William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Category: Timelapse Videos

Atari Jaguar | McFur & Friend 3

I haven’t had allot of time after Inktober, and getting my Inktober book together, to draw and paint. But I was able to squeeze in an hour here and there on this illustration for Flappy McFur, BitJag’s Atari Jaguar homebrew game.

The idea was simple, I wanted to depict Mcfur and Cutter moving forward together, enjoying the journey. The idea of them stepping out of the frame of the game’s world, and into another, I believe helped to convey the message of moving onto new things together. Obviously they are depicted very happy, as they always are, with McFur having his usual free spirit attitude, and cutter having a feminine but adventurous attitude about her. I feel the composition came together well, due to spending time on thumbnails, and most of the pieces fit well.

Again, I stuck with the crayon/pastel look, as the game is very elementary and happy in nature, and the rough feel of crayons along with the bright saturated colors help bring the feeling of childhood to the piece. Krita has a couple of pastel brush I really like to use with my work, and they work perfectly to get the look I want for Flappy McFur.

I took some time to review the other drawings I have done for Flappy McFur so fare (McFur & Friend 1, 2, and the box art), and it is interesting to see the evolution of the character design of both Cutter and McFur. It is almost like they have both grown up a bit as they have floated around mind. Subtle facial changes to Cutter, Mcfur’s shape is more worked out as well. I am sure if I ever do more drawings for them in the future, there will be more subtle changes to their designs, but for now, I do like the way they look.

December 20, 2015
Atari Jaguar | Flappy McFur | Box Art Illustration

This one has been a long time coming. I have always intended to update the original box art, done in Inkscape, with a nicer looking illustration. I just thought I would have gotten to it sooner.

I keeping with the overall design of the original box art, I maintained the perspective, composition, and other key elements of the original, with only a few changes. The biggest change, and naturally the most obvious is that it isn’t vector art anymore. To compensate for the lack of scalability, I doubled my usual working resolution in Krita. I usually work at an A4-300dpi (2430x3508px). This time I basically doubled that resolution (4400x6218px), to help future proof the piece, in case we wish to do posters or banners.

The other obvious change was the inclusion of the second character in our game, Cutter, McFur’s lovely companion turned human. Currently, Cutter’s part in the game is purely aesthetic, but there are plans in having her be a larger part in all the flapping the player will be doing. Something like dropping bonus coins or removing pipes for McFur every once in a while.

Now compared to the first and second illustrations done for this game, I decided to take the rough colored pencil and crayon look further, and I really liked the final result. I used two pastel brushes primarily, but I also used a couple of pencil and standard brushes when I needed a bit more detail in places. I am not worried about reworking the previous illustrations, because I feel they feel great for what they are, but finishing this piece makes me feel like doing one or two more new illustrations following this pattern. We’ll see.

Enjoy the time lapse video I put together, a few close ups of detail, and have fun commenting on the differences between the old and new box art. I am also thinking about doing an extended cut of the time lapse that is about an hour long, so those of you who like to see more of my process in detail, you may have the opportunity soon.

August 10, 2015
Time Keeper | Outcast Odyssey Master Card Challange

5/5/2015 – Update – The “Time Keeper” time lapse video was featured along with many other talented artists on Krita’s 2015 Kickstarter campaign. Awesome!

Unfortunately I spotted this little challenge a bit too late on Google+. I decided to take a crack at it anyways to see what I would come up with, and to produce some more content for the YouTube Channel.

You can see the list of entries that made it on time here, and there is some very very impressive work on there. I am pretty sure I didn’t have much of a chance even if I did start and then submit in time, but it always fun to see what others come up with, and varying skill levels involved.

Love and Hate

This piece for me had a very love hate relation ship. I like the composition, I hated the composition, I like the colors, I hated the colors. This doesn’t happen to me very often, and usually if a painting/drawing isn’t working for me, I scrap it, or it just doesn’t ever make it to the public. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe it is the worst thing I have ever produced, I just feel indifferent about the final image. I believe it was a combination of elements which I will now attempt to distill here in hopes to avoid this in future situations.

Composition

There were some repetitive elements that I wanted to make sure were included. The most obvious one was circles. From the staff to the clocks and watches, to the background rocks of the cave, this was implemented from the start of the painting, and all seemed very clear in my mind before I started. But throughout the entire process it felt like it wasn’t quite working. Besides changing the entire theme of the image, I never figured out how to make myself feel better about this. Maybe it wasn’t enough to tie the image together with the story I was trying to tell.

Story

This one started out simple. A magic user, maybe a witch or sorceress, capable of manipulate time locally to kill her opponents, or bring them back from the dead as her servants. This is one of the elements that I feel was communicated well enough. The man in the foreground to the right could have been used a bit more to show her power to defeat, but decided to remove emphisis from that section of the painting because I felt it hindered where I wanted the viewers eyes to go.

Color

I am starting to feel that I just need to start out with color from now on. After working on the grey scale image for so long, I found myself getting too attached to it, finding it hard to move on into the coloring stage. The next painting I do, there may be some rough grey scale work, but I am going to make sure that I push into color far earlier than this one. For those who are interested, I used and online pallet generator to get my colors.

Close Ups

Again, overall I feel that this piece isn’t bad, but there are just a few unknowns that bug me about it, and some things in my processes that need to be changed.

February 9, 2015
Atari Jaguar | Mcfur and Friend 2

Went on a vacation to California, and had allot of time to do some thumbnails for a variety of things. I got a few together for Flappy McFur as well, and I am planning on taking those thumbs to finished pieces.

Not much different with this one. I approached it in a similar fashion as the first McFur and Friend. I really like the playful look of colored pencils. I wanted to do a similar background as the first one, with pipes and everything, but I was having a difficult time getting the composition to work. So, my inner designer kicked in and decided to simplify it. Taking a more abstract approach to the background, I decided just to show a sliver of the McFur’s world, as the focus should be mostly on McFur and his friend. Because I still wanted the pipes in there as well, I did a simple stencil shape of a pipe, and used that to balance the composition a bit. I really like the stencil idea, and I will probably be using it in the future illustrations.

This is a new step in my artistic progress. As this is the first time that I have planned out a series of illustrations for a project, and carried it out. I wish to do at least a couple more illustrations for this project, to round out this series. It has been an awesome experience, planning out design elements, colors, a bit of character design. There are a couple other personal projects that I will eventually approach and hope to approach in a similar manner.

December 28, 2014
Atari Jaguar | McFur and Friend 1

So, during my long hiatus from posting, many projects, many new pieces of art, have been brought into existence, through the sacrifice of time. By myself and others. Unfortunately, this includes the time that is spent putting together videos and posting on my blog. If you are consistent to my blog, or my YouTube Channel, thank you, and sorry for not being more consistent. But enough of the excuses, lets get on to the good stuff.

This time around more Jaguar projects, and this will be the first of a few posts. As you already know, my brother and I are involved in homebrew development for the Atari Jaguar. One of the projects we are working on is a Flappy Bird clone called Flappy McFur. There is more information on the project page, if your interested. In a nutshell, we are about halfway through development, and I am in the process of getting some art together for packaging and inserts, while my brother closes in on our end goals for the game. This is the first piece of official artwork for Flappy McFur.

Before I get started though, just a thank you to everyone in the Thor Media office for feedback on the piece. It is always great to get feedback on my work, when I am too blind to see the mistakes.

Because of the light nature of the game, certain design choices for maintaining a consistency across the artwork became apparent. First, match the saturation of game. Simple enough, yellows, greens, and reds are saturated, while everything else not so much (I guess that leaves my blues…) Which medium to use was a simple choice for me as well, colored pencils. I love working in colored pencil, probably the first medium I truly dove into and experimented with. Because of it’s affinity to the the look of crayons, but still maintaining the ability to create the detail I want in my drawings, I feel that it will match the mood of the game well. Also, Krita simulates pencils pretty darn well, and it feels almost as good as the real thing.

With these few design choices, I believe the next 3 or 4 pieces will maintain a consistent feel.

Speaking of the next pieces. I want to go with a cute and sometimes funny theme for each. Where McFur and his friend are in a playful mood. We might be incorporating McFur’s friend in the game some how. I like her design so far, but it may need a few tweaks for the game. I am hoping to put together a small comic for the game manual as well, but we we’ll see what happens there. Stay nearby, I will have a few more of theses over the next few weeks.

October 19, 2014
Loaded | Illustration

I have been meaning to write about this one for a while. I put this one together about a month ago, and it has been posted in my portfolio and other galleries. No time lapse video, but I was able to put together a small snapshot video with the different revisions I had saved. Also, before we continue, I have to thank Michael Buhler for his input on color, lighting, anatomy, and proportions.

There were a few things I wanted to focus on for this one. First, color was priority. I wanted to keep my color pallet very specific. At first, I was trying to go for something a bit more abstract, overall blue line art with pinks and reds. I was struggling to get it to work, so, I decided to revert to something a bit more comfortable, and realistic. And, I decided to focus on the overall message I wish to portray in the piece, making sure that the composition, pose, lighting and color, all tell the story well.

From a skill building perspective, I focused on rendering various materials. There is the bubble, obviously, but also the rock, clothing, hair, and skin were focused on to create the subtle differences each material has. While still maintaining my current style, I believe that I pulled this off fairly well, but there is still room for improvement.

As for the story I was trying to tell. I wanted to make a something political, focused on China’s booming economy, and how every bubble eventually pops. The characters on the left basically say that, and the characters on the right hand side of the piece are a Chinese idiom for someone who is loaded. The use a bubble gum not only covers the idea of a bubble growing, and establish anticipation with the inevitable pop, but gum tends to be something that is sweet and enjoyable. All good things must come to an end, right? The girl is dressed in very casual, and somewhat immodest clothing, to represent the adoption of many western trends. But as things are with transitions like this, she still holds on to whats familiar in traditional Chinese culture, shown by her gripping the lion towering over her.

July 15, 2014
Wendigo of Terror | Illustration/Concept Art

Here is another piece for your eyes, a treat. You may be thinking to yourself that this isn’t the kind of work I usually do. You would be right in thinking that, this is definitely off the beaten path for me, and here is why.

We have been in some minor communication with someone who works at Arrowstorm Entertainment. A movie studio here in Northern Utah that focuses on fantasy and science fiction films. This person asked if I could put together a concept piece for a possible B horror film monster. A Wendigo creature that originates from the Great Lakes area of the United States, and is usually centered around myths that deal with the, pseudo, adverse effects of cannibalism. The content isn’t my favorite, but the job paid good, and it gave me a change to stretch out of my usual bubble.

I did quite a few thumbnails for this piece (20+) and actually did three complete paintings, before we found what the client liked most. The process was very enlightening, and had allot of momentum. Really, the momentum is what made this painting fun. The client was in constant communication with me, and gave feedback when I needed it.

Overall, I spent too much time on the painting though. I was trying to keep my total work hours under 6, but ended up going over 9. This was for a few reasons. First, and foremost, when I was first presented the job, I should have asked a bit more about the production and where it was currently at. This leads to the second problem. The project had hardly been refined, and the story, background, and other details about the creature, where watery. This is why so much time was put into thumbs and other paintings.

I should have stepped back, asked the client to refine their ideas a bit more, and then approach the painting after a bit more forethought was applied.

I am happy with the end result, and the client was as well. I hope to have a bit more work with them in the future, and hopefully work on some of their movie posters and other concept work.

July 9, 2014
For Liberty | Illustration and Time Lapse

A small gift to the men and women who serve for the cause of our liberties, rights, and freedoms. I also would like to thank all those around the world who fight for these causes, whether you fight for the United States or not. Every human being deserves these blessings in their lives, and today, we remember the price that must sometimes be paid for those blessings.

This painting took about 4 hours to complete. The entire painting was done in Krita.

I focused on the color pallet for this painting. I wanted something a bit abstract, but not so abstract as to distract the viewer of the story being told. I wanted a sad and somber tone to the image, so, I stuck to cool colors. Primarily blue, greens, and grays. Red and white were my highlight colors. Then, I controlled my satruation in specific areas, in order to bring focus to the parts of the painting I wanted the viewer to see first. I feel overall the composition is good, maybe a bit crowded, but still attractive.

July 4, 2014
“Look What I Found” – Illustration

I have been painting allot lately. Unfortunately, most of it I am not able to post on my personal blog or portfolio yet. I am involved in comic book project for someone else, and I am doing concept work for some films for Thor Media. So, at the the end of the day, I am all “drawn” out, and looking forward to dinner and an episode of Star Trek. But, I have been recording most of my work, so, hopefully that work will transfer into time lapse videos for everyone to watch and enjoy in later posts.

With that being said, I am working on personal projects when I have the time, especially Jaguar stuff. And that is focus of today’s post.

This piece is a concept piece for an opponent in the Reversi game project called “Intellection”. In story mode, the main character will face off in a game of Reversi against all the gods in the current lore of the story. The lore consists of gods that are personifications of the different aspects of time. (i.e. past, present, future, eternity, etc…). I won’t spoil the story too much, but the primary goal of the main player is to return time to a normal state, by beating the gods in the game of Reversi. Sounds a bit better than an average game of Reversi right?

When I am not drawing for work, I am working on game design documents and assets for our Atari Jaguar games. I really enjoy thinking about a game and its various functions. From game play, style, length, world, music, and characters. There is so much to consider when creating a game with a narrative, not including all the technical stuff, and it really is a challenge.

We have 4 working projects (read more at http://bitjag.com/ out developer page). At this point I have two of the shorter games 75% fleshed out on paper. There will obviously be changes to certain details, but the documents give us a great starting point, and a fall back, if we don’t wish to explore possibilities and just get things done.

March 30, 2014
Iron Door Film | Concept Art

Through Thor Media, I was tasked with producing 3 pieces of concept art for our client, Adaptive Studios. The pieces were based on a semi-final script, with some direction from the director, and director of photography.

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The first piece was strictly an environment piece, based on a possible traveling exhibit around the 1940’s. This pieces primary purpose was to show potential investors that some effort and thought was being put into the production, to show that there was talent to help create the world of the story. So I tried to focus on the details of the objects in the tent, rather than characters, to see if I could just tell a basic story with the objects in the scene. This piece could be used for actual set design during production, but most likely not.

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The next painting was done for an area in the script called “Thieves Cross”. And old ghost town in the story where the main characters end up in, searching for clues. The town was originally a settlement for criminals, so, it didn’t have much in the way of development, except for the old chapel. I wanted to make the chapel the center of the image, so I set up my composition to perform this task. I used a dutch angle to add a bit of uneasiness to the scene. Like the painting before, I started with a 3D base done in Blender, and then moved into Krita for the final paint over. I have to say, working in 3D to begin with helps immensely with perspective and laying out the basic composition. It easily shave 1 or 2 hours off of each painting.

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The last painting was almost an illustration. Again, whether or not Art’s room will look anything like the painting in the final film is one thing, so, instead I focused on the mood and lighting of the moment given to me from the script. I feel that I got the composition right on in this painting. Every part of this painting just fell into place. For me, the color, lighting, composition, characters, mood. etc… just works! I love it!

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This was an awesome opportunity for me. I am grateful that I had the opportunity to work on some pre-production art work. I love to see written stories come to life visually, and to have some control over how that happens is incredibly gratifying. This work has spurred Thor Media to leverage mine and Michael Buhler’s skills in producing art. We are currently putting together service packages in the areas of Storyboards and Concept art. They got me working on the Thor Media website and a booklet that we can pass out to potential clients. This is something that I have wanted to do for a while, and I hope it turns out well.

February 22, 2014