Zub's Art Refuge

Shorty

2011-11-21T21:12:00.001-05:00

A sketch of Shorty completed with ballpoint pen from the Skullkickers Vol. 2 launch party last week. Good times.

Gen Con Sketches

2011-08-09T21:35:00.002-04:00

Gen Con 2011 in Indianapolis last weekend went incredibly well. Thank you to everyone who stopped by to check out my Skullkickers comics.

I did some commission sketches while I was there and the variety of requests was pretty impressive.

Someone had a sketchbook with 'knitting' as their theme, so I did a sketch of the dwarf attempting to knit.

Jim's Old Spider-Man Comic

2011-07-29T15:10:00.001-04:00

Back in 2008 I posted up two issues of the comics I wrote/drew when I was 11 years old.

For those of you who may have missed them. Here they are:
Liberty League #1
Liberty League #2
Marvel Universe Pin-Up
Spider-Man Pin-Up

My mother found more of my old comic artwork from when I was 13, so I thought I'd scan it in.

Kurt Busiek ripped me off with his series 'Untold Tales of Spider-Man'. I had the exact same comic title 6 years earlier, thank you very much!

Check that dynamic posing and McFarlane-era webbing!

My brother was the inker and letterer.

The goblin chews up the scenery here with his evil. Oh man, I cannot wait to see what happens next...

Oh wait, that's it. I only ever drew 2 pages before we gave up on it. I guess we'll never know how it ends. Noooooooooooooooooo!

Seed Starter - Art For Hope

2011-07-26T00:30:00.002-04:00

This sketch image was done with Alias Sketchbook Pro as part of Viz's 'Art For Hope' Japan Charity fund-raising event.

Details here:
http://www.viz.com/content/viz-media-teams-autodesk-art-hope-benefit-japan-disaster-relief

Since I wasn't as familiar with Sketchbook as I am with Photoshop, I went for a simple composition and flat colours. It was a neat program to play with though and I'm looking forward to trying it more in the future.

Zub's Mega Man Tribute Piece

2011-07-11T06:41:00.000-04:00

While everyone at UDON gears up for this year's San Diego Comicon, we're extra pumped to be launching our Mega Man Tribute art book at the show.

Here's my pin-up, focused on my favourite game in the series, Mega Man 2!

The character and level design in MM2 hits just the right note for me, with challenging stages and bosses delicately balanced so it never becomes a slog to play through.

I hope you all enjoy my piece. It's an absolute honour to be a part of it. I can't wait until fans get their hands on the book (soft cover in stores or our limited convention hard cover edition).

2011-06-26T09:48:00.008-04:00

Seven new convention sketches from the past week. I don't take photos of every sketch I do at a show/signing, but when I think one comes together well I try to snap a quick shot that I can throw into Photoshop afterwards, adjust the Levels on and keep.

Thor

Allen the Alien

Conan the Barbarian

Magik from the New Mutants

Atomic Robo

Harley Quinn

The Dwarf from Skullkickers as Battle Pope

Calgary Expo 2011

2011-06-14T11:17:00.000-04:00

This weekend is the amazing Calgary Comic & Entertainment Expo in Alberta and I'll be there as a guest of the show, set up at table #K09.

This piece of art is for the Expo's annual convention exclusive artbook. The theme this year was 'Dream & Wishes', so I did up a slightly dim-witted dragon's infatuation with a castle. It was a really fun illo to put together, pushing the cartoony style I did for the Zork series a bit further.

New Ultimate Spidey

2011-05-13T13:29:00.002-04:00

Even though it was announced almost a month ago, I finally had some free time to take a really good look at the new costume Marvel has teased for Ultimate Spider-Man.

Spider-Man's outfit is so ridiculously iconic, I can't imagine how difficult it must be to design a new costume for him. This new look isn't as bold as the 80's post-Secret Wars costume, but it definitely has some neat visual elements that make it stand out.

Looking at how much black was on it, I decided to take my initial pose sketch and push the negative shapes by using only those black areas to define the form. Artists like Chris Samnee are masters at doing this and it's a skill I'd like to practice more often.

The whole thing took about 40 minutes noodling away on my Cintiq.

TCAF 2011 Monster Sketches

2011-05-10T09:17:00.013-04:00

Sorry for leaving this blog so empty! It's been a crazy couple of months.

Okay, here are some monster doodles I sketched for people at this year's Toronto Comic Arts Festival:

Jim Kid Art: Spider-Man and His Amazing Fiends

2010-12-06T22:49:00.005-05:00

Another drawing from my youth I dug up. This one is from about a year after the previous pic. This time I drew up Spider-Man (obviously heavily McFarlane influenced) and some of his many foes.

Some weird stuff:

- C-Lister The Human Fly gets a big spot while major foes the Lizard, Scorpion and Rhino get shifted to the very bottom. No idea why.
- The Ox from the Enforcers is there, but none of the other members are.
- The Hobgoblin is there, but no Green Goblin.
- I don't think Electro ever rode lightning in the comics, but I could be wrong.
- That half a guy on the left hand side is the Black Fox. No idea why I cropped him like that.
- Molten Man, Venom and Jackal float in mid-air while Punisher gets a rope to swing on.

Jim Kid Art: Marvel Universe

2010-11-28T10:00:00.006-05:00

Stacy and I are in the midst of a big clean up, slowly going through room by room and reorganizing/purging stuff. It's unbelievable to me that we've only been in the house a couple years but have already accumulated so much stuff.

Anyways, as I was going through old artwork and portfolio cases I came across this crazy piece of obsessiveness:

On the back it's dated April 9th, 1989 so I was 12 years old. Obviously I was also a complete comic nut for the Marvel Universe. I recall working my ass off on this, trying to fit in as many characters as possible.

Some funny details:
- Cloak and Dagger are in there, but Cloak is just a corner of his, uh, cloak.
- Apparently I though Archangel was cool because he's way bigger than a lot of other well known Marvel characters.
- All the characters are their late 80's versions, including Dr. Strange with his eye patch and Clea as Mistress of the Dark Dimension.
- Nightcrawler has 2 'BAMF' teleport poofs in addition to his full appearance.
- My favourite character, Spider-Man, weirdly gets the shaft in terms of importance on the page.
- It doesn't look right but Ant-Man is actually standing in Captain America's hand.
- Not sure if that's Goliath, the Falcon or someone else behind Archangel.
- The Fantastic Four is, uh, three. No Thing in the pic. No idea why.
- Professor X is just an astrally projected head to save space.
- Behind Thor is the Rainbow Bridge.
- Obscure characters like Boom-Boom, Lockheed, Impossible Man/Woman and Widget are in there instead of far more important ones.

I'll be keeping this somewhere safe. :)

Monsters & Dames 2011 Step-By-Step

2010-11-26T09:02:00.015-05:00

Here's a step-by-step walk through of the illustration I put together for Emerald City Comicon's Monsters & Dames art book coming out in March.

The initial concept I had in mind was a huge lumbering creature protecting a child. Starting with swooping sketched out shapes I started doodling, looking for forms and silhouette that would look interesting and give the impression of size that I wanted.

Once those larger forms started to take shape as something with a massive upper body and ape-like arms, I quickly defined them a bit more with some rough contour shapes to get a sense of the perspective for the piece. All this was done in Photoshop on my Cintiq, but it could just as easily have been pencil and paper.

Starting a new layer, I went in with a darker blue and made some decisions about forms, trying to nail down the general anatomy of the creature and to get a sense of proportion. I like where it's going, so I threw in some really rough light and shadow to help me visualize it more solidly.

There's an intimacy in this stage that I still really like. The girl's expression is more comforting and I think it's actually bit more emotional than the final version.

Gathering some reference material of monsters and taking a bit of a break, I came back to the piece and decided to do another sketch over, adjusted the stance and making it even larger. I wanted the creature to look bigger and more menacing. The creature's skull is now more bestial and its eyes are more inhuman.

The girl's proportion changes too and now I'm visualizing something Egyptian for her outfit and jewelery.

This is the final line art scanned in. At first I was thinking of inking this digitally, but the whim struck me to go back to traditional for the line art, so I penciled this out on Bienfang Rag Marker Paper (which I really like using because it's nearly see though but has more substance than tracing paper). Most of it's done with an F pencil, though added the thicker outline with a B.

After it's scanned in I use Image> Adjustments> Levels in Photoshop to darken up the line art and push the paper base tone to white.

Here are the Colour Flats. These are the tones I start with, kept on their own layer so I can easily select certain portions of the illustration and isolate them for colour adjustments later on. It also lets me see what the base colours are before any rendering so I can decide if it's all working well together.

The first rendering step is adding the main shadows and deciding the direction of light. I opt for light coming from the upper right and then imagine it striking down on the figure.

Which parts are facing the light?
Which parts are facing away from light?
Which parts overlap to create shadows as they block another area from light?

As I put down each shadow that stuff becomes more clear.

Now I do the opposite with the highlights, isolating anatomy that's facing the light and enhancing those with a lighter colour. I also add in a blue/purple bounce light on the left side to help bring out some extra details in the shadow areas.

I soften the look of the black line art by colouring some of those lines to give it a bit of an animation cel feel. This also helps to pop out the hair detail by the monster's face. The horns were looking pretty bland so I add a dark to light gradient transition of colour. It's starting to come together.

The last chunk involves a lot of finicky stuff - enhancing the contrast and saturation, adding smaller details to the skin, pushing highlights on the horns and jewelry and adding a blue-purple haze to the base of the piece to enhance the feeling of size and make it look more creepy.

Rendering light and shadow can be confusing with complex shapes, but in reality the formula for light in this piece is pretty straight forward:

All surfaces of the creature facing 'up' get the highlight tone.
All surfaces of the creature facing 'right' get the base tone.
All surfaces of the creature facing 'left' or 'down' get the shadow tone.
Then the whole piece gets an extra blue-purple base light kick.

Here's the final again, with minor tweaks and background/text added:

I hope you found this walk through of the process useful.

Monsters & Dames 2011

2010-11-23T07:13:00.001-05:00

Pin-Up artwork done for Emerald City Comicon's Monsters & Dames 2011 artbook. I'll post up a step-by-step on this piece soon.

SK Sketches

2010-11-22T14:39:00.002-05:00

I didn't make a big deal of it when I posted the issue 6 solicitation on my blog last week, but if you look carefully you'll see that I'm listed as one of the artists for the issue, not the writer. I'm actually going to be drawing one of the short stories in that special issue. I'm excited and intimidated by the rest of the artists on board, but I really want to contribute and am hoping I can push through to a new level with my work on it.

Anyways, here are my first-ever sketches of the boys, exploring their basic construction and shapes:

I don't want my version to be a poor copy of Edwin's but I'm using that as a starting base and then will push in to a slightly different direction as I get more comfortable.

Dhalsim Sketch

2010-11-11T16:46:00.005-05:00

Jim Graves, the Character Design instructor at Seneca, has been setting up sketch themes at the college, asking students and staff to draw up a different subject each week. I've been so busy with work and personal stuff going on that I haven't been able to contribute much.

This week's theme was "Street Fighter", so I felt kind of obligated to pitch in. :)

Here's a Dhalsim pencil sketch I busted out this morning before class.

Cute Creature

2010-11-07T21:52:00.001-05:00

Here's an in-class quick sketch/digital paint I did as an example for a "rodent/furred creature" assignment.

Vehicle Example

2010-11-04T16:46:00.004-04:00

The latest assignment for the Digital Painting class I'm teaching is a vehicle design, focusing on creating solid forms and showing an understanding of metal/chrome/glass reflective qualities in the rendering.

Here's the quick in-class example I put together for my lecture to help show some rendering techniques/ideas.

It's a concept sketch with a bit of rendering, but I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, considering the whole thing took less than an hour.

Monster Sketch

2010-10-18T10:31:00.003-04:00

The latest assignment my students are working on in their Digital Painting class is an original monster design. I quickly sketched up this critter in class as a way to show them how to take solid shapes and the anatomy theory they've learned in Life Drawing class and build a convincing monster.

Quick gestured shapes turned in to a base for my monster.

A more solid final line drawn over top with quick shadows thrown in to help define form.

If I can find some extra time between other things I'd like to finish this guy completely with paint and texture.

Expression Work-Ups

2010-10-18T10:27:00.005-04:00

A tutorial done for my Digital Painting students explaining how to construct a head, create expressions and then plot light/shadows on the features from a fixed light source.

The initial construction, relying on solid volumes as a base and then using perspective to plot the features.

A more finished line art version created by using the original construction as a base.

An example of a light source coming from above.

Another example, this time with the same face lit from below.

Mouse House Location

2010-10-18T10:22:00.002-04:00

A simple location design I did up for my 1st semester Layout students to use as reference while learning about proportion, rotating spaces in perspective and consistency.

Most of it is built off of a simple grid, though there are a couple trickier spots with the pipe and bottle cap ellipses, cheese wedge on an angle and picture slightly tilted. Also, many students assume that the wood slat on the floor is the halfway point of the room, but it's actually the bed that sits at the half line.

PAX 2010 Con Sketches - Part 3

2010-09-10T20:37:00.004-04:00

I drew a pile of head sketches for UDON fans at PAX 2010 this year and was able to snap photos of some of my favourites.

Protoman

Zero, in profile.

A fan asked me why Zero never smiles and I told her I could draw her a sketch of a happy Zero if she wanted.... and she did.

Zero in ruins, at the start of the Mega Man Zero game series.

PAX 2010 Con Sketches - Part 2

2010-09-07T06:49:00.003-04:00

I drew a pile of head sketches for UDON fans at PAX 2010 this year and was able to snap photos of some of my favourites.

Classic Mega Man

Gemini Man from Mega Man 3

PAX 2010 Con Sketches - Part 1

2010-09-06T21:51:00.005-04:00

I drew a pile of head sketches for UDON fans at PAX 2010 this year and was able to snap photos of some of my favourites.

Mega Man Zero

Zero again

Zero powering up

The classic Zero from Mega Man X

Spidey Quick Sketch

2010-08-31T10:25:00.001-04:00

Batsketch

2010-08-24T08:14:00.004-04:00

A quicker sketch for today's post.

I don't think I've drawn Batman since the summer that Tim Burton's original Batman movie came out and everyone was obsessed with the Caped Crusader. Even though I loved the Batman Animated Series and was thrilled that comics had become more mainstream, I didn't draw good ol' Bats.

Anyways, this quickie falls somewhere between animated-looking and Frank Miller-ish in terms of proportions, especially with the blocky forearm tips and squared off bat symbol. I always liked the look of the black bat straight on the chest rather than in a yellow oval.

The Batarang looks a bit silly when he's holding it like this, like he's gonna shiv someone.

And here's the rough sketch I use underneath:
I think my digital inks on the final version are a bit too smooth and rounded. The rough sketch has an angular/jagged quality that seems more in character for Batman. Oh well. I'll keep practising.

Possessions

2010-08-23T09:20:00.005-04:00

My good friend Ray Fawkes' graphic novel series Possessions, published by Oni Press, is great stuff and the character designs are bizarre and wonderful so I thought I'd try my hand at sketching up a digital ink piece of them.

Originally I was just going to draw Gurgazon (the creepy little girl) but it kept expanding until I had all 5 of the supernaturals in there:

Gurgazon - the possessed little girl
The Pale Lady - the floating headless woman
The Duke - the inhabited juke box
Ice Field Lights - the swirl of ghostly energy
Poly - the poltergeist splatter that writes on walls

Although it's rated 7+, Possessions is entertaining for any age group and older readers will catch extra subtleties and in-jokes Ray has sprinkled in there.

Atomic Robo

2010-08-22T09:19:00.004-04:00

If you've never had the chance to read an issue of Brian Clevinger and Scott Wegener's Atomic Robo series, you should really go and do that. It's a perfect blend of action and fun snappy dialogue.

Robo's design is difficultly simple in nature. There's not much to it but it's quite specific so you have to get the proportions just right (especially in the face) otherwise it'll look like an Atomic Robo stunt-double.

I wanted to draw a full figure instead of a head sketch and decided a bit of forced perspective and a staircase would be fun too. Combine that with the difficulty of doing robotic parts in perspective and the whole thing took just over an hour of noodling away to do, stopping only for e-mail answers and a snack.

Thor and Ultron are Friends...

2010-08-21T10:11:00.003-04:00

Er, maybe not...

This was a fun digital sketch to pull together. I wanted to do up a little piece with some character interaction rather than just straight posed stuff. When I looked over at my comics shelf the Thor trade paperback caught my eye.

This one took about an hour of noodling away at it on the Cintiq, on and off.

I hope you like it!

Here's the blue line rough I gestured out first:

Machine Man Quick Sketch

2010-08-20T08:37:00.002-04:00

A quick Cintiq sketch of Aaron Stack (Machine Man) from NextWave. It took about 20 minutes to put together.

Machine Man's an old Kirby creation but this dour-hearted look with hair and a trench coat is the NextWave version.

If you've never read Marvel's short-lived-but-amazing comic series NextWave then I highly recommend that you do so. Warren Ellis' relentless assault on the weirdest corners of Marvel Comics lore brought to life by Stuart Immonen's unbelievably expressive artwork is pure comics joy.

Anyways, I wanted to emulate the look of a quick marker rendering and I think it turned out relatively spiffy.

Here's the initial rough for it:

Harley Quinn Quick Sketch

2010-08-19T11:37:00.004-04:00

Another quick sketch today inbetween work e-mails and other things. I've never drawn Harley before.

I'm trying to start looser and then really attack the sketch with gusto. I'm not actively watching the clock but I am noting my start time and then trying not to waste time over thinking stuff either. Digital layers gives me extra confidence that seems to be transferring over to my traditional drawing as well.

The Cintiq sketches seem to lean pretty heavily to the right as I work, even moreso than my traditional sketches do. A quick Edit> Transform> Distort in Photoshop makes it all better though. :)

Quick Character Sketch

2010-08-18T07:55:00.003-04:00

Just what it says -

Taking a break between project stuff last night and I wanted to sketch something, anything, for fun. Opened up a blank canvas in Photoshop on the Cintiq and doodled until this came out of it.

I'm pretty happy with how it turned out as a little exercise. I should do more of these for warm-up/fun.

Introducing Sliverspark

2010-07-17T10:45:00.004-04:00

This is my pin-up from UDON's upcoming 10th anniversary art/comic/tutorial showcase called VENT!

The pin-up and story concept are called 'Sliverspark'. It's a modern fairy tale with a similar feel to my first graphic novel from 2001, 'The Makeshift Miracle'.

The story mixes my love of traditional stage magic/sleight-of-hand with faerie folk and mystery. It's something I've been wanting to explore for quite some time. I'm hoping this illustration for VENT is the first step in making that story a reality.

The pin-up and a thorough run-through of the digital art techniques used in creating it are in the book alongside artwork, stories and tutorials by the entire UDON Crew, old and new artists alike.

More details on VENT here at the UDON blog:
http://www.udonentertainment.com/blog/?p=1770

Sliverspark and related characters are copyright © Jim Zubkavich

Ramona Colours

2010-07-14T07:48:00.002-04:00

With the impending release of the last Scott Pilgrim book, video game and big budget movie right around the corner, there's going to be some Pilgrim-pandemonium in the comic book industry. Mal asked if I could help him out with some colouring on promo art for events and stuff he has on the go and I happily wedged that in to my schedule because I loves me some Pilgrim!

Here's one of the event pics of Ramona:

and here's the full body version I coloured up for him:

Mal's thick line graphic art style lends itself well to simple cartoon cuts with a bit of rendering on shiny bits like the goggles and bracelets.

There's another pic of Scott done up in a similar style that should pop up soon and hopefully he'll have more in the wings for me to do up as well. It's fun working with someone else's line art, learning from it and doing my best to show it off well.

Zork of July

2010-07-04T07:39:00.004-04:00

Legends of Zork just updated with new artwork celebrating July 4th (or, as they call it, The Zork of July).

I was slammed with other projects so my friend Greg Brown jumped in to help out. He designed and did the line art for these pics, then I finalized them with colours.

Here are full size versions of icon art created for the Zork of July update. In game these are really tiny, so it's nice to show you how detailed they actually are.

New Wonder Woman Costume?

2010-06-30T23:39:00.005-04:00

I'm amused by all the hooplah and anger surrounding announcements of Wonder Woman's new costume that debuted today.

No matter what people may think of the actual design and storyline, it's definitely the most media attention Wonder Woman has received in a long time, so I'm sure some people at DC are pleased with that, at least.

Looking over Jim Lee's redesign and thinking about the whole thing a bit, I had a sliver of time this evening and thought I'd try sketching it out for fun. After that, a quick splash of colour to give it a graphic edge.

A massive shadowy creature looms towards her from off camera - negative fan reaction, unimpressive comic sales, expectations of a modern era, the future unknown... whatever it may be, Diana faces it down with determination.

She's survived worse than this. :)

Zork- Easter Art 3

2010-06-01T06:04:00.000-04:00

Last but not least, here's the Mad Arch Hare (yeah Arch, not March). I wanted it to be Alice in Wonderland-esque, of course, but not just the same as the iconic Disney version or anything.

Zork- Easter Art 2

2010-05-30T09:11:00.001-04:00

More Zork Easter update artwork.

Here's the Golden Egg of Glory.

Here's the Chocolate Bunny Veteran. He's been bitten, but he won't give up. You'll never get the rest of his tasty chocolate limbs, you bastards!

Zork- Easter Art 1

2010-05-29T07:31:00.003-04:00

I actually forgot to post artwork from the Easter update Jolt incorporated in to the Legends of Zork browser-based online game.

The Cute Fluffy Bunny of Joy... well, he used to be cute and fluffy but years of delivering eggs has made him a bit jaded and unimpressed.

The Cute Fluffy Bunny of Death... he knows not the powers of evil that he wields. He can't help it that he has a taste for blood.

TCAF and Popcorn!

2010-05-06T10:59:00.007-04:00

This weekend is TCAF! The Toronto Comic Arts Festival is one of the largest and best independent comics conventions anywhere and attendance is completely FREE so, if you live in the area, you have no reason not to attend. Come on down to the main Toronto Reference Library (great subway access) and enjoy a huge range of artists and storytellers showcasing their work. Check out the guest list. You will be amazed.

I'll be set up on the second floor in the webcomics area, with books for sale and available for sketching (and signing Street Fighter comics) as well.

• I didn't want to say anything until I was sure it was going to be complete in time for the show, but I'm very happy to announce that I'll have a new mini-comic premiering at TCAF called 'A Slightly Fictional History of Popcorn'! I assembled them last night and am really happy with how they turned out.

Here's a better look at the cover and a sample page from the short story inside:

Honestly, in the weeks leading up to the show I knew I wanted to have a new mini-comic ready for it but, with so much going on, it just seemed impossible. I pushed away as many distractions as I could and really rocked it out over the past few days. I'm glad I did. Having some new work to show feels great.

• In addition to the Popcorn book, I'll have copies of my Photoshop colouring tutorial booklet and a small sketchbook of character and monster line art from the Legends of Zork game I helped visually design, as well as copies of the graphic novel of my old webcomic Makeshift Miracle.

Here's the mini-booklet spread:

So, in short, come to TCAF! It would be great to see you there.

Anti-Monkey Robo 101012

2010-05-01T09:31:00.000-04:00

An UDON fan at the Calgary Comic Expo asked me if I could sketch "a robot or a monkey"... so I sketched an Anti-Monkey robot for him.

Just something quick and silly, but I kind of like how it turned out.

Calgary Expo 2010

2010-04-22T07:32:00.003-04:00

For the first time, the Calgary Expo has deviated from their cowboy/western theme and gone with sci-fi as a focal point instead.

I wanted to do a pin-up focused on pushing my digital colouring in a slightly different direction and came up with this space girl and cat combo. I hope you guys like how it turned out.

I worked quite large in order to amp up the detail. Here's two zoomed in views showing the full size/resolution of the piece:

You can check out my previous Calgary con pin-ups by clicking on the appropriate years below:
2006
2007
2008
2009

Sketches From Cuba - Part 7

2010-04-11T14:03:00.001-04:00

Sketches From Cuba - Part 6

2010-04-09T17:15:00.001-04:00

Sketches From Cuba - Part 5

2010-04-03T15:59:00.002-04:00

More Cuba sketches from my little 5" x 7" travel sketchbook. I drew a bunch of quick gestural studies and then wrote little captions to help me remember the personality or story that went with them.

Little girl barely paying attention to her drink as she watches people play in the pool. She's not sad. She's not happy. Just watching.

Lanky kid's shirt is huge... almost covers his bathing suit, which is also baggy. His arms flop and his shoulders sag as he walks.

Sketches From Cuba - Part 4

2010-03-28T11:50:00.001-04:00

More Cuba sketches from my little 5" x 7" travel sketchbook. By day 4 I was doing quick gestural studies and then writing little captions to help me remember the personality or story that went with them.

I think they arrived today. She seems quite thrilled. The kid is in total awe. Kick ass.

Sort of scrawny/flabby British guy who might actually be whiter than I am. He's sweating like crazy.

Sketches From Cuba - Part 3

2010-03-27T20:55:00.003-04:00

More Cuba sketches from my little 5" x 7" travel sketchbook. By day 4 I was doing quick gestural studies and then writing little captions to help me remember the personality or story that went with them.

Watching the pool like a confident sentinel. This garbage can is my sacred post.

Awesome kid who announces every jump in to the pool as if it's a death-defying feat.

Sketches From Cuba - Part 2

2010-03-26T10:44:00.003-04:00

More Cuba sketches from my little 5" x 7" travel sketchbook. By day 2 and 3 I was loosening up a bit and having fun with quick observations turning in to thumbnail sketches.

A young girl sipping away at her fruit punch while her family took a dip in the pool and left her to watch their coffees.

A portly eastern European gentleman who sat at the poolside bar looking unimpressed with everything. I didn't have to exaggerate that bulb of fat at the back of his head. It was all there.

Quick glimpses of faces caricatured a bit and committed to the sketchbook.

Sketches From Cuba - Part 1

2010-03-25T12:23:00.003-04:00

When Stacy and I traveled to Cuba last summer we agreed to make part of the vacation "creative time". We both had personal projects we wanted to work on and having a resort where we didn't have to worry about meals, schedules or day-to-day distractions was ideal for digging in to those.

So, each morning after breakfast together, Stacy would head out to write and I pulled out my sketchbook to practice drawing and jot down story and design ideas for a new comic I have brewing.

Here's some of the observational warm-up sketches from my travel sketchbook:

The first couple sketches were stiff as I played a bit with a composition from my poolside view and drew the guy cleaning the pool first thing in the morning before the majority of people came out to play.

A kid who was playing around the edge of the pool.

A woman sitting in one of the deck chairs who had a unique reading posture that I tried to capture. She wore one of the Cuban-style military hats and hunched over her book. I can't even imagine what kind of tan/sunburns she got from that angle.

I laid in quick tones and foliage with a grey marker.

Various People Sketches - Dec 2009

2010-03-23T22:17:00.000-04:00

I'd forgotten about some sketches I drew back in December. Looking through them again, I think a few turned out pretty good so I figured I'd scan and add them to the gallery here.

This is 4 pages from my sketchbook, just some observational sketching of people while out around Toronto. Most are pretty exaggerated as I try to remember what someone looked like after a quick glance and then put that to the page in a gestural way. Others are a bit more in-depth if the person was staying still long enough to study somewhat.

Toronto Zoo Sketches - Dec 2009

2010-03-22T13:12:00.002-04:00

I'd forgotten about some sketches I drew while at the Metro Zoo back in December.

Sketches of one of the swimming turtles. With his head tilted up towards the surface of the water and our low vantage point through the glass, it looked like he was constantly smiling.

A quick sketch and a rough gesture of an orangutan. It's tough to see the forms underneath their long hair.

Royal Winter Fair Sketches - Nov 2009

2010-03-21T09:56:00.005-04:00

I'd forgotten about some sketches I drew while at the Royal Winter Fair back in November. Looking through them again, I think a few turned out pretty good so I figured I'd scan and add them to the gallery here.

I should have written down what type of bird this was. His proportions were really odd, with extra huge legs and a tiny squat neck unlike any bird I've sketched before.

Some quick blue line sketches of two different geese and one of the turkeys. Looking closely at the size and formation of feathers on their bodies, it's far more interesting than you'd think it would be at first glance.

Tatsunoko VS Capcom

2010-03-01T22:58:00.003-05:00

Here's the 3 panel ending artwork for Roll I drew up for the new Tatsunoko VS Capcom: Ultimate All-Stars game released on the Nintendo Wii. Long Vo thumbnailed out every ending for the game, I fleshed out the thumbnail compositions and drew final line art for this one and the colours were handled by Espen Grundetjern. As with a lot of the larger UDON projects, it's a real team effort.

Roll finds herself in a strange hidden laboratory where Huitzil (from Darkstalkers) and Vector (from Star Gladiators) are both sitting, deactivated. She gets them moving again and then uses them as cleaning bots back at Mega Man HQ.

It was an absolute blast being a part of this title.

Monsters & Dames Walkthrough

2010-02-15T16:59:00.009-05:00

Okay,

So here's a step-by-step run through of my process on creating the Monsters & Dames piece I posted up last time. Click on each one for a larger version.

STEP 1: Since this piece is completely digital, I started with just a series of gesture digi-sketch lines trying to come up with a pleasing composition for the figure. It's not about detail or perfect proportion, just a nice sense of flow and some energy to get things started. After a couple attempts, this one seemed to spark something fun and I ran with it.

STEP 2: Starting a brand new layer, I channel a bit of Arthur Rackham and come up with this sprite-ly vampire girl. The dark blue line version is obviously a lot more detailed, but I'm trying to keep that overall energy I had in the rough sketch. Working digital gives me the chance to try some different detailed bits and then discard or merge them as a I go.

STEP 3: Right-handed people tend to lean their lines right and left-handed people vice versa. In my case, when I flipped the piece horizontally I noticed that the entire character and face were skewed to the right and it looked quite wonky. A quick Edit> Transform> Distort adjustment and she's properly balanced. Adding a new Multiply layer as a base grey, I carve out some highlights and add some rough shadows to give myself a rough plan to work from later on. I'm pretty happy with it at this stage and pumped to continue.

STEP 4: Here's the digital inked line art, done in Manga Studio. I like the flowing ink line in the program and it works well to keep the delicate feel I wanted for the piece.

STEP 5: Here, after a few different colour palette options, is my 'Flats' - basic coloured selection areas I use as my base when starting to colour. Whether I want simple cartoon cuts or fully painted work, these broad selection areas of colour give me a template to work from and make selecting and separating elements a breeze later on in the process.

STEP 6: And here, after a few more Overlay, Multiply and Screen layers to create simple colours and light and shadow, is the final. I tweak the final colours in CMYK mode for printing and then, after saving the layered version, I flatten all the layers and output a print-ready TIF file.

Monsters & Dames Pin-Up

2010-02-05T07:11:00.001-05:00

Click for a larger version of the pic

This is my pin-up for Emerald City Comicon's Monsters & Dames 2010 artbook.
The subject matter was open to each artist, as long as we incorporated the title theme - monsters and dames. A monster who is a dame? Sure.

So here's a vampire teen enjoying a quiet moment with some friends, sparkles not included. :)

I've been thoroughly enjoying experimenting with digital inks on the Cintiq and, as usual, quite like the simple elegant look that can come from moody colours and cut shadows.

I'll post a step-by-step up in the next day or two.

Zork- Nomad and Professor

2009-12-11T09:19:00.002-05:00

Here's the nomad, always on the move with some advice about the roads untraveled.

And the Professor, a learned scholar but also a bit haughty.

Zork- Miner and Veteran

2009-12-10T07:21:00.002-05:00

Other projects have kept me very busy and I've fallen behind in updating. Here's some artwork I did a few months ago for Legends of Zork that I hadn't posted up yet.

Here's the Mining Trainer. All those years underground have made him a bit loopy.

Here's the grizzled old veteran, ready with some combat advice if you don't mind paying for his pint of ale.

New Old Zork- Hero 9 and New Icons

2009-12-08T08:10:00.006-05:00

Other projects have kept me very busy and I've fallen behind in updating. Here's some artwork I did a few months ago for Legends of Zork that I haven't posted up yet.

So... now taking the hero past his Guild Master phase is the 'Wizard' phase. Yes, those are a spread of magical Double Fanucci cards at his beck and call. I wanted him to look travelled and capable, instead of the typical feeble wizard with a staff, so I gave him traveling clothes, a magic rod and a scimitar.

Here are 9 new interface icons for the game that I coloured up. Greg Brown did a fantastic job creating simple and iconic symbols that could be scaled small and still be recognizable. Once they were approved I coloured them up, focusing on vibrant tones and rendering that would help retain their clarity. I got a bit carried away with details. At the smaller in-game size most of those details get lost, but at least it's there if they ever want to use the icons bigger later on.

Thoolie

2009-10-31T10:07:00.003-04:00

Here's a Halloween appropriate monster... some offshoot of H.P. Lovecraft's big'un. It seems I'm having fun with the monster stuff lately.

Tentacled Stranger

2009-10-29T23:06:00.002-04:00

More experimentation. This time something rougher and a bit more haphazard... tying in a bit to a creepy Halloween thematic.

"Don' know where that masked tentacled stranger dun came from... but he sat inna corner of the bar, mindin' his own business..."

Iron Giant Commemorative

2009-10-28T08:32:00.009-04:00

(click on the thumbnail pics to see larger versions)

Here's the piece I put together for the Labyrinth's ambitious Iron Giant Project. Have you submitted your Iron Giant-inspired art yet?

I can't believe it's been 10 years since the film was released. I remember exactly where I was when I went to see it in theatres and the effect it had on me was substantial. The quality of the animation, direction, pacing, characters, emotion... it has it all.

This piece is all digital, done on the Cintiq. Here's the process steps:
Step 1: Brainstormed the composition in Photoshop with this ultra loose blue line sketch. Normally I mess around more with multiple ideas but this piece was pretty solidly in my head, so it came together quickly.

Step 2: Looked up actual ref of the Giant to make sure my construction/proportion was accurate and then revised it in Photoshop on a new layer. Took a broader brush and laid down some rough environment planes and ideas for composition.

Step 3: Digitally inked the piece in Manga Studio Ex. From there I exported the vector solid line art as a 600 dpi TIF and laid in the subdued tones in Photoshop.

Cintiq Sketching #2

2009-10-27T08:04:00.005-04:00

More cintiq inking, this one over top of a monster sketch I did a couple weeks ago at a Toronto Drink & Draw get together.

I've never felt confident dropping blacks on my traditionally inked pieces, so having the ability to try an area and then wipe it out if it doesn't work is exciting. Strangely, even though I had the ability to back things up, I barely used it... just knowing it's there gave me confidence to place the black areas better.

Here's the original rough sketch:

I have a few other monster sketches from that night, so I may ink more of them soon. This was a fun exercise.

Cintiq Sketching #1

2009-10-26T15:28:00.004-04:00

I know it's been quite a while since I've posted up any artwork. Job(s) have been really busy and I've been juggling all kinds of crazy stuff.

I finally bought a new tablet. My old one, an original Intuos, started dying after 9 faithful years of service. So, I finally retired it and took a dive into the Cintiq 12WX to go along with my new desktop machine. It's taken me a few days to get the hang of it, but now I'm starting to feel comfortable and am enjoying the new challenge.

Here's a little doodle I digitally inked up as a way to practice working with the new tablet. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. The freedom of inking with confidence and no mess with the saving grace of an undo option is quite amazing.

Here's the original rough sketch:

And a zoom in on some detail of the little astronaut:

Zork- Pirates VS Ninjas

2009-08-24T08:59:00.004-04:00

Here's a brand new pair of designs for the Legends of Zork video game.

Jolt/Activision contacted me about doing up some limited edition 'costumes' for players to buy, this time focusing on the age-old rivalry of Pirates VS Ninjas. Here are the male & female costumes. They're available in the game under Perks.

Colours on these two were done by UDON wonder-colorist Espen Grundetjern. He was staying at my place for a week before moving to British Columbia and offered to pitch in on the project. Awesome stuff.

And yes, the male pirate has a bottle of "Yo, Ho, Ho" brand rum. Corny, I know. :)

Zork- Male Hero 7- Celebrity

2009-07-31T16:02:00.004-04:00

Jolt has started incorporating the newest round of artwork our team created into Legends of Zork, along with a slew of content updates, guilds, bases and full blown quests. I'm impressed with the evolution of the game and the commitment they have to adding content.

So... now taking the hero past his dragon slaying phase is the 'Celebrity'. Yes, that is a hellhound he has on a leash there.

Zork- Demons & Dragons

2009-07-29T01:17:00.006-04:00

Wrapping up my Zork creature posts, here are 3 of my favorites - the Possessing Demon, the Organ Grinder and the Dragon.

The demon rides its victim, forcing them to do its bidding.

The Organ Grinder is a classic Zork creature I had a lot of fun redesigning. It's a demonic organ grinder musician that also grinds your organs. Good stuff.

Unlike the baby dragon slain here by our Hero, this adult dragon is a big'un.

Zubby's Darkstalkers Tribute Pin-Up

2009-07-10T14:29:00.002-04:00

I finally got around to posting up my Darkstalkers Tribute art piece of Hsien-Ko, the Chinese ghost. For those of you who don't know the character, she has all kinds of weapons and silly items up her sleeves that she attacks enemies with.

Like with my Street Fighter Tribute pic from last year we were free to interpret the character our own way, which was a blast.

We're still taking online orders for the limited edition hardcover edition of the book for another 3 days, so if you want a copy and aren't attending Otakon, San Diego Comicon, Toronto Fan Expo or PAX, this is your last chance.

Zork- Skeleton and Bloodworms

2009-07-07T08:21:00.004-04:00

Two more Zork creatures, the Skeleton and a trio of squiggly Bloodworms.

Zork Video Trailer

2009-06-26T15:44:00.002-04:00

Jolt Online has just released a Legends of Zork video trailer prominently featuring artwork from my team and I. Check it out:

Zork Creatures!

2009-06-26T13:38:00.005-04:00

3 more Zork-ian creatures to add to the pile. :)

The Ratant, which is, shockingly, a mixture of rat and ant.

The Windcat is a rapid-moving feline that's lighter than air.

The Nabiz is a scary little mongrel of teeth and claws who can tear through flesh like a miniature tornado.

Zork- 2 More Creature Collaborations

2009-06-18T21:36:00.004-04:00

These two Zork creatures were designed and drawn by my pal Greg Brown. I added the colours.

The Ghoul is a fantasy staple, roaming graveyards in search of tasty munch-ables.

The Giant Corbie is a bird with an attitude problem. The Corbie has pounced on a grotch... which we previously showed you a mutant version of here.

Zork- Back With More Creatures

2009-06-15T06:51:00.006-04:00

Sorry for the long gap in posting... work has been nuts and I've been on the road for a few business trips, getting new projects organized.

Anyways, here are three more Zork-ian creatures to get the momentum going again - the Scarecrow, Snow Wight and Eldritch Vapour.

Zork- Male Hero 5 & 6

2009-05-28T21:00:00.006-04:00

Okay, here's the 5th and 6th stage evolutions of the Zork character, from Explorer through to Hero.

This stage, all decked out with classy duds and posing with the slain dragon at his feet was a ball to put together.

Zork- 5 Creature Collaborations

2009-05-26T19:55:00.011-04:00

These four Zork creatures were designed by my good friend Julie Faulkner. I did the line clean up and colours on them. I've never collaborated with Jules on artwork before, so this was an extra fun team-up.

The Luck Sucker is a genie who brings all kinds of bad luck and evil to his games of fate. I had a ball making him look extra vicious and I like how the dice turned out, actually.

A grotch is a kind of cute rodent, but this is a mutant yellow grotch, so he's been crossed with some strange reptilian parts and insect eyes.

The Roc is a classic fantasy bird. This one is colourful and has some peacock and ostrich-esque elements to go along with its hawk-like head.

Giant creatures are another fantasy staple. Our Giant Toad is freakish and zoned out of its mind.

Last but not least, the Rebel Nymphs. These faerie folk don't help plants grow or save forest animals. They're more like a band of jerk faeries who rough people up for their shiny stuff. Gang Nymphs.

Zork- Male Hero 3 & 4

2009-05-24T08:31:00.005-04:00

Sorry for the posting delay. It's been a busy couple of weeks.

On the left is the 3rd stage 'Adventurer' evolution of the original Zork hero design. He's not a professional yet but at least he finally has some armor and a weapon to keep him safe. The weather vane on the helmet is completely unnecessary, of course, but that's kind of the point.

The launch illo I did up reflects this phase, though in that pic he doesn't have a helmet or sword yet.

The 4th stage of hero evolution is below. This 'Treasure Hunter' phase is meant to bring to mind Antharia Jack, a hero from the old Zork: Grand Inquisitor game. He's all swagger/Indiana Jones and gets by on speed and luck instead of steel plate or chainmail. In the rough phase this was probably my least favorite of the hero designs but, after adjusting the pose and taking extra care in the line art step, it's now one of the ones I'm most happy with.

Zork- NPC Trio

2009-05-17T10:32:00.006-04:00

3 more Zork-ian NPCs to share here- the Idiot, the Heavy and the Duelist.

The Idiot on the left looks like yours truly... I figured it would be an appropriate cameo. :)

By this point in the art process for the project the designs were flying out pretty fast and furious. It felt good to plow away on a variety of characters with only a brief description to start with - enough defined to work with but still lots of wide open space to get creative.

Zork- Yet More NPCs

2009-05-15T07:42:00.004-04:00

You know what feels really good? Having enough artwork banked away from this Zork project that I can browse through a directory and decide what I feel like posting up today. It's been so long since I had that much art banked away because I'm almost always the person assigning artwork instead of being the one doing it.

Anyways, 3 more NPCs today for you to check out. The Assassin, whose squinting eyes I like quite a bit, the Rogue, cheesy grin and all, and the Engineer, who looks a wee bit influenced by Dr. Horrible.

Zork- Guttersnipe, Yipple and Surmin

2009-05-14T18:53:00.005-04:00

Really, really busy lately but I'll try to get more art posted up this week.

Zork creatures!

Okay, here are the Guttersnipe bird, rabid Yipple and the stinky Surmin to tide you over for now.

Jim's Little Photoshop Booklet

2009-05-08T13:16:00.004-04:00

This is the cover to the little booklet I'll be selling at TCAF this weekend.

I've been wanting to do a tutorial book for a while, so pulling this together for the show is quite a thrill for me. Inside is 28 pages of colouring techniques, file prep and general working suggestions for Photoshop-ery that I hope people will find useful.

Here's the full illo that uses the space kid from that cover:

I go through a step-by-step process with this illo on scanning, prepping the line art, building Flats, custom brushes and more.

Uh-Oh the Crow

2009-05-05T22:00:00.003-04:00

I contributed a little comic strip to the Beguiling's wonderful kid friendly Comics Festival Free Comic Book Day giveaway issue.

Here it is:

If you're at TCAF this weekend snag a copy and I'll sign it for you.

Zork- 3 More NPCs

2009-05-03T10:35:00.005-04:00

Three more Non-Player Character designs from Zork. The Accountant, the Soldier and the Wizard. They're pretty straight forward so that their role is instantly recognizable.

The chainmail the Soldier is wearing was made with a quickly-built custom brush in Photoshop. Once he's shrunk down that pattern looks pretty convincing as chainlinks even though it's just a series of ellipses spaced out.

Xtreme Dungeon Mastery Colouring

2009-04-30T10:00:00.006-04:00

My good friend Howard Tayler is compiling a fun book of dungeon mastering advice with classic fantasy/RPG author Tracy Hickman called Xtreme Dungeon Mastery. He asked me if I'd be up for colouring a cover piece he drew and I happily accepted the assignment. He wanted a simple cartoony look, much like my Zork stuff.

Here's the result of our team-up:

Working with someone else's line art is always a unique challenge. You always want to "plus" the work - adding to it, never taking away. Howard has a voracious fanbase that loves his artwork so I wanted to ensure that I didn't render it past a point of being recognizably his.

Calgary Expo '09 Charity Piece

2009-04-23T15:19:00.006-04:00

I'm flying out tomorrow morning for the Calgary Comic Expo, one of my favorite shows of the con season.

Every year they have a Western-themed art book. The sales proceeds from the book go to charity, so it's a fantastic way to get signatures from the guests and also support a great cause.

Here's my contribution this year.
ROUGH:

FINAL:

I'll have art prints of this pic (and my Darkstalkers Tribute piece) for sale at the con, as well as the usual spread of UDON books and posters for sale.

Here are links to my past Calgary Comic Expo Western pics:
2006
2007
2008

Zork- Female Hero 1

2009-04-22T09:57:00.004-04:00

Once the Zork project was underway we decided to create more Hero designs players could choose to represent them in the game. I designed 4 female Heroes, all built from a similar pose and outfit as the male original.

First I digitally adjusted the Male Hero design, nip and tucking elements, changing the proportion and completely re-doing the lower body to make the character female.

Since their bodies were going to be identical, it was a bit of a challenge coming up with faces that looked distinctive but also fit with the body pose and didn't seem detached or inappropriate. I like how they turned out, especially given the limitations.

Zork- Store Keeper

2009-04-18T23:04:00.010-04:00

More rough sketches for the Zork NPCs.

When things were on a roll those rough versions ended up looking almost exactly the same as the completed final, which was surpri- singly smooth. I had a really clear vision of how I wanted them to look.

I've previously posted up the Magic and Weapon Shop Keepers, so here's the General Goods seller.

His neck is giraffe-worthy.

Zork- Male Hero 2

2009-04-16T22:26:00.004-04:00

Here's the base hero evolving into the 2nd stage as a thrill seeker/tourist in search of adventure. That strange mix of modern and fantasy elements kick in again - a Hawaiian shirt and camera alongside swashbuckler medieval boots.

I worried that the Art Director wouldn't like his face being darkened by shadows (even if it's appropriate given the position of the lantern) but thankfully it was fully approved. I added a rim of reflected light to help bring out the forms a wee bit, just in case.

Zork- Dorn Beast

2009-04-15T21:18:00.005-04:00

Didn't I say I was going to post up less creatures?

On the left is the original ref image of the Dorn Beast from the 'Field Guide to the Creatures of Frobozz'.

They mention young ones and fully grown Dorn Beasts, so I decided that my version would be a more grown up and dangerous Dorn - larger body, more eyes, bigger fangs and in line with the art style we established for 'Legends of Zork' but still drawing influence from the original ref pic.

I hope you like my new version.

Zork- Game Interface Icons

2009-04-13T18:09:00.005-04:00

Here are the 26 game interface icons I coloured from the Legends of Zork online game.

Greg Brown did a fantastic job creating simple and iconic symbols that could be scaled small and still be very recognizable. Once they were approved I coloured them up, focusing on vibrant tones and rendering that would help retain their clarity.

I got a bit carried away with details like the wood grain, reflected rim light on the metal, stitching on the boot and texture of the coconut husk. At the smaller in-game size most of those details get lost, but at least it's there if they ever want to use the icons bigger later on.

My favorites are the bleeding heart for health and the burlap bag of coins.

Zork and Tutorial- Dustbunny and Line Art Technique

2009-04-12T08:49:00.015-04:00

Happy Easter. As a special Easter treat I thought I'd put up a quick little tutorial to explain how I prep my line art for the animation look with softly coloured lines.

Step 1: Here's the Dustbunny creature line art from Zork. I take that scan of the line art and use Image> Adjustments> Levels to set the white and black levels of the piece. Then I'll use a small white brush or the Eraser tool to remove any extraneous specs from the scan or touch up any line art mistakes.

Step 2: If you haven't already, use Image> Mode> Grayscale to set the image to varying tones of greys. From there, click on the Channels pane and, while holding the Ctrl key, click on the Gray layer. Doing that will select everything that's not line art on the page.

Step 3: Go to Select> Inverse and you'll now have all of the line art selected by itself. The lighter your line art is, the more transparent the selection will be, retaining that softer look. Since I usually do my line art in pencil, this jives really well with how I work.

Step 4: While your line art selection area is still active, create a new Layer above the original line art one and use the Bucket Fill to fill it all in solid black.

If this is for print, you can switch your file mode to CMYK and make this a 100% K black layer so the printer heads will only hit it once - making it nice and sharp.

Step 5: Delete the original base layer and what you're left with is your line art floating on transparency and all ready to go.

Use the Lock Transparency option on this layer and you can now easily use all sorts of coloured brushes for softer line art colours that blend it all together or help create cool effects like smoke or fire.

I've actually automated the above process with a single Photoshop Action so that once I have my cleaned up line art ready I hit the appropriate Action button and it's all done lickety split.

On the left is the final Dustbunny creature image. Since he's made of dirt (not chocolate unfortunately) I wanted lines lighter than his base tones to give him a blended dark look. With the line art separated from the white of the page and the transparency locked, picking a line art colour and filling it in was a snap.

I've covered the same technique in older tutorials, but I thought it might be good to have this aspect on its own and step-by-step so there's no confusion about the process.

I hope you found this tutorial useful. Let me know.

Zork- Trainer and the Drunk

2009-04-11T20:34:00.006-04:00

On the left, the Trainer from Legends of Zork. She's the upbeat lady who teaches you new skills at each home base.

Zork has a fun mix of modern-isms alongside medieval fantasy staples, so we could get away with t-shirts and whistles in the same spot as polearms and spears. From the looks of it she'd even train you how to fight with an umbrella.

The Drunk teaches skills as well, but his methods are unorthodox. He focuses more on the school of hard knocks and a swig of liquid courage than a fitness regiment and positive attitude.
Whatever works, I guess. :)

Zork- Brogmoid and Hellhound

2009-04-10T07:23:00.008-04:00

More Zork creatures. I know you must be shocked. Next week I think I'll post NPCs instead so that this blog isn't quite so creature-centric.

To the left is the Deranged Brogmoid. Playing with the exaggerated shapes that made up the designs was really fun stuff.

Perspective-wise the ear on the far side of his head isn't quite positioned properly, but it does make for a better silhouette. With one-off cartoon illos like this you can get away with little stuff like that in a way you wouldn't as much with actual animation.

I like his flabby folds bunching up as he lifts the rock.

The Hellhound is extra mangy and his mouth is packed with huge teeth jutting out at different angles. I could probably have made it more demonic looking, but since it wasn't a high level creature I figured it wouldn't be too horrifying. It still looks dangerous, just more of a desperate kind of dangerous.

Looking at these two creatures and quite a few of the other ones I've posted so far, it seems Frobozzica's eco system has some serious dental problems.

Drink & Draw 2- Sketches

2009-04-09T10:36:00.004-04:00

Another Drink & Draw get-together last night. Good company and great conversation.

The astronaut kid on the left was a ballpoint pen special. I like how he turned out (though the line tangent with his pack and arm cuff is a bit annoying upon further reflection). I may colour him up later on and see how it turns out.

Otherwise, just random doodles - creatures, critters and heads. Next time I'm going to try and put together something more substantial.

Zork- Pitched Battle

2009-04-08T07:22:00.006-04:00

Here's artwork for the 'Pitched Battle' encounter in Zork. Your character runs across a battle already in progress and has to decide which side they'll join.

This was the second last piece of art we did up for the project, so by this point I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted right from the get-go. Inferring the army of people behind them keeps the focus clear and makes it easy to identify even when shrunk down for in-game use.

The final colour version has barely any changes from the rough this time. Sometimes things come together clearly right from start to finish.

In other news, if you're heading to your local comic shop today you'll see the ever-massive latest edition of Image's Popgun anthology on the shelves.

I've written two stories that appear in this volume, collaborating with unbelievably kick ass artists Chris Stevens and Jason Ibarra. Look for 'Gotcha' on page 159 and 'One In Every Box' on page 167.

Zork- Horror Steps

2009-04-07T06:54:00.010-04:00

Shockingly, another Zork creature :)

Okay, but for this one I'll show some actual progression. The skeletal Horror was a late addition to the game art and it was fun taking relatively realistic anatomy and distorting it into this monster.

At the start of the project my roughs were quite tight and refined, but as the project rolled on everyone was pretty comfortable with the process and they trusted us to make things look sharp in the final. In turn, some of my roughs were pretty rushed and, especially looking back on them now, not exactly wonderful representations of how it would come together as a finished design. Still, the overall proportion and posing is there and they gave it the thumb's up.

The finished line art is a lot stronger. This stage is done in pencil and darkened with Image > Adjustments > Levels in Photoshop to get a pretty solid clean line. The anatomy is a bit wonky in spots and I cheated out the ribs on the far side to give the creature a better silhouette.

Here's the final coloured version. As with pretty much every Zork image we created, there's a simple series of cut cartoon-style shadows used to define the main light source and create a sense of volume. This one has added mood with the orange glow illuminating his face and nearby bones, which also thankfully kept the creature from being a boring single colour of bone. The glowing energy crackles in his mouth were a last second addition and I like how they turned out.

Zork- Fanucci Suit Icons

2009-04-06T07:22:00.013-04:00

One of the most fun parts of the Zork project was helping with re-envisioning the Double Fanucci card designs. Double Fanucci is the fictional card game in the world of Zork with 15 suits and 9 special face cards.

So here's how the card symbols looked in their original graphical interpretation from the Zork games:

The suits in order top to bottom, left to right are:
Books, Bugs, Ears, Faces, Fromps,
Hives, Inkblots, Lamps, Mazes, Plungers,
Rain, Reapers, Time, Tops and Zurfs

Greg Brown did a fantastic job taking those original simple but effective graphics and fleshing them out into something far more detailed without losing their iconic feeling. Once his line art was approved, I coloured them up.

Here's an example of how a set of numbered cards from a particular suit looks, in this case the 'Bugs' suit, from 'naught', 1-9, through to 'infinite':

Reinterpreting this kind of classic material is nerve wracking stuff but when it goes well it's really exciting. I hope you like how they turned out as much as I do.

Zork- Kobold and Surmin

2009-04-05T09:26:00.006-04:00

Two more Zork creatures. Both of these are low level ones, so they're small and more annoying looking than deadly.

Zork- Magic Shop and Equipment Shop

2009-04-04T07:43:00.005-04:00

Two of the Shopkeeper NPCs I designed for Legends of Zork. They're very fantasy cliché but I had fun doing them up. Sometimes it's okay to go with the expected when you want things to be instantly recognizable.

Drink & Draw 1- Sketches

2009-04-03T15:59:00.006-04:00

Francis Manapul, ass kicking penciler, organized a Drink & Draw get together in downtown Toronto on Wednesday night and I swung by to join the festivities.

Good conversation and fun sketching ensued. It was nice hanging out and not worrying about deadline stuff for one night. Everyone there was incredibly nice and easy going.

To the left is a Lil' Hellboy I zapped out with brushpen and col-erase.

Below is a page full of weird creatures. My favorite one is probably the puffball-backed critter who's yelling "Zis is our mating stance!! Yessss -".

Zork- Troll, Cyclops and Hangman

2009-04-03T09:36:00.009-04:00

More creatures! The Troll above was the first monster completed for the game. When I did the rough sketch and blew out the proportion on his face I thought for sure the Art Director would reject it. Instead, they loved it and that bolstered me to try even weirder things as we went along.

Since the creatures are displayed quite small in the interface, the important part was making sure they were visually clear with an easy to read silhouette and simple cut shadows to define the forms and their position in space.

Late in the development when I did up the Cyclops and Hangman, I was feeling a lot more confident about using more colours and a bit of texture to help define things as well. Looking at them here in the same space, the Troll's club and the Cyclop's club are quite different.

The Hangman was pure fun. As soon as I read the description I had a pretty clear concept on how I wanted him to look - beady bloodshot eye poking out from the hood with massive hairy arms and little squat legs. His pimply stubble pleases me for some reason.

If you're liking this Zork artwork, go to Greg's blog to check out his posts starting up all about the many locations he designed for the game.

Zork- Frobgoblin, Ogre and Cruel Puppet

2009-04-02T09:30:00.007-04:00

Since I have all this Zork art I'm going to stretch it out, putting up one or two pieces every day to keep this blog updating regularly with new material.

The creatures were the most fun part of the project. Since their proportion could vary so much it was a great way for me to push myself design-wise.

For all of these Zork pieces I sketched them up in blue pencil rough first, then cleaned them up in pencil and finally a simple colouring pass in Photoshop.

I'll try to post up a quickie tutorial soon about a fast way to do the colour holds on the line art (ie. making the line art softer colours instead of the grey/black pencil line)

Zork- Male Hero 1

2009-04-01T12:44:00.001-04:00

Here's the first completed character design I did for Legends of Zork. It's the hero starting off as a freshly fired salesperson about to stumble forth in search of adventure. The client wanted him to look awkward but still appealing.

Since this was the first design we took through to completion, I spent a lot of time getting it right. Once we got further into the project and the style was well established, we became bolder with our approaches to shape and line.

On the upper left hand side is a colour palette so the developers could use those kinds of colours in the game interface and advertising to make it all hang together.