Purpose
Took a step back for a while to look at what I’m creating and what my goals are. Long story short, I’m going to focus on two things: prop design and purely convention stuff.
I think one of my biggest downfalls in the last few years has been trying to stretch over too many markets with the same art. Without having a focused intent for each project, I seem to have missed all of the marks instead of nailing one.
I love concepting props (especially weapons) so I’m going to focus my professional portfolio on that, from 2D concepts to 3D models, including low-poly models with hand-painted textures (Blizzard style) to high-detail photoreal stuff. If I can keep my main focus within those bounds I think I can make a portfolio worthy of a studio.
Convention art will have a lot more thought behind it than my past art, which was basically “here’s a character or an object, and that’s it.” I want to make people smile, or laugh, or think. I want to make things people want on their wall (or stuck on a water bottle or pinned to their clothes, etc).
I always disliked the versions I saw of Drizzt Do’Urden’s scimitars Twinkle and Icingdeath from R. A. Salvatore’s books. I decided they would be a good place to start with my new focus on props and weapons. Here’s the 2D concept…
And here is an early render of the low-poly 3D model. The modeling is pretty close to done, but the painted texture has a long ways to go still.