Concept Designs for Alien Planets - July Exercises

Making time to upskill in areas I need to is not easy to do. I think I always want to get better no matter what I do / have done, I've always wanted a to be the best I could be. Even when I flipped burgers for 10 years at the golden archers. I wanted to flip the best and wrap the best and serve the best. It's who I am. So when I started doing art again after not drawing more than a few skulls in 15 years and at school only. I took on a challenge. 7 years ago I just wanted to do the best I could and better than yesterday. Now I can Art whatever and whenever I want. Here are 4 paintings I have done in my spare moments in the past two weeks. This is a new record for me and keen to keep this up to get to some #blizzard#weta #nickkeller #whitecloudworlds levels of #kickass in the near future. Just do the best you can at what you do, surprise yourself. 
#art #artist#artwork #artcollective #draw #drawings #sace #alien #aliens#alieninvasion #imaginefx #digitalpainting #gateway #portals #destruction#atmosphere #imaginefx #upskilling #upskills #push #skills



01) The Place that is Unknown - My first exercise I wanted to show scale and distance and have some stars that are believable: 

 02)The Vision of Invasion - Wars may be going on in galaxies we have no idea about between species and life forms we have yet to see. War and Democracy are not friends but they are close allies no matter what side you are on.

Second time with my new brush set up and I am loving it, obviously ha ha. This is Blizzard inspired and because I am still pumped about all the details of the Warcraft universe. #warcraft #warcraftbeginning #blizzard#conceptualart #design #inavsion

03)The Larvich Alien Invasion - Earth is being invaded and nothing can be done to stop Larvich Nation and interplanetary domination. This is what two worlds look like when they are about to collide head on.

Working on some new textures and brushes in preparation for some exciting new projects I have coming up. Sky, Fire, Environment interaction and Space textures. These are brushes I have picked over the last few weeks and starting to use more of Photoshop and it's endless capabilities with fresh new approaches.

04) The Unsettling Turbid Gateways - On the planet Grududor is a gateway/wormhole to other galaxies. But as humans we can never go or see it because the elements are far to harsh for most things within our galaxy. This is the forth addition to my set of conceptual design and artwork. It has been so beneficial doing these exercises to push my skills to the next level digitally. 

WONKY HUT - from scan to colour

The Wonky Hut - By Mr Leon Taylor
This was the finished piece.

Line work scanned it, drawn in INK to make the lines super black

SCREENSHOTS AND WORK IN PROGRESS

Dream Tarot Cards - Personal project -

I wanted to make an exercise that could start with drawing skills and end with photoshop skills. So make it almost like and endless Personal Project I went with the Idea of "Dream Tarot Cards". These are all from the idea that they are different from other everyday Tarots and even more truthful.

Here is THE ID - You inner most desires and motives behind your existence.

Face them or die by them, it is up to you how you narrate your time on earth. But tread carefully, because even living to 100 will still feel too short. 

Mr Leon Taylor

KAIJU vs JAGER - Pacific Rim Fan-Art 2015 - BACKGROUND PROCESS

This was a collaboration by Me ( Mr Leon Taylor) and Matt Haworth for the Event Overload NZ

I put together a rough compostion of the area with the background and Kaiju, that I later sent to Matt and who later roughed in the Jager in before we decided on the composition. I wanted to make mine aggressive as possible and charging at the Jager after he had made his way through the city.

KAIJU vs JAGER - Pacific Rim Fan-Art 2015
Below is the finished piece, to follow is the rough and process I have taken through the collaboration. 

The rough Design and composition I drew up, that Matt Haworth later inserted his WW2 style Jager.

The First pieces of Line-work for the huge Kaju vs the Photoshopped Coloured Version with light bounce and elements be fore adding to the background.

 MR LEON TAYLOR

- BACKGROUND PROCESS-

1)Get the prespective ready and general landscape.

2) Add inn intial light  and lights in city.

3) Map out the distruction from where the Kaju has come from and add moon and background lightining.

4) Work on clouds and light source and smoke over the city.

5) Add the cold vs warm tones to match Characters and add contrast to the battle.

6) Clean up city area make it feel like it has more depth and a shore line give the clouds more volume.

7)  Burn that city down, make it feel like terror has been and that it is about to colapse and add movement in the ocean where the Jager and Kaju will be.

8) Add the rays of light that will be hitiing our characters.

9) Insert Kaju and then look work with Matt on a final composition.

This was a great challenge and I got so much from it. I live to collaborate and especially with people who have a similar background and love to finishing projects.

Otentacle Supreme - 2015 - Mr Leon Taylor - 30 second TIMELAPSE VIDEO

Mr Leon Taylor

Otentacle Supreme - 
What does it mean to you? Colour will makes this very intense. So it is always rad to hear your thoughts before. This is the scanned in drawing from my time-lapse video I made and then later coloured in photoshop.Timelapse VIDEO - Pencil rules everything around me.

BASIC COLOUR - before the textures are applied.

LINEWORK

READY FOR COLOURING

The Twisted Holy slate pit: Creation process - Visual Diary -7 major steps

Mr Leon Taylor

The Twisted Holy slate pit:

Concept art/ Game art/ Album artwork : I wanted to challenge myself doing more underworld painting. All are based on a number of thumbnails I drew one morning that I had to get out of my head. The most exciting part is texturing them. Thumbnails are quick and help get the light source sorted. I tried to stick to a more simple colour palette compared to ' Eternal rotting root of Doom '. But making it feel more Alien, but just as organic

1) Thumbnail - and made in layers to know what layer I am texturing BG, FG MG.


2) I then start cutting out the pieces I need from my thumbnail sketch and throw some coulor and texture with photoshop brushes. Then rough out the root that will climb the slate.

3) Worked on the lightsource more, fine details, added some textures.

4) Add the area I have imagined the lightsource has come from above. like a sharp beam of light. 

5) I work to make the light source to feel animated and then add a few layers to make the light source closer to the shot. I add natural pillars, that were roughed out with the textures.

6) Add more roof and general room bounce light. adding a few mist layers playing with contrasts and opacity.

7) The finished result. 

MENDEL - OBLIVION - MAY 2015 ALBUM ARTWORK - DESIGN PROCESS

Mr Leon Taylor
MENDEL - OBLIVION - ALBUM ARTWORK - DESIGN PROCESS

The pencil design work before I coloured, The suit has been designed from scratch to be 100% functional and realistic. I was stoked with how the pencil linework scanned as was ready to make a real world. I had come up with the idea after listening to the title track for MENDELS - Oblivion. A brutal 63 minutes of instrumental metal. It is just excellent. 

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Mendelian

You can buy the album from here: https://mendelian.bandcamp.com/

I throw down some textures using some of my favourite textured brushes. There is hundreds for free all over the internet. 

This helped be get down a quick overall feel of the place and texture layout.

I work on the direction of the light and how it will effect the scene.

I then start working on clouds and lightsource. constantly refining.

I then add the boiling hot liquid to the picture. In space blue is the hottest colour. 

I then start working on the deep space in the background and planets

I then start looking at the lightsource and other elements like mist, glows, shades and intense lightsource details. I also add the space person that I coloured in a separate document. I add small lightsouce to him and fit him it to the layered mist. Unfortunately I did not keep a jpeg record of this process. But will do in future projects.

THIS IS THE FINAL PNG below for MENDEL - OBLIVION debut full length Album

Thank you for checking out my visual diary of how I do things.

Mr Leon Taylor

10 Major steps (visual diary) - THE ROTTING ROOT OF DOOM - 2014 - Background concept art:

Mr Leon Taylor

Here is a visual diary of how I completed this concept art, This is something I am very passionate about and really enjoy doing. Intense background art that can feel alive. This is a series of exercises with backgrounds I have set myself. The first challenge is to complete a series of underground places that have presence.

THE ROTTING ROOT OF DOOM - 201 : Concept art/ Album artwork : Based in a place that has never seen the sun, until just at this moment. It is completely organic and has evolved for millions of years. This is a place not known to the human eye and we could not stand the atmosphere, even with protective suits.


Thumbnail

I then start cutting out the pieces I need from my thumbnail sketch 

Shape the spike and added some textures.

 Worked on the lightsource more, fine details

Add the area I have imagined the lightsource has come from and add the mist green in the far background.

I work to make the light source to feel animated and then add a few layers to make the light source closer to the shot.

The spike has been encased for million of years and has an ooze and light source too. I add those basic directions.

Start working on textures around the edges with details. I do this with textured brushes. I have a select dozen I use and have ready to go. I highly recommend this to save time picking them all the time.

Now to add some animated feeling with rocks falling from the roof, where something is entering. This part I love making the bubble bounce around and feel super action packed

I zoom out a little the blackness can make the area feel larger and more intense

Final image and PNG, I learned so much through the process of doing this. It is a subject I really enjoy doing.

Thanks for checking out my visual diary of creation.

Mr Leon Taylor