Artist Review - ConceptCookie

Concept Cookie is one of my favourite artist pages that I follow and for a number of reasons.
For one, Concept Cookie is run by quite a few different artists, meaning its always good to learn skills and styles depending on which tutorial you look at. Concept Cookie provides a number of various tutorials and step by step walk throughs on how to improve various aspects of your artwork, create a good portfolio and more.

Something that I'm really interested in is learning from the paint over section of Concept Cookies DeviantART account, where it shows you an example of a classic disney paint over and the techniques needed to do it. I'm planning on creating quite a few once university is over and done with as it means I'll have more time to work on things without worrying about getting buried underneath a ton of paperwork.

As well as having a DeviantART account, Concept Cookie has its very own website where you can buy full tutorials and fully utilise the skills that the artists have put up for you to use.
I'll be spending quite a lot of my time scrolling through various tutorials that would aid me in my own artistic design, mainly working with colours and colour theory etc.

What I have to say is this, if you want really nicely laid out and solid tutorials with people who aren't afraid to answer the questions you might have or any problems you need solving, then head on over to concept cookie. The website really does have an awful lot of tools for the aspiring artist to use at your leisure and for someone wanting to improve their skill it really is a useful place to head on over to.

Artist Review - Mavros-Thanatos

Anastasios Gionis (artist alias: Mavros-Thanatos) is a greek artist living and working in LA, America. Mavros grew up as a traditional animator before starting work in the film industry as a 3D modeller and animator. He specialises in creature design and has worked on films such as "Snow White" and "Cabin in the Woods."

In his spare time Mavros does regular traditional mediums of artwork, he loves designing his own creatures and appears to be heavily influenced by the Silent Hill game series. 

I love all of the work that this guy does as he works in quite a few different mediums of work including pencil, his most commonly used medium. Paint, Zbrush and Maya. 

I've actually found Mavros' work to be exceptionally inspirational to my own work as the various forms of twisted anatomy make for perfect viewing when I need to try and figure out things with my own creatures.
His lighting on his characters is also wonderful and really helps to set a scene with a character to properly convey the personality of the creature. Above is one of my favourite pieces he has done, named "Scrape," this creature is top heavy and appears to be fused to a metal canvas, giving it a brutally painful lurch while it walks and is no doubt named after the noise its canvas would make as its metal frame scratches across the tile floor seen in the environment.

For those who are wanting to perfect their strange anatomy forms, work on shading and work on their creature design concepts I would really suggest looking up Mavros-Thanatos' work.
He is an exceptionally friendly person and is more than happy to help other aspiring artists out as well as making general work related small talk when he's not too busy.

Find his DeviantART profile HERE -> http://mavros-thanatos.deviantart.com

Freelance Commissions - Makeup Designer Work

Not too long ago I was employed through my Facebook page to design various creatures for a Makeup Student who was working on the facial effects for a film she was making.
After talking over the price and organising the time I would have to work in it I was able to start work straight away.

The first port of call was to design the creature that the client had imagined. The monster was based on a man who had become a witch-doctor-like creature due to a curse.
She also stated that she wanted skulls involved as that would be the focus of her makeup design so straight away i started mapping up a humanoid creature with a more skeletal face. I needed to make it look like he was identified as a witch doctor type so i added a crest of bones and a large bone necklace.

After showing her the design (above) which she loved, she then asked me to design the next part of the project which was turning the creature design into a film poster for the production that she was making including the title font so once again I got to work to create this:

The designs was simple enough, I simply made the creature into a silhouette form and added a large flock of birds to break up the rough cut out of the body at the bottom. I then used an appropriate font for the title and another more formal font for the people involved in the film. After showing it to the client she loved it and then ended up using it in her production with the promise that she would refer me to her other friends.

Shortly after another one of her friends contacted me asking for a commission and after giving her my payment details never got back to me, which is a shame, but I suppose its something that I have to learn to expect when dealing with freelance clients as they will always tend to be more unreliable than that of a mainstream company.

I've really loved creating designs for people and I'm hoping that once I get more time on my hands I'll be able to put more positions up for commissions to take and hopefully make more contacts for the future!

WETA Workshop - The Professionals Professional

Weta Workshop is a special effects and prop company based in Miramar, New Zealand, producing effects for television and film.

Founded in 1987 by Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger as RT Effects, Weta Workshop has produced creatures and makeup effects for the TV seriesHercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess and effects for films such as Meet The Feebles and Heavenly Creatures. A digital division, Weta Digital, was formed in 1993.

Weta Workshop's output came to worldwide prominence with director Peter Jackson's film trilogy The Lord of the Rings, producing sets, costumes, armour, weapons, creatures and miniatures. It supported the creation of Reclaiming the Blade (2009), a documentary film on stage combat, historical European and Asian swordsmanship.^[1]

The company name comes from the weta, "New Zealand's coolest little monster, a bizarre and prickly prehistoric cricket". - Wikipedia.

Without a doubt, Weta workshop is the top of the line place to work if you are a 3D modeller or artist and over the past 3 years I've actually come to realise that I want to aspire to join the Weta Workshop as they predominantly deal in creature design and other weird and wonderful artworks. 

The most recent work I have from the Weta workshop is "Smaug, Unleashing the Dragon", which is jam packed full of truly beautiful concept art thats right down my alley. 

Im hoping to take some time out of working after university has finished to fully build up a professional portfolio to show to the art department of Weta in the hopes of working for them at some point in the future. 

When I started this course I actually wanted to work for Bethesda, which is still an option as they also deal in a lot of creature design. Another company I'm interested in is Gearbox studios, who deals with the Borderlands games. But the top of my list is Weta workshop without a doubt. 

I'm actually beyond excited about my prospects of joining the creature design crew of Weta, all I need to do is build up my portfolio and to present it in a beautiful format thats good enough to show the Art Directors of Weta. Then if all goes well its a permanent 24 hour flight to New Zealand to start my new life as a professional creature concept artist!

Adventure Quest - Being an Indie Film Concept Artist

At the beginning of this year I was put on a temporary contract to create concept art for a group of indie film makers who needed designs for a variety of different aspects of their work.
There were roughly a 100 other artists competing for the chance to work with them and each of us had to meet with the director, Myron, to show our portfolios and discuss our prospects and ideas.

After meeting with Myron and doing some preliminary art tests I was chosen to be the solo artist in charge of all concept art and designs that were to go into the film.
From there on out I was tied into a contract to produce not only the character concept art but also the poster designs, environmental designs and other assets that would be involved in the film itself and with very little time to get it all done I had a lot of work cut out for me.

Im not entirely sure where I stand as far as putting the artwork up online to show but I can show some of the things that aren't integral to the films actual story:

Ok so these are 4 separate images that I've compiled into one and were part of the poster design process that I had to do for the films production.
These posters are actually used in the film but are only seen very briefly. The actual concept art that I made for the film I'm not entitled to show as the minute I designed it it then became property of the director and the company which I wan't a permanent part of. It sort of sucks a bit but at the same time Its something that I need to get used to because a lot of concept artists in the industry aren't able to show their work for years at a time to the public in order to avoid leaking problems to the media.

It was really hard work but I did enjoy working with the film makers. The film is being shown this year in various indie film festivals and I'm quite proud to say that I get my name in the credits! Thats something at least. I didn't get any pay for the work that I did but I wasn't doing it for money as it was primarily for the recognition and the chance to raise the word of mouth about the work that I can do.

Hopefully I'll be able to use this to my advantage when I apply for other companies in the future and I may even ask the director if I could use him as a reference to back up any future prospects.

Showreel

As part of our submission criteria I've been working on a showreel. The showreel itself is quite short as it only really contains university work and not work outside of university which I assume they wanted. There is no text and I've put a bit of music in the background to make it nicer to watch.

I've completed a simple showreel to show the best bits and bobs of my work and put my artist alias (HazardousConcepts) at the end.
What i'd really like to do in the future is to use a program called Camtasia to record myself painting various pictures and to then go into the editor in the Camtasia Studio to speed up the film to make into a speed paint for the showreel itself, that way I can show more of my method rather than just the near finished or finished results of my work.

The only reason that I've not done it yet is because Camtasia has a few issues getting going and can sometimes cause the programs you're using to crash which really isn't what I need when I'm doing big projects so I'd rather do a simple slide showreel to get going and show a summery of my work whilst I sort out Camtasia and get around to making a proper show reel that will professionally showcase my work to my clients and to the public. I'll be editing it together with After Effects and then putting it on my own personal website so it can be viewed at any time.

Book Review - Dark Stories by Dark Artists

"Dark Stories by Dark Artists" is a book that I was given as a present at Christmas and I have to say its quickly become one of my favourite art books.
The book itself tells the story of various different artists and how they came into the artistic world as well as how they perfected their styles and how they were drawn to the horror and macabre genre of art.

Anyone who knows me and my art knows that the grotesque, horror and macabre go hand in hand with my work, I will rarely do a piece without including something bordering on the uncanny valley, even if its only the slightest bit. Well this book is absolutely JAM PACKED with the weird and wonderful, from simple and elegant designs to enormous canvas pieces that have taken months to complete. The book really does have everything and has influenced me as an artist more than any other art book ever has.

I've included some samples of the artwork below, as I said previously, these artists work in a variety of different mediums from pencil and paint to sculpture and plastics. It amazes me just what they can do with the materials that they have.

Art (C) Caitlin Hackett

The picture above shows four separate designs. The first is a stag with entangled antlers, the second is a two headed bird with the lower body made up of a womans arms and ribs, the two below the bird shows the artists process for the stag and another separate work in progress.

My favourite piece in the entire book is the two headed bird with the woman arms as not only is it extremely surreal and macabre but the colours used throughout the painting are beautiful with a contrast of bright reds and more muted tones of brown and peach. This picture actually speaks to me on a more personal level as I feel that, to me at least, its a painting that represents personal torment, arguing with yourself and being of two minds about life or a decision that needs to be made.

Art (C) Jon Beinart

The picture shown above is one of the many works by another of my favourite artists, Jon Beinart, who focuses more on the human form and warping it into disturbing shapes and patterns. In the image above, Jon has used the model of a baby and turned it into somewhat of a centipede creature  by adding a mass of writhing arms and legs. I really like this sculpture as the variety of limbs that the model has means that it makes for a good source of observing how light is cast on complex forms and how something as sweet and innocent as a baby can be morphed into something truly quite horrific.

The book itself is cram packed full of wonderful artists and their stories of how their artwork came to be and where they are today. The book has beautiful big glossy pages to look through and is well presented, it doesn't have a whole lot of text either so its great for people wanting more art and less writing. I've found Dark Stories by Dark Artists to be an invaluable source of inspiration and anatomical reference to me and I would recommend anyone who's interested in the macabre to buy this book as it really is worth every penny.

Book Review - Hobbit, Smaug, Unleashing The Dragon

If, like me, you are all about creature creation then "Smaug, Unleashing The Dragon" is just the book you need. This hard cover book comes straight from the masterminds that work in WETA Workshop, the designers of Smaug, to show you the entire thought and design process behind the dragon, from initial sketches and scribbles to full blown renders of varying designs.

The people from WETA have designed every part of Smaugs anatomy with pristine anatomical accuracy, everything from the way his scales are shaped to the way his skin folds as he moves is all planned and thought over meticulously. What I found interesting was that the majority of the initial passes for Smaug they designed him as a "technical dragon" (a dragon that has four legs and wings).
And explain how as they continue through the design process his finishing result is actually that of a Wyvern (not a dragon, a subspecies who's front arms double as wings).

I think the favourite parts of this book for me were the initial sketches of Smaugs profile shot as it shows just how drastically they played with the shapes and possibilities for the Drakes head. In the first 2, shown above, its almost as if the heads are based on weapon designs with the long sharp snout of the first pass looking similar to a spear, and the second larger, bulkier head resembling more of an axe. Its amazing how just the shape of a head can affect your entire perception of how you believe they would act and talk. For instance, I believe that head number 1 would talk in a very whispery "hissy" manner, much like the stereotypical snake talk e.g: "ssssssoo how are you?"
Head number 2 however I imagine to have a much deeper voice, almost like thunder and would reflect just how ancient a creature he truly is.

These two heads are an entirely different matter, I almost feel like they resemble more of an alien than a dragon or wyvern! I imagine the bodies of both of these creatures to have the Wyvern physique, but have a much more predatory instinct, much preferring to hunt and eat rather than converse to its prey like in the film.

The final two are much more dinosaur based, especially head number one with its heavy set jawline, large dewlap and raised neck its easy to tell that carnivorous dinosaurs have been the subject of reference such as the Allosaurus, Tyrannosaur and Gigantosaur.
Head number 2 however seems a lot more closer to the finalised design, being extremely slender and serpentine which in turn conforms to the typical Wyvern anatomy.

I really can't recommend this book strongly enough for people who are into creature design and fantasy worlds, their is plenty of text to read through so you can read about the step by step processes that the WETA crew had to go through when designing Smaug, along with beautiful glossy coloured pages of various WIPS, full renders and reference examples. When I'm drawing something scaly or serpentine this is always my go to book and its extremely cheap for what it is!

Website Development - HazardousConcepts.co.uk

Another part of building my media presence on the internet I made a Facebook, twitter, tumblr and my own website. I'd have to say my own website is the second most updated place that I use.
My website, HazardousConcepts.co.uk is run via wordpress and personally coded HTML to give it a flawless and professional look. The website itself was actually designed by my friend, Kyle, who is now a student of the Leeds College of Art based in the city centre and he previously has worked for an independent web developing business before joining the access course.

The website was built as a favour to me in exchange for allowing him to use my website in part of his portfolio work when applying for other jobs in the future. The only thing that cost me was to buy the actual domain which came to around £17 all together, extremely cheap and worth while for a years payment of your own website domain. For anyone wanting to buy a domain for a website I would do a lot of shopping around as there are some very good deals you can get, don't settle for less just because it can be a hassle trying to find a good domain seller!

Below are some screenshots of my website, theres still a lot to be done on it and it actually needs an update as I've changed the layout of a few of the categories. There are also some scribbles that I need to take down that I don't want up there anymore.

Different categories make for easier navigation around the website, though these will be changed within the next few months as I revamp the site.

Because of all of the time I've been putting towards my university work I've not updated my website for ages, however once uni has finished i'm going to be committing the majority of my time into making a beautiful website that I can really be proud of and to show people at my prospect interviews. I'm also going to add a videos page and a youtube page where I will be uploading my speed paint videos in the future. I have a lot of work to do, but its quite exciting thinking what my website will look like once I really knuckle down and work on it.

Artist Review - Patrick Brown

Patrick Brown is one of my favourite unconventional artists who I follow on DeviantART. He specialises in a line art based comic style of art which unlike most of the artist I find influence with, works heavily with bright colours, heavy action poses and emotion.

One of the things that I automatically love about Pat Browns artwork is that he makes really beautiful fan art and has done countless renditions of some of my favourite games such as Grand Theft Auto 5 and The Last of Us. Because a lot of my work is quite heavily line art based I'm really excited when I watch this guys tutorials and walk throughs as this is definitely a part of my own style that i'd like to develop more.

In the past few weeks Pat has actually opened up his own Skillshare lessons to teach people how to develop a similar style to his own ad to instruct them with regards to his colouring techniques, this is definitely something that i'll be signing up to in the coming month or so as the lesson is only $20 and it includes a lot of different lessons where the artist himself will tutor you personally and set you homework to improve.

If you're interested in the comic book style and developing some really beautiful colouring techniques I couldn't recommend Patrick Browns work any stronger. He's an extremely friendly guy to work with and to get advice from and is always happy to answer any questions regarding his work.

You can find Patrick Browns DeviantART profile HERE

Freelance Artbook - CATIEVAL

Something that I've started working on outside of uni recently is a new art book based on a little made up game with the working title of Catieval, Catieval is going to be a large art book based around the Medieval times only every stereotypical character is a cat e.g.: Knights, Princesses, Kings, Queens, Peasants etc. I've only done one page so far and its not done yet but I'm enjoying it so far and I really want to make it ready for an interview in the future.

The first picture shows the Weapons Master initial concept, the "regular" "Sword Master" and "Shield Master"

The regular character is simply what the Shield and Sword Masters look like when they aren't wearing their armour. I might still add clothes to the regular design but it helps to see the body design without clothes.

The Sword Master is a kind of Soldier Cat who specialises in combat with two handed swords. The Sword Master has heavy armour around his body as he is more up front in combat than the shield master.

The Shield Master is the second soldier design that I've come up with. The Shield master has lighter armour than the Sword counterpart. It carried an enormous Shield on its back which it uses for both offence and defence.

Here are my initial concepts for the "Weapons Master" characters that currently have 2 kinds, the Sword Master and Shield Master concepts. As you can see the designs have yet to be fully completed but the line art is almost done. I might still even remaster the character designs as these are still the very first initial concepts for the weapons master designs. I'm really looking forward to doing the other character designs such as the Kings and Princesses.

I'm really going to commit to this project and I'm looking forward to seeing where its going to go in the future.

Website Review - Kickstarter

Kickstarter is a crowdfunding platform.^[2] The company’s stated mission is to help bring creative projects to life.^[3] Kickstarter claims it has received over $1 billion in pledges from 5.7 million donors to fund 135,000 projects, such as films, music, stage shows, comics, journalism, video games, and food-related projects.^[4]

People who back Kickstarter projects are offered tangible rewards and special experiences in exchange for their pledges.^[5] This model traces its roots to subscription model of arts patronage, where artists would go directly to their audiences to fund their work. - Wikipedia

I've yet to really utilise Kickstarters tools but I certainly plan to. For those of you who've never used it before or never been on the site, its essentially a place where you are sponsored by the public from all around the world in order to make your dream come true. My aim for when I use Kickstarter is to create a flawless and beautiful art book, thats simple enough, but I need funding in order to make it a mass produced book. I have also set up a reward scheme for people who donate to my cause as follows:

£20 - Free digital copy of the book.
£40 - Free signed digital copy of the book.
£60 - Free hard cover copy of the book.
£80 - Free signed hard cover and digital copy of the book.
£100 - Free signed hard cover and digital copy of the book with a personal mention in the back.

These rewards are yet to be really set in stone but I doubt they will stray very far from the planned reward system I have at the moment.
I'm hoping this book will be set up on Kickstarter at the back end of this year to further my professional indent in the media as well as to cover more ground in my portfolio.

If you have big dreams and aren't sure how to start them I would strongly suggest having a look at Kickstarter, you never know who will be willing to chuck a few pounds towards your cause!

Check out Kickstarted HERE

Artist Review - TheDURRRRIAN

Daniel Kamarudin AKA TheDURRRRIAN is a Malaysian college student studying concept art and illustration in the hopes of joining the video games industry.

The first thing that attracted me to his work was how similar it is to the works of my favourite concept artist, Kekai Kotaki and I feel as though Kekai has heavily influenced Daniels work and progress as an aspiring artist.

TheDurians work is beautiful yet humorous work that really gives him a much more down to earth and approachable feel compared to other artists of a similar skill level.
Though I wouldn't say Daniels work influences my own work to an extreme degree its still a very interesting learning experience watching his artwork flourish from more simple blocked out designs to full blown renders.

I would really like to experiment more in this style of concept art and illustration, especially  in the first picture depicting the headless horseman type character. I feel that his work is quite heavily influenced by various kinds of texture brushes which is something that I need to step out of the box with and experiment with more, it will certainly be interesting seeing how it turns out.

To see more of TheDURRRRIAN's work click HERE

Artist Review - Cryptid-Creations

Cryptid Creations is a Canadian artist who's adorable style immediately attracted me to following her work. I think the first thing I noticed about Cryptids work is how beautifully the characters are coloured, she utilises beautiful colour theory and blending techniques to create her own unique style.

The thing I like the most is watching how she remasters old characters such as Rocko the Kangaroo (first picture) and Stimpy (bottom picture) into her own style. Its something not many people really do, when it comes to this kind of fan art people usually try to represent the characters in the same or similar style. With Cryptid however this is not the case and its these conventions that really attracted me to her work.

I've never actually tried this style of artwork before so i'm really quite interested to try it out, though I imagine that its quite a bit harder than it looks despite its simple design.
If you want to scrawl through some beautifully designed and adorable work I would strongly suggest looking up Cryptid-Creations, you can find her work HERE

Website Review - Skillshare

Skillshare is a really amazing website that I wish I had learned about sooner. The site is for professionals all over the world to share their skills with those willing to pay to learn from them.
It sounds a bit seedy at first but it is actually a really incredible experience. The website isn't only for artists, it can be for anyone who wants to teach people about the things they're good at! This can be anything from IT skills, 3D modelling to building work! When you use Skillshare the world is quite literally your oyster.

Although its generally up to the professional as the "teacher" to set the price of the full learning course there is seldom a course that you can't learn thats over $20 which to us brits is around £15 - £17, once you've paid you're able to view homework the teacher has set for you and go through it at your own pace, they will stop by your profile from time to time to give you feedback on how you're doing and what they can do to help you even further. Its this one on one feedback from a professional of the industry you're interested in that is really quite rare these days so its good to snap up the opportunity whenever you get the chance!

I really can't speak highly enough about Skillshare, its really an incredible way to share your knowledge to others who also want to learn the skills that you are willing to teach and if you're confident in your teaching skills it may very well make you quite a bit of extra money on the side!

Learning Along Side RJ Palmer (Arvalis)

Ok so recently I've done a review on RJ Palmer AKA Arvalis from DeviantART. Well a few weeks back he put up a link to his skillshare account where he would be teaching us all about how he designs his creatures, from the very first thumb nail steps to refining anatomy, colour theory, lighting and full rendering to create our very own realistic creature.

The course itself was $19 dollars which to work with a guy like Arvalis is really quite a steal to be honest. Because of all the uni work I've had on recently I've only been able to do the first thumbnail and anatomy sections of the homework he has set and we've not really gotten around to fully designing and colouring my creature. I did get some really good feedback from him though and I was blown away by how quickly he actually responded to the work that I've been doing.

Though I can work at my own pace entirely I don't want him to think that I've forgotten about the course and won't finish it, because I completely intend on doing it. Its just simply a matter of finding the time to do so, which all being well will be pretty much as soon as uni is completely out of the way and giving me enough time to put my mind to it 100%.

I believe the skillshare for his class is still open so by going to his artist review on my blog and going to his deviant art profile you'll be able to buy into his course and get feedback from a true professional thats already safely anchored into his profession. If there is ANYONE that can help with securing a foothold in the creative industry its Mr.Palmer.

I can't wait to continue with the course when i have more time. The more help I can get from him the better in the long run.

Artist Review - Nebezial

Nebezial is without a doubt one of my ultimate favourite artists. His style, humour and friendly disposition makes for a really amazing person, which he certainly is!
The thing that first attracted me to Nebezials work was his use of Photoshop and Zbrush to create some truly stunning creature art and it was something that I had previously not considered doing with regards to painting over a 3D model.

Another thing that I love so much about his work is the variety and speed that he is able to produce his work. In one day Nebezial can vary from full on cartoony goofy comic pages to the fully rendered pieces such as the Werewolf seen above. As an artist he is able to make work extremely quickly, and upon watching the youtube speed paint of the werewolf the actual time it took was around half an hour which I find amazing as something like this would take me weeks to get to a point where I felt even remotely happy about it.

Nebezial has already published several full length comics in the style shown above, one called Ravine and a newer upcoming comic in the style of the first picture named Death Vigil which I'm extremely looking forward to reading properly when its released.

If you're a fan of varying styles and beautiful work coupled with a good sense of humour then Nebezial is certainly for you, you can find his DeviantART profile HERE

Artist Review - Arvalis

RJ Palmer AKA: Arvalis is a professional concept artist and illustrator living and working in the USA. Arvalis is a generalist artist and is able to design pretty much anything he puts his mind to, though he is partial to dinosaur art.

I think the first thing that attracted me to Arvalis was his "Realistic Pokemon" series, in which he redrew the original pokemon creatures into a more realistic and anatomically accurate version of themselves. His initial artwork is very heavily thumbnail based and he spends a lot of his time making many little passes and shapes for his initial creature shapes to get the proper feel of the creature that he is designing which I found very interesting and important, its something that I've started to do more often with my own creature designs.

Another thing that attracted me to his artwork was that he is quite heavily line art based in his initial planning and spends hours on end creating hundreds of individual details on the creature that he is designing and this is something that I do, however when I do it it seems to come out more messy and crowded than anything.

However, he has recently opened a skillshare site to teach people who to do the creatures that he makes, the one above is the feature design for the skillshare that his students can aspire to create.
His class is only $19 so it really is a steal to have someone so skilled teaching you and giving you one to one advice when you need it.

Anyone aiming for a more realistic approach to their creature art should definitely check Arvalis out, you can find his profile HERE

Artist Review - Beast of Oblivion

BeastofOblivion AKA Allison Theus, is an american concept artist currently living in the USA. She mainly deals in freelance work though has recently become permanently employed with her most recent games company.

BoO deals mainly in creature designs and world building which is what first attracted me to her work.
As a creature designer one of the things that I feel that i need work on is my abilities to develop my own world, I never feel like I'm able to stick to the lore that I write and things end up going a bit messed up with continuity issues.

However I've learned from watching Theus' work that things can and will change in your world building, its just inevitable, and thats completely fine. Its in fact healthy to redesign and constantly flesh out your original characters to further your world building abilities.

Another thing I have learned from Beast of Oblivion is the art of gradient colouring. I have always loved the colouring techniques that Allison uses in her art and would really like to learn the various blending techniques she uses in her work to utilise the work fully but its much easier said than done as I have always struggled with my blending techniques and colour theories.

For people who love creature, environment and world building design there really isn't a better person to follow. Allison is constant in her work flow and you'll never be short of new things to look at when you watch her work.

You can find BeastofOblivions profile HERE