Visual Development & Concept Art Projects

Fluff 'n Bark

For this personal project, I have set the task to practice visual development skills as if I was making concepts for an animated CGI film. Here are some of the characters:

One of the main goals was to also explore different stylistic approaches:

Disney Art Challenge "A Little Closer to the Stars"

My entry for the Disney art challenge of 2022. The prompt was "A little closer to the stars". Overall tried to match the Disney style and level of a 3D film rendering but in 2D:

After I have completed the final artwork I decided to develop the characters and the universe a bit more. I imagined that depending on what action the character was performing, he would morph and look more like the animal that is suited most for that task:

Exploration of another idea for the entry with a different set of characters:

Field notes from the planet KP-950018

With this project, I wanted to explore the workflow of using 3D to create concepts by using an old creature idea I had. I have created three models of the creature, a female adult, a puppy, and a newborn. First I started with an adult creature, modeled, textured, and posed the creature in Zbrush, then I went to Substance Painter to add more texture details, lighting, and materials. Rendered out several passes from Zbrush and Substance and put them all together in Photoshop adding the background and integrating everything together. Finally I created the puppies using the adult version's model.

Smaugust

A selection of works from Smaugust challenge. The main goal for me was to see what I can come up with under 8 hours based on a dragon-themed prompt. I have also made a point to try different styles and approaches to the process to reach a result:

Van Helsing meets Pixar

After rewatching Van Helsing for fun with my friend an idea came to mind, what would some of the monsters in Van Helsing movie look like if it was created by Pixar? How can I make the grotesque and horrifying creatures into cute and cartoony?

It was an excellent exercise to practice character design and Pixar's style:

Huion Challenge "The World Is In Your Hands"

My submission for Huion's drawing contest:

Weekly Drills

Fiora the Gargoyle (Weekly Drill 085 - #Gargoyles)

I took inspiration from one of my favorite buildings, Cattedrale di Santa Maria del Fiore. It is a gothic building with lots of floral motifs. I wanted to make the gargoyle's design look like it was taken from the cathedral, be functional as a water-draining feature, and look elegant yet powerful:

Pizza Characters (Weekly Drill 084 - #PizzaSlice)

The theme of this weekly drill was an excellent opportunity to work on my character design skill by converting some of the most memorable pizzas I have had in Italy:

Studies

Study of a still life process:

Frame Studies

A variety of frame studies from different movies, practicing composition, lighting, color, painting, styles, anatomy, and shapes. It was also a fantastic excuse to try out different brushes: 

Life Drawings

Gesture drawings of Yorkshire Terrier on the left, ≈ 10 minutes each. Anatomy study on the right:

Digital warm up studies of different animals from photographs:

Observation drawings in color pencil, ≈ 10 - 20 minutes each:

For the following two illustrations figure paintings of a couple of hours have been used as a base:

Color Key Study

Practicing color and lighting while telling a story of one place, home to many different creatures and occurrences: