William Thorup

Illustrator, Motion Graphics Designer, Animator, and VFX Artist

Tag: music

  • Draw Night | Value Painting Tips

    Draw Night | Value Painting Tips

    ascension_Value Sketch_web

    We had a good draw night yesterday evening. Good to see friends and draw a few things as well.

    During the few hours I was there, I worked on a sketch that I had started the day before, that I enjoyed, and I thought I would push it into a value painting. And, as I was recording my desktop, I thought that it would be good to not only have the time lapse, but also include a few tips and things that go through my mind while I paint. For my benefit and for yours.

    The video is fairly short and to the point, and I hope it helps. And if it doesn’t help, I also recorded myself through the webcam. So, at least you can laugh at me, as I get ridiculously close the screen and perform all sorts of weird expressions.

    If you are interested in joining us for draw night and live in the greater Salt Lake City Utah area, drop by our Facebook page and let us know. The location sometimes changes, so keeping tabs on the Facebook page will keep you up to date on the location.

  • Josh the Whale | Official Trailer

    Josh the Whale | Official Trailer

    Thor Media is coming up on the release of there latest project Josh the Whale. And during the last few days, I have been working on the official trailer for the app. Here it is.

    josh surface composite_yourname

    It has been fun getting the last touches together for this app. One thing that has been especially interesting for me is the music. We have my sister in law putting together the music for the app, and even though she doesn’t compose professionally, she has done a fantastic job so far. Her music fits the moods that we are trying to get across in the app very well.  The trailer itself came together really easy.

     

    josh surface video edit

    Most of the assets were already prepared. All the underwater scenery was practically done, because we used it in the initial concepts for the game. I had to do another animation for Josh, and do some simple compositing in the Blender video sequence editor. The only part that I had to put allot of time into was the beginning. I struggled with compositing distant water, before discovering how easy it is to add it in by using the z-buffer to create a fade between the distant water and the foreground water. Everything else was a cinch.

    If you want to check out some beta screen shots of the app in action, head over to the official page HERE. We should be releasing the app in a few weeks or so, on both Android and iOS.

  • Article | The Music of Final Fantasy

    Article | The Music of Final Fantasy

    Intro main image

    Click HERE to start reading an article I put together as tribute to some of the great music in Final Fantasy.

    This article was written for a contest at 1up.com, HERE.  Check it out, there are some other really good posts there, definitely worth reading.  It’s great to see how many people this music inspires.

    When I started writting the article, I knew I would want to do a few illustrations for it as well.  Seeing that this blog and portfolio was created to represent my art.  Here are a few things that I learned during this process.

    I should have set some better goals.  I though about the music allot, and what I wanted to talk about, but I sacrificed not setting goals with the illustrations.  When I was done with my first draft, I tried to go through the article and think of what scenes or characters would best represent that part of the article.  The problem with this thinking was, I had no idea how many illustrations I wanted to do.  In turn, I had no idea how long it would take to get them finished, and what style I should do them in.

    So I rushed the last couple days, finding out that I do better work when I am rushed, at least.  And I ended up settling on two different styles for the illustrations.  A vector monochromatic and full color pencil mediums.  I won’t post the vector illustrations here, but you can see them on page one, by clicking HERE. Overall I though that they came out good, and do contribute to the article overall.

    These three color pencil pieces were done in Gimp,  I was surprised at how close I could get it to look like the real medium.  I looks like color pencil but enhanced by the pure colors brought by digital.

    Overall, the experience was good, and I am planning on doing some other project articles with illustrations in the future.  Anyone here like Myst?

    Again, enjoy the article, and let me know what you think.