Starship Doodle

 Little sketch for today.

Soulburn Art Lesson Page Updated Mar 15th 2021

Layers of light and dark are a tremendously important technique in composition. They help you both lead the eye and to make sure individual objects can be seen separate from each other. This lesson discusses these techniques in broad terms, and gives a number of suggestions on how to use layers of light and dark to make your imagery stronger compositionally.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6q0-bERSFU

Soulburn Art Lesson Page Updated Mar 9th 2021

In composition theory, a more pleasing composition is a composition that contains contrast. Now by contrast I don't mean only the contrast control in photoshop, although that can be used to give us the kind of contrast we're discussing.

I'm talking about the original definition of the word: "Contrast: The state of being strikingly different from something else, typically something in juxtaposition or close association."

So contrast is two opposing things. Like black and white is a contrast. Big and small is a contrast. Soft and hard is a contrast. Loud and quiet is a contrast. Thick and thin is a contrast. Textured and smooth is a contrast.

A very important topic in composition theory, and available for the first time as a youtube video, this tutorial will discuss the concept in detail, and it will lay the groundwork for a number of upcoming composition tutorials I have planned in the future.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocuFrOD1qEc

Heart of The Giant Poster 2

 Since book 2 is in the can and in the publishing phases, maybe it's time to poke a bit on book 3?

Fan Art of my Dig Robot

Matthieu Fulcheri on instagram just posted a 3d model of one of my concept designs. Awesome work Matthieu! https://www.instagram.com/marseau__/

 And here's the original concept that I made a few years ago:

Soulburn Art Lesson Page Updated Mar 2nd 2021

So you're doing previs for a project, but the environment and props haven't been designed yet by the concept team. This lesson makes the argument that while your first instinct might be to use detailed stock models from a digital asset library, a better path may be to use much simpler models, to avoid confusion of what's been designed and what's just a temporary asset.

If you've ever done previs for film or television, have done greyboxing for videogames, or are a concept artist who shows 3d scenes to your client before refining the design, this set of observations may save you some time and pain in the future. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5n2dQ_fQ9go

Soulburn Art Lesson Page Updated Feb 16th 2021

Just posted a video lesson showing how to use my old script Wiremaker (aka Wirebundler / Wirejumble). Great for making bundles of wires, tentacles or tree branches. Hope you find it helpful!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pciLlHxf0Ww

Megastructures Update #6 Feb 2021

Welcome to the 6th official Megastructure Book Project Update, a visual encyclopedia of scifi megastructures!

So first off, the rough layout of the book is complete. More work still needs to be done, the text of the book is getting edited right now, and so some adjustment will need to be made once we have the final text. An image or two will need some finessing to fit the format. Some extra background graphics need to be added. But overall, all the bones of the layout are complete. 

On a technical note, most books are laid out in Adobe InDesign, but since Adobe software is now rental only, and I don't use rental only software, I got a copy of Affinity Publisher for a one time purchase price of $50, and found it just as powerful as InDesign ever was. Thanks Affinity for charging a fair one time price!

Second big news is book proposals for the project have now been sent off to all the publishers I wanted to contact. Will spend the next several months in talks with various publishers to see if any of them are the right home for the project. If we find a good match, awesome. If not, the next step will be the Kickstarter to preorder, followed swiftly by printing and shipping. Will let you know how it goes.

That's it for now, hope to provide more updates soon. I am super stoked to get the project finished and into your waiting hands. Megastructures started in 2014, and so in the context of the whole project, we're in the home stretch now!

And thanks again for continuing to follow along!

Megastructures Update #5 Jan 2021

  

Welcome to the 5th official Megastructure Book Project Update, a visual encyclopedia of scifi megastructures!

I just received the final 2 images for the Megastructrure project from one of our guest artists. So that's it. All images for the book have been finished! That's a total of 46 paintings, 43 diagrams, and 7 bonus images! A big thanks to the guest artists for adding their own unique vision to the other artwork in the book. It's possible an image or two may be added or lost in the final layout process, but I'm declaring this 100% image complete, we have all we need to make this book happen!

So the next step is completing the rough layout, which is likely to be finished in the next few weeks, and the completion of the book proposal which is being sent to a number of major publishers.

Will post another update when the book is laid out, and then keep you updated on how the publisher search is going. If no suitable publisher is found, we'll kickstart the printing just like we did with the last book, it worked last time, so it'll work again. But I'm hopeful we'll find a good publisher who believes in the project and will allow us to reach a wider audience. Will let you know how it goes. And thanks again for continuing to follow along!

Futuristic Car 5

A redo of my Futuristic Car 1. Adjusted a number of things I wasn't happy with on the first one, and changed the design language from being a "Far Future" car to a more "Near Future" Car. 3d block-out model, then the rest is painted in photoshop.