Otty the Otter

As you might know I work as a graphic-, publication- and web-designer/illustrator/video editor and a general "whatever visual you throw my way I'll do my best to make it work" type a person at the UBC Commission on Environment. The amount of publications we put out for different environmental projects is very varied and includes everything from full brand designs to books and web platforms. This time we made a mobile game. It was our first and there is still a lot of things to finish on the code side, but as my part is done I can already show you guys all that jazz. You'll get to play the game too at a later time, promise. 

Otty the Otter and his super flashy kick bike.

Otty the Otter was developed as part of an  environmental education and awareness raising project. It's a part of a bigger package that includes stuff for the teachers to use while teaching kids about the water footprint. The game is aimed both at kids and teens which is basically an impossible age group to develop anything for. It has to be childish enough for the younger kids but not too childish to be cool for teens too. So we ended up with Otty.

Hullo, I am Otty an overly happy otter.

A friendly (and slightly psychotic looking) otter who adventures between Turku and St Petersburg on his red kick bike. The goal is to use as little water as possible while also collecting food items in order to keep up his energy. Without understanding the balance between these items it is not possible to finish the game as Otty will run out of energy and just fall asleep on his tracks. Originally Otty looked much more realistic and wore a small top hat. But in the end we opted for a more cartoony and colorful look to suit the age group better.

The plan is to later develop more stages where he gets to switch the kick bike to a skateboard. And maybe a jetpack. Also I really, REALLY want to give him the opportunity to have a top hat and an old bike as originally planned. Its just almost impossible to make those tiny paws reach the paddles...  Yup. 

 

 You can download the Demo version for Otty here: http://www.ubc-environment.net/index.php/main:game_otty but I'd suggest waiting for the finished game. I'll post the link here as soon as it comes out :)
 

The game is developed by the Union of the Baltic Cities, Commission on Environment Secretariat, as a part of “Baltic Sea needs Actions 2012–2013” project.
The game developers:

Editor:Stella Aaltonen
Graphics: Sari Sariola
Code: Kaj-Michael Lang.

Jensen Ackles as Dean Winchester

Poor Dean is crying. Over Sam or someone dying I'm sure.

This is one of those unfortunate paintings that I could never get to go where I wanted. So I decided to just finish it and hop to the next one. It's supposed to be Dean Winchester from the TV-Series Supernatural. Very fangirl of me, I know. It's for a challenge over at ComicPunks which we are trying to also bring back from the dead. Come say hi.

Didn't really record any steps for this as I was pretty sure this would end in the trash pile but here's one earlier shot in case some of you are interested. As you can see it went wrong pretty much from the start :)

Karl Urban as Judge Dredd

Karl Urban as Judge Dredd

I've always loved 2000AD comics. Especially Nemesis but have gone through considerable amounts of Judge Dredd too. And I LOVED the new movie. So as a friend mentioned online watching Dredd tonight this just spewed itself out of my pencil. Totally not what I meant to draw and shows painfully well how little I still sketch by hand but thought I’d post it never the less. Hope you guys like it.

And as you might have noticed it's been quite some time since I posted last. Sorry about that. Last year was... difficult to say the least. Without going into too many details I both lost one of my oldest and best friends and managed to maul my knee so that I walked 6 months with crutches. Both had quite an effect on me and my painting. The latter also in a very physical way. It was very difficult to spend longer times at the computer and after I went back to work my leg was so shot by the time I got home every night that I'd just curl up to the couch with a cold pack. You might ask why I didn't draw by hand then. Well. Um. I have no good explanation for that :) Took me forever to realize that I could actually work in a more traditional way as I haven't really drawn by hand in years. I'm an idiot, I know lol. Never the less I'm back now and promise to post something more finished soon.

Lady Loki for WeLoveFine.com

The finished design

 Some time ago I bumped into this Marvel Villains design competition for the WeLoveFine.com. I instantly new I had to give it a try but as I was super busy at that exact moment I had a very small window of time to do it. I would be a lot happier with it had I just had an extra hour or two to work on it but sadly I still do not have the ability to turn back time. Never the less the design did make it to the competition and is now being rated on their page. The final judges are Mr Loki himself, Tom Hiddleston and the super nerd blogger Jill Pantozzi which is admittedly very cool. And if any of you now feel the need to give me your votes here is the link where you can do so. I have been offering my eternal love and affection for the voters.

Suddle, arent I :D Honestly mine is nowhere near finished enough for me to have a snowballs chance in hell to win this but it would be awesome to be atleast in the top ten instead of bottom 100. I actually like the sketch much more then the finished coloring. I did the colors in something like 20 minutes. Sloppy, sloppy, sloppy. So I might just re-do this at some point, even if it is too late for the competition.

Matt Smith as Doctor Who

Matt Smith as Doctor Who

I am on a sick leave with a busted leg and have been keeping myself occupied by re-watching pretty much every season of Doctor Who. That and all the juicy Doctor news and stuff that came from the San Diego Comic-Con last weekend lead me to pain Matt Smith as the 11th Doctor. I have always liked Tennant the best as Doctors go but Smith has really grown on me lately.


And I have been teased about painting pretty boys a looot lately. Smith is mainly a very peculiar looking boy so ;)

Here's a couple of steps to the finished piece. Sadly really only a couple as I painted most of this on one layer and didn't remember to save any progress shots. 

Original sketch and the flats

The bulk of the portrait is ready

Added some extra lighting and color for depth and the jawline.
This was originally the finished piece but then decided it looked nicer without the linework.

The reason for the annoying disclaimer text is that I have lately been bumping into a lot of my work online without any reference to who has done it and in coupleof cases even someone else claming to have do it. I do sign my work but guess it's not enough so from now on I'll be adding this to all my work.

Michael Fassbender as David the Android

David the Android and the Xenomorph

I went to see Prometheus yesterday as it opened here. Pretty much the only part that impressed me about the it was the android, David. And even his part was pretty bad. This movie is on the level of Syfy bits, just has a bigger budget. Being a huge fan of the Alien frachise otherwise this just made me want to crawl under my seat and rock myself gently while humming something soothing.

Never the less it lead to a bit of late night sketching and turned into a portrait of the said android, David.

I did this in a slightly different way than usually. I don't normally just copy stuff but have several reference pictures that I use to get the finished image. I use a lot of time sketching and making details. This time I just went with it and it's actually not at all detailed when you get up close. So it's a whole lot sketchier then normally. This was also a lot faster to do so I might give something like this another try later on. I'll probably finish this tomorrow, it's still missing a lot of details.

Here's steps until now though.

Sketching

Finished sketch

I just crudely started painting over the sketch

Aaaand here I forgot to save the steps...

Added ear

I felt the pic was missing something so I gave him a friend.

Almost there

Tom Hiddleston as Loki Laufeyson part 2

Tom Hiddleston as Loki

I'm fairly sure that after this I will be done with Mr. Hiddleston's cheekbones. I just couldn't get this image of Loki plotting with the Cosmis Cube (fine Tesseract but I still think that is an idiotic name) out of my head before I painted it. So here it is, finally finished.

Also check out the other painting I did of Tom Hiddleston as Loki here 

As usual, here's some steps. 

Sketch

Base colors.

Still very much a work in progress but it's getting there.

Still missing a lot of shades and the fur is too light.

Loki Laufeyson times two

It seems that I am not able to draw anything else than his trickstery highness anymore. Sigh. Never the less, here are pics of couple of sketches I'm working on at the moment. hoping to get Loki out of my system with these and move on.

Tom Hiddleston as Loki Laufeyson

A little painting I did of Tom Hiddleston as Loki.
I have to say that painting this was a true pleasure. There is something about the angles of Hiddleston’s face that makes it really interesting to work on. And I simply love the character of Loki both in comics and the movies. I've seen The Avengers three times by now and have just loved it more every time.

Also check out the other painting I did of Tom Hiddleston as Loki here 

Here's some steps to the finished piece.

Sansa Stark

The finished finished piece

The original finished piece

Sansa Stark from the George R R Martin series Game of Thrones/Songs of Fire and Ice.
I posted some steps to this piece before here.

****EDIT****
Thanks to comments from from friends and artists extraordinaire Ossi Hiekkala and Nina VonRüdiger, I went back and fixed the pic somewhat. I feel it made quite a difference, what do you guys think?