Beast of Burden - Character - Timo Vihola

#1

Just started doing this today, I’m kinda late in the game, but there’s still plenty of time… :slight_smile: You guys have been doing some fantastic work, keep it up! This could be the best 2d challenge so far!

Ok, here’s what I got so far (it’s in very early stage, anything might change), it’s done in Photoshop 5.5:

As you can see there’s no burden yet (even the beast was hard to fit into the picture ;)) but there will be, I promise! If there’s enough time I do a “perspective” drawing of it and render it to death haha

Hope you like it, suggestions and crits are welcome!

#2

Yeah!

Timo is in the house!

I just love you quality of painting.
just out of curiosity, are you really fast?

#3

Nice work, man! I like your technique. I saw your website and I love those style of paintings. Yeah it looks loose but you got alot of time yet. For it to be a firt post its very advanced.

gulp Now I feel like I have been slacking :surprised Is it getting hot in here?

#4

Good jump start! I kinda’ feel like SoulCatcher does now … must get back to work. heheheh

#5

I bookmarked your site a month ago. Love how you backlight some of your characters with intense color. A fan, glad you’re here.

#6

Hey I went to your web site too, That fly of yours is really awsome!

Low poly model with kick ass displacement and bump. Turns out real nice!

And the drawings, simply WOW.

:eek:

#7

:beer: Very good start and nice site!
I like your light
Cheers!

#8

oh boy. If you did to my image what you’re going to this one, then I better throw in the towel. Excellent work on your site.

#9

Oh man, I feel honored, thanks a lot everyone!! Didn’t expect so warm welcome!

KOryH: Thanks! Cannot tell if I’m fast or not (because I only have vague idea of how fast other artists work) but the above piece took a bit over an hour to do (there was no perspective to worry about so it was easy to keep together). Your beast looks sweet, can’t wait to see the 3d model! btw. Are you gonna color the drawing?

SoulCatcher, Kirt: Thanks!

Sleepless: I love your entry, it’s such a great concept!

Marc & apaparone: Thanks a bunch :slight_smile:

Gamoron, I have reserved 5 hours for the final piece so it should be much better than these two I have posted… Thanks for the encouraging words :slight_smile:

Current progress:
Developed the concept a bit further, some parts are still “under construction” so to speak hehe. I even saved a timelapse video of this, I’ll post it in a few hours, it’s around 20 Megabytes in size:

#10

I have just seen your website.
You are so good that I’m sort of depressed now… :wink:

I am very curious for your nonfantasy-theme work.

cheers, jeroentje

#11

Thanks jeroentje, have you seen this? (it’s over year old unfinished painting I found while I was backing up my art, finished it this week):

www.mbnet.fi/~badgers/gallery/quixote_n.jpg

Finally got time to paint the final piece, phew, hardly made it to the deadline, this was a close one :slight_smile: My other HD failed just when I was about to compress/post the video I talked about earlier, I had to order a new HD, backup my images (I lost one big texture (it was for Martin’s freak), I had worked on it for quite a bit but I found a version which was only a week older), yesterday I re-installed all programs and now I have pretty much recovered from that accident.

(actually I’m still painting this thing, it’s about 90% complete version if anyone wants to give last second crits or comment now its time…)

btw. I couldn’t get the painting video under 20 megs, it’s currently 50-60 megs… when I try to compress it with Div-X it gets bigger(!)… there’s few tricks I haven’t tried yet, but I fear I won’t be able to get it any smaller :confused: Is it ok with you, would you download file that big?

[EDIT] messed up URL, not the first time :stuck_out_tongue: [EDIT]

#12

That looks amazing Timo. I would say “Kala moyaka!!” but that wouldn’t make any sense. (It’s all the finnish I know :smiley: )

I love your style so much. I would download a timelapse video of your painting process if it were 100MB. I’ll be getting a wacom intuos 4x5 by the end of next week, and I’m just starting to learn about digital painting.

Would it be possible to cut out frames to make a smaller version for 56k people? So the time lapse runs faster or looks a bit choppier?

#13

At the risk of sounding like a t-ball player giving Barry Bonds batting tips … hehehehh. The only thing about this painting that I can critique is that the “burden” is kinda vague. I can’t tell if that’s a load of something on it’s back or just wierd scales. There’s a harness around the neck and chest … or they’re skin wrinkles. Hard to tell.

But other than that … :eek: eye popping illustration!
:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

#14

woah!

#15

Wow that is looking really great Timo
to bad fror your lost work, he tel me abouth it it really sucks ass.
well I’m looking forward to see som more challnege work and acording to the responses I mighte check out your homepage.
Great work
:thumbsup:
O me PC goes nut I better post this one
By for now

#16

Timo, this is amazing!

It reminds me a lot of Tolkien illustrator John Howe’s work, which is always a good thing!

The only problem is, as Kirt already pointed out, that the actual burden is only half shown and the beast carries it on it’s back instead of hauling it…but with a entry as qualitatively high as this one, no one will care :wink:

#17

Earl: “Would it be possible to cut out frames to make a smaller version for 56k people? So the time lapse runs faster or looks a bit choppier?”

Good idea, I’ll do that if everything else fails. Thanks for the comment! btw. “kala” means “fish” in Finnish, the other word isn’t Finnish though :slight_smile:

Kirt: Thanks a lot for the crit & comment (if there’s still time when I wake up I’m gonna do the changes you suggested = make it more clear what it is and define the plating on the beast better), the thing it is carrying is actually a weapon… here’s some pics to show you what I mean:

and one more

The concept I developed for this includes even the smallest details, there’s just too much stuff to show, pencil sketches, tons of them. Actually I would post them but my scanner is broke… :frowning:

Wait I have one more, this was for the soldier you see in the image, he has small targeting system built inside his eye so whe he looks at something and shoots with the shoulder weapon the bullet will go excatly to that point, unlike in Apache helicopters, where the weapon is moved by head, not eyes… :

#18

60 seconds later :slight_smile: I had too many images in the first post

Russo and Iguiniz.X. thanks for the comments!

Culann: Thanks for the compliment :slight_smile: btw. what does “haul” exactly mean, my dictionary translated it “carry”?

The final image for now:

#19

WOW!!!
No real critique to give just a big WOW!!!

#20

Well, haul means "to pull (something) with effort, to drag (it) ", so carry wouldn’t be the exact meaning…but this really is nit-picking. And besides, most entries depict the BoB’s carrying their loads, so I don’t see a problem. :slight_smile: