Sketching Tutorial...

I just finished watching this 3 part tutorial and it was ridiculously helpful, especially the use of textures in the third part!

Part One:



Part Two:



Part Three:



Ridiculously useful, I can't wait to use it in my work! :D

For Future Reference: Christian Magrath...

Inspired by Frank Frazetta to become a book cover artist, his work is photo-realistic and very soft.

Some of his covers feel like the person has been plonked in front of a lovely background but these few are my favourites. There's something nice compositionally about them as well as a clear tone in each. Very nice stuff!