boyd's blog

Walking Dead Nick

2011-11-01T03:49:00.000-07:00

Big fan of zombies and I recently watched the first season...in one sitting! Im not that great at creating "likness" in portraits but dont worry too much about it, I think I just rush it too much. This is a work in progress tonal drawing and i am only half way through. I'll update over this week.

Halloween is almost here

2011-10-22T11:00:00.000-07:00

Getting in to the Halloween vibe.

New tablet PC

2011-10-16T16:40:00.000-07:00

I splashed out on a new convertable laptop with a stylus pen so i can draw on the screen. Its been great fun sitting in front of the TV sketching in photoshop. I do almost all my sketching digitally these days so being able to have a digital skechbook is amazing! I also went out and about in my local area sketching out side :)

Bass

2011-10-13T08:27:00.000-07:00

I have enjoyed doing the jazz drawings this week, musicians are always good to draw. This guy started out with the intention of being death from Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure but I do like my strong colours. So I thought the suit from the Mask would look good on this guy :)

Pirate

2011-10-11T16:25:00.001-07:00

A quickie sketch based on another photo of Vancouver musicians. Colours are a bit dull.

Jazz man

2011-10-11T15:31:00.000-07:00

While I was in Vancouver I came across this great jazz guy in gastown. I had a stab at a character loosely based on him. there were other great musicians there that day, i'll try and do some more.

Bob

2011-10-05T16:09:00.000-07:00

Here is Bob. I dunno, i wanted to do a quick sketch and he popped in there. The style was forced because i wanted to do it very fast but i found i had more fun to paint like his. I don't ponder on things and just do it!

Viking Guys

2011-09-08T07:57:00.000-07:00

I watched Disney's Tangled recently and thought it was the best Disney film in long time! I thought it was really entertaining, particularly the scene in the bar with the thugs. Great character design so I had a quick stab at creating similar characters...but these pail in comparison!

Goodbye Eevi

2011-09-02T01:33:00.000-07:00

A girl from Finland we had working with us is leaving today. I was tasked with making her leaving card based on Quarrel, the game we have been working on. It was great fun making Quarrel characterisations of all the development team here at Denki :)

Singing lady

2011-08-30T00:46:00.000-07:00

I spent too long on this and its still not finished. I am trying to figure out a balance between sketchiness and a painterly quality (if you know what I mean) so I don't spend a long time tweaking but I get to a quality I am happy with. Interesting how the sketch changes when I start to paint.

Me on my red bike

2011-08-22T23:27:00.000-07:00

I'll freely admit I was (still am) a geek and as a kid I used to bike it over to my mates with my PlayStation in my school bag so we could play multiplayer via link cable. There was no xbox live in those days! Good times!

I'm still learning a great deal about painting in photoshop and rushed it towards the end. The original drawing was done quickly so alot of the perspective is off and the character design could be better, but I feel I’m getting faster putting colour down and creating better shapes.

Incidentally, the red bike was stolen in the end. I loved that bike. I guess this is homage to that :)

Sun Game Art

2011-08-16T09:29:00.001-07:00

A bit of free lance work for 3 days. It was a commission for The Sun newspaper with a little Scottish Sun bus driving through the streets of Paris. As I had such a short time to complete all the work the buildings were a simple tile that was repeated. Then objects placed on top.

The whole flash game was placed inside a newspaper. Like the game was played within a newspaper panel.

Random guy

2011-08-15T05:54:00.000-07:00

Just a random piece of illustrator Art. I recently got back from an epic trip to Canada and really need to get more art done in my spare time.

2011-04-20T15:31:00.000-07:00

I like having a base reference to start off with and i thought this guy was great! this was just a quick test and I will do this again...except maybe spend more time on it.

2011-04-19T16:41:00.000-07:00

My friends website went live. I did the background and logo stuff. I didn't do much, but it was fun! Heres his link http://www.amoebalab-games.com/

2011-04-12T17:03:00.000-07:00

I want to get back into digital painting. Im not liking this too much but im glad I started somewhere. I find i quite like my line drawings but when i start painting i lose a quality in the character...mmm. I'll spend more time and keep trying. He is supposed to have an eye patch but didnt work into it.

2011-04-02T03:16:00.000-07:00

An abertay student asked me how i go about creating art for games, and what packages i use. I did this over lunchtime to show the various stages i go through... well, its a post init! i need to start posting more!

2011-03-24T09:36:00.000-07:00

Graphic design isn't really my strongest skill, but I do enjoy it. My coder friend asked me to help him design a logo for his start up company, Amoeba Lab. This is what we came up with. I did a few business cards and invoice templates. All good fun. Tom gave a great piece of coder art (at the bottom of the last image) to start me off! and yes, I know I spelt amoeba wrong in places!

Lemmings is 20!

2011-02-15T15:27:00.000-08:00

I remember the christmas i got my my amiga 500 + the lemmings pack. That was the start of my computer games obsession! I loved that game and attribute it to helping me pick the career i have today. I was totally dumbfounded when i started at denki to find out the guys that made it were right here in dundee and some of them i have had the pleasure of working with over the past few years. I got asked to do a few things for the celebration, like the poster logo and the plaque that went up on the original building where it was made.

I only had about 30 mins at lunchtime to make it and i wanted all the wee lemmings running about it, but, you can only do what you can in the time you have. But im so glad i was part of it!.

This is a great link btw, its the history of DMA and has a great making of lemmings section:

http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/Lem_1.htm

http://www.javalemmings.com/DMA/

Laura Marie Boyd

2010-05-05T14:13:00.000-07:00

I finished my first website! woohoo.
heres the link: www.lauramarieboyd.co.uk

Its all very simply (but simple can be good) done in dreamweaver. It should be dead easy to navigate and hear my sister sing! It was fun designing her logo and all the little things that go with it, like flyers and business cards.

2009-12-29T10:07:00.001-08:00

I also did a werewolf sketch and a few of the frames.

Skeletons!

2009-12-29T08:13:00.000-08:00

A few skeleton characters for a game i was working on for a friend. Nothing original but drawing skeletons are always fun! Also a few of the frames i did.

Lighting tests

2008-10-31T09:59:00.000-07:00

a couple of lighting tests. I kinda sacrificed composition for lighting so the cave is a little overwhelming, but good fun!

word of the week "Halloween"

2008-10-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

witch takes flight

Pumpkins

starting to slow down a bit as i havnt done a new pic in quiet a few weeks.

But i went to a lecture recently by a guy named jeremy vickery . He was a lighting director at pixar and i liked the way he painted. The idea of his painting is to create a feeling and mood very quickly, so i tried some speed painting here...but i took far longer than i should have! i'll keep trying cus it good fun but hard to get colours down fast.

word of the week "knight"

2008-09-09T15:04:00.000-07:00

found this one a bit tough for some reason, so here are a few sketches i did. I do like the idea of a Mechanical Knight that has past its best before date and is left to rust away in a thorn field. If i have time this week i might try and texture this up so its obvious its rusting away.

I did play with the idea of armour based on animals like the rhino armour and shark armour, but didn't take it vary far.

word of the week "BIKER"

2008-09-01T13:03:00.000-07:00

Grim Biker.

bit cheesy and cliched this week, i really wanted to draw a skull with a tash...so i did. I'm not so keen on the full figure, needs a better pose and i like the sketch better than the coloured version. I enjoyed trying to make a logo for him though. I also did start to draw him on a bike, but it was going take way too long.

word of the week -Gun Slinger!

2008-08-15T05:47:00.000-07:00

kinda ran out of time to colour this one, just quickly did it this lunchtime, plus i didnt get to add the guns around him. Technically speaking, i guess he would be in complete shadow being behind the sun.

and im sure pirates arnt the only ones with peg legs!

Daily face - 10 minutes

2008-08-15T05:42:00.000-07:00

first weeks batch, some really dodgy stuff here but what ya gona do, i aint ashamed! i really want to keep going with some of them but 10 minutes it is!

word of the week "POOF!"

2008-08-09T02:09:00.000-07:00

oops, forgot about this, not too fond of it but i did say i would post a new image everyweek no matter what!

10 minute sketch

2008-08-07T01:34:00.000-07:00

did this before teh day of work started, i picked a photo and gave myself 10 mins. Iv never been very good with faces so after a geed few of these i might get better, its good to just bash something out and not really think about it.

Random army guy

2008-07-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

This isnt really sticking to my new blog mission, meh, i did it a few weeks ago and spent way longer on it than i should have. I think i have been doing illustrator and pixel work for too long, getting back into digital painting has been a struggle but i enjoyed it tho!

it started of as a drawing in painter, but as soon as i added the sepia tone i wanted to make it like an old photo, so brought it into to good ol photoshop!

word of the week " CANNED"

2008-07-30T17:42:00.000-07:00

To get my word of the week i go to Illustration Friday, here, which puts up a new word every friday. Some are better than others, and i try and draw the first thing that comes to mind...i have no idea where the submarine came from, but its a new post i suppose!

Starting a fresh!!!

2008-07-29T06:11:00.000-07:00

Thats right folks, Boyd's blog is back! i can not believe its coming up for 2 years since i last posted, prob no one ever looks at the blog any more, but fear not!

mr burt is dead right, quick sketches and drawings are the way to go, so from now on i will try...there is not try, only do!...i WILL produce a drawing a week, dosnt sound like much but i tried a drawing a day and it lasted...a day! so i will pick a word a week and draw something for it! starting...now!

laters!

remember, remember....

2006-11-06T00:00:00.000-08:00

we went to lochee park last night to see the bonfire and fireworks, its always so good! when i got home i did this.

martin, we were running a little late so couldnt make it to yours but we did get there, but no chance of finding you at the park, you saw how busy it was!!!

more random halloween/zombie pics....

2006-10-30T05:15:00.000-08:00

juat wanted to do a halloween zombie poster, think the blue/green colours are more like halloween.

random zombie things

2006-10-30T04:58:00.000-08:00

did these sunday night, i was still in the zombie mood!!!

halloween party!

2006-10-30T02:03:00.000-08:00

this is just a quick costume we made up about an hour before the party...i love being a zombie!!! im from shaun of the dead with the batman soundtrack vinyl in me heed!

thats pete on the left and kylo wondering what the hell im doin!.....

zombie dave...

me again.....

wabbit

2006-10-24T14:55:00.000-07:00

some pics of our rabbit,max. i bought him for ruths b-day, now the house smells of rabbit piss...great!!!scans arnt that clear cus the scanner doesnt pick up most pencil marks!

bowling

2006-10-24T14:38:00.000-07:00

im doing a bowling game at work at the mo, and had to watch the big lebowski! so did these, they dont really look like them and arnt very good caricatures(cus im not very good at that!) but just wanted to get some basic characters from the film, got the idea about drawing characters from film from a steven silver pic look here...which is awesome!

life drawing

2006-10-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

started back at life drawing every monday night, not sure i'll post more up cus it was a major pain in the hole to scan these in! its my first for 3 or 4 years i think, and you feel really rusty when you start back! also its just one pose per session which sucks a bit but still fun tho!

hello!!!!!

2006-10-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

howdy, finally got round to doin this blog thing!

im really not sure how often i will update but NOT due to lack of time just pure laziness! so please have a look about and comment!

im gona keep adding links aswell, checkout ruths new website! and also checkout story bredom and steve silver, some great art in there! and also i have found the character blog amazing! if you ever want inspiration look at a few of these artists!!!...and for all you computer games geeks out there i found eurogamer quite good at upto date reports!

chow for now
boyd