Practice makes perfect

Space Trippin'

This is another play list I helped make for a crew member of mine.

And the link so that you can listen to it. http://8tracks.com/frances-ratner/kombi-space-trippin

8 tracks for the kombi win!

I just painted 2 pictures for the 8 Tracks competition, in the effort to win a Kombi!

Here's the link to the first play list http://8tracks.com/karl-thiart/let-s-drive-into-the-sunrise

space take 2

Rogues and Romance

Six months after I began work at Cerebral Fix, I was offered the opportunity to act as the lead artist for the companies biggest social game project “Jane Austen’s Rogues and Romance ”. Our client was BBC and we had to directly communicate to them in the USA over skype and the use of google docs. 

I mapped out the initial screens for the game and worked on the user interface. Early on in the project I had to establish the look and feel.

I was in charge of a team of seven artists, dealing with, environments, ui elements, characters and 3D blockouts.

cup cake time!

Here is some graphic/illustration work I am doing for a local cupcake business.

A young sailor

Flocking Rocks

After working for clients for a while I really had an urge to get back to my own stuff. This is just a quick relief sketch to unwind after a long week. I don't really know what the warrior is riding but I think it is a mixture between a donkey and a dinosaur.

New Moon

I recently did an illustration for a client, have a look at their website and the top image is one I have done for them (the site is pretty cool as well). http://www.respavvn.at

This is the first time I have attempted a full out space painting. I am very happy how it turned out and only spent 2 hours working on it. I figured to create a good space scene you need the following skills and techniques;

• dont go for straight black, go for a dark grey to start off with (almost black but not quite).
• think about compositional shapes. foreground moons are really good for setting a scale.
• create some "space clouds". Do not add any colors yet, this will simply confuse you. Use a cloud brush and smear tool (that one that pushes the paint around), you may need to think about adding some more ram... Just dot them around the place and then mask it out to your liking. Be free and explore the shapes you can make.
• You have to add a star/sun which is clearly in the solar system, maybe 2 or 3, its cool coz you can.
• now select your foreground, moon shapes and chuck a gradient through it (radial gradient).
• throw a grunge photo texture over the moon on overlay and Chewbacca's your new side kick.
• now make a crazy dark shape (from your darkest darks) and cut it out with lasso tool to your hearts desire. Once again go crazy.
• find a photo of a skyscraper at night with its lights on and slap it over that dark silhouette, lower the transparency of the photo. 
• splatter some stars with a star brush sparingly in places you know it will add to the composition (darker areas or in nebulas).
• now you can put a color layer of everything, have fun with the nebulas.
• add some high lights with a dodge layer.

I will add a vid of the process very soon! Stay blogged in for more updates.

Masters Of Art

This was a in house art challenge submission for my previous work place Cerebral Fix. Still needs to be finished but I thought I would put it up here anyway. Have a look at the blog and check out the other cool characters http://redtentacle.blogspot.co.nz/

So we recently kicked off our first 2D Art Challenge within our group, to coincide with the sister 3D challenge! As its a new thing for all of us, we decided to hit the ground running with the following subject:

"Imagine that somewhere, in another plausible dimension, the Masters of Art that we have come to celebrate in museums and art books throughout our lives…battle it out one-on-one to put an end to the speculation and finally settle the argument that their art style is the best art style. THIS is why you studied art theory at school! THIS is THE DEADLIEST MASTERS OF ART!"

Here is a little promotion video I have done for a little marketing for myself. In the grand scheme of things I will get some good publicity and get my art more views :)

http://fiverr.com/karljohanthiart/illustrate-an-environmental-conceptual-art

Asian Fusion

I am planning on boosting my output for the next 2 months. I will be focussing on environments that have elements of architecture and some sort of interaction between the nature and living beings. Hopefully there will be some interesting content on here and if anybody wants a break down of how I created this image post in the comments and I will stick my workflow up. Sharing is caring.

china town

This is a bit rough, but thats the way I like it. Its a smoggy sci fi China town street scene.

Dynamic action shot Thumbnails

Finally I am able to post some more work. Everyday of this week after work I spent 1 and a half hours working on some thumbnails, this week I wanted to focus on dynamic mood shots, The genres are action, sci-fi and adventure because that's what I like. My favorite one is the district 9 frame of a close up of the "prawns" legs and the prawn in the background being pushed around by the human with a gun. These were really fun, sadly I didnt want to post the other 9 drawings up as they sucked a bit.

Sci-fi

I have been drawing heaps of medieval fantasy worlds. Its a new year and this year I want to start branching out and work on more than what I know. These are a few speed paints\thumbnails I have been working on, I really need to start pushing up the size of them... I try and paint 9+ thumbnails at once so that all the compositions are fresh.

Dr Gordborts Challenge

Hello there, Ive started working on my concept for Dr Gordborts Challenge. So far I have just had a play around after work and liking where Im going, but I think I will be pushing this a whole lot further and going to create something great, that stands up against Greg Broadmore's stuff (I wish)...

reworking concepts

I had a break over the Christmas holiday and didn't do much work on the computer at all (nothing at all for 2+ weeks). I had a look over the blog and wanted to start resolving some of my earlier concepts. This is the first piece Im going to resolve and I started with the foreground archer as he is an important component to the composition.