Since it’s come up a few times, I’m throwing together a mini portfolio of some of the artwork I’ve done over the last few years. This is naturally a picture-heavy post, so the “More” link here is a natural stopgap for those who don’t want to bother with loading graphics. As one might guess, All of these images are copyrighted by me, and I’ll be grateful if you don’t use them without my permission. I might not even come after you with my rabid lawyer wombat.
Oh, and most graphics are actually links. Sometimes that doesn’t buy much, but other times, the link will take you to a larger version of the picture. Please enjoy, and I’m happy to answer any questions that you might have.
I worked for Headgate Studios a couple of years ago, doing special effects and water for Tiger Woods games. It was a blast, and making things look as natural and realistic as possible with the PS2’s aging technology was a fun challenge. Here are a few shots of my work, including the spectacular Victoria Falls hole in the Safari fantasy course. We got to design the course in-house, rather than recreating a real course. It was fun to work on, and I really enjoyed pulling the “huge waterfall” look off with minimal resources. As a karmic bonus, when I was testing the hole for playability as the Tiger Woods avatar, I got a hole in one. That’s the only one that I ever scored on the first attempt.
My Other Half Baked Portfolio Site
Yes, this is a link to another site, but the other site is mine, and I’m being lazy and not putting in thumbnails or Photobucket links. That’s what happens with my older work. Sorry, maybe someday I’ll make a real portfolio website.
I’ve had a fascination with fractals for a long time. The Mandelbrot set was my introduction to computer graphics, and the Plasma Clouds fractal that we see today as a Photoshop filter was the first one I ever saw animated, in all its VGA glory. It was therefore a happy day when I happened upon Chaoscope, a fun little program that lets me tinker with and render fractals in various ways. Apophysis is another great program, but I really enjoyed the Solid rendering mode in Chaoscope, which is where these came from.
Fractal Shell
Scouring Pad
very cool man!
Wow…
Those are unbelievability good.
You have no idea how jealous I am of your natural ability as an artist. I’ve always wished I could draw, but unfortunately I was born without such a gift :(
You should enter the Guild Wars Winters Day art contest.
Ambigrams are fun, but creating them is quite hard. Some would probably call it good training for the mind. I read an ambigram tutorial and it convinced me that there is no easy way to make a good ambigram. I think I still have a knot in my brain.
This said, I really like Careening Cambiata. And something about Vain Vargas makes me smile. I think it is the combo of his odd skirt, hair and his smile. And for some odd reason your Druid reminds me of the Warlock demon form… but this one is nice. I do not like the strange purple warlock demon form. I created a human female warlock because I liked her looks. I did not want to run around as a beast/environmentalist (=DRUID) or demon.
I like your style, but how about some sinister and sexy female sorceress pics? Not too hot of course, I do not want your blog to end up like Wikipedia! :)
Thanks, all! CS, I’ll take a look at that contest. I may have some time off this holiday season to do some art.
My high school art teacher had a great quote posted in her room: “Talent is the will to work hard at something”. I certainly believe that there are predispositions and “preinstalled” aptitudes, but with enough work, anyone can draw. My college professor once said that “you need to get the thousand bad drawings out of your system before you can start doing the good stuff”. It’s an interesting way to frame the idea of practice, but I like the phrasing. ;)
Longasc, lad, d’ye not recognize a kilt when ye see one? Real men don’t wear skirts. And yes, ambigrams are crazy, and very much a sort of visual puzzle. It’s good brain exercise.
Okay, I apologize for calling this fine piece of scottish tradition a skirt. I did not know that the Scots became Rastafarians and grew dreadlocks. But actually… Vain Vargas does not exactly have dreadlocks. But I do not know another name for his hairstyle. :)
Yeah, he’s a character from the Puzzle Pirates game. He’s an insane kilt wearing dreadlock carrying brawler. My rendition of him is somewhat less insane, and misrepresentation of the dreads is solely due to my art style and inexperience with the beasties.
…though, perhaps he really is fully insane, and it actually is a plaid skirt. Hrm…
“Talent is the will to work hard at something” – I wish that were true. For those of us without an inkling of art talent (in direct drawing, anyway) it is such a challenge. I can’t even draw a proper can of soda no matter how many times I sit in front of it and attempt it.
I think talent is just as much natural as the work aspect. My brother plays pro hockey and I followwed in his footsteps for a long while. I had the “natural” talent, and he worked his butt off at it. Natural talent only takes so so far, the hard work on top of that is where the success is made.
Without that first natural talent no matter how much work is put in, the results aren’t there. In my experience, anyway.
That’s just my whining about how much I LOVED comics, and tried forever to pencil heroes, and could never get it right. I feel better now. Wait, this is the failed-Artists-Anonymous site, right?
Your work is great Tesh, thanks for sharing!
Chris, there’s definitely a place for natural aptitude. I don’t really come down on the side of “if you believe, it can happen” either. That quote has simply been a challenge for me to realize and remember that work is more important than the starting point.
I’ll likely never really excel at learning languages, for example, but I know that if I work at it, I can speak passable Spanish. People are just wired differently, and will naturally have different abilities and talents. The trick is to “keep moving forward” and keep getting better from where you were, not where other people were. ;)
Thanks! I wish I had more time to devote to honing my skill. I feel your comic book pain; I toyed with drawing Gambit for a few months in high school, and finally decided that I’m no Jim Lee, Joe Madureira or Chris Bachalo. (I may be misspelling those last two gents’ names.)
This is great stuff.
Thank you for sharing.
Whoa Nelly. I’ve only time to glance at these now, and I’ll be back to look in detail later – but this is good stuff.
This art is outstanding. You are a true talent Tesh!
Thanks, guys. I wish I had more time to dedicate to pure “art” stuff. I guess I just have to stop playing games and writing about them, eh? ;)
i came accross these by accident .. just want to say you are awesome ! keep it up :) i particulary like Vain Vargas as it is my dream to find a man with dreads who wears a kilt, haha :p take care xx
love all of them
WOW! You need to make this much more prominent. And you need to update it. In fact, you probably need a site just for your art!
Aye, I really do need to make a portfolio site. I’ve just been lazy. Maybe once I get my paintings done for Alpha Hex, I’ll throw something together. Glad you like it!
Was this tab always here? I didn’t see it O.o But yes I have seen those drawings before. Thanks for reminding me. I don’t feel quite as bad now :P
The Art and Alpha Hex tabs are new as of this morning, so I can promote both, and the Merc tab was new a week or so ago. May as well promote a bit, eh?
[…] I find particularly notable. (Which usually means doing some sort of art, as might be noted in my Mini Portfolio.) It’s not guaranteed, and it may take a lower priority after other art projects I have […]
I think it’s been a while since I remedied you that you are awesome. So, just so you know… you’re awesome.
Karen
(Y!PP: Kolibri)
I agree with Karen. You are awesome. =)
I’m glad you made the ambigram thing. That has been running around in my mind for a while, but I didn’t know the name of that style of fontwerk.
If I could afford you, I’d ask you to make me a YPP avatar.
Tonya
(Tonyanator)
[…] you’d like to see more of this brilliant artists’ work, why not head over to the Art Portfolio section of his blog and check it […]
Oh wow, had no idea you were SilverRansom, as I found you via a WoW link!
Sassafras of Midnight, nice to meet you.
Great avatars, and great druid art :)
Well welcome aboard, Sassafras! :) Nice meeting you, too! It’s a small world sometimes, aye?
I’ve not really touted my SilveRansom character much around here, but that’s just because I’ve been lazy about it. I’ve certainly enjoyed doing YPP art (I have a handful of pieces I’m working on at present, actually), but it’s nice to branch out now and then. When BBB asked for some Druid art, how could I resist?
Oh, and a hearty Ahoy to Tonya and Kolibri, also of YPP fame! (Yes, I’ve been terribly late about that salutation as well… busy days, these are.) Sailing around on the high seas with a puzzle in hand really is “home” in a lot of ways, but I love WoW Druids. Maybe that’s why I like the potential of Allods Online; the WoWish “ground level” play, and the ship to ship combat that could have a Puzzle Pirates feel to it (as a cooperative PvP/PvE venture).
[…] devise my own rules… especially if I were to really dig into the Steampunky WarMachine. I’m an artist; it’s an occupational hazard. I’d get so lost in the game and doing it my way that […]
[…] Mini Portfolio […]
[…] I’ve seen but maybe I’ll skip around to the parts that interest me at the moment as I paint or […]
[…] them are done with ballpoint pens. You can see other pen drawings over in my old mini portfolio thisaway, and interspersed here and there on the […]
[…] mind, one as fond of Tetris as Gyromancer, of Professor Layton as Puzzle Quest. I’ve done a fair bit of fan art for the game, and even chipped in a little with some art that wound up in the game proper (the rare […]
[…] Pirates forums, where I’m known as Silveransom, from whence several of the bits of art in my Mini Portfolio hail, and where one of my art tutorials resides. I’d love to open the floodgates to do […]
[…] Aquí dejamos el copyright de la imagen del mono azul! […]
You available for a small job – site banner for a site?
Most likely. Email me at tishtoshtesh via gmail. :)