Personal works (2018)

This is a series of original illustrations that I was doing after taking a course on composition that got me really inspired to paint. 

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I wrote a small story about this last one. Not like I'm a good writer, but I'd like to share it. I wrote it in spanish, then translated it myself to english. Hopefully if the english version is a bit broken it will sound like a narrator with an exotic accent! I should write more often!

The Swamp Behemoth is a magnificent creature that doesn’t need to fear any predators.

There was news about how, many hunters each season, due to bad luck or ill advice coming from some bastard, came to meet their ancestors in the belly of the mighty beast. Janos had been a witness to it more than once. 

The Behemoth feeds on anything it encounters on its ramblings. Due to its size, he will carelessly swallow whole any prey much smaller than itself.  If some fool goes to meet it, loaded with iron, bronze or steel, it’s not like the creature will carefully peel it as a gourmet savouring a crustacean. He gets swallowed whole!, and the belly of the beast can protect itself from any indigestible bits, creating around the ones specially sharp or upsetting, those that won’t come into the intestine, a protective, hard and smooth shell, that deposits itself in its gut, making it ripe and ever growing, full of these shells that are called blood geodes by those that covet them.

Hunters and gatherers of these stones, exist due to their trading. It is sad indeed to see a beast that generally would simply mind its business, be debased by defending itself from its stalkers, and in its success getting loaded with more and more geodes-to-be, generated around the weapons and bits of armor of the fools and rookies that didn’t complete their quest. As its bowel grows, so does the bag of gold that will be paid for its content if it ever gets hunted down.

Was the hunt of the first Behemoth worth it? Doubtlessly it had been an act of pure bravery, not that different from climbing the highest mountain or crossing the wide ocean.

This was what Janos thought as he waited. Patience and savoir-faire were the key to the weak, soft spot behind the eye of the creature.

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El Behemoth de ciénaga es una criatura formidable que no tiene por lo general a quien temer. Janos,varias veces cada temporada, presenciaba él mismo o escuchaba relatos sobre cómo, bien por mala suerte, bien por haber sido mal aconsejados, a veces por algún desalmado con muy mala leche, muchos cazadores habían ido al encuentro de sus antepasados pasando por el buche de la poderosa bestia. El Behemoth se alimenta de aquello que encuentra a su paso y, dado su tamaño, engulle a cualquier presa mucho menor que él, de forma integra, y sin miramientos. Si algún infeliz va a su encuentro cargado de hierro, bronce o acero, obviamente no lo pela como a un crustáceo antes de tragarlo. Va dentro tal cual, pues la bestia en sus entrañas tiene capacidad para protegerse de cualquier pedazo indigesto, creando alrededor de los trozos especialmente afilados o molestos que no pueden pasar por su intestino o descomponerse, una capa protectora, dura y lisa, que se acumula en su panza, cada vez más lustrosa y llena de las conocidas como geodas de sangre, codiciadas por tantos. Es por la existencia de tales piedras y su comercio que surgieron los cazadores y recolectores; Es triste ver cómo una bestia que generalmente en otras circunstancias solo iría a lo suyo se ve obligada a defenderse de sus acosadores, en su éxito preñandose de más y más futuras geodas de sangre, formadas en derredor de las armas y armaduras de los necios y novatos que no suelen conseguir su objetivo. Por supuesto a mayor panza, mayor cantidad de oro a conseguir con la venta de sus contenidos. ¿Habría valido la pena la caza del primer Behemoth? Sin duda había sido un acto de pura valentía, no distinto de trepar a la montaña más alta, o cruzar el ancho mar por el hecho de poder contar que lo hiciste. Todo esto pensaba Janos mientras esperaba, pues la paciencia y el saber hacer eran la clave para llegar al punto débil y blando tras el ojo de la criatura.

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Gracias a Ana y Rocío Gutiérrez Muñoz de la Torre por ayudarme revisando el texto en español.

Blasphemous Concept Art (III)

Here's some of the new illustrations and concept that I did for the game. There's still many more to show after the game releases.

The project is in its final stage of development.

10 things that I learned when I started drawing outside instead of from pictures :

I used to be a lazy ass and didn't draw from life, from a live model, or a still life, on the streets or in nature. Even though most successful artists say drawing from life is an exercise you should do if you want to get good I was lazy (like you may be) and still wouldn't do it.

Here's what I discovered and the benefits that I got from it, when I started doing it. If you are not convinced after this, I'm not trying any further. Why it is better to draw from life than from a picture, from my experience:

1- FORM PERCEPTION:

You can see better the form that you have in front when you draw from life! A picture has no detph. A picture is only 1 image. Drawing from life you have as many images as you want from the object in front of you (Just move around or move the object).

I.E. I have tried a million times to learn how to draw a pelvis, but didn't understand it until I saw one on a squeleton. Same with other bones. In a picture you can misinterpret it in a houndred different ways. Which leads me to the next point.

2- REFERENCE GALORE. 

A picture is shit, a picture is ONE image.  Imagine a turnaround of a model, that is a bit better.

A 3d model is a step better than that. A 3d model in VR is probably the closest you can get, but still you couldn't touch it. I don't have a lot of experience on VR but I suppose its gonna be big for reference and I plan on getting one when they get a bit cheaper, and its gonna be great I suppose specially to understand landscapes, since most people can't fly...

But imagine this. We spend all this money to make something as close to reality as possible, shouldn't we just ditch all that and see the real deal instead? OK, when possible, but sometimes we have the best reference at our doorstep, or on other humans in front of us, or in the mirror, and we ignore it.

Do you want to study how clothing works? okay, grab as sketchbook and get out or ask a friend, or just go out to the street and there's millions of people all clothed (hopefully) Pick and choose whoever and draw, quick! Do you want to draw plants, rocks, whatever! go to forest, a desert what you have near, and you dont have a bunch of references, you have infinite! 

3- GET BETTER AT PROPORTION:

Drawing from life forces you most of the time to draw at a different scale than what you see. This helps you develop the sense of proportion, if you try to make your model fit in the sketchbook page. 

Also when you a drawing a landscape you need to set limits to it, know from where to where are you drawing on your page. That personally helped me a lot with layin and composition.

4- GET BETTER AT VALUE ARRANGING:

Drawing from life helps will get you familiarized to how light works and how we see. Since the range of your tools (pencil or ink) is a lot smaller than digital you are forced to think through your value structure. The ligthest light is a million times lighter than the white in your monitor. The darkest dark has nothing to do with the black on your monitor. This big difference can hit you on the head like a hammer and help you finally understand how values work! 

5- GET A SENSE OF SCALE:

Since many times we draw from the point of view of a person, what better to get a sense of scale of  the thing that you want to draw than to stand in front of the real actual thing!!! You can't get that from a photograph, at least not the same way.

6- DEVELOP SPEED AND VISUAL MEMORY: 

Specially if you want to draw people or animals, you are gonna get quick. Because the real world moves all the time, and you won't stop sketching. When your model moves, try remembering how it was a few seconds ago to finish as much as you can from your memory. If you paint casts in teh studio there's no problem, but you try painting fruits, They rot, you got a few days for that drawing before things start to get ugly (and smelly).

7- TRY TO UNDERSTAND THAT SKY!:

 If you tried drawing clouds, or a sky, a sunset, dawn, night, day, rainy, blue, whatever... A sky doesn't fit in a single picture. You can't feel the direction of the wind, you don't see the clouds moving, you don't know, if its cold or warm, damp or is there dust in the air... yet all those things affect how the sky looks! You can't get that from a photo, from as many photographs as you wan't. Look at the whole thing, all above and around you and try to make sense of it, I guarantee you, you will start to pick up patterns that will make your concept art much better!

8- COMPOSITION, LEARNING TO SIMPLIFY, AND CHOOSE WHAT IS THE POINT (of your drawing, because many times you won't have time for the accesory)

Let's say you are drawing a person but its moving all the time. You have to learn to simplify that pose to the minium, put those gesture drawing lessons to use, to make sure you capture what was important of the pose (IE the action line, and maybe you exagerate it a bit to make sure you got it)

 Let's say you want to draw a landscape in 15 minutes, because if you wait more, the light is changing. You are forced to simplify what you see in order to put it down, to a bunch of values and colors. This need to rush is not necesarily making your your drawings worse than if you slow down, as long as you always strive to get down the point, to decide what you want to capture and do it. It's not like you can't do those in a slow drawing.

9- HUMAN CONTACT:

It is a way to meet potential customers or make contacts of any kind. Its also a good excuse to meet with other artists and have fun. If you are an introvert, staying at home all the time will make you even more introverted. If you are doing life or still drawings at an academy you can get this benefit too.

This last one specific to going out to the streets (ok, only in smaller cities), or the country, roads, or whatever. 

10- GET SOME FRESH AIR:

If you draw/paint digital most of the time, it gets you on the street. Some fresh air is good from time to time.

These are a few points but I can't tell how many times I was strugling with something that I learned in theory and then seeing it in nature , or whatever, in 3d in front of me, I was awestruck how obvious it was, yet when we don't go out much, we don't notice, because in 2d paper it really isn't that obvious.

Please if you liked the article, and you liked my stuff and are interested, follow me on instagram https://www.instagram.com/juanmilon3d/

Blasphemous Concept Art (II)

The game is nearing the start of the production stage, which means we've done a lot of the concept art already. I can't show all of it yet, but here's a curated selection of what we have been realeasing during the last few months.

This two are interrelated, they are members of the same religious order, the woman dies protecting the man and is transformed into a guardian ghost for eternity.

This one is essencially a lore character of the game Blasphemous, whose wife dies giving birth in a cave they take shelter in. He prays for a way to save his newborn child as he doesn't have anything he could eat. The divinity provides a twisted solution to his request.

A painting I did for Blasphemous. It shows a cult of people from the land of Orthodoxia that tries to cure a leper by kissing his wounds and praying. It probably didn't worked. 

I tried to make this painting look Baroque-ish.

This two would be a pilgrim that would be a friendly NPC and the tied girl would be a martyr that by divine grace receives in her body the injures of those that she prays for.


Aside form the work for Blasphemous I'm now going to a local academy, where I am learning traditional medium and going to life drawing classes. I normally post my exercises, doodles and sketches, at my new instagram. You can follow me here: https://www.instagram.com/juanmilon3d/

Blasphemous Concept Art

One of the big projects I've been working on lately its the game Blasphemous, successfully funded through kickstarter a few days ago, with 666% of the goal we set for funding.

It's a pixel art metroidvania set in a dark fantasy world inspired by the aesthetics of our local religion.

2016 Recap (II): Digital paintings and concept art.

I set up an artstation where all my 2d art can be viewed confortably:

https://juanmilon.artstation.com/

Nevertheless, I'm going to keep uploading galleries here. I love the fact that this blog contains everything that I created since I quit my job as a programmer.

Jettatura

I made a lot of work for this indie game that is gonna release soon that is called Jettatura. It is a fantasy cartoonish dungeon crawler game. It's being made only by Nick Baker, my client, the wizard programmer and game designer and me as concept artist and 3d modeller. The NPCs in this game are flat billboards but the environment is 3d.

Unseen (indie game early concept art)

 

Personal work

Even though most of the personal work that I did last year was simply drawing in my sketchbook, I tried to do some digital painting every now and then:

  

 

2016 Recap (I) Learning a lot of drawing and painting.

And another year and a half went by and I wish I had kept my blog updated... I'm trying to remember all the things that I did and that now I have to show. Most importantly I tried to prioritize learning with the goal of becoming a better 2D artist and designer. I rejected all new clients for miniature sculpting commissions, and with that extra time:

I made a lot of Schoolism courses, and learned a ton from it, and some of them produced some original illustrations and designs:

I keept studying books, went to some oil painting classes through the year:

Went out sketching a lot, landscape drawing ( I commited to doing 100 drawings in the street throughout the year and by May I had reached that number) , drawing at the zoo, drawing the people around me. I carry my sketchbook and a pen or a pencil everywhere now.

I read some books one of which was the famous Scott Robertson's H2DR, I'm still working out to get everything out of it. This is one of my early attempts at using its methods to design something, in this case some weird looking plane.

The book made me crazy trying to learn as much as I could about perspective. This days I'm practicing my constructions daily.

I leave you with a cartoon of me all sleepy painting the sunrise from my rooftop.