Happy Holidays from Vinodblog!

Stone Giant Breakdown Pt. 1

I was tasked to concept the Stone Giant at WB Games a few years ago when I was working on another LOTR related project. A few of the other concept artists that were on the War in the North core team had already taken a stab at this boss creature but for one reason or another their concepts weren't what the designers wanted. Andrew Arconti did a wonderful take on him, he was much more human but the stone shapes were incorporated in really interesting ways. For instance, the top of his head was formed from a flat slab, and his skin was a subtle mix of skin and stone. Overall his face and general anatomy was still very much human.

My art director, Phil Straub wanted me to to see what I could come up with. Giant boss characters are always fun to concept. Gone are the nuances of a player character or some important NPC. Boss characters are usually supposed to be big, mean and ugly. I don't think my stone giant is ugly per se but he has all the nuance of a bag full of rocks (literally).

As usual I started with some roughs.

Here are my first few sketches.

And here's the final page of roughs

The only restrictions were that he should be bipedal and he had to fit on the troll's animation rig. (An animation rig in game development refers to the "skeleton" of the creature that the animators use for animation.) Unique rigs are often expensive for the game's memory so many games will re-use them. Skilled art teams can get a lot of use out of a versatile animation rig. In this case the LOTR cave troll rig worked out just fine for any number of big lumbering beasts.

Here's a breakdown some of my thought process and design choices for these roughs:

His most distinctive feature are his very long, straight "slab" arms.

#1 - The Old General
I thought this direction captured some of the ancient quality of Tolkien's world. Everything in LOTR is old, and has some involved history to it. So maybe this stone giant has seen alot of battles, and he's got the demeanor of a grizzled old warrior. He also has a low center of gravity and looks very solid and strong.

Lots of asymmetry, kind of a boring head design.

 #2 - The Ugly One
Here I'm playing more with odd shapes. I think it's a cool design overall but there isn't much of a hierarchy of shapes, every piece of him is different and doesn't seem quite as tough. I do like his off- kilter pelvis and legs but I think this shoulder area is a little muddy He also looks like he could be an Ent if you put some leaves on him.

With a few proportion tweaks this guy could've been a winner!

#3 - The Living Hill
With this idea I thought the Stone Giant could be a living part of the landscape. When he's not lumbering about causing mayhem he just settles into the landscape and the environment just grows back around him. I thought if we went forward with this direction he could even have grass and foliage on his back. Those cavities in his head could have water pouring out of them as he rose up from the ground. His chest and lower body aren't that interesting, it's pretty much human looking but I do like his pointy feet. He would've been fun to take to final for sure.

He has some character in his face, if you didn't get on his bad side he'd
be more of a gentle giant.

#4 - The Fighter
I think this was the first drawing I did when I started this concept. I wasn't thinking to far out of the box, he's very cave troll-like. If I took this guy to the next stage I'd have to tweak his proportions. I'd give him a smaller head and mush longer arms. Howeever I do like his built in "brass knuckles' on his fists.

He has some nice thicks and thins to his body shape but he could be in any
old fantasy world. He's not "Tolkien-ey" enough.

#5 - The Monster
This version of the character is much more lanky and skinny than the other iterations. He also looks less intelligent. I feel that because he's skinnier he doesn't look like he's the right scale, He could almost be some little impish goblin type creature and still work.

And just for the sake of playing with iMovie to make a video here's my process for the roughs:

In part two of this post I'll show you the progress of the final concept, so stay tuned!

Spectrum 19!

Remember when I mentioned a while back that I got into Spectrum?
Well it's finally out!

So go buy it and then quickly turn to page 116 to gaze upon some really nice Justin Sweet concept pieces for Green Lantern and the Avengers. Then divert your gaze to the Stone Giant I did for LOTR: War in the North. THEN and only THEN you can look at the rest of the book. Specifically Emily's art, see her post here.

It's a huge book, so big that by the time you get to the end you'll forget about what you saw in the beginning! A lot of friends also got in for the first time this year, guys like Nick Southam, Chris Seaman, Tyler Jacobson and Tyler Walpole. (though now that I think of it some of these guys might have gotten in before... but I'm too lazy to ask or check)

My stone giant has invaded a perfectly good Justin Sweet spread.

I want to re-iterate how happy I am that I was selected for inclusion into Spectrum. I've been trying for years and getting pretty discouraged but this does renew my hope for entering in the future.

I think in a future post I'll break down the Stone Giant concept and show some of my design process, if it was good enough for Spectrum it's good enough for a blog post. Stay tuned!

SOTW 305

Lady Birdfriend: She HATES birds.

I was in a very Larry MacDougall/ P.A. Lewis mood when I drew this character. Check out their work over in my links!


Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 304

Battle Armor Anne: Stomach armor? Pshaw!
Who needs it!

Pros and cons with having an artist spouse:
Pro: You get to share your biggest passion with them, learn from them and work and grow together.
Con: They know all the secrets. When Emily saw this drawing the first thing out of her mouth was:
"Did you screw up the mouth and turn it into a mask?" To which I responded: "Yes."

THEY KNOW EVERYTHING.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 303

This man has a broken nose. Who broke it?
I DID.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 302

Tall faced man with tech collar, random
robot hand that goes with SOTW 299,
and some sort of fantasy ungulate. Seems about right.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:

http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 301

People at the Apple Store's Genius Bar.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:

http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

Back!

Sorry for the long hiatus!
Had a couple work related things to deal with. Small things like not working at WB Games/Monolith Productions anymore and starting work at a new startup game company that goes by the name of Motiga!

Of course I can't talk about what I'm working on besides that there are characters that need some designin' and I'm the one to do it. It's a small operation, the only other concept artist is my good friend Shae Shatz who's fresh off the heels of Halo 4!
Shae's CGHub Page

I wish my compatriots at WB all the best and I can't wait for both Guardians of Middle Earth and the other project I was working on to come out. (mostly so I can post my work on here...) So, goodbye to Tolkien and hello to stuff I can't talk about till probably way later next year!

Oh I suppose you want some art to go with this post?
Fine.
Here's a silly drawing I did of Emily and me.

Protip for young artists: Learn how to draw a self deprecating cartoon version
of yourself. All the cool Manga artists do it!

SOTW 300

Daria Killswitch: She'll cut ya'!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 299

A man eating Pho, a robot arm with the hand cut off,
a hipster in Capitol Hill, and a weird spikey tailed critter.
ALL OF THESE THINGS ARE REAL.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 298

A woman at Cafe Flora in Seattle... and a robot. Fun fact: When robots talk
nuts and bolts spray from their mouth instead of spittle.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

Things to Click On

The internet is full of wonderful and horrible things. (mostly horrible) So from time to time I thought I'd share some stuff that's caught my interest.

(Awesome) Concept artist Matt Rhodes has a very good assessment of the Steampunk genre:
http://mattrhodesart.blogspot.com/2012/06/steampunk-is-better-when-its-not-made.html

I love this "snail man" sculpt by Aris Kolokontes:
http://ariskolokontesart.blogspot.com/2012/09/some-proggress.html

I really agree with Petar Meseldzija's post on his blog (and also re-posted on Muddy Colors) about appreciating and depicting nature. I know what he means, especially when you're doing concept art and your work is just isolated on a white or gray background:
http://petarmeseldzija.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-nature-in-contemporary-fantastic-art.html

My friend Steve Prescott is starting to post some of his concept drawings for the Innistrad set for Magic... great stuff:
http://prescottdrawblog.blogspot.com/

Did you see the behind the scenes pictures from the new Robocop reboot?
http://www.avclub.com/articles/the-new-robocop-is-part-man-part-hollywood-machine,85017/
Blargh, Robocop's "costume" from the original 1987 movie is one of my favorite mech/robot designs ... but this one is just devoid of character. Maybe it'll be better if the silver metal gets put on top of this suit?
Don't get me started with Hollywood and all of these remakes.

Start your clicking!

Fun With Gen Con - Part 3

Another nice thing about Gen Con's art show is that it feels like a community compared to other cons we've done. One way Gen Con fosters that community is by having awards every year. The awards are juried by the guest of honor, last years best in show, and an art director from one of the larger gaming companies. It all happens at the artists reception on Friday evening. The lineup this year was Todd Lockwood (guest of honor), Scott Murphy (best in show 2011), and Jon Schindehette (art director at WOTC).

in 2011, I won a juror's choice award from Chris Rahn. This year the legendary Todd Lockwood awarded me with another juror's choice! He told me he liked all my pieces at the show but he really liked my Monsters and Dames illustration.

LOCKWOOD APPROVED!

He said he liked the humor and vibrancy of color in the piece. I was extremely honored and humbled to catch Todd's eye with my work.

Here's a blurry paparazzi style photo of me getting my award with Todd Lockwood and Jon Schindehette:

For some really exciting award related news from Emily head over to her blog and read this post:
http://fabledearth.blogspot.com/2012/09/gen-con-2012.html 
Congrats Emily!

That's all for my Gen Con 2012 posts. Thanks to all who visited my table, Emily and I will be there again next year. I'll just leave you with: 

STEAMPUNK SANTA CLAUS

SOTW 297

The guy on the right is Tyler Polewall, please don't confuse him with fellow artist
Tyler Walpole. Tyler Walpole is much weirder looking.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 296

That "thing" on the left is quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever drawn.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 295

Steampunk pipe with unnecessary tubes, and an adorable little goblin with an
equally adorable little scarf. Where do I get these KOOKY ideas!?

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 294

Did you know that bulbous nosed cat-men need protective headgear? However,
two eyed, two nosed lip less aliens only need the back of their heads protected.
THIS WILL BE ON THE TEST.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

Fun with Gen Con - Part 2

Drawing on stuff other than paper.
When you have a table at a con, you end up doing a ton of drawings for fans. The weird and sometimes frustrating part of this is that you get asked to draw on odd surfaces that aren't paper. Stuff like…

Playmats:

Some guy wanted penguins drawn on his playmat... I drew
a robot penguin. I feel like he fits in a Mega Man game.

Fabric dice bags:

They auction these off for charity each year. They're actually pretty easy to draw on.

Bandanas:

I did the sharp looking elf man on the left. Emily did the beautiful elf lady on the right.

Slick shiny trading card backs: (only one pictured but I ended up doing 4 or 5 of these)

This was like drawing with butter. The pen would bead up and smudge really easily.

SOTW 293

More lumpy headed goodness from Gen Con. I can lose myself in neck and chin
wrinkles...

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 292

Hanuman was for a sketchbook my parents insisted on buying when they came to
visit Emily and I at Gen Con. The lumpy ogre was drawn because lumpy ogres
are easy to draw.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 291

A bit of a back log due to Gen Con... time to catch up!

Men with mustaches and swords. I like the guy on the left, if he were animated
you'd just have to make his mustache jiggle when he talked.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

Fun with Gen Con - Part 1

Another year, another Gen Con. That might sound like I'm getting tired of coming to Gen Con, but that's far from the truth. I love Gen Con, but getting ready for it is always stressful. Our studio essentially spills into the rest of our house with suitcases, con display paraphernalia, and original paintings strewn onto every available floor space in our house.

But we made it out to Indianapolis, got all set up, and let the onslaught of genre art lovers gaze upon our tables and shower us with compliments. (that's the real fun part!)

Me, my booth, and my books.

The weirdest interaction with a "fan" was actually fairly early on Thursday. An older gentleman came by and looked through my print book and angrily let the pages drop from his hand and shuffle off, he then went next door to Emily's table and asked if she had any mermaid art. She said the closest piece she had was her water nymph from her book, to which the guy grumbled "That's not the same thing."  Later after talking with the other artists, who had similar interactions, we deemed this individual… "Mermaid guy."

Go forth mermaid guy, the perfect mermaid art awaits you! (just not at Gen Con)

Seriously though, 99% of the fans are awesome, super nice, and really fun to talk to. Over the last 6 years we've actually made quite a few friends that visit us every year and we actually talk about things that aren't nerd or art related! Gasp!

More posts about Gen Con coming soon! As well as sketches I did in the many sketchbooks I sold!

Pygmy Triad - World of Warcraft TCG

 

Here's one of the most recent World of Warcraft cards I worked on. I did three cards for this set, and this one was my favorite out of the three.  I might post the other ones, but then again I might not! You know the old saying: Out of sight, out of portfolio.

 Card art is challenging, especially for a newbie like me. Some of my other illustrator friends do dozens of cards a year so they really understand how to push their composition, colors and contrast to create art that reads well when it's printed on a trading card. I, however am still getting the hang of it.

This particular card was interesting since the pygmy characters are supposed to be stacked on top of each other, which of course doesn't really work for a card with a horizontal picture plane. Here's how the characters appear in the game:

And here's my thumbnail. I took the basic idea but "squished" them so they fit into the card format. Which also let me breathe some life into the characters since they're supposed to be goofy.

 

And the drawing before I started my digital painting:

 Finally here's the art as it appears on the card. It still reads well in teeny tiny card format!

SOTW 290

Have you guys seen my nuts? ...Why are you
laughing? I have one nut here in my hand, but I'd
rather have two nuts. It's a much better feeling
having two. STOP LAUGHING!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 289

Cute yet scary robots, an ugly dude with bad hair, some random character and
weapon designs, and our newly rescued bunny...Oliver!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 288

The woman at the top left was so breathtakingly gorgeous
that I couldn't bring myself to finish the drawing ...
Actually that's not true.
Our food arrived, and I was hungry.

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 287

Fun with a brush pen! Guinea Pig doodles and random
freak by Emily!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 286

And so begins my epic, career making project of
rebooting and re-imagining the "Littles".
(not really)

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 285

Charlie Mushroom: The drug dealer with a heart of gold.

Side note: For whatever reason this sketch is one of my favorite things I've drawn in a long time. I feel like a lot of things clicked. The pose, the costume, and the expression are all interesting and draw you into the character. Also I knew when to stop drawing. Typically when I sketch straight with pen I tend to noodle the drawing to death.

I drew this while lounging in the dressing room area while Emily was trying on some clothes. I remember being inspired by a long, thin sweater jacket thingy hanging in front of me. Inspiration is everywhere! I really want to design the rest of this guy and throw some color on him. 

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 284

The "Ambassador." Don't let his over sized cranium fool
you. He's not super smart, he's just horribly deformed.

I'm behind on a few of these SOTW posts... bear with me as I catch up!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 283

Know someone who needs a good thrashing? Consider
hiring Mr. Bolus. I'd say he's the third best hired
pummel-ist in this part of town.

I'm behind on a few of these SOTW posts... bear with me as I catch up!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 282

Drew this lady after reading the first Hunger Games
book. I'll call her: Marigold Steadyknee.
(every character in that book has a crazy name)

Also just for fun I threw some basic color on her and made her head bigger. These are just fun simple ways to explore character design/costume design while doodling in my sketchbook. The drawings aren't perfect but I can use some of these ideas for actual characters down the road.

 I'm behind on a few of these SOTW posts... bear with me as I catch up!

Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/

SOTW 281

Some of these people are real, some of them aren't.

 Since 2007 I've been posting a sketch/doodle/whatever every week on my site. I'll be continuing this trend here on my blog and on my new site:
http://www.vinodrams.com/sotw/