Personal Projects

A Blue Parrot

This is one of the first digital art pieces I created and am proudest of. I started this piece traditionally then created the line art in digital. Then I proceeded with blocking out the colours and adding more detail, starting with the head and working my way down. Finally I coloured the stick and added the background which helped bring the whole piece together. I have continued to use this method for drawing animals ever since.

What helped me most when creating this piece was brushes I found from the artist Peter Mohrbacher. The brushes made it feel like I was using traditional pencils and paints which really helped me get used to drawing in digital since I was so used to traditional and the feeling of drawing on paper. Drawing on a smooth screen used to be a challenge for me but as my skills have progressed I feel I have gotten used to it.

A Puffin Frolicking In A Field

After going on holiday and seeing puffins on a boat cruise, I wanted to draw one! I have always loved birds and they are a subject I often draw. This piece tells a story of the puffin running playfully through the grass with a flower and other plants in its mouth.

This was one of my first times drawing grass in digital and I feel using different shades of green helped make each strand stand out and not all blend into one. When drawing the puffin I struggled with making its stomach still appear white when I was adding browns for shading. Even though I struggled with this I feel it still turned out well and works well in this piece.

A Stellar Sea Eagle Perched On Ice

Here I drew a Stellar Sea Eagle. I am proud of the feather work on this piece. I feel even though the feathers are all shades of grey, they each stand out and work as a whole. The ice was quite challenging to do but I feel overall it looks realistic with the shading and shapes.

Eagles are powerful creatures and it's pose with it's head held high staring at something off in the distance helps show this.

A Water Dragon

This is the first creature I drew that wasn't a bird. Dragons are interesting fictional creatures. I had fun designing it and being able to add some uncommon things that wouldn't make sense in real life animals. To help this dragon seem like a sea creature I added patterns and anemones to it. 

Blue and yellow are complimentary colours and I felt fit well with this piece since they are seen in underwater environments. With blues linking to the water itself along with corals and sea vegetation. Yellows also linking to corals and sea creatures such as fish, sea horses, octopuses and more.

A Whale Shark In The Sea

For this piece I wanted the whale shark to be the main focus. This piece is quite large and I wanted to ensure it was interesting. Behind the whale shark I added a lot of fish along with some mantarays for variation. I used blues to help make fish further in the distance blend into the background and appear further away.

The whale shark is most in focus and you can clearly see all its details, from its stripes to its spots. I am proud of how the whale shark turned out and feel its details stand out and help bring the piece together as a whole.

Dragon Statue

This piece was created in Zbrush for a digital sculpting assignment in University. This was my final piece for this assignment and is my favourite 3D piece I have created.

Before this assignment I had never digitally sculpted before so I am pleased with the skills I learnt and pieces I made from the assignment.

Like in my illustrations I started with the dragons head and worked down, starting with simple shapes such as spheres. I then started adding in details as I progressed with the piece such as the horns, scales and indents. The sword stayed as a cube until the dragon was complete and I then added its handle and made the blade pointed. At the end I added the podium in to give the piece a backstory. This piece shows a statue of a dragon who has been put in a museum for the good deeds it has done in its lifetime.

After finishing the model I painted it and added lighting. I used reds and oranges for the majority of the dragon adding shading in crevices to help it seem more realistic. Moving onto the sword and podium I used greys and browns for a realstic look although I feel this piece is quite stylised. Finally I added in the lighting which added shadows to my model and helped complete the piece.

Wonderbot From Robots 

This is another piece I made for my digital sculpting assignment at University. This piece was focused on hard surfaces. I created the Wonderbot from the movie Robots. 

The body mainly consists of primitive shapes edited slightly to ensure each segment looked metallic and like a hard surface. I worked from the bottom up with this piece, using booleans to cut out sections from other shapes such as the inside of the teapot at the top. The arms were quite challenging but I found the bend transformation tool in the Gizmo 3D which really helped me create the shapes from a cylinder.

Creating this piece gave me new skills and techniques which helped me in my final piece for this assignment, the dragon.