The Technique Solidifies

My poor blog, how I have neglected you. But alas, I have been working away diligently into 2013, with just a couple things to show for it. It's been an interesting start to the year, with a few personal realisations coupled with growth and understanding as I transit into a more mature, grounded adult and begin to know and understand myself as an individual even more so then I did before.

But who cares! We want to hear about the art.

The art, oh the art. Well actually it's going pretty well, and I'm enjoying the comfy ride for now to be honest. Whatever it was I stressed over, colour, value, anatomy, etc, although it's still not the definition of perfection, it seems to have sunken in through practice and dedication. Until that is, my feathers are ruffled by the realty that there is still such a gargantuan smorgasbord of things still left to learn, great powers still yet to be harnessed.

There's a few main paintings I've been working on, I just need to kick my ass into gear to see those finished (which I'll post when they're finely completed). Besides that it's been lots of character designs and a bit of practice here and there. Character designs that I've been coming up with during my class demos. I feel now that I have a very solid work flow, one that I am comfortable and happy with.

This work flow, for me, was something I needed to figure out for myself. I could have emulated someone else, but my belief is that an artists workflow has a lot to do with their personal style. Because it takes a while to develop a technique that you're truly comfortable with, a technique that you know 99% of the time you'll be able to execute with confidence. Which really, when you think about it is so important when it comes to working in a studio or as a freelance artist. You don't want to be sitting there trying to figure out how you're going to construct your idea, that should be the easy part, the idea itself is what you want to be focusing on. Well, later on at least, once you've got those fundamentals down. In the end, the fundamentals, the technique, the work flow, these are all just tools that you're able to use to present an idea. Know how to use the tools, and your only obstacle then is, figuring out the idea you want to construct with them.

So workflow, and technique. Pretty much the same thing. But for now, how did I solidify it? In my opinion I believe it had a lot to do with me being able to simplify the complications of drawing, colors, values, painting and rendering in my mind. I took some of the stress, and importance off of me to try to understand more and more about this stuff, and just accepted that the knowledge I have is enough, and now I need to use it; I need to put it into action. Because otherwise at what point would we ever say that we've learned enough, now lets start to create!? We wouldn't because we're artists, and every artist knows this journey is always expanding as we continue to climb to greater heights. But in realizing that, we need to do something with our growth, with that ever expanding knowledge. And in doing this, the knowledge begins to come, not so much from an outside source, but from within, we start to teach our selves through experience. Occasionally, we'll go back to second hand knowledge, to studying the world around us and refreshing our minds with the information that outside sources provide, it'd be foolish not to. If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten. But again, there comes that time, when alot of learning comes from within, tying all that we know in together with ourselves.

Goblin Huntress

Simone

Tentilize

Assassin Wizard

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

Space Marines

Made up these new concepts for the Luna marines I’m going to use in my next 3D scene. Someone needs to fruitlessly fight off the hideous Muntkey I posted a few months back. I’m thinking I’ll go the third one; it does after all seem to be the choice of the people.

Space Marines

I noticed my motivation and drive recently slipping away as the all too tempting yet subtle procrastination began to take up more and more precious hours of would be productivity. I just didn’t feel like doing any art work. Ah yes, this battle is known to many creative souls, the battle to keep up the energy and motivation to constantly create, a battle that must be won if one hopes to keep a job in that which he loves most. But it’s always so hard to push yourself when you just aren’t in the mood to do something.

Here’s what I discovered though. Is that, if one does bite the bullet and really sit down and just push themselves to do the work or practice they know they need to do, that drive and motivation slowly starts to regenerate, at least in my experience. It’s odd, and it kinda sucks because in a way you need the right kind of motivation in the first place in order to express your creativity, but I do have a theory. I think, at the end of the day, as people, we want to conserve energy. We want to be lazy in other words, doing only the things that need to be done and not the things that should be done. Ideally, that’s the way we work, at least biologically. But, the brain can be tricked into overcoming this. How? Well by sitting down and literally forcing yourself to do something, after a while your brain will stop resisting and actually want to do it. Your brain will stop resisting because it wants to take the easy way out, it wants to be lazy and just go with the flow, so it’ll do as it’s told after a while. The brain says to itself, “hey, this guy keeps on drawing despite thinking he doesn’t want to… He actually does want to, and he’s being stubborn, so I’ll accommodate that and stop resisting, cause that’s the easier alternative.”

Okay. It’s a bit of a crazy way of looking at it, but it seems to work for me and maybe for you (if you too happen to be going through a dry patch). Once I jump in the deep end and just get into it, sure I’m not gonna suddenly change my mind over half hour or even an hour, give me a night though, or a couple of days and I’ll be right in the zone again. Our brain, basically loves to do what it does most. So if you haven’t drawn or whatever in a while, you’re not gonna feel like it until you do (or that sudden burst of inspiration you’ve been waiting months for eventually rocks up).

Enough ranting. And onto some awesome news! Getting a new PC 4 times more powerful then the PC I have now, meaning 4 times the resolution and 4 times the polygons! A much needed upgrade that has been on the agenda for a while now. This also means more video tutorials aswell, especially over the Summer break. So keep a look out for those.

Until next time.

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

My New Friend

This is a new piece I finished up last week. I've made some recent iterations to my work flow, thanks to my recent studies on color, lighting and value. Pleased to say I am happy with the result. "Progress equals happiness", as quoted by Tony Robbins, seems more relevant then ever as I continue to see my work evolve and become more refined.

As to what this work is about? I'll let you interpret that for yourself. I like to create art work that is suggestive of something disturbing or sinister, and yet at the same time provide no real explanation as to what it's truly about. Mystery should remain hidden in the dark where it belongs, and the fear kept alive. There is an innocence to my work, broken only by the assumptions brought about in the way others might perceive it. For it is only as dark as one's imagination would dare venture.

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

Muntkey Design

I've been designing some new characters for Cradle (soon I'll have to change that name due to the discovery of another game holding the same title). I've dubbed this guy the Muntkey. He used to be a monkey before the virus took control and made him nothing more then a base host from which the virus would biologically evolve into an entirely new alien species. The Muntkey however is more intelligent then most of the infected, hunting in packs and strategically organizing tactics to sniff out their prey and fend off other predators out of their territory. A new standard of intelligence among the infected is beginning to peak it's head, and as evolution takes hold on the wretched creatures they will become more smarter, capable and dangerous.

New Muntkey Design

Had to go through some changes with this character before I reached the final concept art design (and there may still possibly be more designs iterations to come). Originally  I found that he looked a little too much like a monkey, there were no real standout features, other then a few blistering boils, basically looked like your average zombie monkey... But I wanted more then that for the Muntkey. I wanted this creature to look as though it had been taken over and modified, not just on the surface, but as if the entire structure of the original creature itself had been distorted into something else. I wanted it to look alien, yet at the same time, still relatable to a primate. I do hope I've achieved that. I am a lot more happier with this new design, it's captured a lot more accurately what I wanted to go for.

The original Muntkey design. Too much monkey not enough infectious alien virus!

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

Still Practicing Environments

Working on some more environments. Still quite speedy, haven't spent too much time adding in details yet. I guess that's what I need to work on next.

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

More Environment Concepts

 Did up some more environment concepts last night, just to keep up the practice. For these I spent a little more time adding in detail, but the colors do not seem as vibrant as in the previous speed paintings. This could be because there was not a strong, direct light source in them as such, no vibrant yellows or oranges from the sun, and no harsh cast shadows. This is probably due to being too careful.

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/

Jumping Headfirst into Color and Environment Concepts

Over the last week or so I've made it a point to face my fears and look them dead in the face - Color, Lighting and Environment Art. It can be intimidating, trying to become good at something you've always struggled with and never really understood. Of course I knew the basic gist of these subjects, knew the theory, watched the video tutorials by masters of the subject such as Feng Zhu and Scott Drake, but this alone cannot improve one's practical skills and unfortunately I never really took the time to bite the bullet, and really sit down and put the information I'd gathered into practice. There's no way around it. If you want to be good at something (which I did desperately want) you have to practice it, and make the mistakes you need to make in order to learn and get better.

Well, although my progress has not been astounding, it is still progress and a big leap from where I left off in my eyes. I hope to practice more of these environment speed paints, along with the lighting setups and color - Wish me luck.

This was the first set of exercises I did. Focused mainly on lighting set up here and how different colored lighting might effect the color of the objects themselves. Also this is my first set of environments, not the best, but it was a start.

This was the second exercise which primarily focused on color and quick environment concepts. I used a different method here to the first few environments - This method closely follows the technique concept artist Feng Zhu teaches. Also my first time properly making use of a color palette - Funnily enough I never really understood the concept of a palette or how to use one as dumb as that sounds. My understanding has improved a lot through doing these. I took about 15-20 min on each of these.

 If anyone out there has some feedback or suggestions on areas where I can improve, or just a few tips that might be able to help me out I'm am eager to take on board your pearls of wisdom.

http://www.claytonbartonartist.com/