“Intruder.” Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I recently viewed a video from an artist who was creating concept art piece, which inspired me to try a different style of art. Instead of the realistic portrait style I’ve been presenting lately, I wanted to create a more action-filled piece. The primary character is one I created previously The General, I thought he would be perfect for what I wanted to present.
My goal here was to create a sci-fi/fantasy concept cover-piece with the antagonist crashing through a wall and intimidating his victim. I hope I got it. I’m thinking this would make a pretty good book or comic book cover. Or not. Let me know what you think.
“Red Hood.” Creature concept. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I decided to try my hand at creating a creature concept. I was playing on my ZBrush application with no real idea in mind when I just started pulling out shapes from a sphere. Eventually this creature came to life.
“Red-Hooded Lizard-Thingy” is more of a working title for this creature concept. The fact is, I’m no biologist so I can’t think of a real name for this piece. If anybody has an idea, please add a comment with your suggestion.
I was actually very pleased with the results of this creature concept, that I created desktop wallpapers from this image. If you’d like one, visit my FREE Image Library to download a copy for yourself.
As I noted above, this creature concept was created in ZBrush, with the final image produced in Photoshop.
I hope you like it.
“Alix.” Character Concept. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I had some spare time on my hands the past couple of days, so I started doodling with an idea and finally came up with this. I named this character “Alix.” This new concept piece is of an alien character. I will probably use him in a future illustration, but I don’t know how to employ him just yet.
During the process of building up this character concept, I decided I wanted to make him into a “tough guy,” but I didn’t want to put him in armor. I finally decided that I was going to create a “crime boss” character. Someone like Jabba the Hutt. With that in mind, I decided to add piercings, then a scar through the eye that rendered this character’s eye damaged. I actually thought about adding a tattoo to the face but scrapped that idea because I decided that would be too much. Finally, I decided to put him in “casual” wear, which would be more “boss” like.
This character concept was sculpted in Zbrush with the final image produced in Photoshop.
“Soar.” Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I present to you my latest piece that I have named Soar. This fantasy illustration depicts the successful flight of a man soaring through the sky in a wooden DaVinci-esque flying machine. A bit of a departure from my previous creatures and aliens. After my last work, I decided to scour through webpages, books and other publications to inspire me for my next illustration when I came upon DaVinci’s flying machine blueprint.
My intent here was to depict the flying machine, somewhat modernized for the Victoria Era, hence the clothing I drew onto the pilot. I know this is not an original idea, but this is my take on the whole “early” flight idea.
This flying machine and character in this illustration was sculpted in ZBrush and final production was completed in Photoshop.
This illustration, a well as my other illustrations, can be viewed in my Illustration Portfolio.
“Aviator.” Character Bust. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
I decided to taking a break from creating aliens, and monsters, and sci-fi characters and draw up something new. I am in the process of a new illustration for my portfolio, and decided to produce a new character for its. This new characters is called “Aviator.”
With this character, I learned a few new techniques. These techniques mostly involved the leather helmet and goggles, and I am really pleased with the results. I ran a search for “leather healmets” and found images online, and based the sculpting of the helmet and goggles on the images I found. I wanted to create an old-tymie looking pilot for this illustration.
This character bust was created in ZBrush, and composite produced in Photoshop. This 3D Model has been added to my 3D Modelling gallery. You can also view my other works in my Illustration Portfolio.
I would like to know your thoughts. Please leave a comment.
— Mike Barnes is a professional graphic designer and illustrator with over 15 years of experience. His online portfolio can be viewed at www.lookingtodraw.com.
“Evening Stroll.” Digital Illustration. (c) 2014 Michael J. Barnes.
This is the second illustration for my series of “Candid Shots from around the Galaxy” (still just a working title). Here we see Eleanor and Edgar taking a casual stroll through the streets of their home town.
Both of the characters and their clothing were sculpted in ZBrush. The background image was created in SketchUp, then imported into Bryce for rendering. The final composite was produced in Photoshop.
his image Evening Stroll is the second illustration of the series and was inspired from a photo by photographer Daniel Arnold.