Riot/Polycount Art Competition - Arcade Nocturne

Decided to give this competition a go! I love the aesthetic of League of Legends and just recently finally had a chance to try out the game, so why not? Choosing Nocturne as my subject champion - haven't had a chance to play him yet but he seems awesome. I love the arcade skins especially, which is a completely different aesthetic from what I normally do for character art, so thought it would be a fun challenge.

I noticed that the other existing arcade skins tend to be inspired by elements from specific games/themes, so for my idea here I'm going for a look inspired by a mashup of Tron/Daft Punk aesthetic, the Rocketeer, and a bit of the Pac Man ghost. Having an interesting time with the color palette so will see how that evolves, but overall I'm just having fun doing something different!

Will keep updating this post as I go and also link my WIP threads on the Polycount forum - I'm going to try and do both an entry for the Illustration and Character Art categories with this guy!

10/28 first sketches of ideas. Hope to hone in on a more final design soon so I can get cracking! There are elements of all of these that I like. 

MONSTER MONTH & Inktober challenge page!

Happy October! I'm going to maintain this post for a couple of awesome October art challenges I'll be participating in, so I can have everything in one place. Inktober! And an awesome Monster Month! Perfect for the Halloween season. I will probably combine several of my entries for both.

10/17/2014: Lantern Ghost

Little ghosty dude today. I gouached! 

10/16/2014: Ballpoint Banshee

Love working with ballpoint pens too. This challenge has been great for really just allowing myself to draw for fun and without pressure. 

10/15/2014: Spider Zombie

Definitely Skulltulla inspired. Actually tried to combine some of the elements I found most creepy about Skulltullas and ReDeads.

10/14/2014: BatBird

I...I don't even know. Whatever it is, it's a baby!

10/13/2014: Skele-creeper

Skeleton-devil creature

10/11/2014: Creeper

Some kinda creepy...thing. 

10/8/2014: It's the GREAT PUMPKIN!

Yeah yeah so I already did a pumpkin. Inspired to do this one after seeing a rotten pumpkin in the neighborhood - they start to look all wrinkly and cool

10/7/2014: CAT

Rediscovered a giant box of copic & micron pens in my house and decided to start trying them out again

10/6/2014: BAT CREATURE

Playing around again with ink and water

10/2/2014: SPIDER PUMPKIN!

Messing around with inks n' stuffs on terrible paper

10/1/2014: WRAITH

Scribbly wraith sketch experiment with wetting an ink drawing

San Diego Zoo sketches!

Last week while visiting family in CA, I got to spend a few hours at the amazing San Diego Zoo. The place is huge! We barely made it through 1/3 of the place. Next time I'll have to make a visit to the wild animal park, too, haven't been in years.

ANYWHO, I thought I'd share some of the sketches that came out of that trip. The first place we stopped was the reptile house so much of the goodness happened there.

Tried to label the animals when I could for later reference - this guy was probably my favorite from the whole trip. 

Some of the snakes were downright adorable

This big orangutan was another favorite. He had this perfectly groomed-looking epic facial hair

He also would sit around and strike crime-boss type poses. Also note the bird with the awesome mohawk and name. I love crazy hairstyles on animals. 

The aviaries were another great section to visit.

Was losing steam at this point, but had to do some of the nutty flamingo poses on the way out. 

Fabulous zoo hat for the occasion. Also note the proper sketching stance - the more uncomfortable it is, the better.  

Zoo sketching is the best! Everyone should go to their nearest zoo and draw everything. We didn't even see half the zoo and I got to sketch some really amazing animals with so much personality.

Happy sketching!