The Jaarl

Another race, same world

The Kuld

One of the creatures for the Sheildwall game I've been developing with a co-worker.

SharaHD.mov

Video sketch

I've gotten hooked on recording my painting sessions then converting to video. Here's one example, probly have some more to come.

too much stuff going on

So I just spent my free time of the last two weeks painting this. Now I hate it and I'm done with it. Too much going on visually for it to be coherent, and kinda missed the whole point of the painting actually. I wanted to really show off an interesting environment, but then I realized that the big fat starships would get lost if I didn't mute down everything and make it dull. Ugh. And I hate the colors too, but I just couldn't get it where I wanted it to be. Too saturated, too... disjointed. I guess I'm rusty - it's been a year since I posted anything. Annnd probably won't post anything new till 2013 at my current rate...

Fluffy

So these are a series of images I'm doing for a coworker at Pixar who's designing pewter game pieces.

Kaisa

This is the heroine from my latest story - Don't know if this one will make it to a sculpture or not.

Zak the Fly Hunter

Here's my latest sculpt concept. He's part of a group of interstellar small-game hunters. They like earth for its indigenous fly population.

Elrae redesigned

Since I did a painting of this character over a year ago, Jim and I have decided it would be a shame to do an octopus character without doing an attempt at bioilluminescance. After doing some tests with a blacklight and phosphorescent clay, I decided it was time to do a redesign with the latest and greatest ideas. The final sculpture will have UV lights in the base shining directly on the character, which will illuminate the patterns that were previously invisible across her body and tentacles. This sculpture is so complicated it will likely take months to complete - but hopefully the end result will be worth the effort.

Wing Born

Hey all - here are some images from my new story: Wing Born. Haven't gotten past the introduction yet- but hopefully I'll have some more time for writing soon. Plans are to make the novel much shorter than my last, and to have more illustrations throughout. (semi-graphic novel - perhaps an illustration every few pages). As you can see I'm experimenting with different styles, some which take more patience than others (the last image was made in illustrator ... oooi.... took forever. Not doing that again...) The top is clearly just painting over a sketch, while the other two are a rough paint on top of the first method. Let me know what you think.

An'Rejeah

This is from the first scene in the intro of my book. This is (hopefully) the first of a series of illustrations for the book - I'm gonna try to develop a rough and yet appealing style, which you can see some attempt at here (its more loose than I typically leave a painting.)

Aryah's design...

So, I already know that I'm going to get a little backlash for how much leg she's showing in this one. Keep in mind that this character is a dancer-performer from a culture that falls somewhere between Gypsy and Polynesian. The costume is still in flux, somewhat - so I might post a few variants later on.

Sucker

This creepy little guy is a genetically engineered janitor.

Elren's Fight ... which layout?

So obviously I can't decide how to crop this one. I think the middle one is the best composition - but unfortunately I'm a little too much a fan of that cool stuff I worked so hard to paint at the top. Sigh. Here's the story excerpt from chapter 5 of part 5 of my story:

Elren stood in a pool of light. Bits of dust sparkled like infinitesimal snowflakes as they glided lazily through the air. There was no sound but her own steady breathing as she waited.
Three blades stood around her: stabbed into the sandy ground of the arena...
Suddenly the sand beyond each blade rose up into mounds. The mounds began to take rudimentary form, arms and heads appearing and stretching out into the air. Dark holes opened where eyes should have been, while fingers sprouted from their wrists to form hands...All three of the earthen creatures drew their blades from the ground.
Elren’s blood rushed hot through her veins. Her fury filled her and gave her focus. She drew power out of her own body, sweet life and essence flowing from her fingertips into the blades in her hands.

Akkadaren River Delta

This comes from Chapter 6 of part five of my book. You'll notice the b\w iteration has a rather confusing composition. There's no areas of rest, so I tried on the later version to compose it with some areas of simplicity to balance out the crazy details in the other areas. (thanks for the suggestions, Angie) The character you see in the B\W version would have been nice to include, but I couldn't find a way to have her there without ruining the composition. there's already too much to draw the eye.

Bug

This is Ziksht'ri, an Anetha'Ryah (insectoid race) from my story. I'm either going to start work on this character or Elrae (below) as a sculpture. I'd also like people's opinions on which one they'd rather see as a maquette (thanks for everyone's opinion on the last!!). This character and Elrae's heads are sculpted and you can see them on www.jonmaque.blogspot.com

Concept for next sculpture...

This is the same character as before, Elraeynn, only a full figure version as a concept piece for creating a sculpture (www.jonmaque.blogspot.com) I'd like to get anyone's vote on which of the two costumes you like better. The one on top I like because it shows her gills (which open up under her ribcage), but the bottom one is a bit more sophisticated, which kindof matches her character. So either one works, what I'd like for feedback is everyone's opinion on which is more visually appealing. In the sculpture one of her tentacles will be touching the rock in the background, which is how I'll support her in the air. The challenge will be getting her to look like she's flowing through water - it'll take a lot of wire in the hair, the tentacles, and even wire mesh in the cloth to get it to fold properly. I'll put LEDs in her dual lamp, of course.

Mirel Terasireon

I tried to leave detail out of the shadows for this one. You'll notice how in the middle version the character and the background were in direct conflict - so in the final version I've pushed things back and tried to keep attention on the character's face. This painting was a study for a recent maquette I created. Everyone go to my sculpture blog and check out the final sculpture! www.jonmaque.blogspot.com

Ashley the Elf

Demo Reel

So. Here's the demo reel I made for pixar

A younger Ursula...?

Actually this is a character from my story, named Elraeynn. So the one on the bottom is the original painting, while the one on the top has some photoshopping done. which do you like better?

trunk

and yet another trunk. hmm - not much to say about this one.

knarly

Yet another foreground (and distant background) element for the BYU film Lion and the Mouse. I like the shapes and curves of this trunk, and I approached it a little different than some of my other images

more lion mouse

I wanted to go for a half-eaten tree trunk. Guess I should have used some reference, but we're trying to get these images out as fast as possible. Let me know if you like it.

lion and the mouse

This is one of many images I'm going to be painting to help spruce up Lion and the Mouse, an in-process traditionally animated BYU student film.