William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Tag: cintiq

Books and Machines | Illustration

I wanted to finish one more piece before Inktober begins. I started this one over two months ago for one of the Krita forum challenges, “Futuristic Princess”. I got the sketch done at that point, but couldn’t find the motivation to finish it at the time.

After reviewing some of my sketches and unfinished work, I decided to finish this one over the past couple days. The color scheme has been floating around in my head since I started the sketch, and I really like how it came out in the end. The depth in the clouds was fun, and also playing around with the metal materials of the characters arm and back.

I am glad that I was able to finish this one before Inktober, and I plan on submitting this for the Krita Kickstarter art book. I just need to figure out what black and white piece I want to submit along with this piece.

September 30, 2016
Flow | Krita Kickstarter T-Shirt Challenge

The people who support Krita pulled off another amazing Kickstarter this year. And in a way, they are allowing everyone to contribute on an artistic level as well. This is where my next illustration comes in.

This year, along with new features for the next version of Krita, the group behind Krita is producing a book filled with art from various artists that use Krita. They are taking submissions currently, but this is for a future post. This post is about the T-Shirt design challenge on the Krita forum. This is something that I could not simply pass up.

With this much freedom I wasn’t sure how to start.

The topic was “Flow”, and nothing else. With this much freedom I wasn’t sure how to start. So taking to the great library that is Google, I started doing searches for the word “Flow”. Synonyms, images, music, etc… all to draw inspiration from. I eventually started thinking about my home here in Utah, and challenged myself to think of the things that are generally attractive that could relate to “Flow”. This led me to the most unlikely of places when someone things of the word “Flow. Southern Utah, a dry desert, and almost the exact antithesis of the word “Flow”.

The reason why I was brought to this place was the color of the rocks. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Southern Utah, the rock can be very red in places. This went well with some of the other notes I had written down at this point for the painting, which included the colors from Krita’s logo. The red of the rocks of Southern Utah would provide a good and attractive contrast to the blue floating paint I already had in mind before I had put pencil to paper.

…I realized that message wasn’t in the detail of the rock, but instead in the very nature of the rocks

But this was the catalysis to a greater idea, and one that I think is what brought the painting together in it’s last stages. If you watch the time lapse video, you will see this in action, but I first draw the rocks with detail, and symmetrically. This looked “Okay” but it didn’t seem to fit, but soon after spending a while drawing detail into these rocks, I realized

that message wasn’t in the detail of the rock, but instead in the very nature of the rocks. The juxtaposition of the rock against the flowing nature of paint was the key, as I discovered a way to include the rocks in a more harmonious way than before. By focusing on the silhouette and the visual movement of the rock, instead of the rocks themselves.

So now the flow of the paint, and the flow of the rock, mirror each other, matching the “S” curve of the woman, and just tying everything together in a neat little package.

At the time of writing this, voting has opened for challenge, and even if I don’t get the most votes, I am still very proud of the piece, and the troubleshooting opportunity that it presented.

June 24, 2016
Time to Work | Illustration

Working with some different brushes in Krita, and pushing myself a bit with some different kind of lighting challenges. This piece was also a bit inspired by the The Art of Loish, a recent Kickstarter art book I received.

I really enjoy Loish’s style, with her use of a stark outline colors to break her subjects away from the rest of the painting. She also shows a clever use of color in general, and again, very appealing all around. Some of the elements in my painting were inspired by these things, in the sense of picking an interesting palette to work with, and a unusual lighting setup to help push those colors a bit.

June 11, 2016
Regret in Creation | Myst Fan Art

Mysterium, the Myst convention, is making its way to my hometown this year, and they had open submissions for art for their convention book. I caught wind of this just a few days before submissions were due, but I couldn’t miss the chance to show a little Myst fandom.

(SPOILERS AHEAD in the next paragraph, no spoilers after this next paragraph)
This pieces features Catherine in a state of remorse for the burden of being able to create ages (worlds that are created by writing books, which you can then enter into), but unable to save them. The Moiety Dagger is a symbol of the group that she helped in Riven (Age 5), and despite her efforts, the age still fell apart. Even though she did not write the Riven age, she must feel the burden that any world she creates has the potential to fail, with the loss of life.

I have very fond memories of this game, as I used to watch my oldest sister play it, along with with a few of my other siblings, when I was young. I was always fascinated by the environments, and the immersive sense of foreboding that engulfs the game. As I got older, and was able to solve some of the puzzles, the game became even more immersive for me, and I was hooked. I soon played Riven, and Exile (Myst III) and the experience was further enhanced by better audio better graphics, more acting, and an even more engrossing story.

The story is simply awesome. Taking steam-punk elements and god-like powers of creating worlds and people, with the premise of absolute power corrupts absolutely and what do you do when it does corrupt, is fascinating, and makes for a unique adventure with every game. This includes the three novels as well, well written, and a must read for Myst fans.

A may do a few more illustrations based on the some of the other thumbnail sketches future.

May 10, 2016
Ink, Gold, and Blood | With Diety – Illustration

A quick piece that still shows I am still stuck on this ink with one or two colors “style”. I recently got a Cintiq 24HD and it makes painting so much faster than my Intuos 4 or Cintiq 13HD. I still keep those around, in case I am on the move, but they simply don’t mate the 24HD when it comes to comfort.

Because of this new device, I decided to do this piece at double the resolution I usually work with (A4 600dpi), and the amount of detail that I am able to include, along with how natural it feels, is great. I am definitely going to be doing more inking in the future.

February 29, 2016
Battle Recovery | Pastels and Contrast

I have been drawing/painting allot, I swear. Just haven’t been finishing much. I start on a piece, and before I know it, I have moved onto another one, and another one, and anot…… You get the idea.

So, I thought I would post something I did manage to finish up (Sorry, forgot to hit the record button, no time lapse this time around). This was a little concept born out of a sketch session, and, because I liked how the composition and concept were coming together, I decided to push it further.

A soldier, after the battle, brought back into her assigned quarters for healing. The robots remove the worn armor, as others tend to the wounds occurred in battle. I imagined a world where children would grow up in relative isolation, bred by a computer to oversee the conquering of worlds. Kept separate from the general population, and all for the progression of man. She is one of the many victims of a human-less world, created by humans.

A sad story, but I found it very inspiring while working through this. Because of the dark, and messy nature of the situation I chose to use a pastel brush in Krita to maintain a rough texture throughout the drawing process. That along with one of the default fill patterns to add a roughness to the whole image.

The whole image took about 3-4 hours, and is quite different from anything else I have done in the past.

July 6, 2015
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