alexries

Filter Feeder Development

Working the design out before doing the cutaway and skin - this version has one pair of eyestalks migrated forwards to serve as canards, controlling the pitch of the head during lunge feeding.

Filter Feeder

Working on a cutaway of a small, nimble filter feeding creature from the birrin homeworld.

Limbs

The 3D modeling continues! Thankfully I only have to make the limbs and other appendages once, and then simply mirror them. 

3D Progress

So it begins! Making a polygon mesh, which I will then rig with a basic animation skeleton.

Birrin Model

Posing these gangly six legged creatures has never been easy, except from directly side on, which avoids the foreshortening and layering issues the creature's present.

A wildlife artist would be able to use reference images to solve these issues, however there are not very many photos of the birrin in their natural habitat. 2016-08-31 12:36:17 +0000 UTC View Post

Photobash

The dancer is a mess, and will need to be redrawn to suit the new position, but since I am happy with it in principle I have started working out the background using distorted and collaged photographs of Indian temples. I will then paint over them with my own designs with everything in place. 

Killing your (metaphorical) Babies

Sometimes you have to drop a brick on the head of something that isnt working, no matter how much you have invested in it.

I felt image as it was lacked dynamism and looked rather flat, so I am re-designing the composition. Rather dramatic but not uncommon as a part of my creative process!

Re-Posing

Continuing to rotate and create a more dynamic pose for the birrin performer, which reveals the need to adapt the design of the giant costume on its back to this new position. 

Since it also now takes up less horizontal space, I may be able to reshape the entire canvas into a more focused, portrait style image.

Pose Revision

The former pose was rather flat, essentially looking off the other side of the screen. With this new pose I aim to use the birrin's head to draw the viewer towards the central action with the lure and the youngsters. Next, I need to gather references to properly render the clothing material.

Mask

With the pattern ready to go (turned off for now), I need to design the head of the dancer properly. Roughing in mask shapes starts the process

Patterns

Working on some simple fabric designs for the costume, as well as adapting it to the new pose.

The very bare street and lack of 'people' and color will be addressed once the suit is nailed down!

Modifying Pose

Getting a little dancy! If this pose is final, I will need to balance the image in the upper left, possibly with a background element.

Colour Experiment

(YES that is how we spell colour in Australia :P )

Started adding color and dangley bits to the performer - the old head pose reads better, so I will just copy and paste the more bird like head from previous versions and add the red as I go.

Patterns Begin...

I have started adding in the rudiments of patterns and further color on the costume, which  I will spread  to the performers suit.

Also began tweaking the overall world lighting, and a few bits and bobs to enhance the background.

BTW: Do you guys like these incremental updates, or would you prefer less ...

Empty Streets

Started adding in the birrin who are tending the cookers and smoking kilns of the street market, and noting how empty it seems. I will need to come up with a way to populate and add color to the place, make it seem more lived in.

WIP

Working on the background now, will start adding the actual birrin soon as I redesign the midground to include some raised cooking pits and other things: the original sketch has issues with the horizon line clashing with the birrin babies visually.

Materials Rendering

Working to define the pose and basic fabric underlayers of the costume before adding any real color: a major redesign of the 'head' of the puppet is underway, as on review it seemed far too long and drew the eye out of the painting. Will add a little cat toy on a string to entice the birrin bubs.

Soon it will be time to be...

Expanding the Babyzone

With most of the fluff in place, now moving on to rendering the bare skin areas.

A note about the main birrin: should be quite colorful when done! Gathering lots of festival references from the Americas, and fabric designs from Asia, 2016-07-11 14:40:18 +0000 UTC View Post

Baby Progress and Causes of the Delay

Babies slowly taking shape, using some custom feather brushes to be released in the rewards when this piece is finished.

As to why progress has been so slow over the last few weeks: I have had two jobs overlap, causing a doubling of my normal workload. I expect to be back to a regular schedule by next Sunday at the latest,...

Baby!

It has begun... Rendering the birrin chicks!

I am going to experiment with some sort of colorful tags or simple clothes the adults use to quickly identify them in groups. Perhaps even the way we use collars or cattle tags, as the birrin dont become emotionally invested in their young the way humans do.

Birrin Progress

I have continued rendering forms, nailing down the dancer before moving on to the other elements: as I go, I find things that need correcting on the fly.

The form of the giant puppet where it sits on the back is too flat so will need to be expanded, and a proper head design needs to be made.

Concepts for the Instar

Early in the development of the Second Instar creature, I considered different stages of its life cycle. Here are some newborn/newly eclosed concepts of this 'species'!

Netjaw

I am busy with a major commission until near the end of this month, and so I thought I would share some birrin world designs that never quite made it, or need to be polished and redesigned.

Several years ago I painted but never finished this designed for a flying insectivorous creature: two of the birrin-type jaws have evo...

Forging Ahead

The reason the current Birrin piece has progressed so slowly is that frankly it has intimidated me: without a fully designed background, and complex fabrics/multiple characters to render, I didn't really even know where to start.

Now enough elements are in place however to start the greyscale value study and begin actually...

A splash of color

Added some variety to the space fighter commission to give the client a few more choices. This sort of color change is relatively easy using effects layers in photoshop.

Flipped

Work continues on the birrin entertainer. The image has been flipped while working, a technique I use often during painting as it allows any perspective errors to catch the eye.

Commission Submission

Presenting this to the client for their book cover. Fingers crossed...

Book Cover WIP

Work continues on the book cover commission - at this stage the fighter is just bare metal and lacks surface detail, and will be colored and decalled next. The main concern before committing to the fighter's coloration is to ensure all the background elements are working together, and I feel the moon still needs some integration...

Progress

Masking continues. A slow process given the large numbers of characters and complex costume! As I mask, I also change elements that didnt work from the sketch stage.

Visual Development

Further development of this fighter concept, as you can see in these non production version I often photo bash using real images, which are then replaced with properly licensed ones (if I use them at all) for the finals.

Birrin masking goes on, will have an update tomorrow!