NeecH Art... Blog

The Tower

2012-02-05T18:32:00.000+09:00

Finally finished up on the last game I was doing some design work for and had some free time to start doing my own stuff again.

A futuristic city owned by a huge corporation.

1hr Warm-up Sketch

2012-01-19T22:50:00.000+09:00

Trying out some new things (for me) and playing with color, values, etc.

Happy New Year 2012!!!

2012-01-01T13:14:00.001+09:00

Let's get this end of the world party started. Since I've only got until December 21st this year to fulfill all of my art goals, I'm going to push myself even harder than ever to improve my work to the level I want.

In the very likely event that the world doesn't actually end, I'll be even happier that I'll probably have some new art skills and knowledge to take into 2013 and beyond. :)

This latest painting was finished a couple of days ago but it may as well be my kick-off to the new year. Originally started as a lighting study using a photo of Christian Bale as reference before turning into a portrait of my Skyrim Dunmer character, Tywin Darkwater (in his Thieves' Guild armor).

Thanks to everyone who watches my progress and gives me support, I hope you all have a fantastic 2012.

Bust Studies

2011-12-29T21:40:00.001+09:00

Crazy holiday times! :) I hope everyone is having great end of the year celebrations and remaining cautiously optimistic about 2012.

I've been busy with some new character designs for a RPG currently in development but have taken a break in the past week and gone back to the basics of figure drawing, anatomy and other random studies. I plan on 2012 being a big year for my art so I may as well kick things into high gear now!

These took me between 10-20 minutes each, studying the lighting, form and material (how light interacts with each) referenced from some photos I found on the interwebz.

Also some quick head/face studies I've been doing recently. :)

Maschinen Krieger ZBV3000 - Dive Attack

2011-11-21T11:20:00.002+09:00

Another painting based on Kow Yokoyama-san's Maschinen Krieger (Ma.K) ZBV3000 universe. I wanted to do a 'space' painting and give it that feel of 1970s Sci-Fi art. Very much inspired by the works of John Berkey, Peter Elson, Chris Foss, etc, etc.

The scene depicts a squadron of Mercenary Lunadivers (the good guys) carrying out an ambush on a couple of SDR Sternail cruisers.

Hunter King

2011-10-24T20:56:00.000+09:00

'The Tho'lein, a proud race that wins the respect, admiration and loyalty of their people through strength and prowess. Any one member of their species, male or female may ascend to a ruling throne so long as they prove themselves in battle or hunting a great beast but either task must be won with honor. A cheat or murderer will just as likely be torn apart by the very people he is attempting to sway to his banner.

Once a King (or Queen) is 'crowned', a chain of golden coins is threaded through the hard, bone protrusions that wrap around a Tho'lein's skull to signify their status.

Humans that have encountered this race sometimes refer to them as Blue Devils due to their skull-like appearance and crown of sharp bone.'

Trying to be a little more loose and gestural with this painting, only detailing the essential areas and seeing how much I could get away with leaving rough. Very happy with how it turned out.

Nuclear Dawn Update

2011-10-13T23:40:00.000+09:00

Now that Nuclear Dawn is officially released (yay!), it's time to start showing some of my 'cutting room floor' pieces.

First up is a group shot of the Consortium Team that includes all of the classes available to play in the game.

These character shots were originally for a Promo Wallpaper but it was decided to instead use in-game 3D models on the background I painted (not this background). Luckily, I was able to avoid painting the entire Empire Team as well before the decision was made.

Next up is the Consortium Support Promo which was another standalone Character Promo I finished back in February and it just seemed to get lost along the way as sometimes happens. It was one of my favorites from the set of character promos I did so I'm really happy to finally have it seen by everyone.

Painting Demo - Tormented Demon Part One

2011-09-26T14:59:00.000+09:00

Every now and then I get a request to do a video of my painting process and though I've always like the idea of doing one, I usually forget to set up my screen-capture software in time to record what I'm painting.

Well, I finally remembered while doing a quick character design for a short film I'm doing a bit of work on and you can see it on YouTube now.

It's sped up quite a bit but there are still 2 parts to the video (nearly 20 minutes in total) with commentary about my thoughts, etc as I was painting the character.

I hope you enjoy it and please feel free to let me know if there are any other subjects you'd like me to handle in another video.

Part 2: Painting Demo - Tormented Demon Part Two

Communications Droid

2011-09-13T00:26:00.000+09:00

This is an idea that popped into my head a while back and I've been working away at it whenever I had a free chance. I wanted to do some kind of mech but also to steer away from giving it huge weapons, etc just for something different. It seemed cool to turn it into some kind of all-terrain, long distance communications droid that could tag along with an infantry squad, relaying communications and intercepting enemy transmissions.

BTW, there's a nod to one of my favorite robot designs and it's creator, Phil Tippet in this particular concept - kudos and an internet cookie for anyone that can pick it. :)

Ralph McQuarrie Study

2011-08-08T23:06:00.000+09:00

A really quick study I did tonight trying emulate the style of the great Ralph McQuarrie.

The point of doing something like this isn't to just copy exactly what you see but to take apart the original painting layer by layer and really consider what was going through the original artist's mind as they were painting and problem solving. This is one of the reasons I chose to only study a small section rather than copy the entire painting (which to me, just wouldn't seem right).

Hopefully, I'll find some time to do more of these as this one has been a great learning experience and was a joy to paint.

Derelict

2011-07-29T20:43:00.000+09:00

Starting work as an Environment Artist for a new Role-playing video game soon so I wanted to quickly get a personal piece out before then.

Have a great weekend all! :)

Rats

2011-07-24T11:23:00.002+09:00

Seems like a long time since I posted anything. :(

I just finished up some more promo work for Nuclear Dawn (which finally has an official release date of 09.25.2011 and is looking really good) and I should be able to upload that work soon.

In between waiting for feedback, etc on the Nuclear Dawn pieces, I was working on this painting that is for a project of my own and tells one of the many stories from within the universe I am creating.

A bounty hunter from a respected warrior clan, watches the crowded market place from the shadows of the alley. His goal; to reclaim a sacred scroll that was stolen from the high temple of his people.

HALO: FAITH - Covenant Grunt

2011-06-23T13:54:00.000+09:00

This piece has finally been released on the HALO: FAITH page so I can post it here.

The Grunt was easily my favorite painting on the whole project and maybe even my favorite painting in general recently. I loved painting the texture of the skin and how natural all of the design elements I considered fell together to create this guy.

To continue on with my Help Topic idea, I thought it might be cool to give a brief run-through of my thought process in making the design decisions for this character concept;

Doing my research I found that the Grunts in HALO are apparently the size of a gorilla (male gorillas can be as big as 5.6ft tall) so I started thinking about how freaky an albino gorilla might look and I wanted to really capture that in the Grunt's eyes - Pinkish red eyes with grey skin really creeps me out.

I also thought making the Grunt's head more elongated would give it an unnatural, alien feeling as opposed to the squat, round head they have in the games. This choice reminded me of an octopus which has a similarly elongated skull and that then led to the idea of tentacle-like methane gas hoses covering his armor and the spines on his arms like you would see on a sea urchin or some other aquatic sea life.

The clawed hands were simply the result of wanting to make this guy look like he could rip you apart and eat you... taking it as far away form the comical nature of the Grunts in the games as I possibly could.

When working on the armor, I figured that Grunts are the cannon-fodder of the Covenant army so I thought their equipment wouldn't be maintained as well as the Elites, Jackals or Hunters and that's how the dirty, rusty look for that came about.

A good design should always have a story to tell. It doesn't have to be obvious but it can mean the difference between a formulaic design and something truly unique and special (btw, I'm not claiming that my Grunt is either unique or special :-p).

Help Topic # 1: Which Program?

2011-05-24T12:45:00.001+09:00

Recently, I've been receiving more and more questions about my work and process so I thought it might be a good idea to start answering some of these here on my blog and also writing some help topics for people just starting out.

One of the most common questions is "which program do I use?" so let's start there;

At the moment, I'm primarily using Photoshop CS4 on my iMac. Prior to this I was using Photoshop CS5 on my PC laptop. There are a few differences between the 2 versions such as the addition of 'Real Media' brushes and effects in CS5. I had a quick play with them when I first got the software but aside from that, I never used them - I much prefer the standard Photoshop brushes I've been using since Photoshop CS3.

I also have a copy of Corel Painter X on my PC laptop but so far, haven't picked it up for my Mac. I quite like the kind of painting and effects that can be achieved in Painter and just like Photoshop, you can customize your keyboard, etc into a layout that feels comfortable for you (mine was mapped exactly as it is in Photoshop). I have found that Painter can be a little more glitchy and unstable compared to Photoshop so I'll rarely ever finish a painting with it. Instead, I'll save the file out as a .PSD (Photoshop Document) and finish it off where I'm most comfortable.

And there's the most important thing to consider; What are you most comfortable using? Both programs are excellent and offer a huge range of choices. Artists such as Ryan Church (who worked on the Star Wars prequels, Transformers and Avatar) do amazing things with Painter and Daryl Mandryk is brilliant in his use of Photoshop. Each using the program they are most comfortable with on top of a solid background of hard work and study (a topic for another time maybe?)

These also aren't the only programs available - there's ArtRage, Sketchbook Pro, Colors, Alchemy, etc, etc. Many of the programs are free or have Trial Version you can check out to see if you like them. There's also the good ol' fashioned pencil and paper, canvas, oils, acrylics, waters, etc. Grab whatever you've got in front of you and just start creating!

More to come and please leave a comment if there is a particular topic or question you're curious about.

HALO: FAITH - Covenant Jackal

2011-05-14T15:13:00.000+09:00

Another design I did for HALO: FAITH has been released - this one is for the Covenant Jackals that will appear in the film.

HALO: FAITH - Hunters

2011-05-10T11:34:00.001+09:00

I really enjoyed working on the concept design for the Hunters in HALO: FAITH so I decided to throw together a quick piece of Production Art for the team featuring the concept 'in action'.

HALO: FAITH - Covenant Hunter

2011-05-07T11:29:00.004+09:00

I actually thought I had finished on HALO: FAITH but the team liked my work so much they asked me to continue and do some 'redesigns' of some of the Covenant aliens that will appear in the film.

The idea was to present a more realistic and frightening version of each of the enemy species while keeping them completely recognizable to the fans and also adhering to the canon of the HALO universe.

The Hunter (Mgalekgolo) was the most difficult for me as they are already pretty scary in the games and there is a specific canon that they wear armor provided by the Elite class (Sangheili). Because they are supposed to be a large tangle of worm-like creatures encased in this armor, I went with an idea that the exterior should look as if it were binding them much like the Kayan Lahwi neck rings.

More to come soon... ish.

HALO: FAITH - Production Art

2011-04-08T22:03:00.001+09:00

In between surviving earthquakes, etc I've been doing a bit of work for a new short film set within the HALO universe called HALO: FAITH. The team at Majic Pictures have been doing a great job so far recreating Spartan armor and weapon props and have already completed principle photography on what will most likely be (roughly) 12 action packed minutes of film.

I was given free reign to develop some production art based on the script so I picked 4 scenes that I felt would really capture both what the team needed and what the fans (and hopefully everyone else) would want to see.

Follow the film's progress on their Facebook page!

Prometheus - Space Jockey

2011-04-02T16:58:00.000+09:00

What a month! :-o

Well, thankfully things seem to be getting back to normal here in Tokyo. There's food on the shelves, the earthquakes are much less regular (As I type this, we just had a big one - damn, my wishful thinking!) and work is back on and full steam ahead.

During the time since my last update, I've been doing some work on a new HALO film project - that has been a lot of fun and has helped to take my mind off everything else. I'll be finishing on that soon and will upload the work I've done for it after that.

In the meantime, I'm pretty excited about the idea of Ridley Scott creating another Sci-Fi epic apparently set within the Alien universe. There are rumors that the Space Jockey (seen briefly in the egg chamber at the beginning of the original Alien) will make an appearance somewhere in this new movie. I love the idea of finding out more about this giant creature, I just hope they don't 'Boba Fett' him.

Japan Earthquake Update

2011-03-15T16:33:00.001+09:00

As most of you already know, I live in Tokyo and on Friday, March 11th around 3pm we had one of the worst earthquakes in recorded history followed by a devastating tsunami flood that hit the East coast of Japan and laid waste to Sendai, Miyagi and other nearby coastal areas. If this wasn't bad enough, the nuclear power plant in Fukushima prefecture was badly damaged during the tsunami and as of writing this, has suffered 3 separate explosions and is now leaking small amounts of radiation.

For the moment, myself and my family (brother, his wife and daughter) are relatively safe in Tokyo. We still get aftershocks consistently and will endure power blackouts to conserve energy and divert it to Fukushima but outside of that, I'm happy to be alive and healthy. I'm even still painting and will add an update as to what I've been working on shortly.

Nuclear Dawn - Empire EXO Promo - Happy Valentine's Day

2011-02-15T17:23:00.000+09:00

Finished this one over the weekend for InterWave Studio's Nuclear Dawn. It's a follow up to the previous 3 Promo images I did, this time for the Empire EXO suit and the reveal that this is actually another female character in the game.

This one was kinda tough as I had less than a week to get it done in time for release to the public on February 14th and I've been battling a nasty stomach bug. All in all, I think it turned out really well and I'm very happy with it. I like the theme that she has obviously lost many things close to her from the war but sometimes the little sentimental things can keep us fighting.

Armies of the Fallen - Fallen Character Design

2011-02-08T20:43:00.005+09:00

Little is known about his past, who he was, where he came from...only dark stories go round, whispers of unthinkable horrors. Yet one thing is certain; he was the first one to break the chains and escape the slavery. The first one to rise up and challenge the Master.

This is some work I've recently done in my spare time for a friend's Star Wars fan film; Armies of the Fallen. I loved having a chance to design some 'Star Wars' characters and this was a lot of fun. This particular design is for 'The Fallen', the main 'hero' of the film.

Make sure to keep an eye on the official film blog (linked above) for updates.

Lunch with the Stars

2011-02-02T23:55:00.001+09:00

It's been a great week so far;

I got offered a design role on a new PC game and will start work on that directly after I finish my current freelance character design project (a Star Wars fan film: Armies of the Fallen) and a good friend of my brother and I, Luca Zampriolo (creator of Kallamity) is visiting Japan this week for the Winter Wonder Festival (a trade show here in Tokyo for modelers, toy makers, cosplayers and people who just like to geek out for models, toys and cosplay).

We all met up with our other good friend here in Japan, Kow Yokoyama-san (creator of Maschinen Krieger ZBV3000) and his painting mentor, Nakata-san for some shopping, chit-chat and a damn good meal.

Why does this little get-together even rate a mention on my art blog? As an artist, I feel it's really important to surround yourself with other like-minded people who can inspire you and that you have a chance of inspiring. There will always be hard work and practice to do in order to improve your skills but keeping a positive attitude and to have friends and family with that same attitude who work hard at what they love is also a really important thing to keep in mind.

From left to right, some of the friends and family who inspire and keep me positive and working hard:

Me (do I count?), Lincoln Wright, Kow Yokoyama-san, Nakata-san, Luca Zampriolo.

And yes, I need a hair cut. :-p

Don't Miss the Bus!

2011-01-14T08:53:00.001+09:00

I've recently been doing lots of little studies and sketches to push my compositions and give my images more depth, etc and that's how this painting came about. Not really sure why I chose to make the vehicle look like a giant insect, it started out completely different but this way just seemed right for the image.

Huron Scout

2011-01-06T09:23:00.001+09:00

Happy New Year all. :-) 2011 is going to be a great year, I can feel it. I'm really going to push myself further this year and tackle areas where I feel I'm lacking in my work (strangely enough, this doesn't just apply to my painting :-p).

The Huron Scout came out of my love for the Last of the Mohicans film (Michael Mann version) and a study I was doing from some reference for lighting but I wanted to make it more my own so I strayed from the initial image and created my own painting and story. Not my first of 2011 but this is the painting that I want to kick off the new year with.