Azure Dragonfly Meanderings

February 6, 2015

Sketchbook

A traditional still life using a very textured digital canvas, and simple digital watercolour (lots of fun!):

February 4, 2015

Jen's art in Games (Guest blog by Demetrios Georgeadis)

Since last week I have been working on artificial intelligence for the characters in our game, an important process which will dictate how the game feels to play. There isn't much I can show you, but I can tell you that the process of creating the background workings of our game has something in common with creating the graphics of our game.

As I code the engine, I constantly go through the process of, idea, planning, implementation, and repeated testing. I add an element, and immediately test the result. I change a setting and test the result. Well, our game graphics are no different. Last week I put in some bugs. This week we are testing the flying pattern of the bugs while exploring what the bugs will look like if they glow. While last week's bugs looked fine, having them glow in the dark really exposes any problems in the pattern.

In this video you will see a swamp reed which Jennifer has lovingly created to test with. The reed graphic's shape is modified in real time to create the swaying motion:

The result is not too bad, but could use a bit of touching up in the bug's flight patterns. For now it will do, but as we add more graphics to our swamp scene, you can be assured we will revisit our buggies to make sure everything is just right.

February 2, 2015

Sketchbook

This beautiful flower arrangement at The Wilder Restaurant in Nova Scotia provided me with some vivid complemetary colours to paint:

January 30, 2015

Jen's art in Games (Guest blog by Demetrios Georgeadis)

Hello, long time no see. Jen and I have been busy working on our game, however, most of the work we've been doing since my last post a few months ago has been in design.

This week I want to show you some environmental effects, created to add ambiance to our backgrounds. In one area of our game the player will traverse a swamp. We wanted our swamp to be teeming with life, so this week I added in something every proper swamp would have - buggies.

I have spoken before about particles, specifically in regards to rain and snow. Particles are game elements which don't really interact with anything, they simply are created, sent off in a direction, and then are destroyed. This week I have modified our particle engine and added some artificial intelligence to it. This has led to the creation of what I call 'hive bugs', little particles which circle an area of the screen, the way a gnat or a mosquito would swarm in a particular area.

Jen has kindly made an amaryllis plant to test the look of it:

January 28, 2015

Sketchbook

I'm practicing using digital impasto oil in this tonal figure painting. This media is thick, luscious, and addictive to paint with!

January 26, 2015

Sketchbook

Here are some early tests using Painter 2015's various watercolour brushes. In these figure paintings I used two very wet brushes with a broad, wet fringe:

January 23, 2015

Sketchbook

In an effort to integrate some of the portrait and figure drawing skills I've learned recently, I spent some time doing a sampler of (fairly fast) figure sketches:

January 21, 2015

Sketchbook

A bit more practice today with profiles, lest I get so caught up with other things that I let myself get rusty!

January 19, 2015

Sketchbook

I'm revisiting a favourite spot from Peggy's Cove to try out these new oil brushes:

January 16, 2015

Sketchbook

More work with digital oils and experimenting with jitter in the brush strokes. For organic subject matter in particular, these oil brushes work very well!