During October, I tried a self-prompt monthly challenge that I decided to call “Paint-ober!” I checked to see if this was an official or unofficial prompt anywhere, and didn’t find much for it. I’m sure it’s been participated in before, but it doesn’t seem to be very popular. I’ve never been interested in completing a monthly prompt like this before, but “paintober” sounded like a fun one to me!
Below are the artworks I did over this month, arranged in chronological order:
I recently started a commission project I’m excited about, and thought it might be fun to chronicle the process here! I’d like to try and do things like this more on this blog. I plan to update this post with future progress of this piece, Thank you very much again to the commissioner for such a fun project!
Finished Painting
Below is the finalized piece!
This was a wonderful opportunity to paint a marvelously fun set of characters! The client commissioned the painting to commemorate 10 years of their journey playing GW2 together with their friend, and I could think of no better time to post it that during Guild Wars 2’s 10th Anniversary in the summer of 2022. I hope they enjoy many more years journeying together within the world of GW2!
Third WIP
Third work-in-progress crop! Continuing to block out the major forms.
Second WIP
Here is the second work-in-progress crop! This shows about the bottom third of the painting:
Here I have started blocking in the major shapes of the figures. Guild Wars 2 characters tend to be on the more complex side, and because of this, it’s important for me to block out the major shapes in the clothing and armor, before considering smaller details and refinements later on in the process.
Here I’ve begun blocking out the major forms for the “Seer” armor on the bottom charr character, who is a necromancer from the game. She holds a “Sunspear Greatsword” in her hand, brandishing it powerfully ahead! Behind her, we have a male charr Firebrand character, who is conjuring spells using pages from the magical tome he materialized. Above these two characters are a sneak peek of a few additional characters, who will be revealed later on!
These are not the final colors, and are more exploration colors to see the possibilities for where the piece can go. They’ll continually be adjusted as we go further in the process!
This is part of the “sketch” stage, which means we are only in the block-out stage! Details and refinements start after the overall forms of this stage are settled on and approved by the client. Additional block-outs remain for this stage, and it is one of the most fun parts of the painting process, because it is where much of the problem-solving takes place!
Below is an earlier WIP, also from the sketch stage:
First WIP
Below is the first work-in-progress sketch! Here I have roughed out basic forms and poses for the characters.. This is to help I and the client decide upon a composition they will like!
The colors here are also not final, and are more generalized to communicate a basic tone for each character, as well as the piece overall.
I did three thumbnail sketches for this piece, and will probably update them to this post after the piece is finished!
I really enjoy using ZBrush as a kind of digital maquette – it was fun to explore the possibilities for Vaknaa’s design this way. Particularly with her head crest feathers.
The above painting is painted over a rough sculpture of her.
This is another sculpt+paint of Vaknaa.
The rest are sculpt+paintings of Aurelle. The hair is very inspired by Entei Ryu’s work as mentioned in the previous Blender post! Her work is elegantly gorgeous and greatly inspires me.
One more sculpt+paint of the same model. Below is the unpainted model on its own.
I ended up doing a few sculpts this past spring/summer, enough to split the ZBrush sculpts into two posts! In this one I’ll post a few of the GW2-related posts.
Guild Wars 2 Charr Guardian sculpt+paint.
Sculpt for the above sculpt+paint! Click on the thumbnails for a larger image.
And the above is how the sculpt itself looks!
An earlier, wide version.
This version is slightly more refined, though I would still consider this a sketch or study exploration.
Here is how the sculpt looks on its own!
Earlier this year, I had a hankering to try and learn 3D sculpting. ZBrush is the go-to program for this, but because I wasn’t sure the laptop I was using could handle it, I became interested to try Blender first.
I was also interested in checking out Blender’s sculpting tools, because I had heard they’ve been making real strides as of late. I had heard that their developers were becoming closer and closer to rivaling ZBrush. I also stumbled across the amazing Entei Ryu’s “sculpt+paint” artworks around this time, which are her gorgeous ZBrush works that she paints over in a 2d program. She’s largely what inspired to finally try exploring 3d sculpting this year!
I’ll post a few of my first Blender sculpts below, and follow-up with another post chronicling my forays into ZBrush next!
These are in roughly reverse chronological order, which means they become subsequently more silly the further down you scroll:
First, we have a sculpt+paint of Corveil. It was sculpted using Blender’s sculpting tools, rendered out, and then the still rendered frame was painted over in Photoshop.
Here is a Blender sculpt+paint of Aurelle, one of the characters from a personal project!
Above is the Blender sculpt itself! Click the smaller image to see a larger version.
Next is a sculpt+paint of Aurelle.
This was one of the earlier sculpts I tried. I was mainly familiarizing myself with the sculpting tools and brush in the program. 
Here is the sculpt and sculpt+paint of one of my “Duskbirds,” formally referred to as “Skullbirds.”
And here is a bonus render of a silly Elsium, glowing from within.