9/4/2008 - Meteora
After seeing my various paintings based loosely on photos, a friend on another forum (hi, Baka!) offered me a bunch of photos from a vacation to Meteora in Greece, where monasteries are built perched high atop the rocky peaks. Here is my take on some of the pictures:
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9/2/2008 - various nature speedpaintings
A speedpaint I did tonight of a rainforest grotto with a small run-off waterfall.
And another one of a forest path:
Here's one of a secluded temple:
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9/2/2008 - Talon
This week I built a 3D low-poly fantasy warrior character just for fun. I've been doing low-poly stuff at Meez but it's all been necessarily light and cartoony, so I thought it would be nice to show off some more detailed painted textures. So here he is, just a few days worth of work.
As for the technical specs: He's about 2700 triangles, 1024x1024 diffuse and specular maps and a 64x128 diffuse map with alpha for the hair on the top of the head. All of the textures were hand-painted by me, no photo-referencing or overlayed textures used at all.
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8/26/2008 - Dr. Eugenius Smitten silhouettes
Here's some development work on what the Evil Genius' full body will look like: I knew I wanted him to be tall and lanky, but there are all different ways to achieve that. It's important to have a strong silhouette. I took my earlier sketches and reworked them 'til I had something I liked. But it's also important to see how all the characters work together. My last Scarface (lower right) looks too meaty in the hands and legs and doesn't look like he even lives in the same universe as these pics of the Doc. So I reworked him 'til they all look right together.
(Apologies to those JoCo fans who have noted that they envisioned Scarface being smaller. I didn't. But thanks for looking anyhow!)
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8/25/2008 - Grimwald the Dour
I don't normally post 3D work here, but what the heck: As a break from painting and drawing (well, sort of) I joined a contest over on GameArtisans.org to come up with a texture for an already-built low-poly model. I hadn't done any serious texture work in several years (the very cartoony work at Meez doesn't quite count) so I really had fun with this... All my practice painting digital illustrations really applied itself well to this. So here's how it came out:
The texture is 512x512, though I painted it at twice that size. And I do mean painted: It's all hand-done, no overlaid textures or patterns or anything.
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8/22/2008 - Landscape speedpaintings
I did some speeedpaintings based on photos of exotic locales that I had lying around. These were all done in Photoshop and took 1 to 2 hours each.
Somewhere around Mount Batur, Bali, Indonesia (from a photo taken on my honeymoon):
From a kayaking trip outside of Nelson, New Zealand:
...And a pic from a drive down scenic Highway 24 in lovely Orinda, California, about 10 or 15 minutes from my house:
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8/20/2008 - A Version of Scarface
Here's a color take on Scarface, not necessarily the final one, it was just fun to do a color piece instead of just a pencil sketch.
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8/17/2008 - Sketchy Mountain
Here's another Skullcrusher Mountain speedpaint, a really quick one. For this one I challenged myself to only use one brush, a hard-edged chisel I made. I don't like the design as much as the earlier ones but it was a good exercise.
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8/16/2008 - Continuing on in that vein...
Here's another Skullcrusher Mountain. I started off with some hard-edged stylized shapes, which you can see in the clouds, and combined them with some brushy touches in the rest of the sky and tighter finishes on the cliffs. It's a few different styles mashed together, but I think it kind of works. Anyhow, the palette feels more effective than any of the others I've posted thus far: Ominous but not otherworldly. (I had a bright red version of this layout, but it felt like the mountains would be crawling with Orcs instead of wolves, which wasn't right.)
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8/14/2008 - Yet another Skullcrusher Mountain
My friend Bobby MacNeil suggested that I try to approach these paintings with more of an eye towards the Hudson River School painters, so here is yet another take on Skullcrusher Mountain with a bit of that influence.
I'm still ambivalent about the base design: The heavy structure "crushing" the skull reads too much like a turban, sending the wrong message. And the colors might not be the most apropos for an evil mastermind's base... but they sure are pretty!
While I was looking for references, I also happened to stumble upon a terrific site, Rob Richards' Animation Backgrounds blog where he posts images of classic animation background paintings that he's edited together from DVD captures using Photoshop. He uses these as backdrops for animation cels he collects, but the paintings are so lovely all by themselves that he shares them online. What a treasure trove!
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8/13/2008 - Subway sketches
We now bring you a temporary respite from my Skullcrusher Mountain development concepts:
Had to BART in to the city today for an interview and did these images of folks on the train. The landscape is from a recent drive into the city (I was a passenger.)
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8/11/2008 - More Skullcrusher Mountain development
 More sketching from Skullcrusher Mountain: Here are some more ideas for Scarface:
...and a color rough of the Secret Lair. Not a final image by any means, just a sketch.
...And another one, just a few hours quickie:
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8/5/2008 - Dr. Eugenius Smitten
More development for "Skullcrusher Mountain." These are some sketches of some bodies to go with the heads posted earlier.
In other news, I have been laid off by Meez. If you know of any appropriate opportunities in the Bay Area, I'm all ears! (And if you're in the area and want to have lunch, I suddenly have more free time on my hands! :) )
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7/25/2008 - Welcome to my secret lair on Skullcrusher Mountain
What would concepting out Skullcrusher Mountain be without Skullcrusher Mountain itself? Here are some designs of the evil fortress:
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7/24/2008 - I see you've met my assistant Scarface
More character designs, this time of the Mad Scientist's assistant Scarface.
I guess I should take a step back and explain what I'm doing here, at least for whoever recognizes the entry title quote of the day: Anyone familiar with the song 'Skullcrusher Mountain' by Jonathan Coulton? It's about a Mad Scienctist in love, complete with assistants, monsters, nefarious technology, the works! It's from Coulton's album 'Where Tradition Meets Tomorrow.' You can listen to or purchase the song (and many others) at Jonathan Coulton's web-site.
Anyhow, just for fun, I'm treating it as a concept design project and designing the characters and scenes and monsters from the song. It's not for anything, just concept design and visual development practice. I'll be posting more soon... enjoy!
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7/20/2008 - Hairdos of the Powerful and Criminally Insane
Further visual development of the Evil Genius character, who I have named Dr. Eugenius Smitten. I've taken the face I liked best form the last batch - the bald one - and have been developing some more potential looks for him.
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7/17/2008 - Bwa ha ha ha ha haaa!
I've been sketching Mad Scientists and Evil Geniuses lately:
 It's only by total coincidence that this is the week that the first installments of Doctor Horrible's Sing-Along Blog have come out, but it's a good short film (so far) by Joss Whedon and I recommend it anyhow.
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5/11/2008 - Adorable Alien
I finally finished that piece I was working on for the CGSociety Challenge (see the lots-of-entries below.) Here's the finished painting. This piece won the Excellence Award in the Challenge (a.k.a. 2nd place.)
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About Me
This is the sketch-blog of Mike Dashow (walrus.) Hopefully this will get me off my butt and force me to sketch more.
Friends
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