Ruins with history

Gears of War style castle concept. Art test. Good times (c) 2012

Book covers

Sci-fi novels with my covers <3

Books by Kenneth Buff

Phidelphius Is Here

Phidelphius is here.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1534760601

Cover process:
http://wojtala.blogspot.com/2016/06/phidelphius.html

Phidelphius unboxing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzctlhh2FnY

Space Station Exploration

Today's Daily Deviation on DeviantArt:

http://m-wojtala.deviantart.com/art/Space-Station-Exploration-537019528

Marching off | steps

Since most of my work now is still NDA I wanted to share one of my older personal artworks (2012). Animated GIF should tell something about my creation process back then.

Phidelphius

Cover for "Phidelphius" - a sci-fi novel by Kenneth Buff.  www.kennethbuff.com/

Small work in progress steps tutorial:

1) Final sketch in sync with the script. I tend to be fast and bold here with opaque brushes. At this point I work with a few layers and in black and white. I add colors on adjustment layers few add/darken/lighten layer options and this time it is the best way to be able to easily change form and colors fast. Composition, size of elements and mood is most important here.

2) I separate the layers, create precise silhouettes and forms. I have the coloring layers available at any time. I decided to work on this in black and white for a longer time then usual.

3) Rendering, effects and post process. Some smaller changes, few iterations and you can see final artwork above.

Fortress Defense - step by step

Since most of my work now is NDA I wanted to share one of my older artworks (2014). I wanted to create an oldschool illustration, inspired by tech dwarfs idea. At that time I was mostly developing my workflow, let me tell you about it.

During one of short polish interviews after Gears of War: Judgment I was asked to draw a speed paint of a dwarf. The idea of tech dwarfs, interstellar miners stuck with me and I painted this quick artwork.

After some time I decided to develop the tech dwarf idea a little bit further. I did a round of sketches. I wanted it to be some kind of troop drop at first, but after a while I decided to make it a defense of a dwarf mining colony. Defense against bug's invasion. I can sketches in color but I do prefer black and white, I do love to work in grayscale.

After setting up composition I like to develop a basic color palette. I use adjustment layers and simply go where I feel is right. Also from time to time I do use a palette from (I recommend that - helps me to go out from my comfort zone): http://moviesincolor.com/

Also I remember I did a lot of sketches as a child. I found a few and one had a fortress defense with lasers piercing flying enemies. I was happy to use the idea after many years.

At that point I was learning Modo, and wanted to use it for base geometry. It was not very useful to be honest. I told you I was working on workflow?

It was time for rendering. I worked on design of the tank and dwarfs. I decided to make it a litlle bit cartoony and over the top. This one was for me so why not? I was not perfectly happy with but I wanted to end make it work. Main idea behind this was to develop tech dwarfs idea and workflow.

Fortress Defense -Tech Dwarfs, many hours later. At some point it is time to stop working one piece and start something new. Not super happy with this one but I have learned few things here.

If you have any feedback regarding this artwork or this small small tutorial please write here or directly to me.

Thanks, hope you like this.

MW

Merging with Shadow Realm | Shadow Warrior 2

Shadow Warrior 2 early production mood concept art. Japanese culture tweaked to represent changes occured by merging Earth with the Shadow Realm.

Shadow Warrior 2 is coming in 2016.

https://www.facebook.com/ShadowWarriorGame/
https://www.facebook.com/FlyingWildHog/

FIM Speedway Grand Prix 15 cover art

I was one of the artist creating FIM Speedway Grand Prix 15 cover art.

http://sgp15.com/   (game site)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r9DxMlU1zrk   (trailer)

http://store.steampowered.com/app/348820/   (game on Steam Store)

FIM Speedway Grand Prix 15
Tremendous power and no brakes! Experience the thrill of speedway! FIM Speedway Grand Prix 15 is the ultimate speedway simulator of all time. Produced under license by BSI Speedway Limited it brings real sport into video game. Show your skill and tactics in the fight for the title of World Champion in all events and stadiums of the Grand Prix 2015 season!

Tai Woffinden, Nicki Pedersen, Jaroslaw Hampel, Chris Holder… In FIM Speedway Grand Prix 15 you will find all the speedway stars from the current season and real Grand Prix stadiums with different surface types. Powerful, loud engines, high speed, tight shoulder-to-shoulder racing, cheering crowds, clouds of shale and dirt will accompany your road to victory in Grand Prix events - from Melbourne, through Cardiff, to Målilla in Sweden.

Buy and repair motorcycle parts, change settings, on the track search for paths with better grip to gain an advantage over your opponents. Dynamic real time commentary by Nigel Pearson and online multiplayer for up to 4 players!

Evil Fortress - Tutorial

A few words more about Evil Fortress.

I wanted to paint a snowy environment. At that point I was doing a lot of 20-50 minutes sketches. The majestic fortress sketch was my favorite. You can see some arrows and lines - I was thinking about focal points and path leading your eye, I had a plan.

At this early phase I still add elements and modify composition when I see fit. I used a lot of custom brushes and photo textures. It was something I was training at that point in time. I liked the environment getting more dark and moody.

I did like composition and overall feeling but I felt I can put more love in colors. I did a few color balance iterations, but the brightest idea was painting quickly the changing snowy evening outside my window. It helped me a lot to get the colors right. Plain air can be very useful.

After that it was just simple rendering. I used few new custom brushes, just to learn something new. Also I ended up with overpainting most of photo textures but I did like that. At some point I just stopped painting this Evil Fortress and decided to show it to the world.
I hope you liked this step by step. More to come soon.
Peace!

Art for The John Doe's Burial

Do you like Death Metal? My collegues from The John Doe's Burial used one of my artworks as a music video art. It is one of my older artworks after few modifications.

Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9nbwkIN2Ss

The John Doe's Burial Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tjdburial

Check the interesting way it was used. Artwork was cut into 3 layers (the foreground warrior, crowd and background) and animated by Andrzej Uszakow.  (https://www.facebook.com/andrzej.uszakow)

Maciej Wojtala | Facebook

Hello,

On my Facebook page you will find my artworks, art lessons, inspirations, project insights and work in progress steps. I will share and promote art, knowledge and experience here. Please don't hesitate to contact me, I do love to talk about projects and art, among other things. Peace!

https://www.facebook.com/wojtala/

Hell's Crows album art sketches

I am creating an album cover for heavy metal band called Hell's Crows!  I wanted to share few steps that helped us to get to the final cover, it is almost finished!

Expose 11

I am very happy to announce that my Marching Off artwork will be published in upcoming Expose 11 book. You can already preorder it on Amazon.

Spaceship Wreck Yard

I wanted to visualize the idea of an environment covered with old spaceship wrecks, being absorbed by nature and decaying for many years. Personal project.

- Spaceship Wreck Yard - its one of the popular themes for the environment concept and I wanted to create one of my own. I wanted it to be epic, beautiful and dangerous.

- Reference - I have spent few hours looking for inspirations, most of the wreck yards are dark and gloomy and not well defined. I wanted to create something opposite with nature, sun and lot of metal. I was strongly inspired by Uncharted series at that time.

- Sketches - soon I decided to make a vista piece, base my composition on few curves and layers of land and water. I sketched few ideas but eventually found the one I liked.

- Definition and colors - I used a few textures here and there, wanted to define as much as I can and create a coherent shape language,

- Detailing - I used a lot of custom brushes and a few more textures, I spent a lot of time defining everything, creating few color accents in important areas,

- Last touch - It's very important to be patient and develop it still even at the end. I had a lot of good feedback from my colleagues it helped a lot. I defined mountains more, made few areas less defined, made few areas less saturated and worked on color palette. Also I added a few bridges indicating human presence. At some point I just decided to stop.

It took a while but it was fun, I do liked detailing part a lot and I was glad with the finished piece. Hope you liked this step by step. More to come soon. Cheers!

Beneath Ceaseless Skies

If you like short fiction, you should definitely check the Beneath Ceaseless Skies magazine. Also, I am very happy to add, that the march issue has my "Marching off" illustration on the cover! :)

  Beneath Ceaseless Skies - issue-116 - March 2013

From editors of Beneath Ceaseless Skies:
"(...)We love traditional adventure fantasy, including classics from the pulp era and the new wave of post-Tolkien fantasy. But we also love how the recent influence of literary writing on fantasy short fiction has expanded the genre, allowing writers the freedom to use literary devices such as tight points-of-view, round characters, unreliable narrators, discontinuous narratives, and others. This sophisticated level of craft has made fantasy short fiction more powerful than ever before.(...)

Evil Fortress

The Evil Fortress ! I felt like creating dark and moody piece lately. The lack is sunlight the probable cause. Tried to get away from the blue color scheme. Hope you dig, cheers.

Below are the other color schemes I checked

 

Meat garden

Personal work. Had an idea of meat based vegetation that is feeding on the metal remains. The guy is just tending them. Started with a sketch I did long time ago  : [Nest Old]

cheers,

Night Archipelago

Personal work.