This week, I got back into some character painting and more vehicle design, further developing the world and characters of “War of the Currents.” Besides that, there isn’t much else that I need to talk about, so I’ll let the images speak for themselves. Enjoy!
This week I’ll introduce you to my other visual development idea: War of the Currents. The name right now seems rather generic, but it refers to the so-called “war” between Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla in the late 1880’s about which electrical current was superior for conductivity. I’ve been doing some reading on the subject and that has helped me shape this retro future science fiction world; however, unlike “Crimson Candle” I have a much less specific idea about characters and story, and more about world building, which makes it harder for me to think about a titular character or story core for the project. And so, “War of the Currents” seems to be the title that will work for now, but I’m sure the more I develop this idea, the closer I’ll get to the core of the story and maybe a new title (?) Either way, I hope the illustrations below can give you a glimpse of what this world looks like. Enjoy!
Here are a few early character designs for Crimson Candle; they are rather stock looking characters for now, but hopefully they’ll become more dimensional as I keep on developing them and the story in which they take place. But, lately, they’ve become a good excuse to design better custom brushes in Photoshop and to try and mimic something in between watercolor and washes.
So far I’m pretty happy with the outcome, so let’s what I else I can conjure within this concept, though next time, I’ll shift gears a bit and explore some characters and illustrations on my other idea, with a rather steampunk tone…
Following up on last week’s post about some of the new ideas I’m cooking up, here’s the first one: Crimson Candle. I’m still trying to figure out the world that these characters live in and to a certain extent, in which media to place this story (movie, comic, videogame?) Either way, these development paintings will help me (and you) get a better idea of the tone and feel of the story. There are more simpler character design portraits coming soon, but until then, let me know what you think; I’d love to hear your thoughts and see what more I can explore in terms of environments and character designs.
Enjoy!
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I’ve been getting back to reading Hayao Miyazaki’s book “Starting Point” and coincidentally with my work, I too have gone back to my starting point this past week. I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly talked about it here, but it’s pretty obvious from the rough sketches I post that I tend to think visually with a simple red pen and newsprint paper. There’s something about the color and texture of red ink that just allows me to sketch so freely and endlessly; maybe the red just isn’t as absolute as black or blue, and it just feels so malleable, whether in tangible or digital media. This time, however, the difference is that I was finally able to emulate the same look of the pen and paper onto a Cintiq and Photoshop (with my own custom brush and scans of actual smooth newsprint paper for texture).
Also, I realized I really needed to update my character and concept design portfolio with new work, so this Photoshop brush/paper experiment really paid off – (though coincidentally, on the day that I finished customizing these brushes Photoshop, was the day that I went to the local art store to buy more sketchbooks and markers, so go figure).
Of course, these pages are just a small filtered sample of what I did this past week; I wouldn’t wanna just let you eat all the cake before it’s done, now would I? These sketches won’t go into my actual portfolio, but it’s a good indication of what’s to come: I’m working on two ideas: one within an old dark fantasy world, the other in a sci-fi/steampunk future. Hopefully soon I’ll have some new portfolio pages with finished work so you can see the end result of my thought processes. Enjoy!
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