The Concrete Schedule of 2014

      Well then, long time no post.  It occurred to me this last year that I've not made use of this blog as well as I'd hoped I would.  I believe part of the reason for this is that I was not operating with any sort of definite schedule.
      That's why this year, as part of an ongoing effort to add a bit more structure to my life, I'll be making an effort to update this blog every Friday afternoon with that week's sketches and rough works.

      So in this, 2014's inaugural post, I'll be covering a bit of ground from last semester.  This last Fall semester was a very busy, hectic time for me, and as such I produced very few finished pieces of artwork, but rather produced quite a few sketches and smaller works.

      First up is a rough version of one of several sketch cards I'd been working on back in early November.  Just playing around with the pose, really; trying to convey Reina's physicality and affinity for bladed weapons.

      I've also been playing around with how I want firearms to look in Novus Imperium.  Here I was going for very geometric styling, with a simplified profile.  Simplification of designs has been an emphasis for me in the last few months.  By forcing myself to use less detail, I must put greater thought into how that detail is used.

      Here's two lunatics I hadn't drawn in quite a while.  On the left is Gray, and on the right is Phoebe, two of Reina's former squadmates.  These two and Reina all received the same augmentations and alterations.  Phoebe has adjusted well, and is a masterful tactician.  Gray on the other hand is extremely volatile, but is far too valuable of an asset to dismiss.

      Speaking of augmentations, here's an orthographic that I'd done, trying to both iron out Reina's proportions as well as the attachment points for her prosthetics and the positioning of the various dataports throughout her body.

      While considering the possibility of a Novus Imperium comic/graphic novel, I sketched out a couple ideas for splash-page type images.  This one is compositionally very much inspired by Shirow Masamune's artwork in The Ghost in the Shell.

      This is the first of two more-finished works that I'd never previously posted.  I'm quite happy with how the pose and the flow of the image turned out.  Of course, as soon as I'd worked this up I went and began making significant changes to the look of Reina's armor (the topic of a future post, perhaps?).

      And the second more-finished work.  While it's not "abstract" in the traditional sense, it was a very enjoyable stylistic study.

So that's what I've got at the moment.  As I'd mentioned at the beginning of this post, you can expect to see more next Friday.  Here's hoping for a much more productive year than the last.

Cheers,
Geoff