Thursday, March 25, 2010

Reboot

I need a reboot, lately I've been doing a lot of concept/production work and very little illustrative work. Sorry :( I wanted to post work that reflected my current goals but I was worried to do it on this blog since it was mostly my illustrative work. I pretty much never update this blog because of it. Anyways, I want to be a little more free about what I post and talk more about my processes.



These are a set of color thumbnails for a storyboarding study I'm working on. I want to improve on my shitty composition skills so I took a movie and tried to dissect a sequence. I'll upload the final product later.




My goal here was to study composition and also atmosphere.


This one started out as a environment study of a shanty town. The technique I wanted to try out here was to thumbnail, use Google Sketch up to set up a rough model forperspective, then pencil and detail it in PS. I find that in a production environment, using Sketch up helps a lot to speed things up. It's free and very easy to use but very limited compared to other 3D apps. This limitation is actually a plus in my books because it stops you from leaning on 3D too much.


18 comments:

Lettie Lo said...

yay new posts!!!
these rock my socks

AMBUJ JOSHI said...

Amazing!!

Kristin Forbes-Mullane said...

nice! thanks for sharing!

Kendra Melton said...

These are great. I say post what you want it's your blog. :]

I really like that desert looking scene with the creature. The values in it are working so well that you can see the exact shape of the creature without it getting mixed in with the background. That seems to always become a struggle for me, especially when the values and tones are so similar. Wonderful work!

Cool tip about google sketch up I'll have to check it out. I'm trying to learn environment stuff right now so that'll be fun to try out.

RAWLS said...

dude... fantastic. You rock.

Unknown said...

Great to see you doing more updates man!

You should have a followers widget, that way I can easily see when you've done an update.

What you say about google sketch up is true.
The fun part is that after a while of using this method, your minds adapts more to thinking in 3D and space while painting an enviro, as a result of this your skill to understand atmosphere + depth + 3D + and what not, becomes better, after a while I don't feel the need anymore to use it, because you are able to do it in your head.

I really think that what you are trying to achieve with these pieces really shows off, great work all around.

Keep'em coming mate.

-Brun

http://www.bruncroes.blogspot.com

Ben Lo said...

awesome!

Jordan Lamarre-Wan said...

ya, sketch up is used a lot in the industry; especially in video games.

Whatever works.

Thanks for showing these.

Marcos Mateu said...

Great light and color!

Alex Sinenko said...

That's just inspiring! Go Ben!

Eduardo Avenir II said...

Ben your paintings are really inspiring! I remember Dan Chou telling me you recommended some painting books to him during school, do you remember which books they are? He said you read them as well.

Jeremy Canton said...

I dig it so much >.<

Unknown said...

Goal achieved! The composition and atmosphere are fantastic. I love how warm the piece with the convoy-creature feels.

Anonymous said...

These are great!! @.@

Christa said...

i don't understand why you said your composition sucks. it seems fine to me! :)

Zubuyer Kaolin said...

Brilliant just damned brilliant!

milind said...

amazingly refreshing to see a lotta updates here,fun as always!

milind said...

do u take photoref support on the concepts in terms of color and compositions?