8/10 Mixed Bag. [Bacon Art]

Angel_of_Bacon

So as most of you already know, I got laid off a few weeks ago, and have been using the downtime putting some elbow grease towards the ol' portfolio.

First order of business was to take some old shit and polish them up to a presentable level:







Then, a 3d paintover/photobashed enviro (probably could use some work at making this look a little more natural, I feel like the painting and the 3d bits aren't quite jiving 100% at the moment.)


Fantasy character concept:


Sci-fi character concept (I thought this was going fantastically right up until I stopped working on it...now I feel it probably needs a second pass sharpening some of those details up. Might also want to do a rear view and maybe some sketch callouts of how the armor moves around.)



WIP sci-fi vehicle using 3d paintover. Not sure about the orange trim color, but it needs some kind of color detail to make it not just all boring gray metal. Also not 100% satisfied with the rendering, feels both a little too 'cartoon' and maybe a little to finicky with the texture. Also I need to do a rear view.



After I do all this, I'm thinking probably a new fantasy enviro then maybe some prop work. Trying to cover all the bases in short order.

MagicToaster

Is this for your online portfolio or print?

Angel_of_Bacon

Online. And I've got an iPad for my interview portfolio- really glad I don't have to screw around with figuring out how to get decent prints out of this stuff anymore.

Metalbourne

Your coloring is very flat. You seem to stick to one hue and go up and down the grayness scale, but not much left and right in the hot/cold scale. Saturation is almost uniform too.

draw from life

MagicToaster

Yeah, i use my ipad as a portfolio too.

Metalbourne

I use my iPad for porn.

melting_doll

I've always thought your daytime/clear sky colors are remarkable!

Kallisti

Seriously digging the blue ogre dude, I like the silhouette. Few nitpicks: I would try and incorporate him a bit more into his environment, putting snow on his feet, shoulders, etc, and I'm guessing you don't want that to get in the way of the design, but I think a little would be nice. Right now I'm not getting a sense of his weight, his feet don't feel like they're really sinking into the snow, they're not flattening out a bit from the body weight, and I can see he's standing on snow covered rocks but I would still ground him with a little overlapping snow. His feels very clean, there's a few nicks but it feels like he hasn't seen any actual battle. Something about his left top calve is bothering me, maybe the fur lining needs to be pinched and squished behind the knee, but something about it feels like a flat cube width-wise. Feel like the fur could be a little bit more bubbly on the boots.

Angel_of_Bacon

Alright, made some tweaks on these- tried to push the warm/cool on the vehicle, and made some of the details on the dude:



Also took some old stuff that I had in my portfolio that was getting long in the tooth- but not bad enough to ditch entirely- and did a "Special Edition" type update on 'em to make them...if not up to par, then at least less embarrassing.

Orig: http://kevinoneill.iseenothing.com/2d/paintings/noheart.jpg (This must be like 7, 8 years old by now? I'd like to think I've learned some anatomy since then.)


Orig: http://kevinoneill.iseenothing.com/2d/paintings/FencingChamber_large.jpg

Iruka

I feel like a couple more hard edges in the environment would be nice. But in general those are some solid improvements. I remember that no heart, dude, and man. Quite a bit of progression there.

Angel_of_Bacon

Thanks! Haven't gotten back to that environment yet, I've been stuck in trying to get some 3d shit in my portfolio.

Some current WIPs:

Stylized, relatively low-poly environment.

Still to do:
-dirt decals
-baseboards
-ceiling texture
-more sculpted detail on horns
-specular maps on various things (the rug especially)
-more orangeish fire (esp with bath)
-texture on window frame and stone wall
-more weathering in general
-fix that toiletpaper lighting issue
-general texture tweaking
-rebuild lighting.
-might want to add some canvas effect to painting texture to make it look more like a painting.
-pillar textures aren't quite there

Got kinda bored with that so I started sculpting a head to just switch things up for a few hours, then I got carried away and now the enviro's on back burner. (Probably should just finish that first, really).


Still to do:
-Textures. All the textures.
-Retopoing so I can get this shit into Maya
-UVing so it's not just all bullshit
-Normal map output to get it into anything useful
-Spec maps
-Probably won't rig this properly, but I might want to make a pose or two for beauty renders
-Glowy eyes or other VFX probably wouldn't hurt.

Tam

holy fuck Ahab

Angel_of_Bacon

Hmm, kinda abandoned this thread. Time for a big hearty dump:

Punk


Fantasy x-ray machine.




Trying to do some of that 3d paintover stuff.


Trying to figure out how to do those photobash cheats that everyone does, don't think my stab at it was particularly successful.


Speedpaint + color dodge abuse


Concepting out a fantasy race


Lobby of a corporate magic firm (it makes sense in my head)

peacekeeper

i like your fantasy race of tirds

Sublimus

Wow. huge jump from the OP!

Awesome stuff!

Hows the jorb hunt going?

NightDragon

My only suggestion currently is to try to avoid too many soft, low-opacity brush strokes set to "Normal" blending. It is making some areas feel a little underdeveloped and/or too soft...I'm not sure if this is up your alley or not but changing up Photoshop's blending modes can really get you some interesting, great results without the treatment being too overpowering.

That being said, you've got a really great sense of ambient lighting, too!

Angel_of_Bacon

Thanks guys!
Job hunt is ehhhhhhhhhhh

Good point on the soft brushes ND- I went for a long time without using any soft brushes, and in the last couple years went I've gone totally the other direction into abusing them horribly. Gotta find a better balance, I realize.

Tried to do this piece with more opaque/hard brushstrokes and blending them a bit more later- I think it worked ok-ish. Probably still too reliant on local colors on the clothing bits. Need to find a more satisfying way of painting in implied masses of detail, I always go too vague or too precise (I know that's the point where I should probably be resorting to photoshop/photobash trickery more, but I'm a stubborn, stupid bastard about trying to do it 'legit' for no obvious defensible reason.)

m3nace

Sweet. Looking through your stuff I was just about to recommend the same since a lot of it looks slightly blurry and then you do this one. Huge improvement. Looks a lot more painterly.

Kochikens

the hard brushes on that make it look pretty rad

NightDragon

Yeah man, huuuuge improvement with that piece! Great jorb

F87

Bacon omg you are awesome ! Every time I see your stuff I want to paint!

Iruka

This last one totally rocks. Really nice sense of scale. You seem to be getting on fine without any photobash, And I feel like people tend to get away from that when they are out side of production environments and working on their portfolios anyway.

mully

Chiming in on the most recent. Love it. Definitely a big fan of the hard brush strokes.

Also wanted to say that in your low-poly room turn around (the wooden one with the croc on the floor), I LOVE the atmosphere. I FEEL warm and cozy just looking at it.

You are my art hero. The wind beneath my art wings.

Angel_of_Bacon

Aw, you guys.

DungeonFire

That last big epic environment/narrative scene is just wonderful.... I have always struggled with big open compositions like that. Could I ask how long that took you? I feel like I am always spending an inordinated amount of time just trying to set up that kind of piece....

Angel_of_Bacon

Thanks dude. This probably took me somewhere around two weeks total, though some days I skipped/barely worked on it- if I were just sitting down and doing a solid 8 hour work day every day it might have taken me 7-9 days maybe? I'm bad at keeping track of my time, I'll just say it certainly wasn't done quickly (probably seems less impressive now, don't it?). It probably wasn't even that much faster than if I had tried to do the whole thing in oils.

It also probably could have gone significantly faster had I started with a solid plan or used 3d/photobash as is the industry norm. As it is, it was really just a quickie speedpaint I did in 20-40 min or thereabouts, and then I kinda just kept pounding on it- so a good bit of the time taken was working out details that I was initially hoping I could just imply gracefully without much detailing...and then realized I need to actually work them out considering how tight some of the rendering was getting elsewhere.

I made a process .gif here... you can see that most of those figures got worked out way late in the game. Really, that 'inordinate amount of time trying to set up a piece' you're talking about? Probably would have saved me a bunch of time in the long run if I went about it that way- I'm just impatient and dumb about it. Were I tasked with doing the same kind of piece again, knowing beforehand that I'd be spending the same amount of time on it, I'd probably take the first step of the speedy, and then do a detailed linework sketch on top of it before proceeding, so I didn't waste so much time later screwing around.

http://bacon.iseenothing.com/robotmarch_process.gif

If you get into the the habit of doing proper planning you'll probably ultimately get better results and make more progress faster, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time (I just wish I were smart/patient enough to take my own advice on the matter, honestly).

F87

That piece is EPIC. Sorry, I said it.

The beginning rough in your process gif is fairly developed, did you do any thumbnails or sketches?

Angel_of_Bacon

No, the rough was it as far as planning goes. It really just started as a speedpaint experiment to see what I could do if I stuck to mostly opaque brushes than anything really all that planned out- it was only later where I decided, 'hey this is looking alright', maybe I should keep going on it', which then led to 2 weeks of fixing shit.

I suspect the step1 in the .gif looks more impressive squished down and flying by in 2 seconds, so here's a blown up version that show it in all its shittitude. If it wasn't for some detailing on the central robot, it basically would just be a thumbnail.
bacon.iseenothing.com/robotmarch_step1.jpg

DungeonFire

Aaaand now I have to go look up photobashing... because I have no idea what that is.

*a few internets later*

Interesting... well, I guess you learn something everyday. Goes to show how much of a novice I am at this. Suddenly my oil paints are looking far more safe and cuddly.

earthwormadam

That last piece is stunning. Great sense of scale!

Also that flame sword that changes shape. How much do those cost?

Angel_of_Bacon

Reboot of an old-ass concept:
New:

Ooooooollllldddddd:

Angel_of_Bacon

WIP



Dumping some non-portfolio grade shit I've done over the last couple months:
Heard Marko Djurdjevic got crazy good by limiting himself to just pen for a good long while, thought I'd try it myself in my doodling. I still erased stuff a lot of the time thanks to it being digital, but I tried to not do that very often, and I didn't use any preliminary sketching. (The good stuff used photoref, as is probably self-evident).

Speedy from a random Google Street View shot.

Anatomy/life drawing practice.

tynic

Ooh, love the pen stuff.

F87

You are one of my favorite artists. I wish I could be as motivated! Please post more!!

Iruka

I obviously have a crazy bias, but I feel like the colors are a little muddy on the Google Street View shot. Either that or the contrast is just kinda low.

Angel_of_Bacon

Yeah, I can see that- it was a pretty overcast shot so there was actually less contrast as far as values go in the photo- I tried to fudge in some darker shadows to give it more contrast, but you're probably right that the addition of more black color there kinda deadened things out.

kevindee

Bacon, have you tried sketching with like a straight 2 px brush, with no opacity or pressure change?


Like this:







I have a shit hand, so I'm trying to sketch like this more often to try and build up dexterity - using the pen only at that size keeps me focused on lines, otherwise I go into shadow mapping and modelling too much