Digital Painting practice

So after my feedback to the background project i have felt under achieved. I know im better than what i did and i want to improve. SO... recently ive been doing around 2-5 hour sessions on photoshop to get more better and all in all improve at my digital painting. Here is some i did from my earlier sketches



I am limiting myself to just blues at the moment just to get used to the tablet and painting first. Colour will come later. Im just posting these to show progress aswell and if i do get better ( well i hope )

More Command and Conquer stuff

Whilst playing recently i relised how good there cutscenes were back in the 90's
CGI cutscenes combeined with Live action. It was amazing. There 2 scenes i will never forget my reaction to. The first one is a cutscene from Tiberium Dawn ,which shows a NOD base under attack by GDI forces. The music mixed in by Frank Klepacki is memorising. Im not sure if its just me being easliy fasinated when im a kid but i still strongly remember it.

Today it looks boring and dull, but back then it was brilliant. Im hoping to remake this scene in an animation or something. Its just great to honour the job westwood did back then.
This scene contains a briefing by stalin in C&C red alert. The actor playing him is extremly good and showing the player Stalin's ruthless attitude but then again it made you feel as a real commander in the red army. In my opinion the best live action scene in all the C&C's

They don't make them the way they used to.. D:

Command and Conquer

Command and Conquer has been my lifes inspiration in the gaming genre. Ive adored and created a passion for its stories and energising gameplay. I love everything about it and i base alot of my sketches and artwork on its deep story and concepts.
The Command & Conquer: Tiberian series is a sub-series of real-time strategy video games belonging to the extensive Command & Conquer franchise by Westwood Studios and Electronic Arts. The games of the Tiberian series are the 'original' Command and Conquer 'universe', with the first game in the Command & Conquer: Red Alert,alternate history series being a prequel to the first 'Tiberium' game, however EA has since decided that the Red Alert games would be a separate series to the 'Tiberium' series. In Command and Conquer: Tiberium Dawn, an anomalous extraterrestrial substance known as Tiberium is brought to Earth through a meteoric collision during the early 1990s. The substance's intriguing yet hazardous properties begin to fuel an escalating war between two globalized factions; the United Nations' Global Defense Initiative, who wish to prevent the proliferation of Tiberium for safety reasons, and the mysterious and ancient Brotherhood of Nod society, who embrace the substance as the herald of a new age and the next stage in humanity's evolution.

The story of Nod and GDI battling away for control of tiberium spawned numerous sequals and side stories to the francise. Inclusing Tiberium Sun, Tiberium Wars and newly Tiberium Twilight ( I got my pre order :D)
Each have very unique settings which engulfs the player in its atmosphere. Tiberium dawn is set later 20th century were many of todays military weapons are used and are seen. Tiberium has only spread through certain areas of the worlds and has very briefly been expertmented with and understood. during Tiberium Sun the worlds has taken a deeper plunge into darkness. Tiberium has engulfed many key areas of the world creating Ion storms to rain down creating destruction. Nod forces use underground networks and mountains to conseal them selfs whilst GDI uses orbiting space craft and tiberium free zones to pursue there military involvments. And in Tiberium Wars Tiberium has causes areas of the world to be unhabitable. These zones are called red zones. Most of the planet to classes as yellow zones were tiberium is scattered and decades of war have left these areas in destruction, however Nod forces control most of these zones using them as a way to invlove the population with there affairs and show them GDI selfish ways inopposing to Nods invlovemnts. The last of the zones are known as blue zones, these are the last areas of humanity which is tiberium free and is "protected" by the GDI. Technology has surpassed greaty with Nod using steath technology fluently and GDI rolling out new tougher models of armour. Tiberium Twilight hasnt been released yet so i don't know hat happens in detail yet. but when it is i will post a brief background story about it.

War films

I bet your thinking Omg he must love Saving private Ryan. The answer is actually no. Well i do enjoy it for the amazing sound and look of it but down to its roots its another of those go go american / germans are bad films. And im not into that, at all. Theres two sides to every story. Films like Clint Eastwoods Flags of our Fathers and Letters from Iwo Jima are great examples of that.
I also love the Korean film Brotherhood ( taegukgi) just because its intensivily emotional between the two brothers within the films and it told remarkably well.

I do also praise films that show the German side of WW2 and there struggles within that conflict. I would say Valkyrie is a little ( omg what have we done) but still nice film. I prefer the film Stralingrad which shows the probelms the german soldiers faces during the battle of that city

All these films are great to watch and give me so much inspiration to draw the scenes and create my own story within there conflicts.

My inspiration

Well like i said im into games. but thats not all. Im very deeply ingaged with military aspects. I love to learn about history in warfare and everything to do with it. I have a gained an obsession with war like paintings animations and games. Not for the violence but for the stories told within these conflicts.
I also like alot of sci fi with war intergrated within in it. And know that dosnt mean im a Star Wars nut. Ima starship troopers nut :D

Christmas Holidays

During the holidays i went to Portugal to see my family. Whilst there i did alot of sketches and concepts for storys and ideas. People have passions for films like star wars and lord of the rings. But i like video games. i enjoy there stories so i like to create my own concepts and designs. After my feedback from my background project i really felt.. let down by myself. I love digital art. SO from this point im going to focus most of my drawings digitally.

Flash concepts and ideas

I have just been given a brief using flash to create a creature comforts style anination. I have been given audio to look at and choose a section for me to include in my animation.

Here is a few sketches so far.



Ive been lisneing to a scene in the audio were they are coming to an end to there talk and start giving advice. I will be using this using a in battle scene were you see a male and female soldier covering down behind a wall. Whilst talking they will be concerned by whats on the other side and show some eye movement and body gestures showing there consern with whats going on behind them whilst in the interview.

The idea came from starship troopers with the reporter scene.



Here is a few sketches showing what one guy is saying during the animation. Im really going to try hard to create some good lip sync and face movement for a convincing look.

After a that i decided for some pratice to quick paint the scene. I will finish it is due time, but this shows what i have so far and the progress which is made.

Animation being new and all.

Animation is fascinating. I love to watch and create ideas, but actually making them is what im here for. So far ive been covering 2D animation using a pencil and this is fun but i want to create more appealing things towards my area of interest.

Im a big fan of Game Art i love to play games, draw characters, create scenes and make storys. I'm hoping in the future i can make these ideas into animations.

The circle.

Ok. every great artist has a starting point, mine being this. May be awful (yes) but its's a start. The brief was to morph a circle into something else. I chose a helmet. It sort of ressembles Halo, but i assure you i did not have it in mind.




This wasnt my first idea however. I wanted to do a downward camera angle of a helmet (looking like a circle) and then slowly panning down to the full body of the soldier. I based the soldier on the mobile infantry in Starship Troopers. But as usual time is never on my side.

A New Start

I'm Miguel and welcome to my blog

Ive just recently enlisted on a 3 year course in Animation at Falmouth University. This blog will be like my history in what ive accomplished, learned and general ideas and sketches etc.