Current WIP and future plans for the project

A current WIP of a small painting I wanted to do of a mechanical alien. I plan to experiment with doing some quite strong lighting in this, giving me a chance to improve and experiment. 

Under advice from Steve Goss, I also started looking at updating and designing versions of real vehicles to see how they would look in 20 years or so time. This first attempt is via using a Challenger 2 MBT. I was going to take this original sketch and draw it out better in a different position, then using the similar painting techniques as Scott Robertson to finish it.

This small sketch originally came about while testing out the Cintiq tablet and getting used to it. I liked the design for a construction or demolition robot and wanted to see if I could refine the design in the future. After taking Steve Goss' advice about trying to link my designs to real world vehicles, I started looking at JCB and CAT excavators.

The design is currently a WIP but it is something that I definately want to follow through to a finished product. 

Im hoping to build 3 very high poly models, mainly focusing on mechanical and hard surface for the designs. Along side these three main models, I will also produce a selection of concept work that will be leading up to the finalised designs. 

Sketch Work

These are a few sketches from my sketchbook that I have been working on, There are multiple mech and armour designs, including showing mechanical workings and motions of certain designs. A couple of these I decided to also give some quick colour and shading to by using photoshop. I am hoping to add more detail to them via a full painting sometime, in the same vein as some of Scott Robertson's work.

Marauder Painting

For one of my first images I decided to paint a re-design of the Marauder Battlemech from Mechwarrior using the same techniques as Alex Iglesias, primarily as an exercise to try and improve my 2D painting. From watching a timelapse of him painting, he primarily uses a silhouette and layers the gradient shades over the silhouette to build up the shape.

From 4:50 in this video, the timelapse shows his process.

I found a perspective grid that fit what I needed to paint the mech,beginning with finding reference pictures I could use. The image is still a WIP, as I am struggling to get the mech painted cleanly. I did also start on a non Mechwarrior design, trying to use a slightly more loose painting technique, yet I am not really happy with how the image is turning out.

I hope to come back to these and finalise both images some time, as I believe both have potential, and both can help me with my work and painting technique.

Preliminary research

My research originally started with looking at 3D Artists like Vitaly Bulgarov and Tor Frick. Both have worked in film and games creating extremely detailed and functional looking models of robots, vehicles and weaponry.

With Tor Frick, I looked primarily at his work he did on Wolfenstein: The New Order. The technology level of the game is not too high, being set a while after World War 2, so it shows a lot of mechanical moving parts, as well as panel lines and rivets.

For Vitaly Bulgarov I looked at his Black Phoenix Project. This was created over 7 days using some pre-made parts for the robots as well as custom made ones to create seven distinct vehicles and robots. In a contrast to Tor Frick, his work is very futuristic looking, with clean panel lines .etc.

I also had a look at a few concept artists. Scott Robertson, Sparth, Alex Iglesias and also Vitaly Bulgarov's 2D work. They all have a diverse range of styles and ways of designing and working. It gives me a few options to try and play with when working on 2D work, and thinking about how I can try and update and improve my painting by using similar techniques to them.

3rd Year project pitch and ideas

With this year being our final year of work I originally wanted to do something pretty special with it. Original plans were to make a small wave defense fighting game in Unity to early Xbox 360 level graphics. I originally came up with a set of concept images and a prototype 3D model for the player character which I had planned to build on and improve to be used for the game.

After talking to Ewan, Steve and Tanguy, I was asked what I primarily wanted to be in the industry, which is to be a 2d or 3D mechanical artist. With their advice I decided to focus down from doing a small game to work on portfolio pieces such as high poly models and high detail concept work.