Bigass Sketch Dump

Daily sketches posted on Instagram (http://instagram.com/zachschoenbaum/)

Nerd Night

Every Sunday night I get together with some friends and run a paper and dice RPG. Now that the work for Welcome to the Freakshow is finished, I thought I'd create some quick digital illustrations for the game I'm running. While I get to explore and archive the different elements of the game, I also get to practice putting together images in a small amount of time.

This first one I actually did a few months ago, based on a vampire character I was playing in a game set in the dark ages.

   

Sometimes the NPCs in the game are described as though a familiar actor is playing them. This is Major Neeson. The game we're currently playing is a mix between X-Files and X-Men, so his character is sort of a mix between Professor X and Asst. Dir. Skinner.

 

This is Rip Torn cast as Jonah White, an ex-CIA psi-ops participant and occult scholar. The group rescued him from Alabama river pirates and now he assists them with their paranormal investigations.

 

This scene was made mostly with photocompositing rather than straight up illustration. It shows one of the group racing to rescue his teammate, who was tricked and ambushed by a vampire they were hunting. You can see his body being lifted above the edge of a corn field on the far right, the vampire's claws extending through his chest right before he dropped him, turned in a crow, and pecked out his eyes.

This is Harkin, the vampire they captured after the attack. He can turn into mist to escape most prisons, so a weaponized shop-vac and the ultra-durable air-tight container he is held in had to be used to capture him.

  

This last one is a creature created using some kind of nanotechnology the group hasn't fully investigated yet. Their drool glimmers with tiny specks of metal, and their bite transforms the victim into one of them. One of the player characters was bitten, but his ability to psychically connect to and control technology allowed him to assimilate the nanobots into his body rather than be transformed.

 

Not Losing

Last night I went to Red Engine's anniversary party and was awarded a scholarship for a free class! I entered the contest with this little guy:


I also checked out Andrew Hem's show at LeBasse in Culver City, which I highly recommend for anyone in the area to go see and be amazed.

And Now, Here's Some More Stuff

First off, here's a book cover I worked on for a non-existent author. He was pretty quiet, but I could tell that he really liked the illustration I came up with for his non-existent story:


Here's an oil painting I did for a show with The Upper 600s, a great creative collective that puts together some awesome art shows. Unfortunately this piece didn't sell, so if anyone is interested, shoot me an email:


And finally, here's some character design stuff from my Red Engine class:

Sukechi Sketch

Here are some character development sketches I've been working on for the Red Engine class:




And here are a couple of the environment thumbnail sketches from last week taken to the next stage of development:

And finally, here's a portrait study I did today. I gave myself one hour to finish:

Concept Sketches

Here's some more stuff I'm working on for the entertainment portfolio class I'm taking:

All Aboard!

Today I had my second week in a course I'm taking at Red Engine. The class is geared around creating a portfolio worth presenting to entertainment concept design studios. This is my first week's homework, creating ideation sketches for some monsters and and their slayers. I definitely recommend taking a class at Red Engine. The instructors can give each student an ample amount of time each week, they give awesome, direct, brutal (if need be) feedback, and their talent oozes out of the sides of the building like a scene from Ghostbusters II.

Experienced

I just finished a piece for ArtOrder's latest contest: The Ultimate Fighter Challenge. The prompt was to create a human fighter in the world of D&D, with bonus points for giving it a unique spin. I thought I'd go with an older fighter, battle-worn, who's lost his hand and replaced it with weaponry. At first I wanted to go with a more active pose, but in the end liked the quiet menace of stillness and dramatic lighting. I imagine this guy being able to tell war stories and drink all night, but still snap into battle mode when the tavern brawl inevitably explodes.

Goat Men

I've been trying to add more process and concept art to my portfolio, so I've started a few sets of character silhouettes. The idea is to play with the form of the character in as many ways as possible in a short amount of time, so the ideas can be discussed with a team or art director.

I've chosen to play with the idea of a satyr, faun, goat-man. One version is mostly human, another more monstrous, there's the standard hybrid, and the little frumpy guys.

Step-by-Step

This is a quick character concept I made today featuring a futuristic-James Bond bad girl-amazon:

AFK

The last month and a half appears to have snuck by me in my recent bout of activity. As I mentioned in my last post, I picked up a job doing illustration work for a facebook game. I have also picked up a couple other jobs, one for a fair-trade raw food company, and another for a local cat toy factory.

Unfortunately, this has not left me with much time to put towards personal projects, like many of the pieces featured on this blog. Both long-term projects will have to be put on hold, but I can still sneak in an hour here and there to work on short term proj-- Blah blah blah, I'm busy, you get the point.

So here is my latest project, a shot at character concept art for an air pirate.

Fox in Socks

This week I handled a freelance job designing t-shirts. I worked with the phrase "crazy like a fox", and drew some fox stuff and illustrated type.

This piece is one of the rejects, taken to the next level. The way I handled the stylization of the figure made it unsuitable for the demographic the t-shirt company was going for. However, I thought it was a good character concept, at least. So, after finishing the job I put in a few hours to polish up the drawing, and here are the results:



P.S. A special prize goes to the first person who can spot all the vulpine references in the costume.