Jotunheim's general scribbles

[Thanqol]

Hey, there's an art thread I haven't looked at, I wonder if it's - HNG

Oh dang, that stuff is extremely professional, I am extremely impressed. Questions follow: What program do you produce these in, how long does a typical piece take you, and do you have any advice for those greyscale-type paintings? I have spectacularly failed at almost every attempt at greyscale I've made. I'm also particularly interested in finding how blend-y you set your brushes.

[Jotunheim]

Thank you very kindly. Questions answered in order: I use photoshop CS3. I do have newer versions, but I'm just not comfortable with the UI, and they don't offer anything that I don't get out of CS3. A piece takes everywhere between a couple of hours and two full weeks of paint-work. It all depends on the level of detail, the degree of planning, the revision work, and bladibladibla :p

As for the black and white stuff, most of my paintings are first done in grayscale before I add color to them. This, I would like to stress, is but one approach, and while it works for me, it does not work for everyone. A friend of mine goes old school with his digital art and picks out a full color palette before starting a painting, and just goes to town with color right away. I find it easier to break down the values before I have to worry about hues. The amount of detail that goes into the black and white part depends from piece to piece.

As far as technical advice, almost all of my work is done with a regular round brush, set to 100% Opacity, 100% (sometimes changed a bit), Opacity jitter defined by pen pressure fo my tablet, and size jitter set to the same. I do also use a large variety of custom texture brushes and the like, and if you'd like, and don't mind a biggish download, I can link my brush library (Warning. It is presently huge, and messy and repeats itself a lot. I really need to clean it up).

One easy bit of advice for getting a bit more smooth blending in your paintings is to turn the smudge brush into a blender brush. The standard smudge brush is a piece of grade A poop. It is useless for everything, but if you take a brush (ideally with a bit of texture to it) and set it to the following:

Size Jitter: 0% with Pen pressure (Minimum diameter: 30%)
Angle Jitter: 100% (No modifiers)
Roundness jitter: 0%
No flipping of x or y

Apply scattering (both axis)
Scatter: 45%
Count: 2
Count jitter: Off

Opacity Jitter: Off
Flow Jitter: Pen Pressure

And hey presto, you have a nice blender that still adds a bit of texture to make smooth transitions. Just don't go over board with it ;)

[Jotunheim]

Also, I did a quick speed paint on this. Couldn't help myself:

[Jotunheim]

Continuing the proud tradition of me replying to my own thread, here's a quick little doodle I did in between commission work:

[Gullara]

Just stumbled across this thread today, and I wanted to say that your artwork is really great. I'll have to keep an eye on this. *nodnod*

[TheCountAlucard]

I really like that doodle. Nice job.

[Jotunheim]

Did another QC Doodle:


And I am heading to a fantasy book convention this weekend to plug my illustration business, so I figured I'd play to the crowd and do a hypothetical young adult urban fantasy book cover:


Oh, also, I finished that big commission, so I'm open for those again :)

[Jotunheim]

Small update. Just some doodle work.

[Jotunheim]

New painting!

Spoiler

Show

[Jotunheim]

Updating this thing again, finally. Been doing more professional work lately, which is yay because money, and boo because non-disclosure agreement. That being said. here's an artdump of my more recent stuff:
40k stuff
Chambers Militant of the Inquisition


Kharn and Argel-Tal


Slaanesh-corrupted Battle-Sister


Inquisitor Design:


Same Design in Zbrush:


Abaddon Design I'm working on in Zbrush:



Band Art
Cover from our third albu


Interior art from same


New Logo


Miscelanious Art
Post Apocalyptic Lady


Papa Emeritus


Demon Face


I think that's all that I'm permitted to show you right now :)

[Jotunheim]

So, I've been off this forum, and the internet in general for a while now. A lot has changed in my life. First the good! I'm now a full time employee with Epic Armoury, the world's biggest producer of larp gear, designing and sculpting weapons.
The bad, I got diagnosed with MS. It's kept under control, and I still do work, but it's still a crap sandwich. Ah well, always forward, eh?

Anyway! Here's a few recent pieces I did!

Self-Portrait Sketch


Art Pieces I did for the New World Magischola larp:





Art I did for Fantasy Flight Games


Lockwood sketch turned into a sculpt


Faun head sculpt

[Thanqol]

why so handsome, man. why so handsome.

You're doing bang up work! But as you're kind of out of my league to provide useful art advice for, is there anything you're looking to get from this thread? What are you working on and practicing in particular? Anything you're finding especially fun to draw? Or do you just want to share what you're working on, in which case my questions are more along the lines of 'how do you do the thing'

Sucks to hear about the MS, man.

[Jotunheim]

Hey! I mainly just use the thread to share work that I do with the community. It's nice to share creative work with fellow nerdlings :)
Feel free to ask questions if you have em.

And thanks.

[lingotony]

I like your stuff a lot, but there's one thing I notice. You seem to draw a lot of foggy, indistinct or even completely abstract backgrounds and that made me wonder. Do you paint much besides humanoids of one kind or another? Have you tried machinery, buildings, landscapes?

Agree with that.