Happy 2014 some Zelda Thumbnails

Noah Bradley's Art Camp - Week 1 -Part 2

Posting more composition studies.

Parrot!

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"Monst-Her"

I call this one "The Monst-Her". This is basically a combination of "the Creature from the Black Lagoon and Swamp Thing" but the female version. Not anything really dramatic to speak of, but just for fun.

The idea came to me while I was down in Central America. I definitely took a sketch book with me, and along with finishing up the other sketches for the tribute book, I also put down whatever came to mind. This was one of those ideas.

In addition, I was also reading "Color and Light" by James Gurney (you can get it at Amazon here if you are interested). It's a pretty great book, pretty simple to get through and has a lot of really informative tips on setting up color palettes, and color schemes. 

I had definitely made my way up to working with creating color schemes, and up until now I was using color scheme designer. The thing that I was missing though was about color gamuts, and limited color palettes.

In short, using the color wheel, you essentially limit the colors that you use by drawing a polygon (a triangle, a rectangle, etc.) and then sticking to the colors within the polygon. What you will then get is a color scheme that is complimentary with each other (as long as you stick within the shape). Below is an example of a gamut mask pulled from the color wheel.

I found a site called livepaintinglessons.com that allows you to create your own gamut masks and you can use that as part of your piece/painting.
Now you can use this same technique when creating your own pieces.

In other news the art book is coming along nicely, and I will posting the Mighty Bomb Jack rework next!

'Til next time..

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Back from Central America (Art Book cover sketches and more..)

Hey gang,

I'm back from Central America after a week of shaping and molding young minds. It was a really great week, and I feel so lucky to have been able to share time with those students.
You can see some of their wonderful photos on the Design 4 Kids Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/Design4Kids

While I was there I had some time when I was not teaching class. I managed to start work on some cover designs as well as complete the final list of pieces that will be included in the book:

Here is the final list (in no particular order and not all necessarily Nintendo games:)
-Megaman (2)
-Clu Clu Land
-Pro Wrestling
-Mario
-Ducktales
-Elevator Action
-Legend of Kage
-Ring King
-Mighty Bomb Jack (gonna fix the cover)
-Sonic
-10 Yard Fight (if I have time)---I never really played 10 Yard Fight that much but it seems to ba a favorite. So if I can make it happen I will fit it in.
I managed to complete all of the composition sketches so now it's on to knocking these out one by one. 
I plan on starting that this week, so I am pretty excited about that.
As a quick treat below are some logo and cover sketches (kinda early but this will give you just a quick idea of the cover layout).

Below are some sample logos ideas:

Below are some cover ideas:

I'll start posting as I work through the ideas.
See ya soon!

Nintendo Tribute: Double Dragon

Ok, so the next in the Nintendo tribute series is Double Dragon. You played as one of two brothers or friends (I think), who had to fight your way through hordes and hordes of street gangs to rescue your girlfriend. For this particular piece I decided to try to work on anatomy, but do it in a simplified manner to suggest the form, but not go overboard with the details. Hm. It took me a while to post this one, because I wasn't too hot on how it came out, however since I need to finish things I decided to post this one as a means to move onwards and learn from my mistakes. (Practice practice practice).

Steps are below:

 

In the end, it's not the worst, but in practicing I learned a few tricks a long the way to make the painting process easier. If I go over my original sketches and create a simple line drawing, that will eliminate having to work so hard when starting the color phase. Also, anatomy anatomy anatomy and values. Very hard to master, but I will be psyched when I get it. So that's it for this one, next up is Jimmy Lee (Double Dragon part II).

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Nintendo Pro Wrestling: Step by Step Process

The next entry in my Nintendo tribute series is "Pro Wrestling". This is another game that I played for hours and hours on end. It was and is still one of my favorites to this day ("A winner is you!").
Below is the step by step to the final piece.

1. I wanted to do something that included all of the wrestlers naturally, so I did a couple of different sketches, of all the wrestlers in different poses, and finally settled on the one below. It basically has all of the wrestlers in the front, and Great Puma (the Champion of the VWL--Video Wrestling League) in the back overshadowing the rest of the wrestlers. (below)

2. Then I added a base black and white color and started to block in the shadows (below)

3. I added a background color to give the painting an overall sense of color (purple seemed to work well in the color scheme of the rest of the wrestlers in the group shot) (below)

4. Then I started to add the flat colors over all of the wrestlers (I used the original game instruction manual as a basis for the colors (below)

5. I next started to do the paintover layer, and went over all of the details and the edges. I had a little trouble with Starman's arms as they were folded over each other. So I had to spend a little time going over that some more. Also, now that I am looking at it Figher Hayabusa's shoulder (lower left next to The Amazon) looks a little humpy and weird. As always the biggest issue that I had was anatomy, although I felt that with this piece I am getting a little better. The key as always is practice (below)

6. Finally I added final shadows, and lighting, and used the text from the actual Pro-Wrestling box and voila! Done...it's going in the book.

Next up, Bubble Bobble!!!!!


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