Other Summer Stuff

Here's some illustrations I did earlier this summer.

(The descriptions to them are on my deviantArt, which I finally updated.)

(And sorry for dumping this much into one post. I don't want to exceed the weight limit and break Oondu... 0_o)

And here are a couple speedpaintings from life:

10 mins each

About 2.5 hours

And I fixed a lot of the little problems in this one. (At least I hope I did!):

...and refined this one a bit more:

...POP! (Does this count as mechanical?) - NOW ENLARGEABLE!

Another thing that isn't really done, but is getting there. I'd say 85%. (The boy looks like he's made of wood, hehe. I intend to smooth him out more.)

I like the idea of combining whimsical with mechanical. But no, I didn't do this for the theme, I guess it just happened to work out that way, hehe. I'm glad I did this because the idea of cartoonizing stuff really kinda scared me, but doing this made me have more confidence about it. And no, I wasn't really going for "cute" though. I kind of like the way the boy's face is kind of "homely" in the conventional sense of the word.

The handles that the boy pulls direct the rudder fin in the back, while his pedalling translates to the motion of the propellers. Same for the mean neighbor girl in the pedal-powered glider. She just pulls down on her handles to change the angle of her glider.

The pedal powered glider was inspired by NASA's Gossamer Albatross and Condor. (The "spike" on the chasing glider is actually serves as a counter-balance on the original craft.) The balloon follows the concept of the White Dwarf pedal-powered Zeppelin. But they're only very loosly based on them-- I just wanted to have some foundation in reality.

This was rendered mostly in Painter. I didn't import any textures or patterns but instead made them using Painter's duel-loading brushes and the selection tool. I didn't use a single vector in the whole thing-- I guess I just like the subtle irregularities that the lasso tool makes.

The composition/values are bothering me, still. I'm open to suggestions on these things.

I had someone tell me that they thought the blimp's perspective was off because the propeller was off to the side. There are actually supposed to be 2 propellers on each side, and we're only seeing the one. So what did you guys think? An erroneous 1 or a sound 2?

Also, bear in mind that the background is not finished yet. I realize it's kind of confusing and choppy right now.

WoW Players in Restaurant

Hey, I was hoping I could get some opinions on here about this piece while it's still a WIP. (I still see a bunch of stuff to do with it but perhaps I should just let it go soon.) For example, is it necessary to add anything to the background?

Anyway, it was a challenge incorporating those complex shapes of the armor and getting it to read.

[It's based on World of Warcraft, but it's not exactly "fan art". It's actually a conceptual portrayal of WoW players (in this case, a warrior and a mage) who talk (usually brag) nonstop about their characters-- in first person, in public places. I thought it would be fun to show them AS their characters. The gear is accurate-- mostly tier 7.5 raid stuff.]

By the way, I don't play WoW anymore, but I used to. My brother still plays, so I kind of keep up with it and dip into it now and then. But he has a couple pretty hardcore friends I modeled this after.

Outdoor Vaccum Cleaner

This was my Industrial Design of the Week entry. The topic was "vacuum cleaner." I was trying to think out of the box a bit.

I call it "RuggedVac".

It's an outdoor vacuum cleaner for people who own large yards (the kinds of people who would be able and willing to spend the money for it in the first place). It uses powerful suction to pick up all loose organic debris in lawns. It could have different modes, like "fall leaf" mode, or "stray mulch" mode.

All the debris it picks up passes through an elementary grinder that's there just to get the bits to fit in the bag better, as well as to keep anything from getting stuck.

Hope the labeling on the work explains the rest.

Drawn in loose free-hand perspective, rendered with micron pen, finished in PS.

If you have a CA account, why not vote? Here's the link to it: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=161621

Only 3 other people entered this time :-\ I guess people would rather draw robots than appliances.

First post!

Thanks for the invite, Mike.

Hope summers going well for everyone. I'm down in Florida right now.

Here's something I did for environment of the week over at CA. The topic was "a bridge between two different cities".

I wasn't necessarily going for that classic concept art-ish style-- I was trying to use Painter for something more "decorative" in appearance. I also minimized my use of photo textures by either painting stuff in or using Painters variation in its tools. For example, the roof tiles were made through using a blocky brush under "artists oils" with a teeny bit of impasto depth. (There are like 2 or 3 places where I was short on time and used windows from two royalty-free photos.)

There are definitely some wonky areas in it, as I was pretty rushed when I did it. I might go back and fix stuff though, if it won't take much work.

Additional (but unnecessary) info:
My idea is sort of an industrial alternate reality in which workers in an enormous power plant must "bicycle" their way across a long "track" from a mountain of shabby modern suburban-style dwellings to the monolithic entity. The irony being that even though there's an enormous industrial power plant city across the chasm, they're still having to power themselves! (These are like bicycles, only they, via a chain, transfer the rotating force to a wheel that digs into little notches on the tether and propel the bicyclist forward. Once they get to the other side, they simply detach their "bicycle", fold it up, and store it in a locker area until it's time to return home. One would think that the plant would be so easily able to supply power for a faster (and safer) form of public transportation! By the way, they don't just walk across because the area is so high that the work of returning to the ground and then making oneself up to their work area would be a lot more effort and take more time.

Sorry guys, I know I write too much... :-\