carnalizer - concept art, sketches and paintings by henrik pettersson

project red pill

2012-01-01T16:04:00.000-08:00

As of Januari 1st I'm officially enrolled in project Red Pill. Lately my brain has become fat and lazy. I've overindulged in passive internet use. Reddit (thanks Mojangsters for that timesink), Failblog, forums and so on. All these humor sites are a lot of fun, BUT they are nothing but a black hole of time. When you're done you have nothing to take away. No new value has been added to your person. So just like I tend to feel disgusted with myself after cramming a whole bag of crisps, I have become disgusted by my uselessness. Usually, instead of productively pursuing one of many hobby project, I would excuse myself with being too tired for it. Light redditing however I could do for hours.

Change is paramount. Hence; Project Red Pill. There was this talk over at TED.com. A guy claimed that change can be hard to commit to, because we assume all self-improvement must be everlasting. So his advice was that you can do anything for a month. That is what I will do.

Project Red Pill:

* No browsing content sites or passive info consumption during Januari.

* If I'm to tired for productive work, I'll go to bed.

* Exception; we just got a new TV with lots of channels. Watching with family is considered socializing. Also twitter, because it is not really passive to me.

The name Red Pill is of course taken from "The Matrix," because as you know, it is an allegory of modern consumer society. If you're being fed ads on a content site, you are on the blue pill.

Also I want to show you this sketch of a llama-like alien:

the Kim is dead. long live the Kim

2011-12-21T04:44:00.000-08:00

Hard to believe that such a sweet-looking happy little old man was a cummunist dictator.

sketchy

2011-11-12T14:50:00.000-08:00

Inspired by the ever excellent Jim Murray after seeing this: http://www.dota2.com/comics/are_we_heroes_yet/

And a found older sketch of some postapo dude:

On another note; blogger (google?) seems to have employed the same interaction designers as microsoft. The current trend of hiding or removing useful features, while also obscuring any useful information and making everyone a "stupid user" regardless of competence, strikes again. It is no longer possible to add images as thumbnails. The fact that thumbnails are the best image-browsing method available since time immemorial, has somehow escaped the designers, who probably is more busy reading hipster magazines on their ipads than using their own shit.

Now I can choose between small, medium, large, X-large and original. I tried large today. That is apparently an arbitrary percentage scaling of my image. WOW USEFUL!! This way I still have to do everything myself if I want a nice consistent look. Well F that. I'm just gonna choose a different layout every time.

Edit: wtf the pics are thumbs regardless of size UNLESS I choose the small size?? Either I really am a stupid user (quite possible) or I'm being trolled.

Edit2: Something wasn't working properly while I was still using the old post editor. Uploading the previously broken pics has made them clickable. So I guess I can live with this html5 house of cards piece of sh*t editor. Could I please get the pics aligned to the same margin as the text? Or have you decided it looks better like this?

less pictures, more grumpy

2011-10-20T13:11:00.000-07:00

Today before leaving work, we had a chaotic debate following the days' testing of our game "Scrolls." I love debating design. But... I tend to have better arguments and clearer thoughts AFTER the debate. Probably because at that point you don't have other people arguing against you.

Anyways... Part of the debate was about the inclusion vs. the exclusion of a certain feature. It doesn't matter which feature. The thing that bothers me is that after quite a few years of having similar debates, I can see a pattern. I seem to always find myself being alone in the corner wanting to EXCLUDE a feature.

It is probably natural to want more. More features equals more game, which equals better value, right? Wrong! (In enough cases to be held as a guiding principle.) I've actually had debates where it was unclear whether a feature was needed or not, and found myself arguing against the stakeholders to spend less of THEIR money.

Consider Hollywood movie studios. Their business is older and they seem to be able to hold on to their seniors, so chances are they have a better grasp of the creative process than the game biz. When they look at their product, and it is perceived as confusing - THEY CUT STUFF OUT OF IT. They don't add tutorials, tooltips, icons and buttons. They know that exposition is a bad thing and should be kept to a minimum.

I believe this to be true for game design and game production as well. I know it is true for illustration and visual arts. When a painting is unappealing, you should start by considering if you can remove something. A Mark Twain quote comes to mind; "I didn't have time to write a short letter, so I wrote a long one instead.”

The people in the game dev business are generally not idiots. They usually don't want cluttered games, high learning thresholds and long tutorials. Still, being passionate specialists, they are reluctant to consider budgets. I don't blame them. Budgets are boring. Games are about fun, challenge, adventure, problem-solving bla bla bla.

Maybe true about GAMES in theory, but in practicality game DEVELOPMENT is another beast altogether. IT IS ALL ABOUT BUDGETS. There is the actual budget of course. Then there are budgets of calendar time, man hours, marketing, specialist knowledge and performance limits.

On top of that you have some less obvious. Your audience, although an endless source of joy, also have budgets. I'm not talking about their allowance. They have budgets of acceptance. Acceptance of cluttering, of unintuitive interaction, unpolished graphics, lack of interpolation. Their willingness to think hard about a puzzle is budgeted. Their tolerance of repeated failure is budgeted. A very scary fact is that YOU DON'T KNOW HOW BIG THESE BUDGETS ARE! Some games (hello Minecraft) have proven that these budgets can be greatly increased when the motivation is high enough. Unfortunately that is "the philosophers' stone" of game design. If you could be sure you've gotten enough motivation into your design, your problems are over. Humans are tricky buggers to understand...

Hold on for the big finale:

* Budgets have a very unforgiving internal logic. If you spend less, they will be easier to meet.

* Therefore the burden of evidence must lie with those who wish to spend.

I hope, if you've read this far and agree with the logic, maybe next time I won't be as lonely in the corner of reductionism.

I will now proceed to posting a link to this on twitter. If this means my colleagues (past and present) reads this and go "WTF it is us he's talking about! It's been (X hours, months, years), are you still arguing, moron?" - Then the answer is Yes. No. Actually I've been thinking to write this down for a long time, but just thought of the Hollywood analogy today. Also I tried using fewer parenthesis and more screaming.

rick berrying

2011-09-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I like to pretend I'm another artist. I just pretended to be Rick Berry:

edit: WHAT is the matter with the uploader???? Bigger pic here.

dealing death

2011-09-24T16:03:00.000-07:00

A fan art sketch of the Death Dealer. Used one of the famous Frazetta paintings as reference and stole as much good as I could but without copying the drawing bits. (Frazettas' painting below for comparison)

(Goddamnwhatthefudge. Tried uploading 5 versions of this image, but it wont work properly TRY HERE!!)

Having a blast at my new job. Drawing constantly, so not much personal stuff gets done when off duty. This blog might dry up a bit... Hopefully what gets posted will be better quality from all the practise. :)

moar old

2011-08-27T15:26:00.000-07:00

Looks like I almost could draw back then. Perhaps I'm regressing...

Below here is a sketch for a miniature for the tabletop miniatures game "1999". It was the first of my concepts to be sculpted by the famous Werner Klocke. I was so proud. The miniature was called "Carnalizer". Now it is my alias.

Sorry... No no more reminissing. G'night

thumb archeology

2011-08-27T15:15:00.000-07:00

Found some thumbnails from over 5 years ago. Done during a prestudy for an mmo that never happened. Why am I putting them here? Because I like them!

late night with a swordswoman

2011-08-25T15:33:00.000-07:00

Really have to go to bed now. As tonights final act of defiance against adulthood i did a sketch of Red Sonja.

do famous people have to smoke cocaine?

2011-08-09T10:18:00.000-07:00

Apparently me getting a new job is of international interest, according to Gamasutra. Well deserved attention and long overdue. Or something like that. :)

Sorry for the no pic post, but this kinda deserves a post on its own.

Also I must brag about my new mojavatar, courtesy of Mr Junkboy. Check it out on my twitterfeed. Today I finally got my new work rig up with ps and wacom and stuff. After an eternity of downloading and updating. What you say; windows not userfriendly? So after spending the entire day drawing angry dudes and awesome machines, I'm pleasantly tired and satisfied. Not a powerpoint slide as far as the eye can see.

So... me me me! Today it is good being me. Oh and I quit smoking 33 days ago. I'm so damn good that if I was any better I'd be like Mother Teresa with strawberry frosting on top.

cheers!

socialist realism ftw

2011-07-20T16:32:00.000-07:00

I should do these regularly. So should you. I should also sleep, but now I did this instead. I don't know if i should be ashamed of my stupidity or proud of my effort... Seeing how off the colors are, i'm leaning towards ashamed.

i got you cover-ed

2011-07-03T15:31:00.000-07:00

What a lame title gag. God i'm getting old...

Well, some time ago (like years ago..) I posted a few black-n-whites for a post apocalyptic tabletop game. That didn't work out well. It was canned because of less than satisfying playtests and this new idea I got for a fantasy skirmish tabletop game.

That game went trough 3-4 playtests that was also less than satisfying. BUT it had a nice core idea and there were moments of good stuff in it. So I kept at it with help from my buddy Daniel. Actually it was also close to being scrapped and has been hibernating for almost a year. But then, about a month ago, we were at a gaming convention where we tested a game with similar scope and theme. It had some neat features that got us inspired. So back home again I knocked out a new version. Not copying anything mind you, but doing our version of getting "gambling choices" and positional values. Two playtests later and we have an alpha version of the game that is really enjoyable.

It will be a free to download, generic fantasy skirmish game. Not "bad generic", but rather you can use any miniatures. 6-15 minis to a side. Anything from dragons to cavalry to bat swarms. Very flexible rules, without the overuse of charts and tables of similar products. Once the online army builder is in a useable state (coming along nicely thanks to mr Actionvillain) and the rules are presentable, we'll release it into the wild and see what happens. :)

This is the cover art I've been doing this entire weekend instead of the chores I should have done.

santa wizard

2011-06-22T04:51:00.000-07:00

lunch speedie. This is what santa would look like in LOTR. :)

Jeffrey Jones trib 2

2011-05-20T16:06:00.000-07:00

this time with a bit more focus

daddy, y u no sleep?

2011-05-08T15:53:00.000-07:00

... cause i'm doing "important studies" in artrage... :/

loading

2011-04-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

Some stuff from work:

Loading screen from "Bugfest", available on App Store.

Key visual for "Ionocraft Racing", will be available for iPhone later. This is my pet project, my baby. :)

A holy trinity of Art - a rant.

2011-04-13T16:18:00.003-07:00

Here's what I believe:

There are three top level goals of visual art. They are goals because successful/popular images contain a healthy mix of these three concepts. I did not invent these concepts. They've all been written about by great thinkers and artists. Most of which I haven't read. This is an attempt to congeal these concepts into a belief system for myself. The following is not based on facts, research or science.

CONTRAST
Contrast in an image gets you curious. Contrast is said to be the spice of life. This is because or brain rewards us for assimilating new patterns. New patterns are basically old patterns put together in a new way. That is what contrast is; something next to something dissimilar.

Contrast in images can be in color, lightness, saturation. Ctrl+U, You know... It can also be thematic or conceptual. Art books, teachers and tutorials seem to focus on the paint rather than the ideas. This is fine, it's their job. BUT the thematic or conceptual is what gets you from only professional to "WOW that is awesome!" At least in the realm of illustration...

I've done (and keep doing) tons of characters that are not complete failures in anatomy and proportion, but still quite boring for not showing anything new.

YOU NEED A PLAN FOR YOUR CONCEPTUAL CONTRAST.

LIGHT
Light make you believe. Light is a shortcut to the world outside of the picture. It is through light we perceive the world. When a picture lacks light, it turns into a schematic. Our brains recognize it as a representation of reality rather than us buying into it as a reality.

Light is very difficult to handle. Do not despair. You do not need to paint realistic light. What you need is believable light. It can be caricaturized. Many times that will be stronger than an accurate simulation of photon beams. No amount of 3D software will ever render a good image if it is not in the hands of an artist.

YOU NEED A PLAN FOR SHOWING LIGHT.

EMOTION
Emotion makes you grateful. Recognizing emotion in others is, thanks to evolution, a key part of successful pack life. The brain rewards us with funky chemical when we practice empathy. For many it serves as a short respite from our own emotions, which tend to be re-runs. Our own emotions may be more real, but all too often negative. Give me a break from the guilt and doubt of modern life and I will be grateful.

It is probably so that when you can convey our own emotions, you are a true artist. Personally I can't bring myself to try. I wouldn't know where to start. Fortunately you don't have to. You can get close enough by conveying the emotions of the characters in your picture. It's like acting. I've cried in front of a movie even though it's apparent that it's not the actors own emotions being conveyed. To get the best result, you should get in the mindset of that emotion and let it seep into the drawing. There's magic involved here. Thinking about emotions will not help that much. They should be felt. I'm starting to sound like Yoda. Never mind... I'm not the first one to say it.

Just a small message to the people in the modern art scene: Provoking disgust is not the same thing. It is a cheap trick. Stop promoting it. Enough with the close-ups of genitals already.

YOU NEED TO KNOW WHAT EMOTIONS YOU WANT TO CONVEY.

This sounds a lot like preaching. I'm sorry. It is preaching, but the intended audience is myself. It is supposed to be a mantra to help me start images with the right priorities in mind. If it helps me or anyone else in the fight against mediocrity, all the better. If it works, I'll reverse the order and call it "The ELC principle." I know elk is spelled with a K, but "The Moose principle" doesn't make any sense at all.

noodles, chicken flawor

2011-04-12T14:49:00.000-07:00

Noodling away at this. Trying to not be chicken about it. Experimenting a bit with what could be a photoshop version of mixed media. Thing is... I know I get better results with "colored drawings" rather than "painting", BUT I like a painted look better. When others do it... So it should make sense for me to do drawing - coloring and then strategically place the painting bits. It's really weird how you hesitate to cover the drawing lines and details even though you know they're distracting. .

patience of a snail

2011-03-30T14:46:00.000-07:00

... is what you need to paint. Another almost-hour into this. What, oh what, should I do for a background?

khaki, red and metal grey hey hey hey

2011-03-29T15:46:00.000-07:00

First tentative colors. Had to take a break and try to sort out the light. It is just a multiply layer for shadows, but it did wonders for the form. Don't know how many times I've read Stapleton Kearns say something like "either it is in the light or it is in the shadow..."

in mother russia, characters draws you

2011-03-25T07:34:00.000-07:00

Been chatting with a colleague about a game concept based on two characters and violence. Drew this over the last two nights. I think I'll color it. Unless the urge wears off before it happens. :)

finally - lego still life.

2011-03-06T14:43:00.000-08:00

I've not touched oils in oh at least a decade. Six months ago I bought some of these watersolulable oils for an evening class. The class got cancelled so the oils stayed in the box. Until today.

What a reunion! Had completely forgotten what oil paint feels like. No wonder I've had trouble with painting, mucking about with low quality acrylics. Oils is the way to go apparently, especially now that the solvents are gone.

I set up a small light box and borrowed some starwars lego from my boy. Now I'm superdad apparently for being so awesome that I painted a stormtrooper. He also let me know he had some great ideas for what else I could paint that would be cool. :)

nds colors - so small, so great. nearly SFW

2011-03-05T16:12:00.000-08:00

Found some old to recent doodles on my nintendo ds. Man I love the Colors app, but the screens is just a wee bit too small... If I could get exactly this app, stylus and pressure sensibility but on a iPad sized screen, I would buy three of them.

Anyone know of such a product? Any tablet PC solutions that works for artists?

Anyhoo... these are all mindless brainfarts most of which has started as random lines. Trying to be painterly. When I grow up I'll be a fine artist doing huge dark chiaroscuro oils with nekkid ladies. Not sure what motifs I'll do though.. :))

alpha bravo tango over

2011-02-21T03:54:00.001-08:00

It's "IwannabeAshleyWood"-time again...

Artrage Studio Pro...

level up

2011-02-17T03:51:00.000-08:00

I'm officially a Project Manager now. At least for this one project. Been with Fabrication Games for 2 months now. About f**king time I got a promotion. :)

Why are there so few games centered around goblins?

hell yeah

2011-01-15T16:14:00.000-08:00

Look what I found in my inbox:

Final proof that either microsoft, the internet or my unread mailinglists are evil.

Speaking of evil... About time I posted some sketches for now published work. Concepts for miniatures, produced by coolminiornot.com.

First one is a huge eagle with some elf thing on his back. Extra nice. Final product inlaid. I like how they've been able to improve on the sketch. Not so common, even with my sketches. The other two are for the same company. I know they're a bit retro throwback, but hey I'm old and to be frank they were commissioned to be useable with miniatures from another large, fairly retro company. :)

sketchoholic, nsfw

2010-12-21T23:49:00.000-08:00

My entry for last nights contest on sketchoholic.com. Winner was Guillame Poux, aka Gunt, again. Deserved win it was too. Gratz, Gunt!

This is a "Vittra", from swedish folklore. These creatures lure men into the forest, and when they are deep in the forest, they turn their back and become invisible. The poor victim is now lost in the forest. There are versions of this tale. In some cases the guy is forced to father a child with a vittra. From that moment whenever she calls, he must drop everything and come running. I must've married one of those... :)

er... yarrrh?

2010-12-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

ps cs2, 1 layer, one brush, red, black, ochra, 50 min and reference is for girls!

the storm has passed

2010-11-23T13:33:00.000-08:00

...as in the obsession with caricatures that take hold of me from time to time

Keira Knightley:

edit: I lied.. It wasn't over. This is version two, because I got some feedback that wasn't 100% approving.

a case of the stupids

2010-11-22T01:31:00.000-08:00

That's what I contracted last night. Made the mistake of looking at some of Krügers work. So naturally I couldn't help myself and started a caricature. Just to make sure I didn't get any sleep, I had to go for Megan Fox of course. This is the third attempt. The first two looked like roadkill. One of my caricaturist idols, Euan Mactavish (Em on thedrawingboard.org) once said that even if you exaggerate a beutiful woman, you should still be able to see it's a beutiful woman (or something along those lines...) Had to try'n'see if I could pull it off. You tell me.

ayum ah concupt ahtisht

2010-09-29T13:15:00.000-07:00

Looked at a few youtube tutorials by Marco Bucci. Never heard of him before, but he seemed to know a thing or two about lighting and color. Painted this during a break. Great fun. No I didn't take the time to concieve anything more imaginativ than the same tired huge towers everyone else have done. The end result reminds me a bit about Bierstadt. I have to admit I'm a little fond of his landscapes, even though they're cheesy as hell. A few years back we were pitching an MMORPG (when everyone else was doing it...) and I had this obsession that it should look like a Bierstadt painting wherever you'd look. I still think that would have looked awesome in a fantasy game, even though I wouldn't hang his paintings on my wall (I'd keep them in a vault). Sadly I wasn't artist enough to sell it and I doubt our tech would have managed.

Marco talks a bit on the importance of doing plein air studies. After this sketch I've learned that he's right. You do need to do that to build a mental reference library. I will do it. Soon. When I retire...

here boy!

2010-09-10T01:18:00.000-07:00

Late night ink doodle. My screen saver is set on my extensive Eric Canete folder. I need to do more inked stuff. A bit busy atm. Anyone out there who could sell me a pint of focus?

Does it show that I grew up when Boris Valejo was the hottest thing since sliced bread? Doesn't matter... just practise..

On another note; this weekend I'm off to playtest the TTG I'm working on. It's looking promising. It usually does just before the playtest. If only I could find the notes from the last session..

lich thing

2010-07-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

45 min speedie. Turned into practising gesture drawing with big brush versus controlled details. Too much or to little of either will spoil any concept art i guess. A bit of experimentation with edges toward the end. Why is it so difficult controlling opacity?

World in War

2010-07-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

is the title of the game we're working on. FB here

I just realized I hadn't given proper credit. It's a title with a glorious past. Its' first incarnation was a cellphone multiplayer game already in the glory days of WAP (maybe.. at least ancient history techwise...) The second time around it became a board game (find box art by me at the start of this blog.) And now finally we're waking the beast once more as a strategy game for various portable devices. Initial playtests show tons of potential.

Here are a few pieces to be included in the game:

My rework of an earlier one. Now with angry soldiers instead of depressed soldiers.

Final paint (I think..) on top of the B/W sketch below:

Last, La Resistance! Proud wine-drinking, cheese-eating fighters for freedom:

My style change as often as a schizophrenic traffic light...

NSFW and rant

2010-07-02T16:31:00.000-07:00

The other night I had watched too many paintings on the intertubes. Since it was late I didn't have the wit to realize that it would have been a lot better to go to bed. This artrage painting is pure makebelieve and would probably would have been a lot better with the use of reference. But when gripped by sleep depravation and inspiration, one does not have time for such trivial things.

Anyways.. Why is this not as brilliant as it should have been, besides the usual too high tempo? Let me embellish on why painting is the hardest thing a human can attempt. Of course, we call it painting even when paint is randomly slapped onto any surface. Here I'm using the word in the sense "accurate, appealing and figurative."

Imagine throwing a ball at a target. Say the target is only to achieve a certain distance, i.e only one dimension. This would be the equivalent to only one of the considerations in a brush stroke. Like hue for instance. If we add a second dimension to the target, say sideways angle, that would be another consideration - brightness perhaps.

So considering in a single stroke; hue, brightness, saturation, direction of a stroke, width, length, gradation, curve, tapering, transparency, edge softness, and texture. If it is done with natural media there is also paint amount, viscosity and surface grain and absorbtion, drying times, light conditions and the much more complicated paint mixing than that of digital media.
Getting all those things right in a single stroke would be the ball-throwing equivalent of hitting a target at specific length, height, sideways shift, at a certain speed, and curvature, with the ball bouncing a specific number of times through a number of rings at different angles at precisely 12.15:45 pm a saturday while standing on one leg and reciting a shakespeare. If we're only talking about roughly the same number of consideration...

Now imagine the target moving, depending on where you hit with the last ball, as paintstrokes tend to do... And of course a brain that translates the visual information about the target into iconic representations, so that you have to squint and recheck constantly to get decent idea of where it is.

The only thing that makes it at all possible to paint something pleasing is that with paintstrokes we can chose the moment (unless you boss wants you to deliver on deadlines, at office hours,) and the pace. This makes painting to a large extent a struggle against yourself, your impatience, conflicting desires since you are going to have to "throw that ball" a few hundred or thousand times.

Oh and yes... Ctrl+Z does help a lot. I'm amazed that there are soo many geniouses out there who seem to be able to handle this every time. Like the eager young talents who will steal my job soon if they don't relax and get a bit lazier. Damn u.

Now let's see if this gets censored...

iLose

2010-05-31T02:30:00.000-07:00

This piece was not accepted to the Into the Pixel exhibition. It's a better piece than the one last year that was accepted. Apparently the competition was stiffer. And perhaps it's too figurative and too much WWII...

This painting not getting accepted is perhaps not quite as big a scandal as Sweden not making semi in the eurovision song contest...

war. never had so much fun...

2010-05-28T02:44:00.000-07:00

Yes! The world does need another WWII game. And I really needed another shot at doing one. Now I got it. :)

gesture and flow

2010-05-10T15:05:00.000-07:00

Work has given me a lot of reason to think about picturemaking lately. I'm reviewing my processes. Again. I always feel best while reveling in selfdoubt. Whenever I think I know what I'm doing, the trainwreck is just hours away.

Here is not trying to think, but feel.

inventory

2010-04-19T09:36:00.001-07:00
I have taken stock of my life. It is as I have suspected, but been afraid to admit;

Life is good!

studies highlights

2010-04-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

At work we're allowed these self study days. A few weeks ago I actually used one for the first time in five years. For six hours I did studies from Loomis "Drawing heads and hands" (Not sure of that title.) Going back to basics. Quick graphite studies, just shapes and placement, no detail. It was extremely rewarding. I promise to do this at least once a year. (Promise valid until void)

bikini queen

2010-04-13T03:51:00.000-07:00

Artrage "speed painting" as in Not Finished. I really have to stop deluding myself that I can solve drawing problems with paint. I really like when it looks like paint, instead of generic photoshop airbrush stuff, but I realise it won't fly for real work.

norse bad babe

2010-04-06T03:34:00.000-07:00
Found some time to do a personal piece. Doodling in Artrage and this giantess, mother of the Ragnarok monsters, Angerboda came of it. This is her and the midgard serpent at a tender age (before he wraps around the world and stupidly bites his tail.)

The more I use artrage, the more I like it. It is still a mystery why the colors behave as they do sometimes and I need a new computer to be able to run it with higher res. Give me one. My current one is also lacking three keys thank you very much dear daughter. Not to mention that photoshop crashes when using any fancy brushes. Would you like some cheese with that whine?

I feel I'm making progress at least. Need to work on my imagination though. Now it's like; "I KNOW! I can give her even bigger boobs. I'm a genious."

:)

work dump

2010-02-18T02:56:00.000-08:00
Some pieces from work for a change. These are a bunch of marketing illos, which is a rare treat. Used to promote jackpots in our solitaire and yatzy games. As usual I can't keep from exploring other peoples styles and perverting them into these monsters. But all in all I had great fun with theses much thanks to a very trusting marketing director.

color me happy

2010-02-03T01:36:00.000-08:00
Quick n dirty coloring of an oldish sketch. When I become a fantasy warlord, all my knights will get their heads shrunk. Makes them look so big and brutal. :)

more of the same

2010-01-30T06:22:00.000-08:00
This time on crappy recycled paper. Damn.. I could'a made that axe just a bit bigger.

meeting doodle

2010-01-26T04:18:00.000-08:00
Had a long planning meeting yesterday. Gawked at the concepts of Edouard Guiton the day before that. Here is the lovechild of envy and boredom:

level up!

2010-01-11T12:52:00.000-08:00
Along with a lot of other titles that I've held but hardly earned , I can now call myself a GAME DESIGNER! (to go with interaction designer, programmer, studio manager, art director and teacher... I feel more of a game designer than any of those..) I've been designing games as a hobby for a long time now, but this is my first ever published game as a game designer. Well second actually, but the first first was so silly it dont count. The game is called Xemytica: Fate of Heroes. It is published by a dear friend of mine, Jesper Pingo Lindström.

A bit of a funny story actually. Pingo and I tend to have intense email contact for a while. When no one has anything more to say the emails tend to stop and we don't talk for a year. Then I get an email with some news and the cycle starts anew once we've updated the usual info about which wife and number of kids produced and such. A loong looong time ago Pingo told me about an idea for a card game. Me being a whining bore said that it wouldn't fly and suggested a more evocative fantasy setting with kool fighters battling it out. I wrote a draft which we knocked around for a while. He did a mockup and playtested. Seemed ok, but as usual the emailing died away. (I'm terrible at keeping contact...)

Now, three and a half years later, I get an email; "I've published the card game now." Awesome! I just got my copy. Excellent quality print and cards. I'm not too fond of stock art, but for the budget I know he had this is bloody excellent. And for once I'm (mostly) innocent of graphics and art.

Are you still reading? Then go buy the game: http://xemytica.com/fate-of-heroes/ A few bucks for a pack enough for two players.

Happy New WAAAGH

2010-01-07T03:00:00.000-08:00

Smearing pixels in the new version of artrage. I really like it. It has a new ink pen with smoothing. Shortcuts have been fixed. Get it!

Anyways, every now and then I get this fixation of trying to do orcs in a new way. Kindof like a benchmarking exercise, since Paul Bonner already have done the ultimate orcs. I'd like to prove that there is still innovation to be done. But no not this time. Not with the orcs this time. What's more interesting is that this is another step (albeit a small one) towards applying an alla prima look to fantasy art. Still struggling with the "Zorn pallette."

procrastination is also an artform

2009-12-02T14:34:00.000-08:00
Found this thing that didn't make it past rough underpainting. It got something. I should finish it. Soon. Any day now. Perhaps during the holidays. Or after... Maybe Santa will give me an 8 day week for christmas.

I'd start now if my neck hadn't broken. It feels broken at least. I'd be worried if I didn't have motor control of my extremities.

bruce springsteen

2009-11-17T15:04:00.000-08:00
Mix n match from various ref. Could use some more exxageration. g'night!

s kruger

2009-11-05T13:42:00.000-08:00
caricature jam at drawingboard again. The caricature master himself; Sebastian Kruger:

awkward emotions

2009-10-31T07:22:00.001-07:00

Been whining about the shortcomings of digital art for a while now. That has not been popular with some digital artists. That is understandable. I too get cranky when someone takes a piss at my chosen profession. Problem here is that I am a digital artist. It is my profession. So I'm pissing on myself too. Here's what is supposed to be great about digi:
Speed.
Not for me. Any time that I'm not cleaning brushes is wasted in correcting poor control and second-guessing my decisions. crtl-z, stroke, crtl-z, stroke, crtl-z, stroke... For sketching and frankensteining sure. So, great for concept artist, not so great for illustration.
Here is what I consider to be great about digital art:
Space.
I only need a third of the space i'd need for a full traditional studio. Then again I only regret that I don't have the space. If I had the space I'd happily fill it with paints, bottles and shit. Now the problem is that none of these considerations will directly contribute to the quality of an illustration.
Anyhoo I finally got around to finishing an acrylic piece. It's just a doodle and not that great. I scanned it at very high res. When I finally had it in photoshop and zoomed, I almost wept. Gone was all the blurry digital marks. Every mark was where my hand had put it, as opposed to approximately where I put it. I spent minutes just enjoying the dust caught in the paint. Looking at where papergrain interacts with paintstrokes on paintstrokes. Donate money to the Pettersson-needs-a-studio-fund now!

bowie quickie

2009-10-29T13:48:00.000-07:00

drawing jam at thedrawingboard.

Miniatures designs

2009-09-09T15:09:00.001-07:00

Been drawing for miniatures for a while now. Some of these have been used, some not. The smaller ones are roughs that I liked, but didn't make the cut.

Xena

2009-08-12T12:13:00.001-07:00

The warrior princess. Classic.

hard wood

2009-08-11T09:58:00.001-07:00

Did I mention I like Ashley Wood?

bruce willis as john mcclane

2009-08-01T17:05:00.000-07:00
Saw a great caricature by Neil Davies, aka Single Serving Jack, at drawingboard.org. Someone said he was difficult to exxagerate, so I got curious. Now I agree completely.

Newborn

2009-08-01T01:01:00.001-07:00

My entry to conceptart.org's Newborn contest. Theme's "bring something to life." Looked at Rembrandts for inspiration. Some parts turned out well...

Kerr who?

2009-07-29T23:59:00.000-07:00

Caricature jam at drawingboard. Miranda Kerr. Have no idea who she is, but it was fun to try.

iWin

2009-06-09T03:25:00.000-07:00

Sweet! I got a place in the into the pixel exhib at E3. I believe the first piece out of a mobile game. It's an exploratory piece for Dirk Dagger, the point'n'click n-gage game.

2009-01-16T13:02:00.000-08:00

Hey whaddayaknow, it's 2009. Who's been looking too much at Ashley Wood? God how I hate his brilliance and fearlessness. And success... But I'm not bitter...

1,5 hrs+, Artrage.

Bettie Page tribute

2008-12-18T07:39:00.000-08:00
Quick artrage sketch for the Bettie Page thread at drawingboard.org.

awww

2008-12-11T01:55:00.000-08:00

Ain't that two cute kids, ey? Photoshop 2 hrs, after reading this book. Used a poorly lit photo taken with cell phone camera indoors as reference to test the theories in the book. I knew from the title it was a good one for me. Art has always been a question of correcting the first few lines, rather than planning all in detail. Great fun painting. Now I got to get some brushes out.

Tommy Lee Jam

2008-11-06T12:54:00.000-08:00

For the drawingboard caricature jam:

Supposed to look like Tommy Lee Jones.. :-/

Lunch speedie

2008-11-06T04:33:00.000-08:00

Since I prefer to kick people only when they're down, here is a caricature of the bushman himself.

dirty old man

2008-11-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

That is what my wife called me when I asked for an opinion on this piece. :)

I think it is quite innocent.. It's #2 in the pretend card art series; "Fernblight sorceress." This is a very interesting experiment. The endless possibilites of a blank sheet of paper is intimidating and inhibiting. Having something to take off from really gets me going. The stuff I do for myself tend to be dull, repetetive comfortable subjects. Not surprising since most of it is practise and techniques.

Ride like the wind

2008-10-18T05:00:00.000-07:00
Been looking card art for a while now. Reading the MtG style guide articles. So I got this idea. Got a friend to make up fake card titles and I'm in the process of painting those. As an experiment. Playing at the real thing. Feel strongly that it should really be done in traditional techniques, but I know then I'll never finish them. So here is the first one:

All photoshop. Started with only blacks and whites and progressed layer by layer adding values and color. Effective.

2008-10-10T02:46:00.000-07:00

Last nights coloring exercise. You can find the sketch for this in a previous post. Superlazy on the background... It was really fun though. Learned a lot about looking at values. It's too easy to get distracted by the colors. Read somewhere that (I think it was Reilly who said it) a picture is 80% value, 20% saturation and the rest is hue. With that kind of math it is safe to say I'm not quoting correctly. :)

[Edit] This is final version after some excellent feedback from the most excellent people at conceptart.org:

2008-10-08T03:46:00.000-07:00
Another speedpainting on the same theme. Not sure about the cropping...

2008-10-07T00:29:00.000-07:00
Instead of sleeping I did this in photoshop. "Master study" of a sorts. Can't find who it was who did the original. It is not really a copy because I was trying to find interesting uses of color, rather than spending the time to copy lines and relationships of form. The original featured a different pose, different colors and lizards, but if you'd compare them you'd see the conceptual likeness.

[Edit] I found him! It's Jamie Jones. Fantastic! Credit where credit is due.

It lives!

2008-09-30T06:57:00.000-07:00

Ok... so now I have two kids... Could blame them for not updating. But that'd be wrong. The blame is on Team Fortress. So to celebrate my return to productivity and uninstallation of TF2, I present my custom TF2 spray (may it rest in peace):

Some random stuff for random hobby projects and pitches:

Four different styles in one post! They say you find a signature style over time... We'll see when I'm 80.

2008-04-06T08:16:00.000-07:00

Speed paint of my wife holding our 14 hrs old daughter! (NDS Colors!) We've been blessed with the angriest, screamiest and adoreableest little girl. I'm not ashamed to say it; I make prettier children than paintings.

fan art

2008-03-27T02:01:00.001-07:00

Been reading the online comic Atland. Its done by Nate Piekos. Its good stuff. I have lots of admiration for guys who do their own thing and stick with it.

This isn't really fanart I guess since its not a character from the comic.

For Frank

2008-03-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

I missed the ImagineFX Frazetta celebration. Pity. This is my tribute to the man. Weird that I've drawn so few dinosaurs. Gotta do more of those. Thanks my son I now have access to all the new dino litterature! There were some really whacko dinosaurs around. Email blueprints for time machines to me for a free nudie sketch!

Post apo never dies

2008-03-14T02:10:00.000-07:00

Two guys dressed in junk. Very fashionable post nuclear disaster. Get your junk now!

just one more

2008-03-13T02:09:00.000-07:00

Well whaddayaknow. Found time for one more.

It's not a mutation, it's a feature.

2008-03-11T12:50:00.000-07:00

Possibly last image for a few weeks. Only a few days until the new little masterpiece arrives. If my pride and joy Simon is anything to go by, I'm sure this one will be a marvel of beauty too.

The pic for today is special in at least three ways. First, it's 100% inspired by Karl Kopinsky, the greatest artist ever to be under-paid by Games Workshop. (Not that I know their salaries, just that they couldn't ever have paid him enough!) Second, for the first time in my 8 year affair with photoshop, I've found a brush that actually looks a little like water color. Even better since it can do lighter and also opaque. Yay! This sketch is all digi. Third, it's for my own table top game. I've been starting new versions of the same post-apo miniatures game for ohh six years. Just the other day I finally got it to first draft version, ready for testing.

Fantasy dude

2008-02-27T04:30:00.001-08:00

Just a random sketch. Think it's time to paint up one of these soon...

Disciple of Kev

2008-02-22T02:40:00.000-08:00

This was fun! With this one I have learned a new "skill". Level up! Lets call it "trust the process." It's too easy to get stressed that things aren't coming out right and in getting stressed you start making mistakes thereby ensuring failure. Better to chill and see where the piece wants to go.

Have been oogling Kev Walker a lot lately. Perhaps it's visible here. Kev, you do divine stuff!

Wannabe card art

2008-02-19T14:51:00.001-08:00

Thank you ImagineFX, Jim Murray and Matt Dixon for the inspiration for this one! Doing card art sound like nice work. Mr Murray has put another nail in my CG coffin. I have realized that out of my top 10 (at least) favourite artist only one has earned that position with digi art, and boy can Craig Mullins do traditional well too.

Great news! Our latest mobile game won IMGA's "Best gameplay" award! And just now I got a barely audible call from the US that sounded like "... I'm at GDC .... awarded Achievement in art... something... screech mumble..." Waiting to get confirmation on that.. :)

Pocket art

2008-02-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

Finally got around to installing colors! on my NDS. This is the first testrun of it. Excellent program and the best use you can ever get out of a DS. The lack of "undo" and layers really forces you to take care and paint consciously. Just what the doctor ordered. It makes such a different to draw on the actual picture compared to using a wacom. It definitely makes up for the small size screen. With the ColorsDraw app you render it at a larger size and the end result surpasses any of my previous speedpaints. I'm a happy camper!

2008-02-05T02:35:00.000-08:00

Been doing a comic at work. A one-off marketing thing. Nice break from the usual stuff. This was a warmup for an inking session (that has nothing to do with the actual comic. :))

bzzt klonk

2008-02-04T01:23:00.000-08:00

A (quick) study of the teachings of Marko Djurdjevic. The subject of this drawing has little to do with his art, it's more about the way it was done. I can recommend his DVD "character ideation." I wouldn't pay too much attention to his "life lessons" but he sure knows pencilling. :)

2008-01-31T00:12:00.000-08:00

Tapias stuff really got into my head. Want to improve my painting skills and this stuff really feels like painting with a pencil. It's a little smudged. Always take care of your sketches kids!

digi speedpaint

2008-01-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Photoshop speed painting. There is a bunch of people doing this stuff. Craig Mullins is of course the brightest shining star. Sadly he seems to have chosen a more anonymous living. Craig come back! Prrrreaaasche!! Notable is also Nicolas Bouvier, a k a Sparth.

Not really my cup of tea. Love looking at this kinda stuff, though.

huhu uhh yeah uhmm

2008-01-28T06:23:00.000-08:00

Adam Hughes. Master of applied female anatomy.

Same routine as always. Spent a few hours looking at his art and perhaps one hour drawing. I draw these style studies without access to the original material to infuse at least a small part of myself into the drawings. Thanks for the inspiration, Adam!

All in a days work

2008-01-24T08:09:00.000-08:00

One more fueled by Tapia and his norse/skandinavian inspired fantasy.

Eat my loincloth!

2008-01-23T07:29:00.000-08:00
Conan. Conan is good. Conan rules.

Practising foreshortening and it's effects on my anatomy skills. Or lack thereof. This started as random lines in the middle so naturally the overall comp is lacking. As always... Composition for me is a question of minimizing the failure. (Conan is copyright of someone else.)

Rawrgh

2008-01-22T12:44:00.000-08:00

Quite extensive for being a sketch. Several sessions, moving stuff around, various cropping. Anyways it was a study of the work of Paul Bonner. Done in ArtRage 2, so it was something of an uphill struggle. Not that Artrage is bad, s'just that you can never get the control and connection as with a real brush with real paint.

Take this, mongrel!

2008-01-18T04:32:00.000-08:00

Another one inspired by Tapia. More specifically I've been looking a lot at his stuff in the swedish rpg Drakar & Demoner.

Hook and claws

2008-01-17T08:58:00.000-08:00
Sketchin after oogling the John Buscema sketchbook. John, I love you. Your Conan has shaped my outlook on the world. Granted, the barbarian worldview is not really applicable on my daily life...

Entry #1

2008-01-11T08:04:00.000-08:00
Ahw my god the preasure... Trying to learn how to blog. Starting orf with a sketch.. button not working...

Now it works!! Wohooo

This blogg might be about sketches, usually done late at night. Usually inspired by some artist or other. The carnalizer is not blessed with a clear and consistent style. This one after Alvaro Tapia. Inspired by, not like him, mind you.

Edit: This place need some history. So here's some older stuff. Feels like this needs to be at the start for chronological accuracy. It's probly clear that these are also "studies in styles" even if most of them were work for hire. All pictures below are copyright of someone else except the Europa cover and the Gnome necromancer (third from the end.)