William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Category: Other

INKTOBER 2015 | Finished

Here we go. Time to give it a try. Inktober. I have been wanting to do this for the last few years, after my friend Michael Buhler first introduced me to the event. Be sure to check out his blog, as he is currently inking away as well. I think I final have myself worked up enough to carry through the end of the month.

Goals

I think that the only way I am going to see this through is if I set a few goals to help generate ideas, but keep it basic to avoid being too ridged. I want to keep it fun as well. For the sake of keeping my blog clean as well, I will be posting everything in this post, and I will also be sharing out to the Facebook Draw Night group, Google+, Deviant Art and to my Instagram.

Goal #1 is to produce 10 larger, 11×17 vertical illustrations, for my top 10 video games. I won’t list that here now, don’t want to spoil the surprises to come.

Goal #2 is 21 other small scale pieces. This can include inked sketches, smaller, and quicker to finish.

Quick Link List

A list of what is done, and linked for quick navigation.

11×17 Fanart Illustrations

Day 4 – Transistor
Day 11 – Phantom Dust
Day 16 – Tempest 2000
Day 17 – Journey
Day 18 – Adventure of Link
Day 19 – Shadow of the Colossus
Day 21 – Ocarina of Time
Day 29 – Link’s Awakening
Day 30 – Final Fantasy VII
Day 31 – Street Fighter 2010

Other Inks

Day 1 – “Play the Beast”
Day 2 – “Another Bullet”
Day 3 – “On the Throne”
Day 5 – “Gate Keeper”
Day 6 – “Forgotten Trophies”
Day 7 – “Fighter”
Day 8 – “Push the Button”
Day 9 – “Just a Few Notes”
Day 10 – “Distilled”
Day 12 – “Potential Baller”

…
Day 13 – “Navigator”
Day 14 – “Hybrid CI”
Day 15 – “Checkers”
Day 20 – “Ambassador”
Day 22 – “Lighter”
Day 23 – “From the Depths”
Day 24 – “Suzzie”
Day 25 – “Time to Fly”
Day 26 – “Unwavering”
Day 27 – “Mouse Thief”
Day 28 – “Minmei”

Weekly Time Lapse Video

Week 1 Time Lapse

Week 2 Time Lapse

Week 3 Time Lapse

Day 1

Play the Beast

Day 2

Another Bullet

Day 3

On the Throne

Day 4

Transistor

Day 5

Gate Keeper

Day 6

Forgotten Trophies

Day 7

Fighter

Inktober – Week 1 – Time Lapse

Day 8

Push the Button

Day 9

Just a Few Notes

Day 10

Distilled

Day 11

Phantom Dust

Day 12

Potential Baller

Day 13

Navigator

Day 14

Hybrid CI

Inktober – Week 2 – Time Lapse

Day 15

Checkers

Day 16

Tempest 2000

Day 17

Journey

Day 18

Adventure of Link

Day 19

Shadow of the Colossus

Day 20

Ambassador

Day 21

Ocarina of Time

Inktober – Week 3 – Time Lapse

Day 22

Lighter

Day 23

From the Depths

Day 24

Suzzies

Day 25

Time to Fly

Day 26

Unwavering

Day 27

Mouse Thief

Day 28

Minmei

Day 29

Link’s Awakening

Day 30

Final Fantasy VII

Day 31

Street Fighter 2010

October 2, 2015
Atari Lynx | 3D Printed Lynx Cartridge Shell

A little side project. I was digging through patents for old Atari stuff and noticed that the original cartridge shell’s patent was never renewed. No big surprise really, but I thought I would take advantage of the situation, and try my hand at some 3D printing.

I dissected a California Games cart and did all the measurements I needed with a pair of calipers. After double checking my measurements, and making some slight adjustments to the original design to accommodate thicker walls that the 3D printing process required (and adding our BitJag logo in place of the Atari logo), I modeled it in Blender, and sent it off to the printers. Below are the results, and if you would like to purchase some, I have made them available on Shapeways for the cost of printing. I hope this might help others to replace damaged shells, and maybe even use them for a future Atari Lynx homebrew release. Enjoy!

BUY HERE

February 23, 2015
New Cintiq 13HD

I am going to brag a little bit, only because this is such an awesome device. But before that, I apologize for the lack of posting. We have officially started our next project, so, I have been doing allot of writing, organizing, and discussions, to make sure we give this project a good start.

This Cintiq 13HD has been very fun to work on. Having worked on an Intuos for such a long time, it takes a bit to adjust to working on a display, but it comes with some advantages.

The first thing that I noticed was how much easier it is to do line work. It is more accurate. The reason for the increase in accuracy is because the disconnect created by drawing on one surface while looking at a different surface, is gone. This makes it more like a traditional medium, which, for some artists, can be very attractive.

Pro number two, is how portable this thing is. It is the same width and height as my 15.6 HP ENVY 15, and they easily fit side by side in my bag. I take it between work, Draw Night, parent’s house, and my house with out worrying about it at all. It does add a few extra cable to my bag, and is slightly heavier than my medium Intuos 4 tablet.

Which brings me to my next point. This device is deceivingly light. And, even thought I don’t do this often, I can easily draw with it sitting on my lap. This is the big plus to this device, light and portable.

Now some down sides. The screen is a bit dim. Most of the time I don’t mind it, just because it is still brighter than most LCD’s. I heard somewhere there is a way to adjust this, but I haven’t been able to find a service manual to adjust brightness. There isn’t anyway to change the brightness with Wacom software unfortunately.

This one isn’t really a con, seeing it will be resolved soon. Getting it to work in Linux was a bit of a chore. Because of how new the device is, native support won’t be around for a little while. I was able to build the latest driver from source, and then I have had to trouble shoot the Settings GUI so I could map the buttons. A bit frustration at first, but I eventually got everything working right, and it works great in Kubuntu 13.04. It also works great in programs like the Gimp, MyPaint, and Krita.

The one big downside to this device is the connector for the proprietary cable, and how it connects to the device. It is a bit flimsy, and one good bump would definitely render it useless. With some extra care though, this can be avoided, and shouldn’t be a problem for most people.

Overall, it has been a joy to use, and for the price point it is a very good device. Great color, great portability, and a great price. I would definitely suggest it to anyone interested in getting a Cintiq, and not wanting to spend more than $1000.

May 20, 2013
New Office!

This is a quick post just to show off Thor Media’s new office. Nothing special, but it should help bring a new focus to our work and help us make better plans for the future.

April 15, 2013
Self Portrait | 16-bit

Got thinking about the Atari Jaguar again, 8/16-bit stuff, and nostalgia hit. So, to help feed the hunger for the good-old-days, I thought I would do a some 16-bit graphics myself.

I didn’t want to come up with a character concept, or anything, so a self portrait seemed like a good choice. As for style, I was thinking of King of Fighters, or Samurai Showdown. Great fighting games, in the same realm as Street Fighter. Sticking closer to the cel shaded style over the smoother more realistic styles that come from some of those games.

Doing 16-bit art changes the way I think about things. I started out with a sketch, just like any other piece, but when I began moving into the line art, things began to change. Similar to paying attention to the shapes of your lines when inking, when doing low-resolution outlining you have to pay special attention to your lines. The limited resolution forces you to figure out how to make lines go from thick, thin, then to nothing.

Also, another problem that is introduced lines that curve, don’t curve very well. Because pixels are generally square, it gets harder and harder the smaller resolution you have to make a decent circle or curve.

But there are pros as well. With the limited resolution, there is less detail to worry about. This is one of the reasons why games have gotten shorter over the years. The more resolution you have, the more detail you need to fill that empty space, and the more the costs go up to fill that space. Therefore a shorter game. But, my point is, less detail to worry about.

This piece was originally done at 256 x 512 pixels, with a palette of about 30 colors. I did it at that resolution to test out larger graphics on the Jaguar for the future. My brother and I have been playing around with coding our own Jaguar stuff, and would like to move into a game eventually.

But that is way in the future, and I consider this more about practice than actually putting together a game. I have enjoyed doing this small piece. Simple, stylized, and looking forward to doing more in the future. And I wish my hair actually looked like that sometimes.

March 18, 2013