Skeletor Turntable

Barring any minor changes the modeling portion of Skeletor is complete. I plan to do a full rendered out illustration style scene through maya but wanted to include a turn table animation with no texture to show the model, kind of like a pewter figurine.
-Meatmonkey

Katana Girl

An old drawing I pulled out and am starting to digitally paint. So I will put up the sketch for now and post the painting once it is complete. Do not expect it soon however, there is much more important work that needs to be done first!

-Meatmonkey

VG Sketchbook 02

Some face make up designs with weird helm accessories and some sort of masked tiki jungle woman. I did not really have a plan I just kind sketched to see what would happen. Im just happy to have the time to sketch two days in a row. Tomorrow though will be a Zbrush day most likely, so unlikely I will have anytime to do anything within my sketchbook.

-Meatmonkey

VG Sketchbook 01

Got a new sketch book the other day, it is much more ornate than my usual sketch books. It is field book (smaller) and has Van Gogh motifs on the outside of it, thus Im calling it the VG sketchbook. It was my intention to use this blog as a running sketch book, so here you go. The first page(s) of the sketchbook.

-Meatmonkey

Nun

A sketch that I planned to paint, but never got around to. I find myself with less and less time to do traditional painting anymore. Perhaps I should digitally paint this one instead, but I guess time will tell what becomes of this sketch - if anything does.

-Meatmonkey

Student Base Head

Here is a head I created in Maya for beginning students to use within Zbrush on the first day of class. It was given to them in case they have never had any 3d experience and could take the base head divide it to make head sculptures of their own. I too plan on creating some quick 3d sculptures from this head, so here is before then.

-Meatmonkey

Skeletor Color

Been working on my Skeletor sculpture lately in Zbrush. I finally figured out how to correct the Uv's after going to Zrush! This will hopefully be the last work in progress of this particular piece. Still have quite a few items to sculpt and texture, but here you go. Hopefully the next post on this guy will be the final.
-Meatmonkey

HTH

Some practice on hand to hand weapons. Need to start working on more variety of objects and things other than just figures. I still need to work on figures, but cannot ignore all the other goodies.

-Meatmonkey

Hel

Another sketch done for the Norse mythos characters. I spent some more time on the shading on this one as I tend to get carried away at times. It looks good so far, I like the design and cannot see changing it much other than costume redesigns.

-Meatmonkey

Hrodr

Another first attempt at another norse god. This one is of Hrodr, the blind god who killed his brother Baldur and began Ragnarok. Most of these designs I think I will will be doing multiple times to hopefully achieve better results.

-Meatmonkey

Sindri

Working on some norse mythos concepts. This one is the first attempt at the dwarven smith, Sindri. I have decided to move away from the generic fantasy dwarf and make them creatures of stone and fire, something that crawled forth from the forge themselves. In time I plan on doing more fleshed out concept attempts of this guy.

-Meatmonkey

Run

Running to something or away from something. Either way, he is running with purpose! Might paint this digitally and see were it takes me. For now, we will just say he is running to catch the bus.

-Meatmonkey

Glass: Prayer

The last of the glass Christmas special posts. I did a few more including a snowflake for a xmas tree ornament, but I do not want to fill the blog with "What I gave for xmas" posts. The crafting season is over, back to drawing!

-Meatmonkey

Glass: Celebration

Another Christmas gift piece in sandblasted glass. Everything in these glass pieces is custom made, with the glass inserted into a wood frame with a wood backing. Personal made things always make nice gifts, and the recipients were all happy with their glass stuff. Nothing been broken yet.

-Meatmonkey

Glass: Flower Girl

I know its been a while. The holidays made me lazy, but now I must get back to work! Here is something I did in glass with sandblasting for a Christmas gift. The glass stuff does not photograph very well, but it came out very nice.

-Meatmonkey

Flea Acolytes

There is something about a pious bug that makes me smile. A quick sketch done with color pencil on vellum marker paper. Enjoy Turkey day all and I hope you do not find any fleas among your guests. Happy Thanksgiving!

-Meatmonkey

Sundancer

Perty stuff...Yeah!!! Playing with the figure some, stretching and distorting it some trying to find something that is lost in most of my work. I ran out of room on the paper so she lost her feet in my search to find something. I do like the outcome and may consider a traditional painting from it, but we will see.

-Meatmonkey

Dr. Fly

Expected a smooth talking sexy doctor? Im sure you all know me better than that, this is more of a scientist fly than a doctor but thats minor details. Either way I sketched it trying to pull myself out of the loss file fiasco funk. It came out okay, but I still have to find more time to make more sketches if I want to get better.

-Meatmonkey

Keeper

Frustration fills me at the moment since it looks like I lost a couple days work on Skeletor. It is disheartening to lose the work, so I have not really worked on much of anything new today. This is an old drawing that decided to throw up along with my anger. Out with the bad air, in with the good...

-Meatmonkey

Tank

Yeah, I got sidetracked again and now I have another project on the list. Originally it was suppose to be just a perspective study for me to draw some tanks with, but the block shapes quickly started becoming detailed. Its far from done, but thats what I worked on today, and will probably come back to it after Skeletor.

-Meatmonkey

Block: Hexed

Old acrylic painting on a block of wood which was done rather quickly if I remember. Hopefully some day I will have more time to do more acrylic painting. But for now its sketching and portfolio related work.

-Meatmonkey

Costume Stance 2

Still primarily working on Skeletor, but I don't want to post a bunch of sequential work in progress pictures of it without mixing some other stuff in between them. So here is another costume stance image which I plan of working on. I might do one more female stance picture to have a slight variety between the poses. Probably should paint them before I worry about that though.
-Meatmonkey

Scan: Funboy

A maniac with a joy for body augmentation and a taste for danger. Despite all his flaws he knows how to have a good time. I am considering doing more punk like concepts which I might eventually model out. I think I just want to do a character all inked up with a lot of accessories.
-Meatmonkey

Skeletor: WIP 1

A work in progress of the Skeletor model I am doing and hoping to get the modeling portion done by early next week. At this stage I have done the some of the basic figure sculpting and blocked in very simple shapes for the lower parts of his armor. I still need to model the upper armor pieces and work on the entire thing.
-Meatmonkey

Garden Witch

For the most part I am going to call this one done. It did not come out as well as I liked, but they never do. I might come back later and work on it some, but for now here it is and I am off to the next project on the list.
-Meatmonkey

Bone

Old piece I did for a digital draw off for a forums contest a while back. We were lumped in groups and given topics week to week. This one was Jeff Smiths, "Bone" which I never read before the contest but found it to be a quite humorous children's book series. I did not even make it past the first round despite most of the others in my round really sucked.

-Meatmonkey

Costume Stance

This is a sketch done with the intent to paint over it and eventually do a bunch of costume designs on top of that. I am seriously lacking in many things in drawing and one of them is costume design. Lets hope for the best.

-Meatmonkey

Concept: Garden Witch

Here is a piece in the very early stages of work. Right now its nothing more than a quick pencil sketch scanned in and it needs some fixing in some parts. I try not to worry about it so much and fix things as I go on pieces I plan of digitally painting. This one I have a great vision in my mind for, but lets see if it comes out anything like that.

-Meatmonkey

Lion

Another short painting study of a lion, this one taking about 3 hours. I have found lions to be difficult to paint, and will need to do many more studies before I feel I will get them right. I feel these painting studies are the best thing right now for me, so I will keep working on them.

-Meatmonkey

Monkey One

More digital painting practice, a short study that was about 2 hours of painting in total. I may work on this some more but I am trying to get out of the habit of rendering so much. I want to move towards a more expressive look, with maybe some area's tightened up.
-Meatmonkey

Beach Girl

This piece was done to further practice digital painting, a random photo of a girl on the beach. Its decent practice and I did not want to spend too much time on it so I stopped around the 8 hour mark. Trying to increase both my speed and better my technique so expect to see more of these.
-Meatmonkey

Bust: David

A charcoal drawing from from life of a bust that I think was David but not really sure. I do want to do some more drawings like this since its such great practice but spare time will determine whether or not that happens. Be nice to do something like this with a sketch group, since I do have a cheap bust of Julius Caesar.
-Meatmonkey

Glass Mask: Part I

This is the first stage of a piece currently in works. The mask is sand blasted glass and will be placed over an acrylic rendering of a women's face on wood. It does not photograph well, but here you go. The painting portion of this piece I really want to get done, but is very low priority at this time. So look back in the future for the exciting conclusion of the Glass Mask.

-Meatmonkey

Evil Children

When I paint from imagination I usually fail miserably. So I have decided to begin regular practice digital painting from photo's and possibly life until I can do that very well. It is the whole learn to walk before you run thing. This is a portrait of an evil child from some movie or television show Im assuming, I just painted it for practice.

-Meatmonkey

Concept: Ice Guardian

Thief's Tale is officially on hold, but not cancelled, and this has greatly freed up my time. It feels good to sketch again, and I find its not like riding a bike. It will disappear on you faster than a parolee leprechaun if not maintained. This particular guy was done for an online concept group at Sketch Night, feel free to check it out. All the good time info will be in a post there!

-Meatmonkey

20710

The "Thief's Tale" projects due date is fast approaching and I am far from completion to the degree I would of liked the art to be at. Trying to shove this much background art within a couple months is just not good for ones inner child. Its crying. As such I will have to make cut decisions for the IGF launch of the game, and come back over a few months afterwords and polish the game for the high definition version at a later date. Its sad, but will have to be done to make the deadline.
-Meatmonkey

Scrolling Waterfall

Here is my first attempt at background animations for Thief's Tale. In this case its an 86 frame scrolling waterfall that will be placed all over have areas masked out to give it its ending shape. It will be a big part in the caves stage most likely, and used to a lesser degree in the cliffs. Make an asset use it as much as you can I guess.
-Meatmonkey

20902

With the weekend comes a lot of hours of work on background painting. I put close to 30-40 hours this weekend as usual by not sleeping much and it seems like I barely put a dent in this project. Either way, this is a work in progress on the cave stage. The background is mostly in values at this point, and will be knocked back quite a bit before done. The caves stage will take the most work I feel out of all the stages, but only little time left will tell.

-Meatmonkey

Thief's Tale: The Princess

Its surprisingly hard to get a low pixel female model to look correctly and was an unpleasant experience overall. The first attempt she looked like a he-she out of Silence of the Lambs. After take two, she looked more like a she-he with Homer Simpsons makeup shotgun. I eventually got her down to a clown whore, but I tried a third time and finally got something like this.

-Meatmonkey

Theif's Tale: The Captain

The captain of the guards from the game "Thief's Tale". He is the leader of the Stooge's of the guards, and the largest Stooge of them all. Though he likes shiny things, he is dull and blunt as the weapon he carries. He may be made more ornate, but time restraints will tell.

-Meatmonkey

Thief's Tale: The Fencer

Another work in progress character from the game "Thief's Tale". This one is a fencer, an elite personal guard of the evil princess. They are fast, vicious, and a little bit dandy. The work is still coming along, I might want to add a tunic type piece of clothing.

-Meatmonkey

Thief's Tale: The Guard

Though the final may change some, this is my first draft of one of the enemies for Thief's Tale. The initial characters were already completed for the game, so my models for them should follow those designs. Unless I wanted to redo the ones completed, which I saw no need and dont have the time to complete.

-Meatmonkey

10110

Another work in progress shot from Thief's Tale. Been hard at work trying to get as much done on this as possible, with little sleep this weekend. I have taken four stages to an early stages of completion. Right now Im trying to get every stage to a point if we had to launch we could, then go back any make everything the way I really want by adding onto it. This is still at the cut and paste stage, but at least its a different stage. Next week is going to probably be dedicated to character models so the Animator will have more time to play with them.

-Meatmonkey

Raygun

Another old image that I want to get archived here onto this blog. This is a 3d model and render of the future of weaponry as thought by people in the past. Done in Maya, with me basically trying my hand at high end rendering stuff. Working on trying to finish a bunch of stuff for a deadline around the corner. Hopefully will have more to share with you all soon.
-Meatmonkey

10901

Another work in progress of a stage screen from the game "Thief's Tale". Its starting to look more respectable but I have yet to really push it to where I want it to be yet. Right now Im still just making generic background elements and cut and pasting them together.

-Meatmonkey

Block: Fracture

Another old painting that just wanted to get up for all to see. Hopefully I will get more time to do some traditional painting again here soon. I have been busy with other projects which are taking more time than expected.

-Meatmonkey

Lurker

More bugs. I will probably come back to all these bug paintings and eventually work over them. Right now I am just trying to get as much practice with the "medium" as possible. When I have a good quantity of them done, I will take another look at them. Usually its good to take a look at something after some time has passed I have learned.
-Meatmonkey

Boanerges Art Test

I found a game development company hiring environmental artist that required an art test. I was happy to actually take the test to prove I would be able to do the job, something that seems difficult to get potential employers to understandably believe in their applicants. Excitedly I did the test and was near finishing when I noticed that the site was last updated years ago. Thats usually a good indication that the company is defunct. I finished it and sent it in anyways, but have never heard from them. This Game model is under 1k Quad Polycount, with two 1024 texture map passes per their instructions.

-Meatmonkey

Transporter Accident

A concept sketch of a"Transporter Accident" done in color pencil on vellum marker paper. I plan on painting over it digitally and adding the transporter into it. This woman was once Miss Universe 3010 before her unfortunate accident.

-Meatmonkey

Swamp Troll

Been a while since I posted anything, so I need to get back on track with that. Heres a sketch of something that probably smells really bad. Dont remember the time, around 3 hours if I had to guess, it was done in a single sitting. Color pencil on vellum marker paper.

-Meatmonkey