Prehistoric Sketch

I wanted to draw something highly inspired by The Croods.

Hope you'll like it!

W.I.P.

A Work In Progress. A drawing that I really want to finish as an illustration. It is also a good view on how I organised my photoshop workspace. Tools on the right (I am right handed) and 'Coolorus Color Picker' and 'Navigator' on the left. I press Tab or Shit+Tab to clear the workspace while painting.

MeooOoW!

Wildstar Fan Art

I finally managed some time to finish this ‪#‎Wildstar‬ fan art. I could have maybe spent a couple of hours more for details but I prefer to leave it as it is right now. 

Hope you like this ‪#‎Aurin‬ and that you will share it!

Now that I also finished to revamp my website portfolio (http://www.simonloche.com) I can fully dedicate my free time for more artworks. Stay tuned!

Batman

Experimenting new techniques. Training Photoshop CS6.

#Photoshop #Batman

King Fergus!!

Another King Fergus Doodle! Col-Erase on Moleskine.

Quick Tutorial - Photoshop Save and Increment

One of the missing features in Photoshop but available in other Adobe products is the very useful Save and Increment. This means saving a file and automatically assigning a different name, as an example 'namefile-v6.jpg'. This doesn't exist in photoshop and you have to manually write it.

I personally use Hazel to do this for me. Hazel is a very useful utility that automate some tasks on your OS (for example deleting files from your download folder after a couple of days or moving files to another folder depending on their name or size, etc...)

As I have to show many iterations of my concept artworks to my clients I have this Hazel Rule that helps me creating files without even thinking about it. I just save my file and Hazel automatically rename and increment it.

This is how the rule is set:

This means that every time I save a file containing the word 'iteration' and with the extension '.jpg' into a specific folder the OS will automatically add an incremented file name.

Pretty simple and VERY useful! :)

The Little Girl and the Dragon Slayer

#Inktober #Sketch #Dragon

Inktober Sketch #9

Quick sketch because I had to catch it up with the 9 drawings. Now I am on time with #Inktober. :)

Inktober sketch #8 - Wildstar FanArt

The Inktober of the day is also another Wildstar FanArt. Aurins look awesome (and sexy) with those rabbit ears. But wait,... Who's the rabbit? Who's the hunter?

#Inktober #Wildstar 

Inktober Sketch #7

Very special 'Inktober' sketch today. A special day. My daughter's birthday.

She has been asking for a very long time a cat but it is not really possible. Instead I hope that this drawing will be a fair present.

#Inktober #Birthday #LosAngeles #Barcelona

Inktober sketch #4

Based on a previous drawing this is the Inktober of the day! #Inktober

Inktober sketch #3

#Inktober

Inktober sketch #1

#Inktober

Doodle of the day: Viking!

Doodle of the day. Yes, I do like vikings!

#CorelPainter #CharacterDesgin #Sketch

Viking!

I love vikings. Always loved them. This time I wanted to draw something directly inspired from Pedro Conti 's 'One More Beer!' short movie, even tho his trousers look like Obelix (I'm french, I can't help sorry)...

Hope you'll like!

#Viking #OneMoreBeer #PedroConti

WIP Robot

A detail of an abandoned concept that I would like to retake and finish. Stay tuned because I will show the final soon.

Wildstar FanArt

FanArt of one of my favorite characters in Wildstar. 

Started this one in Corel Painter and finished details and added adjustment layers in Photoshop. I had seriously a LOT of fun drawing it.

#Wildstar #ConceptArt #Photoshop #CorelPainter

Wakfu Magazine n.7

This is the first of the 3 covers I had to do for Ankama Wakfu magazine. Everything was completed in Photoshop. The assignment was pretty precise on the characters that had to figure on the cover.

And this is the cover with no titles:

I hope that you will enjoy it. As usual feel free to comment and share. :)

Doodle of the day

Video Game: Cosmic Colony

Another funny video game I was working on as concept artist for Gameloft. A lot of back and forth in the designa and in the artworks. This is how the final looks like.

(Final renders on the following in game screenshots from Andre Mealha Brown)

Video Game: Wonder Zoo

Another game I worked on as a concept artist when I was working at Gameloft.

Not many concepts to show here because I mainly worked on post-production, retouching load screens, illustrations and graphic elements inside the game.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gameloft.android.ANMP.GloftZRHM
https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/wonder-zoo-animal-dinosaur/id518313894?l=en&mt=8

Quick Tutorial - Installing Painters' Wheel

Quick Tutorial - Installing Painters' Wheel.

I've been asked many times what is that colour wheel on my photoshop screen. Well it is just a photoshop extension.

This is definitively one of the most useful plugin I use. Easy to install it will offer an additional window where you can pick up the colours like in Corel Painter. I always prefer Painter colour wheel rather than Photoshop.
Basically: one ring for the Hue and one triangle for the Saturation and the Value.
Moreover the wheel can create a gradient of colours between A and B just clicking on the small triangle on the bottom right. Useful!

In order to install this FREE plugin just follow this link http://lenwhite.com/ and follow the steps. Really easy. The skin of the plugin also matches to the new Photoshop CS6 interface.(http://nerdchallenge.com/lenwhite/LenWhite.com/LenWhite.com/Entries/2012/9/16_PW_CS6.html).

Enjoy!

Video Game: Run Sheldon

This is the last video game I was working on. Basically Art Direction. Hope that you will enjoy this game that you can play for free.

You can download it here for iPhone and iPad:

http://appstore.com/RunSheldon

Stretch your legs because you are going on the run of lifetime! You are Sheldon, winner of the famous ‘Tortoise and the Hare’ race. Unfortunately for you, the members of the Hare gang are not very good losers. Old Man Hare wants your golden trophy and will stop at nothing to get it. If you want to survive, you’ll have to run for it!

Once you’ve begun your escape, tap the screen anywhere to jump in the air. Tap and hold to jump higher. To stay alive, you must avoid an endless stream of pesky Hares by leaping over them or smashing them with an expertly timed jump. Every Hare you land on builds up a protective shell. Crush five Hares and you get a backup shell.

Along your journey, you’ll find powerful items like Bouncing Bubble, Super Wings, Mega Boost, and Glide Power. They’re exactly what you need to get the upperhand on the Hare gang. Collect coins along the way to upgrade your power-ups, buy cool clothing or get a second chance at your run.

Spoiler Alert! It won’t be easy. The further you run, the harder the bad guys get. But if you got what it takes, you’ll soon be racking up distance records, unlocking achievements and blowing past your friends on the leaderboard. Also, did we mention there are awesome special items like Get Ahead and the Coin Magnet? Use these items to level up faster and rack up your score.

But enough with the chit chat, already. We’ve got to get out of here. Don’t just stand there! Run Sheldon!

The video trailer:

And don't forget to like the Facebook page! :)

https://www.facebook.com/runsheldon

And this is the entire family of hares you will have to fight against! ^^

Quick Tutorial - Create a Nicolas Marlet Pencil

Quick Tutorial - Create a Nicolas Marlet Pencil

Haven't you been completely seduced and hypnotized by Nicolas Marlet lines and curves? His ability to give life to his characters (Kung Fu Panda, How to Train your Dragon, etc...) is just fantastic.
Pencils and coloured pencils on a textured paper (probably a kind of Ingres Charcoal Paper). This makes everything look so natural and artistic.

Well, actually this is something that you can easily reproduce in Photoshop (even more easily in Corel Painter).

This is the way I proceed to make it:

- Start with a simple round brush.

- Modify the shape of the brush to get something elliptic and squeezed giving the brush a 30 degrees or a 45 degrees angle (whatever you are confortable with). This will help to fake the natural position and inclination of the pencil in your hand.

- Set a minimum size. Natural coloured pencils are never so sharp. So a 30-35% minimum diameter is perfect. If you really need thinner lines you can decrease the size of the brush easily.

- Set a minimum opacity. 0% opacity when drawing with the tablet stylus doesn't make any sense. Once again a 30-35% value is a good choice.

- Finally add a texture to your pencil. I personally used the Default Primed Linen texture with a 180% scale and linear burn mode but you can use any texture you want. Just make sure to select a texture that is visible when you draw at the actual printing or screen size. You can use pre-made photoshop textures or import yours (I will make a tutorial about this one day).

Feel free to adjust the texture size according to your document resolution. Reduce the texture size for a smaller document and increase it for a larger one.

I also applied a color dynamic to create subtle color variations (this is something that I tend to do for almost all my Photoshop brushes, it will be explained in another quick tutorial). You can uncheck the option if you don't like it.

And if you are really lazy to make it yourself here is the brush I use:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/71544685/Pencil_Nico_Marlet.abr