Hellgate Environment

This "concept art" blog has been pretty heavy on the life drawing for a while, so I figured I should post some actual concept art.

It's not any new, shiny, hotness, but it's something.  A piece I did for Hellgate back in 2008 that I never posted:

Life Drawing: Portrait

Recent life drawing - 45 min portrait

Conté crayon on paper - (originally on drawn on white paper. Toned background and subtle white highlights added in PS)

Life Drawing: A few of my favorite ladies

Some quick portraits of a few of my favorite ladies (both as models and as people).

PORCELAIN

20 min life portrait - The original drawing is Conté crayon on paper (I added the wood texture later in PS):

VIRGINIA & ROBIN

10 min (each) life portraits - Conté crayon:

Life Drawing

30 min dual portrait - Conté crayon (stained paper texture added later in PS):

  
(Set of four) 1 min gestures - Conté crayon:

(Set of four) 2 min gestures - Conté crayon:

 

5 min & 10 min drawings - Conté crayon:

Life Drawing

Did this portrait last night (20 mins):
This one is from a few weeks ago (20 mins):

...and just a few 2 min gestures from the same session a couple weeks ago:

Lara Croft Concept Art

This is the final design of Lara Croft for Tomb Raider: Underworld. It's been a couple years since the game came out now and I realized I never posted it. There was lots more development for this character, but this is the final one we landed on. Maybe I'll post more of the development concepts I did later if anybody is interested.

New Facebook Page

Hey guys, I have a brand spanking new facebook "Artist" page. Please stop by and "like" it if you are so inclined.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Ben-Shafer/172369386153250

Life Drawings

Some figure drawings I did last week.


Conté crayon on paper.

Mancubus

My take on Mr. Fatty McDoom:

Unreal Tech Demo

Here is something I worked on recently. Congrats to the super talented mofos I work with at Epic Games on pushing what's possible in realtime rendering using the Unreal Engine! This is a little glimpse of the future of the game industry, showing the level of ingame graphics developers will hopefully be able to accomplish on the next generation of consoles. Check it out here:

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/debut-trailer-samaritan/711467

I designed the badguys and the hobo they are beating up, as well a bunch of the signage and some other random stuff.

...and here is a video in which IGN breaks down some of the new tech and features we implemented in the Unreal Engine if you are interested in that geeky stuff and want to know what's under the hood :)

http://www.ign.com/videos/2011/03/08/i...gn-rewind-theater-the-next-generation-of-graphics

Color keys

Well, I hit a year since my last post and I figure that's pretty unacceptable, so I dug up something old that I haven't posted before to keep the ol blog alive. Just a little color key series for Hellgate: Tokyo before Flagship Studios imploded. The idea here was to break up the monotonous, desaturated, dingy brown palette that dominated the original enviros with some more colorful areas and *gasp* some living plant life.

A couple environments for "Hellgate London"

Hellgate Things

Charcoal and black Prisma pencil on the top three. Digital for the bottom one.

Just another quick "Colors" painting on my ds

I did this quick little painting on my Nintendo ds when I was waiting for the coals to heat up on the bbq. Decided to share it, despite it's lack of coolness. :P

Watchworks

Lately I've been strangely fascinated by the inner workings of vintage watches. I came across a few antique watch movements a while ago and have since collected several more. I find the craftsmanship that went into those things really inspiring, so I selected my favorites, tacked them to my art table and did this series of drawings from them. (graphite on paper)

More Underworld Concepts

Here's another Underworld painting and a sketch for the Kraken (also tenderly referred to as "The Underpus" by fans on the TR forums)

Tomb Raider Underworld Drawings

Now that ' Tomb Raider: Underworld ' is out I can post some more development artwork I did for the project. Here is some concept art I did for the level taking place in Central America. These drawings are done with charcoal and prisma pencil on paper.

Tomb Raider, Spectrum, Gears

Well, it's about time I posted something again on this blog. I've got a few pieces of somewhat recent news that I thought I'd group together into a post.

Tomb Raider: Underworld has hit the shelves and is available on several platforms including Xbox 360 and PS3. You can pick it up where ever games are sold near you or on the trusty old internet:
www.amazon.com/Tomb-Raider-Underworld-Xbox-360/


.....oh, and if you play it, don't forget to find all the secret treasures hidden around the tombs so you can unlock the concept art galleries that come on the disc. ;)

Spectrum 15 has been published and features one of my pieces as a double page spread on the Table of Contents, as well as in the concept art section. There is tons of awesome art in the book this time around and I'm honored to be included next to all the amazing talent.





Gears of War 2 came out last month and while I didn't really work on it myself, I have to applaud my coworkers for doing a kick ass job making this title. Pick it up on 360, if you haven't already:

' Tomb Raider: Underworld ' Concept Art

Eidos just released some of my concept art for Tomb Raider: Underworld . Marketing will probably be doing periodic media drops leading up to the game's release later in the year. If they release more of my concept pieces I'll be sure to post 'em up here.

For more info on the upcoming Tomb Raider, as well as Lara's previous adventures ( including ' Tomb Raider: Anniversary ', which I worked on before Underworld ) visit:
www.tombraider.com