Migrate

Do be sure to check out my actual blog at: http://www.fishhookstudio.com

I am rarely able to update blogger....

Autumn

Finished this up the other day and thought I'd post it here too. It served as a warm up for a few mornings. I tend to forget that I need to take about a half hour to warm up before I start working for the day.

Also working on another image that I think I might make into a promo-poster. This was originally started for COW over on ConceptArt.org. I haven't participated with COW in so long!
Anyway, more work to come along with some exciting announcements in October and November! :)

Stride

These two images were created a while ago but they are in the current issue of Imagine FX magazine and can be seen in the Q&A section. I really loved creating these two paintings. It's an awesome creature design issue! Bobby Chiu created an excellent cover for it! You can check it out here --> Imagine FX - Issue 72

Also, I just found out that I am on the confirmed exhibitor list for Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! - A new fantasy art convention being held in Kansas City, May of next year! It should be really awesome and the list of exhibitors is pretty incredible. Needless to say, I have lots of work to get done before next Summer!

This is a work is progress. I help run an activity on CGhub called Creature Planets. It's a creature design activity and the current topic is to design a new mutant creature Villain for the TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle) Universe. I chose to create a Honey Badger chick! Excited to get her done - I think I might put together a tutorial for this image if I get the time.

Mars

New personal piece. I actually didn’t like the way this image started but it grew on me as I worked on it. I’m currently working on some new work to replace some of the images in my portfolio that I feel are “out of date”.

One of the images I was working on was this one, of a female space pilot. (Can you tell I’m trying to include more humans in my portfolio?) Anyway, this character is actually part of a private commission that sort of came to a halt a while back. I decided I’d use some of the prompts as a loose inspiration for some character studies. When I was fleshing out the costume for this character study I looked up X-Wing pilots from Star Wars for reference:

(© Lucas film)

I love this costume. It looks so simple. I mean, I’m pretty sure you could replicate this pretty easily at your local hardware store. It’s awesome and I think it points to a time in film where there weren’t massive budgets to be thrown around. At least the budget wasn’t the selling point of a movie anyway. It was about keeping it iconic. You immediately know what this is when you see it (assuming you’ve seen Star Wars). I think it’s a great reminder that, in design, the best solution is usually the simplest one.

Anyway, I’m not sure if I’ll finish the pilot or not. She was a good warm up but I think I’d like to explore more ideas about the costume and such…

Uppercase - Interview

 

A while back I was asked about answering interview questions about my project The Morae River for Uppercase Magazine. I agreed and to my surprise the Uppercase team was the Renegade Craft Fair, this last weekend in San Francisco. I was able to meet the team and see the magazines! It's an excellent publication, if I can say so myself. It's filled with inspiring, beautiful and quirky things and so I was honored (and completely surprised) that they'd want to have an article about my work. It all came together great!

 

Anyway, head down to your local magazine shop or visit Uppercase online and check out my interview in issue 10! The 10th issue had two covers - two adorable dogs in bow-ties! I suggest picking one up!

Special thanks to the team at Uppercase and Super Special thanks to Glen Dresser for contacting me about the interview and asking excellent questions! :)

Fireworks

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Here are two new beasties! I'll post more about them later when I get more info and such.

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I hope everyone (in the states at least) had a happy 4th of July! It was a great weekend for me. I was able to see family and sort of take a break from work. It was a good "re-charge" and I totally needed it. Excited to get back to work though. I have lot's planned for the next couple months!

The Girl on Fire

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This was sort of an experiment that turned into a finished piece. It's what I imagined Katniss Everdeen to look like from The Hunger Games series.

Books! And the ones I like!

The other day I got an email from a student asking about books that I use for reference/inspiration when it come to creature design and animals of the sort.  I actually get asked about books a lot so I thought I'd list some of my favorite books here in my blog in case you're interested in what I like to look at and read when it come to creatures.
Here are the books that I own:
Animal Anatomy for Artists: The Elements of Form
I've had this book for years and I turn to it almost daily. It's a very simple guide to bone and muscle structure to most mammalian forms.
The Art of Animal Drawing: Construction, Action Analysis, Caricature
I recently picked this up and I love it! This book is older and the drawings inside are mostly about form and action - drawing animals in motion.
Animals Real and Imagined
By one of my favorite creature artists, Terryl Whitlatch compiles her knowledge into a beautiful book! I've turned to this book for all sorts of anatomy questions. Not to mention its very inspiring to look through!
The Wildlife of Star Wars
Same as above, an inspiring collection of creature designs from the Star Wars movies.
The World of Kong
This book is gorgeous. I kept getting comments on The Morae River about how people were reminded of this book after looking through the project (I was incredibly flattered!) An inspiring collection of creature designs from the recent re-make of King Kong.
Creature
This was a gift and I never thought I'd really use it for reference. However, I look through it all the time! Especially for ideas on skin texture and facial expression.
Anatomy for the Artist
Not the traditional creature anatomy book but I love this human anatomy book. The artist handles the body so well and I love the overlays inside. It really helps to see the muscle structure of the animal that is most familiar to us! ;)
Wildlife Fact Files - I got these when I was a kid. I'm not sure if you can still subscribe to them or not. They offer some photos and interesting facts about animals. They aren't extensive but are good for quick reference.
The Encyclopedia of Animals
An amazing book FULL of images and illustrations! This book helps me so much!
The Audubon Field Guides
These are small quick field guides and while they don't offer a huge amount of photo reference they offer behavioral traits which is super important when designing creatures!
Here are also a few books that are on my "To Get" List:
Art Anatomy of Animals
Animal Drawing: Anatomy and Action for Artists
Prehistoric Life
Color and Light
When it comes to referencing animals, I also like to watch Nature Documentaries. Nothing really beats seeing the animal move around in it's natural habitat doing what it does. Here is a quick list of some documentaries that I find particularly helpful and have watched too many times:
Life of Mammals - available on NetFlix Instant Watch
The Blue Planet- available on NetFlix Instant Watch
YellowStone - available on NetFlix Instant Watch
Planet Earth
Life
Life of Birds - available on NetFlix Instant Watch
Human Planet
Of course, going to the zoo and museums helps tremendously! It's something I know I need to do more of too. In any case, I hope this list is informative for those of you who might be interested in creature design and animal illustration. If you know of any books that you like to reference or share, please comment! :)

Bear Face

Got this today: Another two Q&A's I did for Imagine FX magazine. These are always so much fun to create. It's such a pleasure working with the team at Future Publishing!
Here are the two illustrations I created:

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Been working on lots lately. I was also recently asked to do an interview about my work for a different magazine - I'll share more details on that later when I get the go ahead. Gearing up to start my new personal project soon as well. Really looking forward to focusing on some personal work. I've been working to round out the fantasy side of my portfolio lately too.
But for now, tea time! :)

Marmoset Warrior

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A new personal piece I finished up. I'll be updating my website with some new work soon but for now you can see new work here and on my facebook page - Brynn Metheney - Concept Art & Illustration on Facebook.
I also wanted to give a shout out to Chris Koehler! Chris is a freelance illustrator  and instructor who I met through college. I never had the joy of taking his website class but he is an awesome and inspiring dude! You can check out his work here: Chris Koehler Art and Illustration.

He recently featured me on his awesome blog along with some other incredibly talented people:
http://chriskoehler.com/blog/artist-spotlight-books/
The post is about books and FishHooks was featured. Check out the rest of the post to see some awesome work from the other artists! Big thanks Chris! :D