Nick's Rage Against the Machine Spot

[Weeks]

Amazing drawings and creative job...

Best,

Weeks

[Someonesane]

Your artwork never fails to impress Nickillus. Great stuff

[gxhpainter2]

truly amazing work, I agree with all the comments totally and it is a wonderful gift you have and thanks so much for sharing on this forum your steps, and sketches...

[Nickillus]

Many thanks as ever for the encouragement chaps.
Wading on with it, between necessary trips to the recycling centre to dump some of the crap from our overladen garage. Here's where it has struggled onto now.

It was becoming an unwieldly file-size, so I had to flatten it and am working back in with new layers over the top.

[Caesar]

Dear Nick, making, using and painting back into stickers don't easily get such marvellous results if someone is not as talented as You though. So even if You created what I guess may be a huge library of custom resources, I'm still surprised by the capability You show getting these results with AR only. Your study sketches are also quite interesting, I enjoy them very much and I think Your productivity (thus Your speed) is just impressive with them. As for the rest, it's only Your awful quest for perfection that makes You take some time to get what You see as satisfactory (a few steps after what we already see as stunningly finished).
All the best, master!

[PaperTree]

Wow, Nick, my own personal tutorial from the master, thanks so much. I can't get enough of this thread, I keep reading it and re-reading it, and finding bits I missed the first time round.

I love the update of your coffin scene. I love how the moon light reflects off from behind the female vampire, giving the teeniest glint to highlight her facial features. I love the colour you have chosen as the moon glow, it just shimmers in the coffin lid, and off the leg of the female. You skill at making the bodies appear so solid is I suspect due to how you sketch out the body first and then cloth it, I feel I should go to an art class and do some live drawing rather than copy from photographs. It is inspiring, thanks so much for the lesson.

[Rowena]

Wow, Nick your work is so great and particularly your understanding of the human form is fantastic!

I am keen to learn how you go about getting the foreshortening of the body/face so perfect - I am wondering: does one need an encyclopedic memory bank full of anatomical knowledge to do this or is there another way you would share?

[Nickillus]

Thanks again chaps.

Still not quite polished off the vampiric one, while I tackle another in the deadline pipeline. Just a picture of an old crypt that kind of goes with it. I'm splattering that same leaf sticker-brush at it that I was using in the goblin piece (also remaining unfinished as yet of course - get a grip and finish something, man - although that's for a personal project and as such is lower on the priority ladder). The effect needs much better integration to make it sit more comfortably. Still it saves hours of having to draw individual leafs - yes I am that anal sometimes, dammit. Might add a figure or two if I have time to give it a bit of narrative drama.

And then a quick sketch of that same goblin I mentioned. Don't ask what he's doing. Hopefully all will become clear later and you'll be glad you didn't find out sooner . . . . . . .

EDIT1- Started adding those figures I was talking about

EDIT2- And then trying to increase the drama, whilst also focusing the composition a bit with some lighting effects - done by adding a tonal layer set to multiply over the top of everything, and then picking out the lighting with a suitable light colour using chalk and pencil (for crisp edges where they are needed). Still a long way to go with tidying that up obviously. And that light background behind the tree is a mess just now . . . .

EDIT-3 - A bit more time spent on it - more knots got into - more use of that leafy brush, plus a bit of ferny growth - figures tightened up a bit but still in need of more TLC . . . .

[hanzz]

So great to keep coming in and seeing this thread develop . Fantastic all the way !

[Caesar]

Dear Nick,
You're extraordinary, what else to say?
My younger son, who seems to be willing to start, in a couple of years, a type school aimed at studies in view of an artistic career in comics, illustration and advertisement, was utterly speechless and enthusiastic to see also Your new WIPs. The vampires made him exclaim that he could hardly believe such a incredible imaginative art talent could exist.
So, even being a little worried for his future, listening to what You say about Your job perspective (and You're a number one!) and certainly for the size and competitiveness of the market, should it be limited to Italy, I thank You to possibly help re-inforcing his determination and will.
I can assure that if You lived close and kept courses, i would have been glad to pay him some courses with You!