William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Category: Concept Art

  • Legend of Zelda Redux | Twinrova

    Legend of Zelda Redux | Twinrova

    My competition piece was Twinrova with a “Tron” twist on the character design.

    Well, this is a much more completed version of the digital painting in the competition.  And that is what I get for procrastinating.  But here it is.  Head over to the finals thread and check out the other great entries from other amazing artists.  This, again, was a very humbling experience.

    I had a very hard time keeping myself motivated for this painting.  I originally thought that the idea would come together pretty smooth, but I ran into some difficulties.  One difficulty was making sure that the character would be recognizable, based on the original.

    I had a hard time designing the outfit in such a way that it would keep well to the original, but also have the simplicity of the costumes in Tron. Not to say that the costumes in Tron are overly simple, but that the two worlds designs are drastically different.  And because of this problem, I don’t feel that the original character represents, good enough, in this new design.  I should have spent just a little more time  trying to figure out how to bridge that design gap.

    And another difficulty, that was self imposed, was my overall process.  I wanted to work from a line art base, to a more realistic finished product.  I hadn’t tried this kind of process for a long time, and I felt very insecure about this painting because of it, until about the last hour of painting.  This seems to be a common technique, and I should keep up with it by switching between value and line.

    But as for positives.  I like the composition, pose, color, and depth in the painting.  I tried to simplify the background as much as possible.  Seeing this is a character design competition, I should probably try to bring the viewers focus to the character.

    Also, a few things that I haven’t really done before.  Trying to simulate refraction with glass in the foreground and other areas of the painting.  Another, being the black hi gloss surface of the face plate.

    Overall I am happy with painting, and it seems to show that I am progressing in the areas of composition, anatomy, material rendering, and color theory.  Some progress is better than none, right?

  • Love’in the Lenovo

    Love’in the Lenovo


    Here is a painting (The Runner) and a few sketches I did, all on the tablet.With a total of about 3 hours of work time.  From laying down the initial sketch, painting, touch up, and making this post.  100% Android.

    The Lenovo Thinkpad tablet got its ICS update this past week, and it has made drawing that much more enjoyable.  the stylus is much more responsive, and there are some extra perks in Photoshop Touch, as well.  The button on the stylus is the color dropper tool, and you can see the cursor when you hover over the screen.  Which does help with accuracy.

    And here are some old folk studies that I sketched out on the Lenovo Thinkpad tablet.

  • Pistol Whip

    Pistol Whip

    (Approx. 4 hours to completions).


  • Mage Outfit – Concept Art

    Mage Outfit – Concept Art

    I thought I would whip up another video for you all.  This was mainly done in MyPaint, with some touch up work done in the Gimp. I love recording my sessions, and I thought I would record a piece of concept art that certainly breaks away from the usual way I do things.


    This one obviously centers more around the outfit, than the character.  My goals where, have a simple color scheme and a strong silhouette.

    To bring out the shape, I stuck to a line-art.  Line-art reads easily, when done right, so for a very short piece (1 hour) I needed to make sure, that who ever looked at this piece, could easily understand the form of the clothing.  Another reason for the line-art style is because I haven’t done anything serious, in line-art, for a while.

    And for the silhouette part of things, I thought that exaggerating one part of the clothing would add what the character needed for a unique silhouette.  Can you imagine someone with this getup walking past you.  The long tail of the skirt flowing just above a stone floor, making a very distinct but soft sound as the material brushes against the floor.  The very sound would become apart of the character wearing this clothing.

    Another detail to the silhouette is the cane.  When I knew I was going for a mage, I didn’t want the “traditional” staff, that a mage or wizard would have.  So, one of the reasons for the cane was to break away from that tradition.

    Again, any comments, critique or questions are welcome!

  • Desert Flyer

    Desert Flyer

    Here is something that I started during draw night yesterday.  I has a little of John Carter of Mars inspiration in it.  Its a pretty good movie for those who are considering to go watch it any time soon.

    Here is the Alchemy sketch, yet again.

    It took about three hours to produce this painting.

  • More Templar Nation Stuff

    More Templar Nation Stuff

    Another busy week at the wheel, and yet at times, it feels like I don’t have much to show for it.  But I do!
    I thought I would post concept work of some pillar designs for one of the rooms that our hero’s encounter.

    It has been interesting to dive into divers kinds of architecture.  I have a difficult time drawing sturctures, but this project has really helped me to pull out of that shell a bit.

    I actually did this a couple of weeks back, and because I haven’t been doing allot of 2D stuff lately, I thought I post these final images along with the Alchemy sketches.  Enjoy!

  • Murals

    Murals

    Here are some more sketches from the Templar Nation production.  Very far from the actual look we are going for, for the final product.  These sketches where used simple for composition within an archway frame.

    The look that we want to go for is more like a medieval tapestry than a modern cartoon.  I am excited to try my hand at some older art styles though.

  • The Protagonist

    The Protagonist

    Been trying to write a short story lately.  (Writing is much more difficult than I thought.  Thanks Sarah!)  And the final goal for it is to hopefully design a Android based video game.
    And, obviously, apart of that process is designing what the characters look like.  And here is a taste of what I have done so far for the protagonist.

     

  • Templar Nation

    Templar Nation

    Getting ready for a trip to California!  So, before that happens I thought I would post a concept art piece for a feature film I am a part of.

    The film is called Templar Nation, and we went into pre-production about 2 weeks ago.  The production is scheduled to end at the beginning of March next year.  I am really excited for this production because I will have the opportunity to help produce the visual effects for this movie.  (The last 20 minutes of the movie rely heavily on CG.)  It is going to be a hard, but very rewarding learning experience.

    As time goes on I will post work for this production as much as I am allowed to do so.  So keep an eye on my posts.

  • Alchemy is Fun!

    Alchemy is Fun!

    Here is an costume Illustrations that I created with Alchemy and Gimp.

    I have been watching “Chaos and Evolution’s” by David Revoy and have been trying out some the techniques he has for coming up with character designs.  So after watching the tutorial for a program called Alchemy, I decided to have a go at it.

    All I have to say is that this little program is amazing.  The way you can just throw down shapes and come up with awesome designs is a blast.  And the program itself is really straight forward and easy to learn.  (I did have some issues getting it to work in Linux though…).

    I am planning on using this program for a while to bust out ideas really quick.

    If you want to pick up a copy of Alchemy, its free, and its here.   Also, if anyone is interested, I am willing to do a small video of the process I go through, when using Alchemy.

    Here are a few brainstorms I did with Alchemy to give you an idea of what can be done.  Each one of these took about 5 minutes, more or less.