Guardian's Crusade

"You will find her in God's Tower"

Guardian's Crusade is my favourite game of all time because it introduced me to the genre of RPGs. I was much younger and I was also notoriously bad at finishing RPGs back in the day and this was one that I could get through and enjoy. I loved the little morphing baby who I wonderfully named 'Baby Eve' after Eevee thanks to Pokemon. I also thought the main character was a girl because of the red fabric on the back of his helmet so I called him 'Misty'...*sigh* Never the less it didn't stop me from playing it and playing it until I became attached to the characters and the world.

I wanted a piece of art that showed my appreciation for the game and how much it meant to me then and now. I thought of how the characters would look on a promotional poster and also in a simplified vector way. Even though it's not as classic, I did draw some inspiration from Art Deco posters, but I didn't want to lose the classic fantasy feel of the story.

This is what I came up with.

 

And here is my progress from rough line design sketch to finished vector piece. I was tempted to leave the vectors as block colours in the second image, making it look more like a simple children's book illustration, but I decided to continue.

Arthur Rackham

I was so delighted this Christmas when I received an Arthur Rackham Illustration book. He is one of my favourite illustrators! and what I love about him is his swirly and intricately detailed line art designs. (Book: Arthur Rackham: A Life with Illustrations by James Hamilton)

Frozen Fan Art

Happy Christmas Eve everybody! I recently saw Frozen, Disney's new animated feature and I have honestly not loved a film like this for a LONG time. I adore the characters, the songs, the environments and the story as I have been a huge fan of the Snow Queen since I was very very little. I also haven't done a fan art in a long time and I fell in love with Elsa, her compassion and strength among other things drew me to her. 
(Disney owns all the rights to this character)

Below is the process I went through (it started off pretty scary!)

Victorian Sea Creatures

It's nearly Christmas so let's show some more work. I was applying to a company that I thought would appreciate a fun twist in my portfolio. There were some fun elements that I had already but I wanted something more...silly! I decided to dress up sea creatures and do it in the style of vector art. Finally I settled on Victorian clothes and this is what happened:

Also here are the sketches I ended up using to base the vectors on, I find it easier to have a base sketch to work on, especially in Illustrator.

Tree (in a) House

I was walking around London (as per usual), once again very cold, and I saw a tree next to a small house window and it was so close that I wondered what it would be like if that tree was almost the foundations of the house. That got me thinking, so I went home and thought of an interesting concept of people living with nature. It was also good timing as I wanted to do a design that demonstrated perspective.

Outside

This design shows the front aesthetic of the house
-tree protrudes through any opening it can (windows, roof cracks, door window)
-birds nest on top of the roof (ladder used for caring for them and for sustainable food with the right care)
-birds lay unnaturally large eggs for their size (possibly another species of bird that fled their unhatched young?)
-allotment at the back of the house for more reliable sustainable food

Cutaway

This design in particular shows the cutaway for the house
-the tree holds a television in a small nook
-another cut off tree is used as a table
-the bed is now pushed towards the roof to allow for living space*
-*stairs are spiraled up towards a makeshift rope bridge to the bed area
-a dug out hole amongst the roots is used as a water filled pond which acts as a bath (shower head above on wall)
-swing used for seating and to wash before plunging in the bath
-deer hide used for living room space behind the tree which is in front of the fireplace (good spot to read) 

 

Character

 For this design I wanted to explore who would live in such a house and I wanted to show examples of my thought processes.
-feet would be dirty because making shoes would be hard for them to learn or hard to maintain regularly
-hair would be slightly tangled and matted due to lack of personal care
-would have knowledge of cooking and utilizing natural herbs and plants
-current age of main designs is around early teens (just about grasped an efficient life amongst nature)

Urban Sketching: From Sketch to Concept

Hello again there, sorry it's been a while since I last posted, much renovation was needed for my website and portfolio. Much has happened but for now I will show you some of the recreation sketches that end up as valuable visual studies for concepts! I think it can be easy to forget about good old sketching sometimes but it's surprising how useful it can be with regular practice.

Despite the biting cold, I decided to do some more urban sketching in the London area to draw some architecture and anything I fancied really. I ended up sketching some buildings around central London and I wanted to use these observations to make a line art design. I really liked the style of one of the buildings I saw as it reminded me of Paris.

crude sketch book

concept I made from the visual studies

On another brisk day I took a trip to Canterbury, and not only did I find an amazing retro games store, I had a wander around the magnificent Canterbury Cathedral. It had been a while since I'd been there previously and it was calming to just sit (or stand in some areas) and draw the surrounding architecture. There were a couple of sketches I quite liked but there was one in particular that I preferred for design purposes.

sketch

I also used this opportunity to experiment with only using two colours to mix for both light and dark areas (blue and orange) and it was a quick way to add atmosphere to a digital painting.