Succubus Part II

Figurin' out a base, tightinin' my deets. This concept is for a figurine being modeled for Annex Labs! http://www.annex-labs.com/

Life Update + hook nipples

As you may or may not have heard, I've moved to Seattle to start working for an indie studio called Motiga games. What have they made, you ask? Nothing yet, this is their first project. But Devon, haven't you done this several times already and every time you've tried it's bitten you in the ass? Well. It's different this time guys, I promise. Sort of.

 I'm also learning to invest less of my personal worth into the projects I am a part of, and focus on the bigger picture of what makes me happy when I make art. Maybe having only shipped one title in 7 years of working in this industry had something to do with that. It's possible.

Either way, this is not something that can have an affect on my professional standard. No matter what project I work on I become heavily invested in it, sometimes to a fault. It's incredibly difficult to feel like I can understand a project without deconstructing every aspect of it, and in doing so I fall in love with it's ideas. It happens every time and I can't help it, I understand that finally. Now I'm at Motiga, and I feel good about this project in a different way, and I can allow myself to be in love with it's ideas because it's a good company.

And now some art:

Starting concept of a succubus demon, which has little to do with anything I just said. Soon to be sculpted once I finish the damn thing by a mysteeeerious 2nd party!

Leto II.... Part II

Progress from livestream on the God Emperor in worm form. If you haven't guessed, it's Dune related. You can also see how I started this in an older livestream! A little back story: I actually lost this entire image because of a sudden crash, and I reassembled it from screenshots. What you see here is based on a reconstruction of the original. Photoshop maaagic.

Livestream here:
http://www.livestream.com/gorrem

ALSO, check this out! I'm part of it and it's gonna be awesomeeeeeee. Superstar artists all over, man. Humbled to be a part of this project.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1302528630/masters-of-anatomy

Ugly Americans fan art cont'd

I unearthed this ancient artifact and decided to continue it. Initially I was planning to make it a colored line art piece, but I ended up just painting it. I think this is the last time I will voluntarily draw a copier machine.

Leto II Progress

I reconstructed this from the livestream I had of it, using screenshots. The blurring actually added a bit of focal depth after I worked into it.

Red Sonja Says...

Results of Livestream. I painted this after I lost a two-hour painting of Leto II because I didn't save. I did sad fantasy babe drawings for two hours after that in mourning. I don't know what that means.

 I painted this up since Livestream but you can see the beginning there (http://www.livestream.com/gorrem). Truth be told, this is the first time I've painted a chain mail bikini... and truth be told, I ENJOYED IT. I know I know, they're not even cool anymore, so cliche-- but I think it's okay for Red Sonja.

I should get cs6.

Livestream Xenomorph!

I did this to experiment with Livestream stuff! I just got a new computer, so now I have the ability to stream while I paint without hindering my performance. This was the result of an hour and a half I believe.

Here is my livestream account: http://www.livestream.com/gorrem


 I used Procaster to record myself, although for some reason this particular session isn't showing up in my history even though everyone in the chat was able to see it when I was recording. Does it need to be approved or do I need to upload it after recording? I'm not sure yet, I'll try to upload the file if I can once I figure out how.

Reap the Whirlwind

WIP, 3 hours in. Storm's best costume will always be the Mohawk version. I did modify it from the 80's version, I guess I should probably put the X logo somewhere... Ah well.

Make Way for the Futureee

Sketching feathered dinosaurs. This is how I get excited for Jurassic World.

I tried to combine the aspects of a wolf and a crow into it's feather treatment, two animals it probably shared a lot of common characteristics with. I suppose this would be better suited for forest dwelling than desert life.

Pamela's Day job

A flower on the wall who wants some more control in her life?

Started this today at lunch. Not done yet. My apologies to all the textile majors for my crappy floral patterns.

Updates

I've updated the layout/content of my Portfolio page a bit. Also if you'd like to see the finished versions of two of the paintings I've been working on here, you can go here:

Cerberus
http://gorrem.deviantart.com/art/Cerberus-395751993

A Little More
http://gorrem.deviantart.com/art/A-Little-More-398023844

Bonus artwork from Infinite Crisis I did a while ago...
http://gorrem.deviantart.com/art/Infinite-Crisis-Zatanna-Splashes-387912476

Do you guys mind how my portfolio page is laid out? I personally just prefer to just scroll through images with the arrow keys when I look at blog portfolios. I don't want to do anything too fancy, but if anyone has a suggestion for a template or something I would be open to it. Thanks in advance!

Meeting doodles + concept WIP

Finally got a chance to noodle that Cerberus concept, here's my progress on that. Still not quite done but at least I have a sense of what I'm doing for the skin. I wanted to emphasize the cracking, pink details, like he's unnaturally busting at the seams. The bottom is a sketch that I liked done during a Sprint Review meeting, and has now inspired me to take up sketching more.

Some Weird Girls

C'mon, who poses like that, honestly.

Been having a lot of discussions lately about how gender is portrayed in media, rather unfairly might I add. Ya know, I really do think games and movies and all these things we ingest can negatively impact our view of gender roles, if even unconsciously. I feel bad about it being a part of that system to some degree... And then I do shit like this because I like doing it, So does all of that go out the window? /Shrug.

bedBug

lunch scribbles.

Fido

 I was recently approached to do a collab with other artists inspired by Hades! I thought it was a real fun idea and I needed a break from Dune and work stuff, so I started thinkin.' I haven't done a big monster concept in a while, which is sort of my boner fuel, so I thought I'd take a crack at the legendary monsters of Hades. Here is the start of  Cerberus.

Here's the sketch I eventually decided was a fun direction- combining the anatomy of three dog heads into one monstrous face and seeing where I could go with it. I also thought it would be fun to combine other aspects of anatomical fusion with the tail and some vestigal limbs. I also felt like some other texture would be nice, so I also incorporated a bit of anthropod in there.

just figuring out the base colors. I figure it would be complicated to render so I didn't tackle colors or patterns just yet, and focused on the anatomy. I knew the face was going to be a pain to solve so I just jumped into it.

This is where I'm at now, resolving forms. I continued the fusion idea into the limbs as well to make them feel like they're two sets of legs combined into one, might run with it, might not. Just having fun problem solving this bizarre canine anatomy.

The Guild Progress

Alright I think I'm finally okay with the background and colors, I can move on to painting the frijoles out of this mother. I just want to give the impression that the Navigator is in something large and spherical without having to show the whole thing. I haven't fully designed the acolytes and their staffs/weapons/whatever those are yet, but I want them to look sort of sickly or diseased looking. I imagine that they are "pre-steersmen," In a larval state on the way to being a navigator, and they have apparatuses that constantly feed them spice gas to aid in their transformation.

rated PG

A fan art project for Power Girl, inspired by working on DC comics during the day. More soon!

Bene Gesserit Sketches

Finally got some time to sit down and bang out some more ideas for Dune. Hard to say which one is thee design, since there is a lot of variety within the Bene Gesserit as to their roles and their characters in the books-- I just want to get some ideas down. One of these might turn into Lucilla, another might turn into Mohiam, etc. I have quite a few more ideas for Reverend Mothers and Imprinters based on these designs that I haven't fleshed out yet.

For those that don't know: The Bene Gesserit are essentially Space Illuminati comprised entirely of superhuman women, who sexually imprint people for political power and for their clandestine breeding plan to create a genetically superior being to rule the universe. Simple, Right? It's hard to say that they're really "bad guys," since there are Bene Gesserit characters that Frank writes as sympathetic and relatable and in fact do very good and constructive things. However, they are manipulative and mysterious as hell and their ultimate motivation is control; they've avoided being an actual political power, yet they are unavoidably a part of it.

They don't have a ton of description other than that they are super-hot in a sexy nun sort of way, and they wear simple, black hoods. I wouldn't say these are super-simple, but I tried to go for bold and stark designs. I've used accents of gold since I love how it was used in the David Lynch film, but I also used hints of orange. Here's my theory; back in the day, royalty wore purple because it was a very expensive dye, so it became a color of power and wealth. In Dune, Spice is the most valuable substance in the universe which is the color orange, so it would make sense to me that orange is the new purple! I'm trying to find a text Frank wrote that would support this, but for now I am inferring it.

Oh and they did have hair, Lynch tool liberties with that.

Feyd-Rautha progress

Before Game of Thrones, there was another entitled piece-of-shit teenager who wanted to claim the throne, the only difference is this boy was supposed to! Hey-O! In progress, designing some Harkonnen clothes. I'd use the Baron but he snacks like he's knitting, Feyd is more European svelte.

That time of the year...

This is basically all I see, every day, all day, living in Boston between 4 or 5 different colleges, all year. They all blend together into one supergirl. Pending background I think.

Sorry I've slacked on the posting. My personal life has become quite turbulent in the past month, ranging from stomach viruses and doctor bills to double funerals and sibling graduations. I've been living in a haze, which has demotivated me from doing anything constructive in my spare time. Time to wash that slough off and get back on track as they might say, if I may make relevant humor! Because she's running! ya, you got it.

Self Portrait

Saw the Zorn exhibit Isabella Gardner Museum here in Boston, immediately went home excited to try a self portrait, since I hadn't painted anything from life in years. Went home, set up a mirror against the radiator and painted for 2 hours. Most of what I accomplished was realizing that I am in fact, NOT Zorn, but at least I broke my not-painting-from-life streak.

Here's a gif of my process if you're interested:

Dragon Tamer initial sketch

Some pr0n before bed.

Native New Yorkers sketch

Started this last night after shotgunning the movies. I've had this image in my head for a long time but I finally got around to getting it out of me.

Sietch Door sketch

Stuff I practice during lunch. Inspired by Lasaine and other Disney environment painters.

And now for something REALLY different

Thought I'd share something different and unusual, to say the least. A long time ago (at least 7 or 8 years ago) I was really into the Hindu mythos, and I used to paint Indian creatures and goddesses and the like; I was really obsessed with Indra Sharma, an Indian mythology painter. I painted a number of these, including this image in 2005, which must have been when i was 19:

Something about the sounds of the cosmos coming out of a sea conch, and she's listening to it on headphones, I dunno. It was a gift for an ex-girlfriend. Anyway, a group of kids in INDIA found the image on a website and told me and wanted to reproduce it in a Rangoli mural (I didn't know what that was at the time). I surprised that people in India were looking at my work, worried I had offended them somehow with my art, and then flattered that they wanted to use it at all at the same time. 

Then I saw these.

I hadn't shown this to anyone other than my parents at the time, and then I came across it while searching for stuff in my email. I had completely forgotten they existed. I remember I was just so relieved and stoked that people in India appreciated the work I was doing. Probably one of the coolest things that will happen in my artistic career is this, and the other is when i get to work on a Dune miniseries.

Lunch Time Sketch: Steersman

Luuuuunch. I've shown concepts of how I'd like to design the steersman, but I don't think I've ever shown how I'd like them lit. I want to evoke something both horrifying and fragile about them, like a mutant test-tube baby. As characters in the Dune novels, the steersman are often greedy, weak creatures, so I wanted to show that he would be just as reserved about meeting you as you would be to meeting him. Alright, back to work.

Jubes Final + gif

Final Product! And, bonus process gif because I actually remembered to save steps.

Explanation:

1)Initial sketch to make marks on paper. I had no idea where I was going.
2)At this point I decided I want it to be Jubilee, and have her blowing gum while holding shopping bags. The eyes are darker so they remain high contrast when they are multiplied over the...
3)Flat colors. I know want this to be a colorful piece even if I do use high contrast shadows, so i exaggerate the colors now.
4)Add some basic lighting, not sure what but a rim job is probably involved.
5) Paint up the face. This dictates the rules of lighting for the rest of the image, which is two light sources similar to outdoor sunlight with a studio back light for rim lighting AKA the rim job.
6)making my shadows dark, popping contrast, added color to the bags, details to the clothes, shadow colors, etc.
7)knock back some of the contrast below the waist to put the focus back on her face and add some J.J. Abrams light streaks.

The More You Know - Supposedly Jubilee is fully Chinese despite having blue eyes, not half Asian as I was lead to believe all these years. Back in the day it was alright to represent minorities as long as they had unnatural eye color, see: Storm.

Desert Shepard pt 1

More Dune concepts! And not girls! I've gone through a lot of iteration and way more to come with the Fedaykin death commandos. The other hard part is that I think each one would be very rag-tag and personal rather than a uniform, which means the variety is endless.

Jubes progress

painting late into the night. I actually saved steps for this one, you'd be surprised how hard it is to remember when you're in deep. I'll post them later when I call this done.

Lost in the Woods (Aka Golden Axe part 2)

 Here's the rest! If you haven't guessed, this is a tribute to Golden Axe, one of my favorite games ever. This is a screenshot of the game I'm talking about:

This game genre is probably my favorite; beat'em up side scrolling RPG-type shit. TMNT, AVP, Dungeons and Dragons, The Simpsons arcade game, X-Men, I played all of those at my local arcades. The recent incarnations are Castle Crashers and soon to be Dragon Crown, the game that inspired me to do this painting. 

Ya' see, I disagree on many levels with how they dealt with the most recent incarnation of the franchise, which is Golden Axe: Beast Rider. I'm sure the game play was horrible to merit the meta-critic score it received, but I didn't even play it because I immediately got try-hard vibes and ignored it... and I LOVE Golden Axe! I think the entertainment industry often makes the mistake of trying too damn hard with revitalizing beloved but forgotten franchises, essentially trying to just reinvent them and put a loved title on it. They lose sight of why people play these sorts of games, and what the original art direction was, and what sort of characters people became attached to. It's a real shame. That's my I have such high hopes for games like Dragon Crown, because Vanillaware does genre-revitalizing awesomely.

Now, about the importance of keeping your original sketches. I was starting to dislike the way I had rendered the face. Something was lost that I had, and I didn't know what, so I put this painting down for like half a year. When I picked it up again, I went through the layers and realized I had kep the original drawing of Tyris Flare I had done as the basis for the painting:

 I immediately liked this face more, so i made the decision to scrap the old head.

 It just worked with how symmetrical her pose was, and was just more fierce of an expression. Although it's more rough in rendering right now, it is still stronger than the old one. Lesson learned: always keep your old sketches so you don't get lost in the woods with big paintings, and fix mistakes when you see them!

Golden Wax crop preview 1

And now for something different! Sort of. Still girls, but maybe you know this one. I hope to do something with the background, maybe silhouetted with a bad guy of sorts.

Ritual: Gettin' Weird

More progress. Keep's gettin' bigger, what the hell? Added some more detailing that I wanted to add, string, atmosphere, strategic crotch fog... Not quite done, but getting there.

Ritual progress, part.... I forget

That's right, I still work on shit that you think I forgot existed. Honestly this blog helps to remind me what I have unfinished which is useful. I think I've finally come to terms with the lighting conditions I want, far less harsh light that isn't directly on her face anymore. Now that I have a clearer view I can really start going to town on the smaller details and what the hell I'm gonna do with that smoke. I might even consider stretching the canvas down a bit more, we'll see. I like how graphic the birch in the background is looking. All in all, much happier than when I started. Finding reference for this sort of lighting is a nightmare, though... So if you know any blonde models who have been hankering to get topless and drip blood on themselves, forward me their home address ASAP. Thanks in advance.

Calligraphy Shai-Hulud

This was fun. I was inspired by Arabic calligraphy, which I've always had a vision took a big part of how I imagine Dune... mainly because I like to write in made-up languages that sort of look like arabic anyway (see example from college ). Islam has an interesting limitation on what they can and cannot depict with art, so much of it is through calligraphy and pattern rather than literal drawings of scenes and things. I plan to do the same with how I interpret the Fremen; although they aren't strictly Arabic their culture and religious beliefs were still based on cultures from the Middle East.

Big Dump

I'm droppin' a big load because I haven't posted in a while. Shame on me! Shame. Most of these were done over Thankgiving break and Christmas break, since I had no access to technology and was trying to keep myself sane. from top to bottom: Dragons/random dudes/GOLDEN AXE/Laza tiger/random bros and brodettes/Witch King/Street fighter girl for Eliot/slave/contract consultant.