I have a problem where I work from the top down, and get slightly bored arriving
at the bottom, I have been doing that pic for weeks on and off.

The final one will have lovely feet though, I just need to use reference for the feet,
because I have no idea what shape/design her boots are.

She' ll kick your ass once she' s in 3-D!

Yeah, the top half is great, the hood especially - kinda reminds me of Darth Maul...

I take it it' s unfinished though?

Yeah, it is very unfinished, I still have to re-position the left foot, redo the right
boot and whatnot, and everything else that is flat, " unshaded" and unfinished.

It feels like a long process, but it works for me. Yeah, I' m a bit of a nut for
hooded characters, it' s an obsession I can' t get rid of.

Darth Maul? lol She' s way hotter than Darth Maul, and Darth Maul is hot!

Your work is definitely improving. What kind of wacom are you using again?

I' m using an A4 Wacom Intuos3. Which set me back more than what I spent on
my 360, and what I would spend on a PS3...

It is SO worth it though, i' m churning out loads of monochrome images, one day
I am going to have a colouring day and actually finalize my portfolio, I' ve been
getting a bit of feedback from Tim Appleby at Bioware, it' s cool he likes my stuff,
but I have to really think about lighting, which is true, only because sometimes
I sacrifice realistic lighting to have more fun in putting detail, but that' s
paranoia on my part.

I think that if people don' t see detail everywhere, and they see shadows and stuff
that my ability gets questioned, so I remove any realistic shadowing and put detail
and unecessary light sources.lol

You wouldn' t believe how long it took me to make an educated decision on and
around the hood.

I struggled to get used to Wacoms in the beginning. The learning curve is pretty steep. I' m looking at the Cintiq range at the moment - i want a hands-on before i make up my mind though.

Lighting and shadowing are important, but not overly so. It depends on how you' re using it. If we' re talking character concepts and there' s bare skin, unrealistic highlights and shadows can take a lot away from the overall piece. The easiest way to approach that is to use photographic references.

I think physical direction and portrayal of movement are more important though. I was constantly critisized for my static characters when i started university and hand to work on getting movement and weight right.

Anyway, you seem to have cloth down, and that' s not easy. Have you been posting on Conceptart.org and CGSociety? Can we see more of your stuff?

You' re buying from the £2,000 + Cintiq range?? I' ve tried them, and whilst they' re
amazingly high detailed, and the response and accuracy is second to none, my lack
of funds forced me to learn to " get bent" and use the Wacom Intuos3, in which I
learnt that the Cintiq is really for people that can' t transfer techniques from
drawing ordinarily on paper to the Wacom, the Cintiq cuts out the middle man.

Unless of course we' re not talking about the giant 19 inch screen ones?

I' m trying to find the right time to spring a ton of work on you guys for c+c and just to show some pretty stuff, but I wanna overwhelm you guys, I can show in dribs and drabs though, it' s just mostly pencil sketching and monochrome images. I also dare not put a piece of work on CGsociety and coneptart.org until I have at least 20 finished pieces for people to look through. That' s just me, although I am
always on CGsociety, and get tips from people like:

Henning Ludvigsen
Marta Dahlig

Both of which are my two favourite artists on that site, Henning more, because he
just does photoshop, and Marta uses Corel Painter and photoshop, and I can' t be
asked to learn painter just as yet.

Out of curiosity.... What did you want to use the Cintiq for? Apart from to draw
obviously, but, in terms of projects, personal gain, etc.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

You' re buying from the £2,000 + Cintiq range?? I' ve tried them, and whilst they' re
amazingly high detailed, and the response and accuracy is second to none, my lack of funds forced me to learn to " get bent" and use the Wacom Intuos3, in which I learnt that the Cintiq is really for people that can' t transfer techniques from drawing ordinarily on paper to the Wacom, the Cintiq cuts out the middle man.

Unless of course we' re not talking about the giant 19 inch screen ones?

I think it' s 18" - although they do a 15" model too. I haven' t checked them out properly yet and i wouldn' t buy one without a hands-on anyway.

The cost isn' t a massive issue, but with any luck i' ll be able to get one through work - even if what i' m doing doesn' t exactly require one

ORIGINAL: Tiz

I' m trying to find the right time to spring a ton of work on you guys for c+c and just to show some pretty stuff, but I wanna overwhelm you guys, I can show in dribs and drabs though, it' s just mostly pencil sketching and monochrome images. I also dare not put a piece of work on CGsociety and coneptart.org until I have at least 20 finished pieces for people to look through. That' s just me, although I am
always on CGsociety, and get tips from people like:

Henning Ludvigsen
Marta Dahlig

Both of which are my two favourite artists on that site, Henning more, because he
just does photoshop, and Marta uses Corel Painter and photoshop, and I can' t be
asked to learn painter just as yet.

Digital art kicks my ass. Not only have i never been able to fully adjust to Wacoms but i' ve always struggled with raster graphic packages too. They may have been covered pretty heavily at uni but due to my condition i was apparently unable to take it. Kinda sucks.

I like CGSociety, but i prefer Conceptart.org. I know several lead artists and game directors who use both it to find talented artists, so it' s worth spending the time to post in both forums.



What are you using for 3D work? ZBrush?

What are you using for 3D work? ZBrush?

Surprisingly, no. I only discovered ZBrush after watching a Heavenly Sword
featurette, and reading an article on Gears of War over at CGSociety, but by that
time most of my efforts had been invested into 3DS Max, which I am finding so
much easier to make characters and weapons in than before.

I' d like to get to grips with ZBrush however, because it looks as if it' s designed
to be used with a Wacom, isn' t that how they managed to get so much detail in
King Boham' s face?

I recently bought a book on Studio Max to coincide with my " Project" and so far
it has helped me make some pretty cool water effects, but once this is done, I
want to do my next project using as much ZBrush as possible so there is none
of my vision lost in translation (or i' d like to maintain as much of it as possible).

They may have been covered pretty heavily at uni but due to my condition i was apparently unable to take it. Kinda sucks.

Condition?

Anterograde and retrograde amnesia caused by a head injury in my late teens.

It' s why i took a year out of my games design degree.

Caused by a head injury?? What happened?

That would annoy me if I had to do that, take a year out of something I like doing.

The worst injury I had was falling on a bucket in the snow, and scarring
underneath my bottom lip. I still remember it, and I was 4.

I also fell into the deep end of an empty swimming pool once, about 6 or 7 feet,
I laughed first then started crying.

..... Fun times.

The second was rather recently wasn' t it?

That blows nitro.

Great pics tiz, hope you get in somewhere big and makes lots of money, just don' t forget the little people when you do. Also i sent you a friend invite, but you never accepted.WTF?

ORIGINAL: Tiz

Caused by a head injury?? What happened?

I was hit over the head a couple of times with a cricket bat a few days after throwing a known drug dealer out of a house party.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

That would annoy me if I had to do that, take a year out of something I like doing.

It was awful. It' s all i ever wanted to do.

A friend invite?? On what?

X-box Live?

Well, atm, I think I am on 99 friends, when I get home, I' ll delete some...

When did you send it?

So what do you do now Nitro, if you' re not doing that Games Design Degree?

Last I remember seeing/hearing you were an IT consultant.

ORIGINAL: Tiz

So what do you do now Nitro, if you' re not doing that Games Design Degree?

I didn' t drop out, i just had to take a year off.

I was supposed to be moving to Canada and so hadn' t pursued much in this country and had been working in IT, ...but after being rejected i had to focus closer to home - at least in the short term.

I' m still looking to set up my own business in another country, but i have couple of commitments here now so i' m doing a couple of non-design game based things in the interim period.

Yeah I ended up deleting the request, but I will resend it. It was a while ago when I was sending them to everyone on kikizo, I just added rampage. Speaking of which do you have COD4 rampage or for that matter do you Tiz?

I have CoD4 for the PC and don' t play multiplayer on it. I do play Halo 3 often online. I also bounce around in Team Fortress 2 and Gears occasionally.

Lol, I was trying to figure out who you were last night when I got that friend request.