I decided to include this on both my blogs because most of the work I do relates to games but it is still my main hobby other than gaming. I also decided to post this alongside adding this to my page with a little bit of background on each of the pieces shown, and if I can remember, they will be in chronological order so you can see my progression over time. The images I have posted range over about 5 years and I know it doesn't seem a lot but doing GCSE art killed my passion as it removed the enjoyment for me. I am also trying to find a lot of my GCSE work so when I find that - I'll add them to the album and probably do a post about them as well.
The Dragon
This was the first piece of work that I did in the second year in my GCSEs. We had to pick a subject area and do work based on it. I decided to choose a dragon theme as they were always one of my favourite mythical creatures. This piece took me well over 20 hours to complete. We had two hour of lesson time a week and any other opportunity I got to draw was spent on this. This was back when I preferred pencil drawings, as you can see by my other pictures I now prefer pen drawings. The source of this picture was a printed image from a friend. He felt he wasn't up to drawing it so I decided to give it a try and this was the outcome. I was very pleased with the outcome and I've always wondered what it would look like in pen. Its just a shame that I lost the original image to show you a comparison.
The Spaceman
I drew this image after my GCSEs in sixth form. At my school we had 2 weeks in the summer which were activity weeks where instead of normal work, students would participate in many different activities. When you reached sixth form, you instead acted as a TA role to help with activities. I volunteered for the science activity group as I love science and they asked me to draw something to go alongside the display that the students would create. The students had decided on a space theme so I thought that a spaceman would be appropriate. This image didn't take too long as I had other responsibilities helping the students so I spent about 3 hours on this. I did it straight in pen and if you can see by the right foot, there are 3 signatures. That's because I let the other two helpers do a line each so we we're all included. One of which is now my other half, AKA pixelamy! I was happy with the outcome and didn't make many mistakes luckily as it was straight in pen. This is when I first started drawing in pen, and I'm glad I did. I found the picture on a google search which I'm afraid I couldn't find, I can't remember what exactly I googled at the time.
Sephiroth
This drawing was somewhat of an experiment. My friend asked me to draw Sephiroth as it was his favourite character from the Final Fantasy series. I decided to first draw in pencil and then define with pen. Although I was happy with the overall finish, I didn't like the look of the pencil lines underneath. This is what made me decide only to draw in pen. This picture took about 5 hours overall and my friend was pleased with the outcome which in this situation - was all that I cared about! This picture I'm pretty sure was sourced from creative uncut which I will link to at the bottom. The website is a gold mine of gaming art work and concept art, I would advise you to check it out.
Tidus
Tidus was the main character from Final Fantasy 10, my favourite Final Fantasy game. I really wish that they would create an up to date version with achievements that I could horde! This idea was also suggested to me by the friend you asked me to draw Sephiroth and this image just captured my attention. I finished it in two days spending about 7 hours on it in total. There is a slight error on the left hand side of the image on the arm where I thought the arm would be too big in comparison to the rest of the image. Not many people have noticed it and to be honest it doesn't seem to effect the picture. I was very happy with this picture and it ended up being hung from my wall and still is to this day.
Khimari
If you can't already tell, at this point in time I was really into all the Final Fantasy images. The sources provided really good studies to work from. Khimari is my personal favourite character from FF10 so I decided to draw him next. He was a great thing to draw with the small details on the cloth and wrist guards. I very much enjoyed drawing him, the only shame was that I managed to cut out the end of the lance with where I positioned him on the page. In all, Khimari took 7 hours to draw. It took me about a week to finish as if I remember correctly at the time, I had a lot of school work.
Ifrit
The next image I drew was of Ifrit. The version shown is the FF7 version which I found on Google images as I didn't like the one shown on Creative Uncut. I remember the day I drew this because my brother was celebrating and had all of his friends downstairs. At this point in time I didn't know them very well and ended up being shut in my room with my mum and dad so I did this image in a single day. It took me 4 hours and a pizza to myself. That day my dad spent about £150 on pizza - that's how big an occasion it was. They had to bring the pizzas in 2 cars and we got lots of free goodies to go with them. I was very happy with this drawing because it turned out so well in a small amount of time. I'm most proud of the details around the chest area.
Snow
Snow was my favourite character from FF13. I loved his style and his attitude that his love was the most important feeling he had. This drawing was done with a different pen if you can't tell. It created a softer look with less definition I felt. I was very pleased as it captured his energy and the clothes flowed very well as they did in the image I studied. Snow took 9 hours to draw as I couldn't get used to the pen but overall I was happy. I was especially pleased with the details to the threading which I drew onto the coat.
Squall Leonhart
Squall from FF8 took 8 hours. This image was suggested to me by my friend and colleague. Squall was his favourite character from the FF series and I decided to draw him as the picture on the website was perfect. Even though the jacket and trousers were black leather, using different shading patterns I managed to create the depth thrown by the shadows in the image. I was particularly happy with the white shirts shadow, my not including an outline to the area I wished to shade it blended with the shirt and made it look like the ruffles were casting the shadows. The gunblade was the hardest part to position to make sure it was parallel from left to right. The small lion emblem on the hilt was quite fun to draw adding such small detail.
Death's Scythe
The scythe is a weapon from Dante's Inferno, one of my favourite games. The image only took 3 hours and isn't as big as it seems. It began as a doodle and when it looked similar to the scythe on the box's art work, I decided to turn it into that. I bought the collectors edition which had a box covered in art work which was amazing and grotesque. It also included a link to the full poem of Dante's Inferno which is not available to view on the internet which I enjoyed reading. I like the shading on the blade, it gives it a real metallic feel. The game then inspired me to draw my next image.
Dante
Dante is the main character in the game Dante's Inferno, a man who travels to centre of hell to rescue his wife and hopefully redeem her soul and also his. I chose to draw this after completing the game. I very much wish I had drawn this on a much larger scale so that I could get all the detail on the cloth sewn into his chest which had pictures of his past, like a tapestry. My favourite part to this image is the arm with the bandage wrapped around it. I felt it worked very well and was very pleased with the outcome. If I was to revisit this image, I might just focus on the chest piece.
Emile
I drew Emile around the time of Halo: Reach's release. I spent a good 12 hours on this picture due to the large amount of black areas on the image. They took a lot of time to block in. At first I had to outline all the areas which needed blacking out so I could include as much detail as possible. The study image was also from Creative Uncut but was quite different to the usual images I choose. The image was very stylized hence all the black areas. The helmet turned out a bit bulb like in comparison the body but I was never much good at drawing free hand when it came to curves.
Kakashi
This character is from Naruto, an animated cartoon. My brother loved to watch Naruto and I ended up watching some episodes myself. Kakashi was always my favourite character so when I watched some episodes I decided to have a go at drawing him. I really enjoyed doing this image because it was so simple yet detailed at the same time. I couldn't help but admire the artists who create the animated series. The main shading on this image was done using strokes of the pen in different directions. I found strokes from right to left appeared brighter than the opposite. If I wanted to darken the area more, I cross hatched to make it even darker. I felt like the finished image captured his casual attitude but his obvious confidence in his abilities.
Bahamut
This is my personal favourite image out of all the work I have done. I went back to the Final Fantasy 10 page on Creative Uncut looking for inspiration and this one really caught my attention. I thought it would be interesting to draw a summon rather than another character. Everything in this image seemed to come together just right without too much planning, just pen to paper for about 8 hours. I really like the definition between each segment or his armour plates and I was very proud to say that I had drawn this.
War
This is my latest image which took me 15 hours. I chose this picture around the release time of Darksiders 2. I haven't played either game even though I wish I had, maybe I can pick them up second hand somewhere. I chose this image for the challenge, the amount of detail in the image at first seemed a bit daunting but with my perseverance I managed to finish the image in about a week. I'm not going to lie but this was a very challenging picture to complete. The details in his armour was more surprising that I thought. Just above the left knee, you can see there is like an ogres head as part of the armour. The arm on the left hand side was made up of many plates. The arm on the right was a lot of guess work as in the image it was mainly blurred out. I could see where the main detail was but a lot of the shading was generalised to make it fit the rest of the image. I had to go over that arm twice as at first it was far too bright for the rest of the image. He also has a tiny head - or maybe he just has a really big body.. Who knows?
Thanks to anyone who took the time out to read the detail about any of the images. I just thought some of you might be interested in the stories behind the pictures. I was very happy create this post, about 3 hours worth of typing. I watched the first Ghostbusters at the same time which probably didn't help me but I love the films! I will also be doing a post about the game on my other blog at some point so if you are interested - get following! That way you can keep up to date with all of my posts. If you want to know anything else about any of the images I have drawn, will draw or want to suggest something to me - leave a comment! I should have another picture to post soon as I mentioned in my last post of Anima, another summon from FF7. I think it may take another couple of hours or so.
Here is the link to the website where I get most of my images from:
www.creativeuncut.com
If you go to the top of the page and press on 'Video Game Concept Art' all of the galleries they have are there and available for free. There are also a lot of other peoples drawings on there as well.
One last thing - in case anyone wonders what type of pen I use - I use a standard black ballpoint pen. Any works but I prefer Bic as usually the flow of ink never gets stuck on the ball so there are no scratchy sections on the image.
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