Friday 29 January 2016

Warhammer sketches; Chaos Bloodreaver Champion

Decided to practise using some warhammer models as a bit of 3d reference.
here is the start of a Bloodreaver champion. will redraw the hands and add some decapitated heads soon
Any other anatomy comments will be appreciated. couple things im not too sure on


Friday 5 December 2014

Crazy crazy hectics


Hey guys sorry for lack of blogs.
Im currently working on 4 different projects with some indie devs so its a bit hectic
I am also doing 3 different courses. How i got to pile up this i dont know lol
And obv im tryong to get christmas presents and other related festive celebrations done
Sorry bare with and ill try do a little update blog soon :) 
Peace
Menja X

Monday 24 November 2014

Time restraints and fatigue

hey guys, just a quick post. had to take up a few extra hours at work which is cutting in to my art time so its taking me alot longer than i wanted to get through Art Camp
Im going to presevre and try post Art Camp updates every day
good possibility im entering Lundum Dare aswel so going to be hectic making game art from 5th-8thdec
Starting dec 5th ill also be starting a new course led by daarken. so excited for that
And at some point i will be making autotiles,sprites and other pixel bits
Bare with me.ill post as often as possible

Thanks for sticking with me
Peace
Menja X

Tuesday 18 November 2014

Update on my whereabouts and hype

Hey guys, sorry to have been away for so long, been up to a bunch of art assignments, suffering being very ill and going here there and everywhere with doctors and hospitals and had some work stuff ive had to deal with
Anyway, what have i been to artwise?

Ive partaken in the Inktober challenge, where i had to draw everyday throughout the month of october in Ink. Ive done up to day 19 and im still finishing off the rest. Ive done basic outlines in pencil but need to shade it in ink
you can see my progress with that here:
http://jhmenjaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/inktober-challenge.html
part 2 with days 20-31 will be posted soon

In Addition i made a pumpkin avatar as a halloween challenge. not much to explain but you can see it here:
http://jhmenjaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/halloween-pumpkin-challenge.html

As general practice, i have been sketching at he museum, and making master studies at the art gallery. Some of these are included in my inktober post so please check that out. Some of them are so loose and sketchy they prob just look a bit mental for outside eyes o im keeping them as personnel references

Ive been watching some of Aiden Chopras google sketch up videos to learn how to use googlesketchup. this will start as a first steps into incororating 3d models into my digital painting to help my get perspective right and overall just make my artwork better. If you are interested in learning too here is  the link
http://www.aidanchopra.com/web-content
will be moving onto zbrush. I dabble with it occasionally and have been self learning using scott spencers awesome books which are avalable on amazon

On top of this ive been trying to get to grips on learning how to make auotiles for an indie dev. im not going to talk too much about this as i dont want to spill any beans on a project that isnt mine.
its interesting but it fries my brain!!! haha give me assets and sprites anyday

So as you can see, ive piled on my workload ALOT!!
So im trying to slow it down and concentrate on a couple of course im enrolled upon.

The first being Chris Oatleys Magic box. Which i cannot recommend enough!! Love it so much!
This is what my aye aye and gorilla project is part of. check out my progress here
http://jhmenjaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/goya-gorilla-crossover-scrapped-aye-aye.html
And Chris Oatleys magic bx can be viewed here
http://chrisoatley.com/

The second being Noah Bradleys Art Camp. I'm only part way through the first lesson so far but i am enjoying it. I will be keeping updates here in a separate blog
 http://menjaatartcamp.blogspot.co.uk/

check out the art camp here
http://artcamp.com

Third and foremost i have somehow managed to get a spot on Daarkens course which doesnt start til december
Ive not decided whether to do a seperate blog for this as i know Daarken has requested students to not make too much content public. which i intend to respect so you may just got the odd sketch without much description if i blog on it at all

Check out Daarkens courses at www.enliighten.com

So i will be working endlessly on the Chris oatley stuff and Noahs Art Camp until Daarkens course starts, then when im not working on Daarkens course i will continuing on magic box and art camp
Chris' and Noahs stuff i have access to at all times whereas Daarkens course will be live with deadlines to meet thats why ill be working on them in this way.

Hopefully ill get through most of the course by february except for Chris as new content unlocks each month. Oh and i have some character ideas but need to iron out the creases and gather some reference material

so yep busy busy busy

As a last note, i have absolutly fallen in love with Mark Molnars work!! You have to see it!!
GO NOW!! LOOK AT IT!!
http://markmolnar.com/
How freakin awesome is that!?
Ive supported his book campaign Behind the Pixels which got funded!!Woop! So will be getting that end of January! Cant wait!
So he has truly given me standard to reach for *crosses fingers* :D

He is also working with the Ninja Theory team on their new game Hellblade which i cannot wait for, so hyped atm for so much stuff. And they are blogging their process cause they are awesome like that :D

http://www.hellblade.com/

So thats where im at! im so sorry i vanished for millenia, ill do my best to keep you guys posted more regularly!
Love ya lots!

Peace
Menja X

***This sources i have either found genuinally helpful through personnel experience of them or are links i just have an interest in in the case of links to artists and games stuff etc
I have not been paid any promotional or sponsored funding to mention them ****

Resources
 My inktober progress blog (part 1) http://jhmenjaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/inktober-challenge.html
My Halloween challenge blog http://jhmenjaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/halloween-pumpkin-challenge.html
Aiden Chopras google sketchup videos http://www.aidanchopra.com/web-content
Amazon link to Scott Spencers zbrush books http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=scott+spencer+zbrush
My progress blog on CHris Oatleys Magic Box assignments http://jhmenjaart.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/goya-gorilla-crossover-scrapped-aye-aye.html
Chris Oatley  www.chrisoatley.com

My new blog that will document my progress through Noah Bradleys Art Camp
 http://menjaatartcamp.blogspot.co.uk/
Noah Bradleys Art Camp http://artcamp.com
Daarken www.enliighten.com
 Mark Molnar http://markmolnar.com/
Behind the Pixels http://www.itsartmag.com/features/projects/behind-the-pixels/
Hellblade http://www.hellblade.com/

Social Media
Instagram             http://instagram.com/jenny_menja_hall_art
Facebook             https://www.facebook.com/JMenjaHArt?ref_type=bookmark
Twitter                 https://twitter.com/MenjaMist
Google+              https://plus.google.com/u/0/117436179098243645186/posts
Deviant art          http://valkrya.deviantart.com/
Email                   jhmenjaart@gmail.com

Halloween Pumpkin Challenge

Another challenge i took part in was making a pumpkin image that would be used as my avatar over halloween
This was my first attempt

image I did do a texture layer before i posted my first one by it just looked off so i deleted it.
I tried texture layer again, not sure how much better it is
I know there is work to do on it so the image flows together a bit better and i kinda want to put bits of pumpkin on the floor so it looks like the axe had a bit on an impact. Not sure how to go about it without them looking like orange globs
imageThis image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
I then decided to add a bit of pumpkin bits and motions blue to make it look more interesting
 
So yeah, got some decent practice in on this one. generally kind happy with the outcome but prob left it earlier than most people would cause i wanted to crack on with a pile of assignments i left myself with
 
Peace
Menja X

Goya Gorilla crossover, scrapped aye aye project

Hey guys, little update on the Aye aye project.
Im not longer doing an aye aye, i scrapped that idea

Yes i scrapped my Aye-Aye and restarted.
Painting not by Goya but a paintin of Goya by Vicente López y Portaña
image
and this is the reference pic, i think its a near enough match lol
image
This image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.


I learnt when doing my Aye Aye to study the skull first and understand their skeletal system and muscle structure compared to my own. SO i used a bunch of reference images rom books to sketch from and draw human skulls next the them so i could relate the proportions (i apologise in advance my scanner is a heap of junk. im trying to save for a new one)
imageimage

I noticed you can see Goyas hands in the painting so did a couple of hand studies too
imageimageimage

Then unlike my Aye aye a gorilla was alot easier to find a local zoo i could go too to draw one from. SO here are some sketches of him
imageimage

Got some of his face as he did different stuff like eat and call to his troop. These are prob a bit scribbly cause did these quick to capture the moment a bit. I was so happy he was awake and quite active. when i visited the zoo before he was asleep lol
image
This image has been resized to fit in the page. Click to enlarge.


Ive put the painting and the reference together and got this:
image

After a few days away from this project i decided i wasnt happy and redrew the gorilla
I took a similar approach to drawing the face, (draw the skull, then muscle and skin layer) by drawing the gorillas body and then doing the suit on top fitted to his proportions

I went back up the zoo with my reference pic of the painting. i did do a few more studies and managed to sketch the gorilla in as similar a pose as i possibly could
image

I then used photoshop to layer the painting on top of my sketch and used the warp tool to get the clothes to like they were fitted around the gorillas body (to the best i could anyway)
image

I then used this as a reference picture and draw the suit so it looked more normal on top of my gorilla sketch and got this
image

Which is what im going to work from and start painting. Prob a bit of a long winded process but imo i think it looks more like the gorilla is wearing the suit rather than just replacing goyas head with a gorilla. Gorillas have huge muscles and massive shoulders, especially in comparison to a humans. Not sure if its better than my first sketch but seems a little more believable to me :)

I did redraw the right hand to a better position that matched the painting more.
Ill prob make the hands more meaty and more gorilla like in the painting process as they still look a bit too human for me

Im still not happy, it looks a bit squashed so im going to draw him again
keep checking back for more news on this :D

Peace
Menja X