ShimmeringSword

Devastator 3D Sculpt

You all went so crazy for the Devastator sketch that I decided the 3D result needed to follow it up quickly. So here it is!

Sculpted by Alan Blackwell, as it often the case.

For some fun I've added my first illustration of this mech from 11 years ago.
I think I managed to make a bit of improvement haha.

Devastator Concept Sketch

Here's a BIG BOY. The Devastator.

While a bit of an odd pick, I was happy to work on this one as it's a design I'd been commissioned to illustrate maaaany years ago. Now I get to do a better job of it and make it official.

I'm curious though, does anyone here deploy this mech on the table?

Welcome Aboard Everyone!

The last two months I've seen a lot of people signing up. Seems you're all catching on to something haha.

Welcome everyone! I'm really appreciating the support, I've been able to not sweat my finances this year which is a big deal for an artist. Sometimes just the financial side of things can really kill artistic motivation when it's such a mental job.

I'd really like to break the $1000/mo mark by the end of this year if I can. That's what I was hoping for last year but things lev...

Firefly Concept Sketch

Here's a weird one. The Firefly.
Bit of a colaborative design between me and Bishop. He did a starting sketch, but by the time I'd applied initial feedback I'd changed so much and almost finished it, so I took the assignment over haha. (don't worry I still paid the man some)

Is there anyone that asked for this mech? :D

Cicada Concept Sketch

Here's one some might be looking forward to, the Cicada.

This design went through several stages of iteration and ended up being a very collaborative piece between Alan Blackwell and I to get it there. Of the final result the legs are mostly his work while the torso is mostly mine.

I really wanted the body shape of a real cicada pushed as it has been in some of the older art, particularly the CCG art, rather than going a super blocky route. Though some of that blockiness was manda...

IIC Crew

Here are some more IIC mechs. The Shadowhawk IIC, Phoenix Hawk IIC, and Griffin IIC. Hopefully most of you have seen either design sketches or lineart for all of them so far.
***Edit, ok the Shad IIC is a fresh reveal, enjoy!***
I'm way behind on posting 3D renders so I threw these in together.

-Shad design by Harri Kallio, sculpt by Alan Blackwell
-Phoenix design by me, sculpt by Jordan Cuffie
-Griffin design by me, sculpt by Eliza Gibbs

JagerMech Concept Sketch

It's time for the teenage Urbanmech evolution. JagerMech!

Hope you like stubby barrel iterations. I feel like the Rifleman and many other mechs deliver on long barreled autocannon/AA arm platforms, so the Jager needed to keep one of its unique elements.

Dakka dakka.

This one is free to post online, so go forth and enjoy!

Flying Butts

The underside of the Shilone was requested. I'll hopefully get around to a full render set on it, but here's the sketch angle for it. I didn't do one for the rear, just had Alan wing that one during modeling, though we made sure to not forget the rear firing SRM launcher.

Also have Vindicator, Firestarter, Assassin, and Ostroc butts.

Shilone Concept Sketch

Well, cat's finally out of the bag on this one. All wave two kickstarter shipments are coming with a Shilone miniature.

Here's the sketch I worked up for it.

This one is free to share around.

Caesar Concept Sketch

It's Pizza!Pizza!

Been sitting on this one from Bishop for a while, but we've got a model for it too at this point, so time to get to posting everything!

The Caesar came out looking really slick I think. Cataphract: sleek edition.
Final model also adds some tilt to the side torsos, so that old detail from the originals isn't totally lost.

What you think?

Vindicator 3D Sculpt

Here's the one you've all been asking for. You saw the sketch, now you get the 3D sculpt.
Chris Lowrey modeled this one, though I grabbed it and threw in some of my own tweaks too. Came out suuuper nice I think.

Now ya'll need to calm down with all your upcoming mech requests/predictions. If you keep throwing out every single mech name you're bound to be right most of the time haha.

The mood shot with the patreon link is free to repost (same goes for the Firestarter).
Enjoy!...

Firestarter 3D Sculpt

Here's a fun one, well, one where I tortured Alan Blackwell with another semi complex faceplate headed mech to model up. The body and legs also involve a fair bit of odd angles.

But the model came out great! Nice to see this one done after having it chopped from our redesign list in the kickstarter.

I posed it up in a nice warcrimes stance, ready to roast some infantry.

Longbow Prototype Painted

Chris Lowrey wanted to show off some of his excellent painting skills on the Longbow he modeled for the kickstarter. We're so close to everyone getting their hands on it, and everything else.
Keep in mind this is a prototype print Chris had made, not a final production plastic that has some differences.

Who's got this one on the way?

Making these images free to view and post around, as there's nothing particularly NDA about them.

Vindicator Concept Sketch

YOU'VE ALL BEEN ASKING FOR IT!

The shrieking had to be stopped, so here it is, the Vindicator :)

Just about everyone wanted their hand on this pie, so in my fair grace I did the kind thing and stole this puppy of a design assignment for myself haha.
I had a lot of fun working on it. Always thought it a rather ugly mech, but understood its utility and got more direct personal enjoyment from it while playing HBS Battletech.

Are the Capellans pleased?

Dervish Concept Sketch

I think someone asked for a Dervish. Here's a continuation of "I post all of Bishops art so that he stops bugging me" month. On that subject, for those wondering, all parties involved (except for a few patrons I believe) are happy with me posting design team assets, sometimes including stuff I didn't entirely do myself (I do direct and make hands on edits to everything). This is so guys like Bishop can engage with the fans over his work without having to wait for full release. No intent to mo...

Firestarter Concept Sketch

I have so many Bishop designs I could dump for you, and his enjoyment, but lets get one of mine in haha.

The Firestarter Omni briefly popped up in the Clan Invasion kickstarter if I recall, to some confusion from people wanting the OG model. Then some sadness as neither made the cut when all the substitution voting was done.

Well now it's time to give it a pass. I had plenty of good sources to pull from new and old. I think a lot of good points from the old art were never translat...

Vulcan Concept Sketch

This is one that needs to be shown off. Another Bishop passion piece. Though this one is very very up there in the "most designed by committee" list. 5 pairs of hands on.
-Ben handed in a concept.
-I dug up an older concept of his and gave feedback on that instead :D
-Ben did a combined revision of our favorite parts.
-I did further drawover revision.
-Showed the bosses the concept and old revisions, plus other sources.
-We get back a laundry list of mix and match requests D...

Hoplite Concept Sketch

Time for another weird mech, brought to you by Bishop.

Maybe he can say more about this one in the comments. I'll just say it's cursed :P

Big and Small

First up, welcome aboard all the new patrons that joined this month! Still trying to claw my way to that $1000/mo mark.

To knock a few render sets out at once I decided to do a little scale comparison between the Annihilator and Locust IIC. I'd teased the Anni model before, time to show it in full.

For this one I'm making the rear shot sharable, so if you want to show off some butts on FB/Insta/Twitter go for it! Tell em to pledge here to see the fronts :)

Kraken 3D Sculpt

Further settling into my new render setup. If I get the right HDR image and ensure the horizon isn't visible, I can still pull off those moody low angle shots. Can definitely use more improvement though.

Next test subject is the Kraken/Bane. Sculpted by Alan Blackwell and cleaned up by me.
Some may call it ugly, but I like it :)

The moody low angle shot can be shared publicly. The rest stay on Patreon please. Enjoy!

Assassin Render Testing

Finally got sat down to get a good render setup going. The new Arnold render software (replacing MentalRay) had a similar generic sun/sky option to what I used before, but it was clearly not as good in many ways. So instead I'm getting set up with an HDR globe.

Unfortunately there's no easy option with HDR scenes to instantly make the model look like it's sitting on the environments ground, all it does is hit your model with accurate lighting from the photo/scene. So no fancy big visual...

Locust IIC Concept Sketch

Here's a cute little mech designed by Marco Mazzoni, the Locust IIC.

Good ol mix of VMI, nuseen Locust, aaaaand pretty much none of the phoenix abomination haha.

So many lasers.

Kraken Concept Sketch

BIG BOI.
Or short boi, it's gonna be one of our shortest 100ton mechs, until it potentially gets the Bane 3 treatment.

This old design is so ugly, but I've always seen the potential in it, so it was fun to revamp.

Working legs!

Griffin IIC Concept Sketch

This redesign's lineart is already out in Recognition Guide #14, but I thought I better dump it as I know you all like seeing everything possible. More sketch stuff during the 3D render drought.

The VMI redesigns are always a lot of fun. We've got a highly stylized design with strong Japanese mecha vibes, with a consistent presentation. Then most of them already have a nuseen IS depiction. Finally we've got a project phoenix depiction.
It leaves a lot of room for picking the best par...

Assassin Concept Sketch

Ok, Bishop has been waiting all too patiently for people to see this piece of his haha. Maybe you sensed his pain through all the Assassin related art he's posted recently :D
And he did a good job of it, I made relatively few edits to this one before it was approved.

Who's looking forward to this one?

Computer Downtime

At the start of this month I accidentally broke the OS portion of my main computer drive and was forced to do a fresh windows and software install. Never a fun time when you're not intending it haha.
No work/art files were lost.

This came with some forced software upgrades, in particular I've been wrangling 3D setup issues, slowing down my work there, and having to re-set my rendering methods.
Soooo I haven't been able to make the 3D renders I planned to next for ye patrons.
Al...

Phoenix Hawk IIC Concept Sketch

Phew. That title is a doozy.

The Phoenix Hawk IIC is another one of those VMI mechs we're hitting where it's original depiction shows none of the weapons it carries. With that we've got some interesting choices to make. Break up the original core shapes to house weapons, or give it semi or fully extrenal weapons pods.

This one was tricky for that because it calls for both long UAC10 barrels sticking out the front, and long jump packs on the back of each side torso. I couldn't go w...

Jenner IIC Lineart

Here's the finished lineart result from Chris Lowrey. Channeling that original VMI angle and pose, just a little less extreme.

Now let's not think about where all those SRM reloads are stored :D

Jenner IIC 3D Renders

Once I saw this mech on the list of upcoming needed lineart (includes a lot of vmi / clan unseen) I was pretty excited.
Once the sketch was done we needed a sculpt before taking it to ink. Chris Lowrey was able to commit to both, so he worked up this great model.

Between the SRM exhausts and jumpjets, this mechs rear is made of vents :D

Jenner IIC Concept Sketch

The Jenner IIC is a mech I really enjoy, visually a much sleeker and high tech looking Jenner. It's one of my favorite mechs in MWO too. So I had fun working on this one. Didn't feel it needed any drastic changes.

Bring on the missiles.