Character design

Character design application work for Metropolia University of Applied Sciences' 3D animation department. Photoshop.

Update May 20: Passed, I received an invitation to the entrance exam. So excited!

Book illustration

Application work for University of Lapland. Atmospheric scene illustration of a passage from John von Düffel's Vom Wasser. Graphite and watercolor on A3 illustration board. About 8 hours of work excluding research, thumbnails and preparatory sketches that took a few hours as well.

Update May 20: Passed, they invited me to the entrance exam.

Croquis

Ethereal gaze

Playing around with watercolor, acrylics and Photoshop. 19x15cm.

Croquis drawings

Some ink croquises from life drawing course. The teacher commented that "the hand's thumb region looks near-perfect."

Quick scene sketch

Drawing during train travels again. Bunch of pirates with their crooked plans.

Maiden Bird WIP

Almost finished, just needs some tweaking.

WIP

Proposal work in progress, trying to figure out a suitable color scheme.

Certain women's criteria for an ideal man

At a certain forum, a group of young women gave criteria what they want their ideal men to be like. It was arguably rather absurd in a funny way so I made quick comic about it. The spontaneity of these may not appeal to wider audience but over-rendering every detail tend to make pictures lifeless not to mention it takes a terrible amount of time. To make a profession out of comics, an artist should be able to pen two pages or ink one page within four hours. I'm about to find a working flow for this process.

The importance of life study

Taking a life study course at local school for a change. Giorgio Vasari emphasised in Le Vite de' più eccellenti pittori, scultori, e architettori, that it is essentially important to draw life nude models and from nature as well as study anatomy maquettes to learn the shapes of body, back, thighs, arms, knees, elbows and even more elaborately bonestructure - then one can understand masses and draw the human body from memory in every position.

Impro comic

I drew this in few minutes, spontaneously, then textured and edited in Photoshop. I need practice with comics and self-criticism is no good if you can't produce anything. Leonardo Da Vinci once said that it is extremely unfortunate if you know more than you are capable of doing. The only way out of designer's block is... to create. To do something, anything.

Ever since I discovered that there's a movement that aims to incorporate fine art influences to comics, starting with Sienkiewicz in early 1980s, my mind was blown. Possibilities are endless since comics are no longer dependant on limited reproduction methods.

I once learned this thing called Impro comics on an inspiration course. You just pick a subject and draw a comic within a short period of time. V. Ranta stated that with impro comics you're supposed to give your best despite the short deadline, and, contradictory, that it shows that all artists have bad days.

I heard positive feedback about the style. It's less banal and has more integrity to it.

Field sketching

For the past seven months I have intensively studied anatomy, and on tuesday I went to natural sciense museum to draw stuffed animals and skeletons which was awesome. It's fascinating to observe and draw the species live to understand the form and structure.

I drew the actual skull of an ancient sabletooth cat, made a form analysis and then a speculation on what the thing probably looked like. For some, I went for a croquis-approach to capture a sense of movement.

Atmosphere

Some character design, lighting ad texturing. I wanted to draw something more stylized this time around, something positive, elegant yet peculiar.

Anatomy

Anatomy is something that should be learned as early as possible among color-theory, composition and other basics. Better later than never. Trying to memorise the muscle charts and bones and then apply it creatively into character design. Someone implied that in some earlier works the tentacle elements and Giger influences get a bit repetitive, so time for some more original approach.

Confrontation

Edit: took a better photo in day light.

Oil on canvas, 94x60cm. Started in mid September during an oil painting course, the subject was "figure (either one self or someone else) in a landscape". I wanted to portray some confrontation of sorts to give it a bit drama, so the bear was added as it felt interesting.


Here is the preliminary sketch for composition and gesture design. Found a reference for the bear and took some photos of myself for the figure. I wanted to leave the nature of the confrontation within mystery, so the figure does not seem scared, as most would be when seeing a bear, only slightly surprised. Admittedly a bit illogical, but at least the teacher thought it was better to leave space for interpretations. There is not a deeper message in this, I thought about some symbolic meaning but it just did not feel genuine. Some class mates thought this was a commentary on the relationship between nature and men, or the recent bear incidents reported in newspapers - totally not intended but I'm okay with that.

There was no charcoal sketch, just underpainting and the figures were rendered with layer painting technigue. Originally this was meant to be rather photorealistic but the rough, sketchy dry brushing style seemed fit this subject better.