Link

I Did this for fun one night and somehow it turned into a small project. Link from Twilight princess! I decided to go with TP because I really liked the more realistic approach Nintendo took on this game.
I wanted to create a simple and elegant Legend of Zelda painting. There aren’t many out there that I have seen, So I decided to take a stab at it and I hope I was able to carry out my goal.
Fan art is tricky because there are so many dedicated fans out there who like their games a certain way and scream blasphemy if they don’t like it. I really hope most of you enjoy my minimalist version =)

Because I really liked this, I also painted Ganon and Zelda. I’ll release those soon. Thanks for the comments.

 

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Shredder Tutorial

Hey Everyone, I want to share my painting process for The Shredder. I hope some of you will find this useful. I’ve learned throughout the years, that to get better, you first need to learn from as many artists as possible. Never stop learning and always keep challenging yourself. If there comes a point when you start to get too comfortable with your own art, it’s time to shake things up and learn something new. For every character set I do, I give myself a goal; for my 80′s cartoon villains set, my goal was to tighten up my sloppy art and get better at lighting up my characters. I do believe I accomplished my goal of tightening up my art but I know I can still work on my lighting. For my next goal, I will learn to speed up my art by using larger brushstrokes and hinting at detail, instead of putting in all of the actual detail. OK, here we go!

NOTE: Before you start, you should have an idea of what you will paint; concept, theme, and story if applicable. Always have your reference photos, toy models, clay sculptures ready. You’ll waste time by just jumping in.

Step 1: I always start with a black and white sketch. This is the final sketch before I start painting. I use mostly dark grays.  Then I slowly build dark and light values with soft brush.

Step 2: This is as far as I go before I add color and the rest of the details. I use photo reference to get the lighting how I want it. I use a combination of toy models and a photo of a Japanese actor.

Step 3: I add color by using color balance adjustment layer. I play with the mid-tones, shadows and highlights until I get a color scheme that I like. I chose a complimentary color scheme.

Step 4: Details! Here’s the fun part. I use the lasso tool to make those sharp edges on his mask, helmet and eyes. On a separate layer and start laying down scratches on the mask and helmet. I also add wrinkles and pores to shredders skin. I normally use an overlay or soft light layer for that. For the scratches I use a custom brush that is actually meant to be used for animal hair. To get a textured look on the highlight spots, use a textured brush on the dodge tool. For the pores on his skin, I used a photo of Nathan’s face from the Uncharted series and pasted it on top of shredder using a soft light layer and dropping the opacity. I don’t always do this but I wasn’t getting the results I wanted from my brushes. Be creative in the way you meet your results. You won’t always achieve your goal with brushwork. Whatever it takes to get your art the way you want it.

Step 5: More details and glows. I add more scratches and add some floating fire embers along with sweat and cloth textures. I use custom brushes for most of this. I add a color dodge layer and I use a soft round brush to add the blue and orange lights on his face and helmet as well as soft glows on the embers. (Don’t forger about reflections on metal) Now I’m almost done. Now its time to make value adjustments and color adjustments by using the selective color adjustment layer and hue/saturation layer. Then the finishing touches.

Final tip: How to get that cool armor scratch effect? : Lay down some scratches or bumps then select a Bevel & Emboss fx layer style, play with the depth, size and opacity and change the global light to the direction the light is coming from. Don’t overdo it here and be subtle about your approach or the viewer’s eye will be all over the place.

I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to leave me comments. Have a great day everyone!

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Cobra Commander

Last of my 80′s cartoon villains set: Cobra commander from GI JOE! I hope you guys enjoyed this set. I feel like this has helped me tighten up my art and I learned quite a bit from this experience. It definitely was a challenge in trying to do the original characters justice.

Next up, I will post tutorials of some of these guys before revealing the legend of Zelda set I’ve been working on. After that I will start on the set of your choice! You can vote here! Thanks guys for the awesome comments. I hope you all come back and leave some more comments on the art to come.

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Skeletor

Fourth of my 80′s cartoon villains set: Skeletor from Masters of the Universe! I got one left to show. He’s the commander of a team of evildoers. can you guess who?

I’ve already been working on my next set. It’s gonna be a short 3 piece Zelda set and after that who knows. I have so many ideas, not really sure where to start. I think I might do a poll.

You to can join the darks side by purchasing prints/laptop/iphone/ipad cases, here

 

Megatron

Third of my 80′s cartoon villains set: Megatron from Transformers! I prefer the pre-bayformers designs. This was the hardest one for me to paint because of his deceptively simple design. It was a challenge trying to make such a simple design look cool. I hope I succeeded. What do you guys think?

Next up is a blue man who hates muscular men with funny hair. Can you guess who?

As always, to purchase prints/laptop/iphone/ipad cases, you can go here 

 

Mumm -RA

Second of my 80′s cartoon villains set: Mumm-ra from ThunderCats! I was thinking about painting his buff version but I really wanted to challenge myself with the subtleties of his old frail version. The wrinkles and his cloth were a blast to paint.
As always, If you are  interested in prints/laptop/iphone/ipad cases, you can make a purchase here: link

 

The shredder

Hey Everyone! First of my 80′s cartoon villains set: Shredder! This was a blast to paint. I really would enjoy doing more from Ninja turtles but well see if I have time for it. I have so many ideas in my head, it’s almost impossible to do them all. I’ll be posting the process soon and more to come real soon!

You can purchase art prints and other goodies by joining the footclan: here

More work can bee seen here: Deviant art