HTDM art trade - Franz

My half of an art trade with =Pharan on the HowToDrawManga group at DeviantART. It's his character Franz from "Purelight" fighting an alien robot (which currently doesn't have a design so I made one up).
For his half he drew my Soulsnatchers character Alusius, which is pretty damn awesome (I was especially excited since no one else had drawn him before).

Since one of the goals of the HTDM trades is to practice drawing skills, I decided to go all out, especially since I haven't done many backgrounds/ environments as of late.

I also went for an action piece in an effort to continue improving anatomy and foreshortening with my figures.

There's definitely a lot that needs work in this piece, given the time to work on it.
I suppose the main things I've noticed are as follows.
I realise that Franz's arms look a little disjointed compared to the rest of his body, and I don't think the angled plane of the cape is helping. Trees and rock texture really need some work and I'm not terribly convinced by the sunlight effects or the cloud and foreground shadows either (they don't seem to mesh with the colouring style).

However, I definitely feel that I'm still carrying on with the improvement streak that I've had as of late and I'm certainly not as afraid to try new stuff as I was a couple of years ago. I think the weekly drawing stuff has helped a lot in that regard.

Anywho, critique away! Any helpful advice would also be very welcome. : )

DeviantART link

Convention progress!

Since I'm not uploading much in the way of art at the moment, thought I might as well post a bit of an update on how things are going in preparation for Ayacon and the upcoming May MCM Expo.
On the arty front, I've got a few print ideas in the pipeline. I've not got the layout sketches scanned in, but here's a rough idea so far:
*Portal 2 - Chell jumping through a ceiling portal with Wheatley and a companion cube (and GLaDOS spying through the portal).
*Tron: Legacy - Sam starting up a light cycle, with the light cycle itself still in wireframe form.
*LoZ: Twilight Princess - Link battling Stallord (with a few Staltroops thrown in).

I'm hoping to at least have the Portal 2 and Tron prints ready for Expo and things seem to be heading that way at the moment, which is good. : )

Cosplay-wise, for Ayacon I'll be taking three costumes with me:
*LoZ Ocarina of Time Link (about 90% finished thanks to Kitacon at the beginning of April)
*Resident Evil 2 Claire Redfield (about 40% finished, with all the material cut out but not sewn)
*Mystery "Yami no Matsuei" cosplay (not started yet, but got all the material)

I entered the Link costume into Kita's cosplay competition, but unfortunately sudden work deadlines meant it couldn't be finished to the level I wanted and I had to use a bought pair of leggings, which probably counted against me in a big way.
The sword and shield on the other hand, I'm quite happy with save for a few touch-ups. I used coloured vinyl with adhesive mirror for the metal and it turned out really well (got quite a few compliments so must have been doing something right!).
Anyway, here are a couple of pictures taken after the competition (taken with Nert's camera by a mate who was standing in for him - ignore the twisted bit of the strap. : P):
Link photo 1
Link photo2

Not much needs to be done to it as it is, especially since I'm not going to be entering any more contests with it, but time-permitting I want to redo the hems and sleeves on the tunic and white shirt, stiffen the collar of the white shirt, make the leggings, tighten the belts and sew some backing onto the scabbard strap (hot glue does NOT work on vinyl surfaces!).

Post Ayacon, I've got tentative plans to do Luther Lansfeld, "The Creator", from Star Ocean 3. There aren't many good pictures of him floating around and there are virtually none of his spear/blade thing so I had to approximate what it would look like from some blurry Youtube video screenshots. Initial sketches look promising though so fingers crossed!

Hope everyone had a good Easter holiday!

Works in Progress

Hi all!
Just wanted to give a quick update about a couple of projects I'm working on (one of which I'd love to get some feedback on!).

Recently, I've acquired Fatal Frame/ Project Zero 4 for the Wii after several months of wondering whether I could get it to work (seeing as it's a Japanese-only release). Well the good news was that it did and it also inspired me to do my first piece of PZ related artwork.
This is of one of the main characters, Misaki Asou, and Ayako Haibara, a ghost who you meet (i.e battle) early on in the game.

I've laid down some flat colours underneath a pencil sketch and am now working on a few surface textures before I finish off the shading (started on the wood for the desk and shelves and will follow it with the grime on the mannequin parts). The finished piece will be a lot darker and grungier, so hopefully there are no worries about it being too "cheerful" for now. : D

As I said, I'd love to get some feedback on it so far and if anyone's got any helpful hints, they'd be very welcome!

Second, I've decided to submit a piece for the Kitacon conbook as well. I've started work on some preliminary sketches for an illustration featuring the two convention mascots. Can't say much more about it for now, but rest assured it will be suitably geeky (based on a certain movie that was released in the last couple of months). ; )

I'll post some more updates in the coming weeks along with any new artwork. Need to start sorting stuff out for convention prints!

TTFN.

Upcoming conventions

First post of the New Year after a bit of a hiatus!

This year is proving to be quite busy on the convention front. I have three lined up so far, with hopefully more in the pipeline.
The ones I'm definitely attending at the moment are:
Kitacon - 1st to 3rd April (Hilton Metropole, Birmingham)
MCM London Expo - 27th to 29th May (Excel Centre, London)
Ayacon - 19th to 21st August (Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry)

I'm going to be selling the "Anime Convention Survival Guide" prints and Team Fortress 2 postcards that I've had at previous cons, along with a few other works in progress which will be posted in the coming months (and hopefully Trololo Man prints since it seems to be a hit!).
Also, my Expo appearance will be alongside a table with the Midlands Comics Collective where we will be selling both anthology comics and work from individual members, so come and say hi if you're planning on going. We will also like you very much if you buy things. : D

Some new artwork is on the way and will be posted sometime this week and I'm still going to finish off the final eight Project 52 drawings as well. Even if it didn't quite work out as planned, it has most definitely helped me get back into the habit of drawing regularly, which was the big reason I set out to do it in the first place. : )

Until then!

Project 52: Weeks 37 to 44 - Vincent Cass style meme

Happy New Year everyone! My last submission for 2010. : D

I've never tried memes before but I've seen *Goku-chan's pop up several times and it looked quite fun to do.

Anyway I chose Vincent as he's probably the one who would vary the most with different styles (especially the manga related ones). If you've not seen him before, there's more information about him here.

I'm a little unsure about the Yoji Shinkawa one. It looks better than I hoped it would but perhaps doesn't quite match his style. Same with the Disney one as well, with the eyes probably being the most accurate part. Also, the head shape of his realistic counterpart is quite a bit different to the original (should be a bit more triangular rather than squared). Still, they felt rather refreshing as drawing exercises at least!

And yes I know I cheated a little by using Mike Krahulik for "DA artist style", but it is technically correct. : P

Until next time!

More...

Weeks 35, 36 and 37 - The Batmen of BICS

With special guest, Swiss Army Wolverine.


Okay so it's a month after BICS, but here are some doodles based on a few things that happened that weekend.

1 - One of my friends came back to our table and commented that she'd seen one of the four Batman cosplayers texting somebody. We reckoned this was the only thing he could possibly be doing (I think Batman would have an iPhone).
Adam West and Burt Ward Batman and Robin used for comic effect. :P

2 - On the Sunday, three of the Batmen (we think it was a comic Batman, Adam West and the Tim Burton version) stood near the table talking about utility belts. I tried to take a picture of them, but I think they're too well seasoned at it because they all posed for me before I caught them. XD

3 - When we were all out for dinner on the Saturday (eating Chinese food), most of us were using chopsticks so we were thinking of how to use the surplus cutlery. Probably not all that surprising that this was one of the uses that were mentioned.

This is my first time drawing any version of Batman or Wolverine, so comic geeks please be gentle!

DeviantArt link

A Beginner's Guide to Photography

Today we have moving pictures!
My MA project was to produce a set of animated shorts that explained some of the basics of photography (in this case, aperture, shutterspeed, ISO and exposure) to first year BA Photography students at my university. So after a year of being an ex-student, I'm finally posting the videos for aperture, shutterspeed and ISO here. :D







Enjoy!
There is also a video for exposure (linking the three aspects together) and a short introduction in the works, so hopefully I can finish them and put them up soon.
The model for the main character is photographer Shaun Joyce and the voice talent is freelance journalist Matt Kamen.


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These videos were developed for Birmingham City University and are for educational/ non-profit use only. Feel free to share the link to this blog post, but please ask permission if you wish to show them elsewhere.