Carl's Space Game - Madnugget

My buddy at work, Carleel Zulkifli, had a cool idea for a game involving some space smugglers in a top-down airplane/spaceship shooter thing. Took a shot and designing some ships from the top and eventually felt like fleshing out one of them. Really had fun with this, so this one's for you , OG!

My new workstation is pretty much ready, and the Dell Ultrasharp monitor is really giving me confidence in my colours and values. Also, truly appreciating the workspace and using all of Photoshop's new tools, not to mention the faster loading/saving/boot times. Hope I can be a little bit more productive soon!

Non-Tactical Halt

This painting has been a work-in-progress for quite a while now. Had to seek some advice from various friends as I was stuck on numerous occasions. All in all, it was a good learning experience I guess. I really have to develop a more discerning eye for values. Thanks Nana and Jan!

Also, made the stupidest mistake of saving this at 1000px and overwriting my working file. I'm gonna have to repaint this at a higher resolution one day.

Landshark Hoverbike

Here's Flint Cooper's ride; the Landshark. It's a standard-issue hoverbike for marshals of all sectors to traverse the peculiar terrain of our yet-to-be-name planet. Played around with some broken planets/asteroid field in the distant background and adding a little bit of green for peculiarity. Not sure if all that worked, but I've already wasted too much time on this.

Anyway, I think my entire approach to image-making doesn't seem efficient. In fact, I always feel it's wrong. I gotta rethink my process and finishing.

Fighter Aircraft

I'm quite a fan of Scott Robertson and this is my attempt at making aircrafts like him. I've been watching a lot of his videos lately and I urge you to do the same if you're keen on vehicles (http://www.youtube.com/user/scottrobertsondesign). I truly appreciate the effort he puts into each of his videos and the books he has published. Safe to say I'm pretty disappointed that the vehicle design workshop in Singapore was cancelled. I hope they do reschedule!

With regards to this plane, it was designed with more of a game setting in mind, something like those arcade top-down shooters. Do pardon the seemingly non-working mechanics. I will need to enrich myself with some aviation knowledge.

Hover Scooter

Thumbnails! I've been neglecting this important part of the design process in quite a number of my work and I think I'm paying the price. Anyway I'm trying to get back into the swing of things with this one. This style is closer to what I do at work. Also, this is my rather weak attempt at creating a female character, being weak at anatomy and all.

I really do wonder if I'll ever hit a breakthrough any time soon. Nights like these, you tend to question the meaning of it all and where you're headed..

JA-27 Flying Lion MK.VII

When I look at myself as an artist, I find that I am lacking in way too many areas. Lately, I have been neglecting perspective and proper linework in both my personal and office work. So I thought I'd try to kick it back into gear with a plane. Gotta be more disciplined!

This design seemed like a really good idea at first, but turned out rather abysmal, but that's another problem for another day.

Original linework:

Junk Desert Buggy

I doubt I've ever painted a desert scene before, so here's my first take. Not too long ago, I caught sight of my schoolmate's (Jan Urschel) nifty tutorial in ImagineFX and I felt compelled to give it a go.

I haven't posted anything in a while, largely due to the fact that I've recently re-discovered the magic of the bicycle. I also found the short break rather refreshing, learning a little bit about the mechanics of this two-wheeled wonder.

It is truly one of mankind's finest inventions.

Sky Glider

This took me quite a bit of time, as I slugged through the process. Being pretty weak at production painting, I went through every step rather carefully, from composition to linework before proceeding to add values and colour.

Here are some process shots:

I really need to do a whole lot more of these to get better.

Steampunk Stagecoach

I didn't really get the chance to doodle anything while I was back in the army last week, so I spent the weekend sketching a second steampunk vehicle. I'm pretty happy with how the front portion turned out.

Fret not, this is an all-terrain express stagecoach that is sure to bring you to any obscure village you desire! Godfrey & Sons never disappoint.

Steampunk Mobile

Disappointed by the previous failure, I decided to approach this one with caution, plotting each point quite carefully. It was a good exercise and a gentle reminder to never abandon fundamentals.

This genre is a little unfamiliar to me, and I admit the design is not revolutionary, but it was fun. Perhaps I'll throw in a wizened old man with pilot goggles as a driver in the future.

It's a rather bleak week ahead, dressed in green. I hope I can find some time to draw.

Hover Racer

So I decided that I needed to get back to some fundamentals and draw a little more before committing to a render. Looking at the above, I desperately need more practice. This sketch took a really long time and it still turned out wrong. Wrestling with it proved to be futile, because the error lies in my sloppy drawthrough, especially while attempting this whole wide-angle thing. Seeing how it's 4:30am right now, I'm throwing in the towel.

I really hate going to bed like this, but sometimes it's just better to start something fresh another day.

Voltage Vindicator

Took way longer than I expected, simply because I tend to change my mind a lot when I have no lines. Anyway, I really wanted to learn how to render like Scott Robertson here but I still think I have miles to go when it comes to material indication.

Process here:

Voltage Racing 2

In my opinion, it really takes a special kind of something to design cars. A special kind of something that I definitely do not possess. This one was a bit of a struggle, trying to make a second car while keeping the design language consistent with the previous, utilizing my really limited car vocabulary.

I thought I'd share some of my haphazard process this time. As you can see, it didn't quite go as initially planned in the sketch.

Voltage Racing

Once again, this took longer than expected. However, I did enjoy the process, even though the forms (though simple) kept playing tricks on me, probably because I underestimated one-point perspective.

Also, I might need to sit down and cater some time designing cooler rims or hub caps. They are not to be trifled with.

On a sidenote, I have also just realized that it's 7am. Feels like school all over again.

Space Colony 3000

This was the last project I worked on when I was studying in FZD. It was angled towards making assets for social games, such as those found on Facebook and smartphone devices. I forced myself to work with colours that are brighter and more vibrant.

Dune - House Harkonnen

For this assignment, we could pick one of the three houses found in Frank Herbert’s Dune and re-imagine them in our own way. I picked House Harkonnen, and imagined the family to have Yakuza-like influences, living in a polluted neo-Tokyo type of city.

Adidas X Bosch Electric Bicycle Concepts

We were assigned 2 companies for this project and our job was to come up with a fictional product that they could collaborate on. I went with the idea of electric bikes, and this one is more for performance, if bike racing actually went electric (which would involve power storing and smart bursts of cycling). The second one was more for the Adidas Originals line.

Emergency Water Relief Vehicle

A vehicle designed to transport and distribute water during a time of disaster.