Concept art portfolio

Hey guys! I was told yesterday that I hadn’t updated my blog in too long by one of the guys I’m working with on a game, and he was entirely right!

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!

Here’s the final image. Scroll down for steps.

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 ;)

Hey guys!

Had some time today for a little speedpaint in addition to my studies! Woohoo! The concept of a hidden city in the jungle is a very cool one, and I don’t think I’ve explored it before, so I did today. I kinda like this 30 minute sketch, so I think I’ll refine it and do a finished piece of it. (Click for larger version)

I have been thinking about adding another sub page to the site for a while where I would do a more in depth look at individual projects and pieces. I would very much like your thoughts on this. If you’d find it interesting or rubbish and if it’d be nice to see some steps, thoughts and background on what I do both with professional work and personal art? I’d arrange it so there would be some more meat to each post so to speak. Say if there’s a particular world I’m developing, you’d get to know a bit more than just the final pieces.

Do leave a comment on here about that! Very interested in hearing you guys’ thoughts!

Right.. and the studies :)

Yeah, so I had a little breather in between gigs which I figured I’d spend doing some concept art for a personal project I’ve picked up again; the steampunk meets western thing I have going.. I also had the brilliant idea of trying to install windows 7, seeing as how I was fed up with vista.. turns out 7 was pretty unstable on my system as well.. so I’ve spent the last two days fighting to get my machine to work again.. panic indeed! I ended up reverting to XP in the end.. and now my machine is totally stable, works faster than ever and I’m generally really happy about that!

Anyways.. I had time to finish up a character design I started on a while back, so here he is :)

Click for larger version

- Fredrik/dCepT

So I’ve been assigned a task list at Desimal which I’m working through this last month I’m working there, there’s a bunch of lineart stuff, which I’ll probably show some of at some point, and some concept art. In this case a character concept of a blacksmith/mechanic (the most fun part of the list so far ;) ). Thought I’d show and tell a little.

Click the image for larger version

If any of you guys see this and need some concept art done for a project, I’m free from January 1st for freelance! Get in touch, and we’ll talk!

Now back to drawing a whole bunch of parrots I wanna get done today!

- F

Hey guys! Long time no blog.. Had a lot going on lately. After thinking about it for quite some time, I’ve finally reached the decision to quit my current job. From January 2010 I’ll be a freelancer, so wish me luck and let me know if you have any work for me! Hehe.. I really needed a change, and I’m stoked about what the new year will bring! For all you guys out there working creative jobs (or otherwise for that matter) that feel you need a change; DO IT! It’s good to feel you’re taking a new step, turning over a new page and all that!

I’m starting to form a couple of plans on what to do next year, and there will be concept art comin’ out of it! :D (It’s all I know how to do, and all I want to do, so there ya go..hehe).. I’ll fill you in when stuff starts moving properly!

Little bit of art to go with the post.. I’ve recently rediscovered ink and markers for sketching, and I’m having a blast with it, so I figured I could show you a couple of doodles at least ;) I’m cookin’ up some digital paint stuff too, so I’ll post as soon as I have anything worth showing! For now; some steampunk-y markers..

And a little tribute do District 9 :) Or rather… a design on how a warrior class prawn might look like:

Catch ya later!

dCepT/Fredrik

Hey guys! I joined in on the COW (Creature Of the Week) over at conceptart.org.. the brief was a pretty lengthy piece, so I won’t write it all our here.. the description can be found on the forums here.

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

Yeah, so I did another chimp :) He ain’t as dangerous as he’d like ya to think with his little steamguns there.. hehe.

Had a lotta fun doing this one! I’ve done a screenrecording of it as well, so I’ll update this post with it once I get it on youtube.

As always; click the image for larger version :)

dC

I don’t know what you heard about me/
but that b**** can’t get a goldpiece outta me/
no horse ‘n carriage, no flashy robe you can’t see/
that I’m a muthaf*****’ B.I.M.P./

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

dC

If this was for a game, the first two nightmare creatures would be “low level” enemies.. they’re pretty much basic and fleshy. That being said; I have no doubt that they’d be dangerous.

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 :)