Beaker - before and after

Beaker thankfully didn't require too much tweaking.  His beak needed some fixing, but otherwise the rest stayed in tact.

I was torn on the color, seeing him both as a cool bird and a warm bird… so I made both.

Eeek!

Her name is Eeek.

Why, you ask?  Probably not.  It's pretty obvious.

Decisions, decisions.

You can look at Stompy positively or negatively.

I leave it to you to decide.

The Crabbits are done!

The crabbits are complete. Hope you enjoy!

Crabbits in progress.

Crabbits in progress.

Meet the Crabbits.

The best things come in threes, right?  Well, so do the Crabbits.

Look for these guys to be the next creatures that get the full color treatment.

Zom.B - progression

Here's a progression of how I created Zom.B.  Typically I work with a toon line which makes this process a lot faster… for me anyway.

Though already posted, here's the sketch to start the progression:

From the sketch I can see issues with the shape of the torso, the angle of the dome, the length of the right leg and waist, etc.  Illustrator is my favorite tool for fixing these issues… though it's handicapping my ability to fix this is the actual sketch.  Enough self-deprivation.  Moving on.

The first step: create all the shapes.  The color is somewhat arbitrary, but I like to make each neighboring shape a different color.  First I create vector lines according to the sketch, then make adjustments to the scale and positions.  In the end, I end up with this.

I did jump ahead to feel out the glass and bubbles to see if I had to make any adjustments to the composition or feel of the glass.

Next, I take the shapes and create gradients for each shape according to the lighting I want.  I'm not concerned with color here.  The goal is to get good gray tones and shading that can work for the picture.

After competing the shading, I duplicate the shading layer and make adjustments to the warmth or coolness of the gray.  This layer will be adjusted for opacity and blending later.

This new tone layer is duplicated again.  Here's where I apply color.  This layer was a tricky one for me, because I first envisioned the robot as green and blue, almost like a dull moody robot.  After a bunch of experimentation, I found that making him more red/yellow and aggressive felt better.  This is the color layer in the end.

Now that shade, tone and color are completed, I then make yet another duplicate and merge the sections that have similar makeup: a glass shape, a metal shape, a rubber shape.  I found some nice textures on line and, using the merged shapes for the materials, create the texture using the shape as a mask for the texture.

Finally, after adjusting these layers for transparency and effect, I create highlights and rim lights to add to the composition.   In the end, this is the final picture:

I'm going to make a toon version as well, mainly to use for stickers and (hopefully) t-shirts.

I think it's time for the same treatment to a monster, don't you?  Let me know your favorites and I'll narrow down the field to the right monster.

Thanks for reading!

Zom.B - After and Before

Just finished putting most of the the polish on Zom.B.  Went through a few crossroads, from "pin line or no pin line?" to "warm or cool color?"  Finally settled on this setup.  Need to add some highlights and rim lights and this guy can go wreak havoc on the planet.

And here's the original sketch.  I had to do some cleanup to the final image, such as shape and position, though I really tried to stick to the original sketch (changes were minor).

Destro… destroy!

Destro

"Don't look back…"
      - Boston, 1978

Yip!

Yip

A wicked overbite.