Spooks For Haloween

 It's Halloween so lets have some ghouls and ghosties! Always a favorite subject for me and some of these character illustrations are actually very old. I've been meaning to put them online where people can see them for some time. You of course have to have pumpkins for Halloween but also skeletons so why not put the two together? Add a dash of pirate and that's about as good a mix of ingredients as I can think of.

Here is a creepy demon gargoyle affair with glowing red eyes for good measure. I have recently been doing lots of sprite renders for a game I'm working on. This means I basically set off batches of character renders and then wait to set the next lot off, rinse and repeat. It's not the most exciting job so to keep my brain busy I decided to work on some characters for a Halloween blog post and that's why this beaky fellow came into being.

The ghost pirates come from the pre-production of an Eyetoy game I worked on. It eventually became Astro Zoo so no ghosts no pirates and definitely no ghost pirates. There were squirrels in space suits but at that stage of production I was back to building and animating not painting. I did really like the characters and would have liked to have built them but that's just how it goes. There was a lot of game built and some quite cool characters before Sony decided they wanted a zoo in space instead. As far as I remember the game was a Ghostbusters sort of thing where you played the agents that dealt with the ghosts.

 

Some sketches of the ghost pirates in different positions.

Lastly another one I did while waiting on my renders, a cartoon wolfman. I was thinking about this the other day, it used to be that I would constantly doodle. When I started out in 3d animation I would have a sketch pad next to me and I would sketch my key poses out but also just doodle, because well.... there was a pad there. These days unless it's something really difficult to animate I don't need to sketch my key poses so I don't have a sketch pad on my desk. I've got my tablet of course but firing up Photoshop just to do a doodle just doesn't happen (unless I'm rendering of course). Doodles were most of my creative output when I was at school. Drawing was what I did to take my mind off things. These days I occasionally  draw something for my kids but doodling has hit an all time low and I didn't even notice.

I think part of it is that I'm very critical of my own work and I think about what I'm going to achieve with my next project. What's it for? what will I get out of it? This may be obvious but the trouble with my approach is it slightly sucks the fun out of it. I always aim to take on work that will be fun for me because it's hard to do a good job if you aren't interested in what you're working on. I know that from experience and always keep it in mind. However doodles are just thinking out loud. They serve no purpose, that's what allows them to be so free and fun. You can't doodle wrong because how can something be wrong if it serves no purpose?

What's it for? what will I get out of it? That is not what you ask yourself as you doodle on a scrap of paper, but you can get an awful lot from doodling. For starters it's good drawing exercise, but also if you are doodling while you're mind is focused elsewhere (talking on the phone, in a lecture etc) it allows your subconscious to take the wheel. This can lead to some great ideas. I think I need to get back to my doodles.

Zombies or Aliens Which are better?

It's reader participation time again here at Deranged Scratchings! The question is Which is better aliens or zombies?.....but only because the real question I am bringing to your attention was just too damn big to fit in the title. That's right this is one of those big questions, the sort of question theologians and adepts of science have turned their backs on from fear of losing themselves to it's complexity. I know that readers of Deranged Scratchings are a rare breed who breakfast on the dilemmas other mortals dread, so hear it is in it's awesome entirety: Which is better?

• Aliens(in a jar with cyborg bodies)
• Insect Men
• Gelatinous Goop Aliens
• Lion Men 
• Steam Punk Cooker
• Robots
• Space Troopers
• Zombies

Insect men can of course have more than one set of eyes, antenna and segmented external skeletons are also very in next year.

Alien gelatinous goop could be due a come back, you herd it here first

Erm...... it all went a bit Thunder Cats (what ever happened to the movie?)

Steam punk stove robot, can kick your ass while making a nice cup of tea for afters.

 Robot? Any takers? Formerly owned by Captain Antilles. No faulty motivators as standard.

Space trooper.... a soldier in space not terribly original but it seems I had to do it. (yes of course he gets a laser gun)

Lastly but no means leastly it's the video game and internet phenomenon that is the zombie! Bath salts be damned better look out or he'll have your eye out!

I have been busy rendering a cyber punk laser battle which will be my next post. While my main computer was busy with the render job, I got into my character concept painting. It's been great fun, now all I need to do is pick one to be taken into polygons. 

So Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves choosing a concept idea from the above for me to turn into my next character model. Here are your choices again:

• Alien (in a jar with cyborg body)
• Insect Man
• Gelatinous Goop Alien
• Lion Man
• Steam Punk Cooker
• Robot
• Space Trooper
• Zombie

Stick your choice in a comment and which ever gets the most votes before I get a chance to start building, will be made into a character model, the same way the cyborg was done last time.

Cyborg #1 Concept

 I have been working on some cyborg concept, these were created with my graphics tablet in photoshop. 

I wanted to throw some ideas around before I start a new 3d poly model. I may try losing the little finger from this character, that way I can use the joints I save to create animatable pistons or other mechanical gubbins for my human machine hybrid. The idea is that this model will work with the same skeleton as the cyber punk from my last entry and so be able to play the same animations and use the same props. I'm planning to keep the team colour ideas as with the cyber punk. I have stuck with just the torso arms and head being mechanized, I did consider going further but any more and I think I might as well just make a robot (I probably will at some point). I also should have a cool bit of 2d work coming up and wanted to get my drawing head on. 

 My idea of a cyborg is someone who doesn't know when to quit. A character who really should take some time out after losing some fairly important parts of himself but no, not this fella he will just head down to his local Cyber Cyborgs 'R' Us and buy some replacement parts. Something like the Black Knight from Monty 

Python's The Holy Grail but with the perks of science fiction.

 It's all gone a bit dark and twisted, I guess the Borg from Star Trek are shuffling around in my subconscious, that along with Mean Machine from 2000ad, he pretty much fits the mould for how I see a cyborg, not a character that would ever sit out a fight. There are some much older influences creeping in from things like Frankenstein and all those science gone bad cautionary tales. Also recently I bumbled onto the world of Transhumanism and the idea of septic cyborgs seems to have taken root. Apparently if you're the sort that takes a practical approach to recreating yourself as man-machine or human 2.0 a major stumbling block is making sure your body doesn't reject your up grades (yes that is as yucky as it sounds). If you fancy giving it a go there is some handy how to stuff here. I wont be trying it any time soon as I'm sure it would play havoc with my RSI.

I would be interested to know which of the three I've painted you think would win in a fight, or alternatively which one is the most pleasing from an aesthetic point of view.

Sorceress character model #2 concept

Back with the Sorceress and I've added some colour. There's a bit of a feathers and scales theme at the moment and I kept the stripey tights and boots. The cloak will need to be less chaotic and stiffer for a games

character with a limited number of joints to give the effect of cloth. I might lean more towards a Batfink direction with the cloak if I make this one (my wings are like a shield of steel!)

To the left is my initial sketch that I built this painting up from, I moved the arms, shoulders and neck around a good deal while I was painting the Sorceress, but I've not gone too far from the initial drawing. It's also pretty close to the monochrome version I did in my last post. Perhaps my inner witch is set in her ways.

She is quite a big boned magic user. I bet Witches don't eat special K, I figure them for more of a chocolate eclairs with rum diet.

 In other news my tablet died while I was painting the Sorceress. It had been going for months but eventually just became unusable. For ages it had been suffering from a loose connection which meant I had to shake the pen to get it to work, reminded me of when I used to work with a rotring ink pen. It seemed like a very old tablet, the pen was battery operated and the design made it look kind of 80s. Still after over 3 years service to me I think it deserves  an honorary mention and photo for the blog. I did all the textures and painting shown on Deranged Scratchings using this old thing some of the better examples would be Digital Desperado and The Nine Dragons.

Note elastic band holding case together on pen.

 Farewell old tablet 2008-2012...... not sure whether to bury it in the garden now.

I finished up the Sorceress on my new tablet which is a swanky brand new Intuos4. I read good thing about it and I'm pretty happy with it so far.

Sorceress character model #1 concept

For my next character model I'm thinking along the lines of a witch or Sorceress. I quite like the idea of getting some sort of poly based magic effects working. Seeing as I haven't made any female characters for TurboSquid I thought I might give it a go. There are all ready quite a few wizards although that might be another fun project for the future.

I'm not sure J.K. Rowling would approve of my Witch, probably not a good look for Helga Hufflepuff. More what Wonder Woman would look like if she turned to the dark side, but with out the handcuffs and rope for tying people up (Wonder Woman going to the dark side would probably be worth taking seriously). There's something of a Flash Gordon look to her too, although I could probably push the shoulder pads further.

I've done the concept sketch monochrome just to get quick idea of the model. I'm thinking for the colours deep purples and reds, or maybe a liquorish green similar to Aragorn in Peter Jackson's version of Lord of the Rings.

For the metals (choker and shoulder pads) I'm currently thinking a kind of a ghostly light silver and the skin tones also very pale verging on the blue or green. Not sure about the cloak, it would be a proper pain to animate and set up, on the other hand it will look cool. What do you reckon is this something you would like to see me put together? if so please press the like or +1 button and I will know to get my polygons on.

Orc Warrior #2 Concept Armoured Orc

I've been continuing with my orc character. Still painting with the graphics tablet, I've been thinking more along the lines of heavy plate armour. My thinking at the moment is to have both a leather armour and plate armour version, the leather armour version wont have a helmet, so I have an excuse to model the orcs face.

Orc head in black and white

I didn't keep the WIPs this time, I got three quarters through the painting before it occurred to me. There's some preparatory sketches to show instead, in black and white with the tablet. I did try moving over to pencil and paper as I said I would in my last post but in the end, having got back into the swing with the tablet I decided to stick with it.

 Here is a version of the armoured orc I did before the colour version at the top of the page. It's not that different but you can see how the stance and pose are much better in the final colour version.

 A rough sketch I did where I was thinking about having a larger torso and arms for the orc. I quite like the sketch but I decided against going further and painting armour on it. What ever I'm working on I always have working drawings, even for animations. Mostly in biro on lined paper. The cannon fodder of the artistic project missing in action or round filed.








I also had some ideas for orc helmets which I painted separately, again in black and white. I found it quite fun to paint these up roughly with the tablet, in the past I would have done all this kind of work with a pencil and sketch book. To get this sort of look on paper I would have to use charcoal or ink which is a lot of fuss and mess and if your not that accurate, you can quickly go from smart looking sketch, to smudgy smeary black splodge.

I used a template orc head and painted a few variant helmets over it. When it comes to building it, I will probably have some more ideas. At the moment I'm liking the below version or the one in the colour version at the top of the page.

Probably will be with the polygons in the next post.

Orc Warrior #1 concept

I'm planning to start a new games character model for Turbo Squid and I've decided to go for an Orc this time. I've started by getting my tablet out and getting back into painting. I've used photoshop for this as usual. This time I've kept some records of my work in progress so I can show how I got to the final result above.

This is how I started. Using a fairly large paint brush set to a low opacity I quickly sketched in a rough form.

I then tightened up the Orc, still concentrating on the underlying form, not worrying about armour or clothes. I tend to work in quite heavily and then drop back the opacity, then create a new layer and work in again.

Next I put in the armour and clothes roughly, you can pretty much see the picture coming through at this stage. At this point I also flattened my working layer (not with the background, that causes headaches) and put a heavy blur on the whole thing. This is to stop me getting too tied down to the lines. By blurring the image I'm forced to rework. This stops me fiddling with details before I'm happy with the basics

 

It's then a matter of tightening further until I get something I'm happy with in the above WIP (work in progress)  you can see white cut lines running through the legs. This is where I've used photoshop to grab sections of the painting and move them. I try to keep the painting fairly loose and open to change as I'm working. If you look at the earlier WIPs, you can see the arms and legs went through lots of changes.

It always takes me a while to get used to working with the graphics tablet again, I think what bugs me most is zooming in and out. With a sketchbook this feature is accessed by moving your head nearer and further away from the page, with photoshop you have to press a button. My photoshop has a glitch where it jumps to a zoom of 12 pixels, drives me up the wall. On the flip side, when I'm using pencil and paper I often start thinking ctrl Z but of course there is no undo.

I think I'm going to go back to paper for a bit with the orc. I want to think through the armour a bit more. I'm considering having a version with leather armour, and another with more heavy metal plate armour. I also need to think about weapons.

Ninja Post #7 Texture Mapping

I've been working on my texture map for my Ninja. The first step was to UV map the model. UV mapping is a bit like backward engineering your model so that you end up with a flat template that if folded and bent in the right places would create a paper model of your character, it's also a bit like a dress makers pattern I suppose. The basic principle is to take a 2d image and wrap it round a 3d cg model.

Above you can see the finished map with a transparent wire frame overlay showing the position of the UVs. It's quite a time consuming and mind bending process to get the 3d model into a flattened state like this. In a similar way to working with a pattern for a dress or suit you get seams with UV mapping and it can be difficult to hide these seams where the characters geometry is split into sections as they form the join between different painted areas of the texture. It can lead to a patchwork effect if your not careful. The U and V of UV represent the 2 dimensions of the map, U for horizontal and V for vertical.

Most 3d software like Maya or 3d studio Max come with mapping tools such as Planar Mapping or Cylindrical Mapping. These tools help you lay out a 2d flattened map of your character that you can then take into photoshop and paint. The painted image is then saved as an image file like a jpeg or targa that can then be applied to the model. Above you can see the first steps I took after finishing my map. I started by blocking in the basic base colours.

 The above image here shows a slightly later version of the texture where I've sketched in more detail and started to put in in some highlights and shadows. Below is the finished texture on the model in bind pose. The texture was all hand painted using a digital tablet and Photoshop.

 Here are some more renders of the textured Ninja model in different poses from the animation set I'm working on. I 'm still hoping to use this model in a Ninja rampage where Ninja factions engage in a manic Ninja war with plenty of back flipping, somersaulting and shuriken chucking.

I'm pretty happy with how that turned out, if you want to see any of the images larger just click on them. When I get a chance I will post up some more animation progress.

Digital Desparado

This is a follow on from the sci-fi detective in my last post. Painted in the same way using the tablet and photoshop. I spent slightly longer on this one than the detective, probably because things keep distracting me. I'm trying to learn to drive at the moment and lessons amongst other every day things keep cropping up.

This character has taken a bit of a gunslinger look. I'm a big fan of the old spaghetti westerns like The Mercenary and High Plains Drifter. I was tempted to put a poncho on him, maybe if I get round to another one.

Sci-Fi detective

I painted this today, trying out painting with my tablet without using a pencil drawing as the first step. I used photoshop as usual. Had a look at Ridley Scotts Blade Runner for inspiration, I wanted to do an iconic Film Noir private detective character but was thinking about making it slightly sci-fi. I will develop the theme tomorrow maybe go more of a cyborg route. My main aim was to see how I got on with out scanning a pencil drawing as my guide. Drawing is what I usually rely on but it was quite fun to just use paint. Click the image to see a larger verion.

The 9 Dragons

This is something I've been working on over a long period in small doses. I spent a bit more time on this than on the other paintings and pictures I've posted up here. Like  many of the other pictures on this blog, it started off as a pencil drawing that I scanned and then painted in photoshop using a tablet. The dragons on the metal ring where drawn using the tablet as was much of the golden horde the main dragon is sitting on. It was a picture I worked on when I was getting fed up with Space Temple or what ever project I was currently on.

To mark the year of the Dragon on the 23 Jan 2012 you can now get  The Nine Dragons as a print from my cafe press account. click the Black Water Dragon print if you want a 14x10 inch framed, high detail version to hang on your wall.

Night Fair Ground

Haunted Grove

This is more game art, it's background stuff I did for Goosebumps Horrorland.

Tick-Tock

Girl Doodle

Assasin Fish

The Inevitable End

The Angry Mole Of Vengeance

This grumpy looking mole was a concept I did for Gusto Games, it was intended for a sequel to Goosebumps Horrorland. These mole people would be living under the theme park doing maintenance and thumping intruders. For a long time this was the most popular entry on Deranged Scratchings but has been overtaken by Ninja Post #8 Ninja animation.

Gusto didn't manage to get the contract for the second Goosebumps game and the studio was closed so the angry mole has never made it into a game although he still remains copyright to the studio.