I have been working my ass off on three different gigs lately so there hasn’t been much time for anything but working and sleeping. I really wanted to share something though, and I got the green light from Cosmic Apple to show one of the character designs I’ve done for a movie they’re producing in collaboration with Rowbot Street.  Doing concept art for movies is great! I’ve had a lot of fun working with Dan Rowbottom who is writing and directing the thing. It is currently in pre-production, and it’s already started to pop op on various movie sites around the net, which is awesome! Cosmic Apple is also doing a podcast series during the production. The second one is out now and I’m in it stumbling over words and trying to be coherent about what a concept artist does on a film.. haha.. have a look at it here: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xcz5ly_raven-waiting-podcast-episode-2_shortfilms.

Anyways.. here is the character/creature design I was allowed to show:

Thank you for letting me put it on here, Dan!

It’s gonna be awesome to see the guys I’ve designed walk around on screen!

And the title promised a photoshop tip as well; I was thinking about composing pictures and placing focal points. So I wanted to make a way to get the rule of thirds as a guide when I’m doing the composition sketches and such.

Some of you guys might have already found this one out, but I wanted to share nonetheless.

So here it is; the rule of thirds tool type thingamajig:

Step 1:

Step 2:

And you’re done! You can turn off and on the guides by pressing CTRL+’

The beauty of this thing is the guides will readjust regardless of your canvas size or pixel count :)

Hope some of you found it useful!

Thanks for stopping by!

So I did a rough sketch yesterday I’ll be continuing on today. In the last post I said I might do a projects page, so consider this a soft start in the blog :)

I don’t think I’ve ever done a werewolf illustration before, so now I’m going to.. haha.. I decided to put the scene into a passenger car on a train.. Felt a little more original than having them fight in the woods :) Also it adds sort of a claustrophobic feel to it (I hope). It’s hard to run away in such cramped quarters. I’ll update later on today with where this has ended up.. gonna split my time between work and this one until it’s done. There will probably be a lot of changes before It’s finished.. I’m just having fun with it :)

Right, need to get on with some other work, so here is where it’s at now.. still very much a WIP :)

I’ve changed the design on the head of the werewolf. I wanted it to be something more in between a man and a beast. The first design looked too much like a dog.

Added an overlay layer and dumped some color in with the paintbucket tool in order to be sure I got color in on everything. Nowadays I’m usually working directly in color, or at least switching very early to color, but seeing as how this piece started as a fun sketch, and I was just messing around with the design, the color came in later :)

I’ve added some reds in the focal areas trying to create a triangle-ish composition going from the werewolf head, to the dude on the floor to the guy shooting.

I’ve also started thinking a bit more about the atmosphere. I wanted to give this piece a cinematic feel, and go more for dramatic lighting rather than pushing “natural light”. Like a DOP on a movie will put a spot off the side if it gives off a cool light, even though it’s not necessarily the way the light would’ve behaved in real life.

Still a lot to be resolved about the passenger car itself, and the characters, of course, but I wanted to give myself a focal point early on so I can gauge the detail level off of that.

So I noodled a bit more on it today. Rendered out a little on the werewolf and the dude shooting, started correcting a lot of the lines of the passenger car. If I had done this for a job, I would’ve had a stage in between the sketch and where I’m at now where I would’ve made sure the perspective lines were more correct from the start of the illustration, but hey.. it’s all for fun, right? :)

Trying to figure out a little more of the light as well. Putting some light that bounces off the floor, to push the shadows a little more. I’ve also started to think a bit more about my edge control going in with a soft brush to round off some edges.. up until this point I’ve used almost exclusively the standard round hard brush with size to pressure and opacity at 100%.

Had some huge issues with the shooter guy’s fedora, it didn’t read like he was actually wearing it. One google image search later, he looked a bit better. If in doubt; get reference! :)

I’ll update the post when I do the last session on this piece.

And of course the obligatory studies ;)

Had a buncha fun with this one! Here’s my submission (click for larger version):

Bat Imp creature concept! Click it for larger view! Added this one to the concept art gallery as well.

dC

This next guy is a level up with a bony armour plate on his shoulder and upper part of his chest. Maybe I should think of some protagonists as well if this turns into a concept art for games fun side project.. we’ll see.. I’ll keep it fun though.

As always; click it for larger version :)

Hope you like!

dC

Click it for larger version

Hope you like!

dC

Saira and I went to London a few days back.. were there from April 1st to the 6th. We had a great time! One of the main reasons we were there was to check out a screening show of shorts made by the students at the London Film School where Sohail, her brother and one of my best friends, attends now studying to become a cinematographer. None of the films are made public as of yet, but I’ll let you guys know when they are! It was awesome to see what they’ve produced! Skilled people for sure!

We got around quite a bit guided by Sohail, and met lots of awesome film people (as well as a couple of non-film people.. hehe) while there.

Figured I’d post a few pictures from the trip as well :)

Me and Saira at Heathrow Airport, right after we got off the plane.We ended up paying like 50£ for a cab to the hotel.. Not exactly a cab either, but a “private chauffeur” by the name of Sanjay who refused to submit to the fact that we were from Norway and not Sweden, where he had family. Sanjay: “So, what’s the weather like in Sweden now?” Us:  “Yeah, the weather in *Norway* is a bit cold, but aight, I guess” Sanjay: “Oh good.. the nature is very beautiful in Sweden” , Us: “Yeah the nature is beautiful in *NORW… oh fu** it.. yeah.. it’s awesome in Sweden!” And so it went until we ended up at the hotel

My first time in London.. I was stoked over everything…London-esque it would seem..we were waiting to hook up with Sohail at this point :)

Me and Saira on a London bridge (not THE London bridge, just “a” bridge) the first night (I think) with a dark London skyline behind us

Sohail showed us this awesome secluded little oasis in a super hectic London where there were no people and all silent.. it was literally like 10 feet from the busy streets, but the atmosphere in there was very calm.. We just met one guy that struck me as very french who was there when we got there ‘cuz he was meeting his “little darling” that was a shop owner there. We ended up exchanging a few words with him before he headed off after having finished his lunch :) That’s Saira and Sohail on the bench there :)

And all three of us on the bench

Aaaand the two of us on the very same bench (ain’t we cute?)

Just one more to round off the oasis; the siblings

The Tower Bridge seen from London Bridge (if it wasn’t the other way around.. I’m not sure.. haha)

Sohail and I under a huge golem doorknocker outside the London Dungeon (which we didn’t visit on account of the insanely cheesy brochure)

Same place where I sketched the lightpost further down in the post.. Saira had a panorama function on her camera me and Sohail geeked out over. “Dude, it’s like scope for film.. only in her camera! Awesome!!”

Saira and Sohail in afternoon sun with the London Eye in the background

Sohail and I in Chinatown in London.. they had dumplings and pagodas and all kindsa cool shit in there :) It was like.. London, London, London, turn a corner, CHINA!

A cool eagle down by the Embankment

Other than the screenings at the London Film School (they held the screening at the National Theatre with wine and beer and mingling.. was awesome!) we were all over the place.. eating at a couple of really good restaurants, seeing the Candy Cakes shop (Saira fell in love with it.. if it had been down to me and the shop, it’s a toss up who would’ve come out on top;) )

the Cybercandy shop where they sold all kinds of (you guessed it) candy,

I sneakily bought Saira this Marshmallow Sundae when she wasn’t looking.. in order to get some leverage on the Candy Cakes shop if it would’ve come down to that..

Forbidden Planet which was geek heaven (read; our kind of heaven). I ended up getting Hellboy: Art of the Movie for myself and a Mega Mushroom from Mario for Saira.. hehe

In order not to bomb you guys completely with pictures, I’ll leave you with the three of us eating dessert in Sohail’s apartment after eating a Marks & Spencers pasta bolognese dinner :)

Got a few sketches done as well to compliment the pictures.. I like to sketch the places I visit as well as taking pictures.. the sketches kinda translate as “through my eyes” rather than “through a lense”:

Morning sketch lookin’ out the window in our hotelroom

London details. Couple of random things I saw and found interesting :)

Saw several buildings like this in London.. Old architecture with modern architecture attached to it.

View from the rooftop terrace where Sohail lives in Camden

Right.. that was a little of our London trip :) Hope you enjoyed looking at the pictures!

Until next time; stay ALPHA ya’ll!

peace

I’ve included a zoom as well to show my soopah sloppy brushwork.. haha

Zoom