Low Grav

Just finished a rather long work shift thats lasted since the day after i got back from newcastle so besides a couple of receipt drawings I've not done much else.

Decided to colour a concept on scrotoshop. It's a deer like creature thats evolved on a planet with a much lower level of gravity than our own. Most of my fauna concepts lately have almost strictly adhered to the anatomy and proportions of african mega mammals, usually quadruped and bulky in there most fundamental state.


So now I will try doing some things that are even more alien, Helium propelled life forms and giant primative invertebrates that exist on planets with a much more oxygen saturated atmosphere... so many ideas too lazy to jot them all down..

More Receipts

Some more receipt drawings, I could talk for days about the philosophy and nature of fictional natural history, I cant think of anything else that lends such a wide scope to the creative process of design. Theres almost no rules, if you know your chemistry and your physics... and of course biology all you need to do is come up with the plausible exscuse to back it.

Receipts and Birds.

Whilst at work on quiet days I enjoy scribbling on spare receipt paper from the till, often working in constricted dimensions with limited tools (basically just a biro) helps me to easily begin sketching, perhaps its the absence of the great white exspanse on the usual A4 paper I use.

Ive also done some drawings from a post by Glendon Mellow ( http://glendonmellow.blogspot.com/ ) containing some wonderful images taken at the Metro Toronto zoo.

Newcastle visit.

This week I went up to chilly Newcastle to visit mara at uni. Whilst there I had a little free time while she worked in the studio so I decided to pay a visit with my sketch book in hand to the museum opposite the university campus.

The museum was very nice, although the natural history department could have been displayed much more professionally. All the modern fauna exhibits were contained within glass display cases and were literally piled up on top of each other forming some sort of sky scraper type structure made from animals which made it all but impossible to draw as everything was obscured with the height and angle factors... A smart form of space management, but not very useful for artists, I'd much more appreciate just a few exhibits at eye level.

Coupled with that I was having one of those days were my hand simply can not draw well, as seen below.

I'd like to think that I redeemed my self whilst sketching a sculpture titled Pankratiast's. Essentially its the ancient greek version of wrestling, only naked.

Bufo Chickens.

The Bufo tribesmen are incredibly illusive at best, this lucky photographer managed to snap this shot just as the patrol leader picked up his sent. The photo was recovered from the camera at the site of his tribal execution.



In the week I went to lyme park for a walk around the hills, whilst walking I encounterd hordes of sheep, a few chickens, two viking bow stones, and the occasional raven.

Blacksmiths.

I went and saw Clash of the Titans with Mark the other day (mrmarkmottershead). Overall the story wasnt that good (but its to be expected with high class B movies) but the creature designs were fantastic, literally. The Kraken was brilliant, a real primal peice of work.

We watched it in 3D which was a bit of a problem for two reasons No.1 - we got ripped off, even though we already had 3D glasses which we presented they still charged us for a new pair. No.2 most of the scenes involving creatures were quite fast paced so at times it was a bit difficult trying to make out details such as the facial features on the harpies.

I've been doing a few more concepts for RoR again, the project seems to be picking up a lively pace and things are looking more oriented towards producing a promo game.

These are just a few concepts for a race called the dwarrow (needs a name change) both on and off the battle field respectively.

http://www.realmsofrenth.com/

Prop concepts.

It's been a while since I've done a few concepts for Realms of Renth, so I decided to look up the master list for props that would be easy to complete conceptually with out too much thinking.

I managed to do a few props on scrotoshop just before my graphics tablet yet again broke down, muting the brush sensitivity on the pen.

During the week I was in waterstones doing my regular MOI hunt (Magazines of interest) ;), I picked up two zines about vehichles. The first being 'The glory days of heavy haulage' a zine filled to the brink with brilliant photos of old fashion 19th century wagons, lorries and military vehichles. The second zine was 'Military Modelcraft International' I bought it just for the reference at first but after reading through it I saw an article on one of Da Vincis more deadly concepts, nicknamed the toritoise, its possily the ancestor of all modern tanks. Ive found that some one has made a model kit for it so I might have a bash at constructing and painting one.

(its the design on the bottom half of the sketch)