Matt Kohr's SketchBlog

BLOG HAS MOVED!

2010-11-06T14:59:00.003-04:00

I've moved my blog to a new location, so please go here for future updates!

Also, if you're a beginner digital painter, I've got a brand new site in the works. Stay tuned.....

Teapot

2010-10-12T11:15:00.000-04:00

Oats

2010-09-22T00:30:00.004-04:00

garlic

2010-09-13T09:51:00.001-04:00

Sport bike concept

2010-07-25T09:09:00.002-04:00

"Despicable Me: the game" concept art

2010-07-16T12:58:00.006-04:00

At vicious cycle I've had the pleasure of working on the video game adaptation of the recent animated movie "Despicable Me". It's got a really great art style, and designing environments and props to match was very fun. Here are some of my pieces:

my home studio

2010-07-09T23:57:00.003-04:00

I've been piecing together a home studio space for a while now, and it's finally taken shape in the last few weeks. Though it's not the prettiest furniture in the world, it fits my needs perfectly. I designed and built the desk, and cobbled together a particularly custom input keyboard for photoshop. The entire setup is built to have my Cintiq display at standing height; creating an experience reminiscent of drawing at an easel.

captain of the sky pirates (work in progress)

2010-07-08T13:28:00.003-04:00

This is for the conceptart.org weekly character challenge. I'm going to update as I come to my final image this weekend.

star wars fan art

2010-06-24T06:59:00.003-04:00

space marine!

2010-06-23T20:01:00.002-04:00

15th century german swordsman character

2010-06-23T19:57:00.003-04:00

fantasy characters

2010-06-23T19:54:00.001-04:00

skull, etc.

2010-06-23T19:48:00.003-04:00

Mushroom forest

2010-06-23T19:46:00.003-04:00

dragon trainer

2010-06-23T19:44:00.002-04:00

WoW fan art

2010-06-23T19:41:00.000-04:00

more quickies

2010-06-23T19:39:00.002-04:00

fairy cave

2010-06-23T19:38:00.003-04:00

oncoming storm

2010-06-23T19:36:00.003-04:00

bust study

2010-06-23T19:29:00.003-04:00

more studies

2010-06-23T16:48:00.001-04:00

2010-06-23T16:45:00.000-04:00

brush test

2010-06-23T16:44:00.000-04:00

a quick test with some new custom brushes.

Back from the dead

2010-06-23T16:41:00.001-04:00

it's been a really long time... I'm trying to catch up with the blog! enjoy.

Jamie Salmon Study

2009-07-24T00:11:00.002-04:00

This painting is based off of a sculpture from the avatar sculpture works.

Final shell valley

2009-07-20T23:22:00.002-04:00

I got a chance to finish this one up tonight. I just got Fable II for the xbox360, and it's very pretty! It's pretty inspirational for colors and mood.

Shell Canyon

2009-07-15T00:17:00.002-04:00

I know it's been a while - but I'm doing more personal art now, so expect to see some updates in the future :)

I'm still working on this one -- it needs some more rendering and a color pass. I'm loving alias sketchbook pro -- great for linework!

more work on the hover bike project

2009-02-07T20:27:00.001-05:00

My hope is to make this series into a fake game pitch --- create enough paintings to fully visualize the game. It will include HUD, menu system, fake screenshots -- the works. Now I just need to come up with a name....

Hover bike

2009-02-01T23:32:00.001-05:00

I'm starting a personal project -- there should be more stuff like this coming along soon.

Big robot!

2009-01-21T19:51:00.003-05:00

I loved to play battletech when I was younger. Here is a painting inspired by the awesome game.

space ship - WIP

2009-01-05T22:30:00.002-05:00

I'm going to do the instrument panel and cockpit interior when I finish up the outside. I'm envisioning this to be a racing spaceship... I'll probably put decals and ads on it like an indycar would have.

Christmas gifts

2009-01-01T20:55:00.000-05:00

These are some winter scenes based on my experience with Ohio in the winter. I live in North Carolina now and the winter is different - but these were paintings for family Christmas presents.

legs

2008-12-22T21:12:00.000-05:00

some legs without reference. this is a test to see if i remember my studies from yesterday!

Skull study

2008-12-22T18:56:00.002-05:00

Drawn from a photo

bridgman studies

2008-12-21T21:48:00.001-05:00

time to start the anatomy grind

william whitaker study

2008-12-21T02:02:00.002-05:00

I gave this one about an hour and a half. Whitaker knows how to paint....I'll probably be doing some more studies of his work at some point.

Cintiq!

2008-12-17T00:11:00.002-05:00

It's been way too long since I've posted personal work. The main reason for this is being busy at work, but I'm going to change my habits. Today my Cintiq (21UX) came in the mail, and I have been painting the evening away. Actually, I spent quite a bit of time downloading and installing the photoshop trial - but I did get a few studies done.

This took about 1 hour. Note the line drawing --- way better than my tablet pc was letting me draw!

2008-06-21T20:35:00.002-04:00

Three posts in a single day is a lot. This will probably be the only time it happens. I'm getting excited about work, and have been studying up as a result! Here are some eyeballs. studies done from a book called "The artist's complete guide to drawing the head".

more studies

2008-06-21T13:35:00.003-04:00

some more vilppu

Some studies

2008-06-21T13:00:00.002-04:00

Here are some loomis and vilppu studies!

live from North Carolina!

2008-06-20T21:32:00.002-04:00

Well I'm all moved in now. From here on forward I'll be posting from chapel hill NC! Things have started to settle down and I've gotten some drawing time. Here are some space girls. They are about one hour each - maybe a little more.

more brush testing

2008-06-06T21:01:00.004-04:00

The idea of this sketch was to mimic a natural media process with my new brushes. This was created in about an hour. First I drew it with my "vine charcoal" brush. After the under-drawing was in place, I glazed over top with a jagged round brush, and then painted opaques with my acrylic flat. These three worked together to create natural looking texture and mark variation without any sort of overlay at the end. I'm happy with the way they are feeling, and will add a couple more soon.

In other news, I just got a job working for Vicious Cycle and will be moving to Chapel Hill NC on Monday. I graduated SCAD last Saturday, and am looking forward to life in a new town! Because of the move, I'm not sue how much I will be posting in the next week or so.

New photoshop brush

2008-06-05T17:26:00.004-04:00

I've decided it's finally time to make my own brushes in photoshop. I've been using brushes made by other artists until this point, primarily out of laziness. My goal is to create a pack of brushes (10-25?) that will totally replace the current ones I use. I've made two so far, a flat brush based off of my acrylic brush, and this one based off of vine charcoal. This image was drawn in 30 minutes to test it out. I'm really happy with the way it feels - it's a lot like drawing in charcoal! The core brushes I'm working on will be based off of traditional materials, and then I'll be making some abstract texture brushes. When they're all finished I'll be posting them up to download. Stay tuned!

game career guide art contest

2008-05-21T12:29:00.001-04:00

"Create an original piece of art in any medium that conveys the following ideas: a future career in video game development, programming, art, game design, music/sound. The image should be appealing to someone who is ready to start their career or education in video game development, and it should empower them to reach their goal. "

Because concept artist is the coolest job in the world, it was the natural choice :)

control pod idea

2008-05-20T12:48:00.003-04:00

I was thinking about the pods in Eve online - the escape vessel that you fly around in once your big ship has been blown up. I was considering a similar senario (on earth - not in space) where the player has a garage full of parts that they can snap together around a common control pod. This would allow all different sorts of vehicles to be created, each controlled from the same sort of interface. Anyway, here's my sketches so far, I plan on detailing them out when I have a little more time.

back in painter

2008-05-12T13:30:00.001-04:00

one more - 50 min

2008-05-06T09:48:00.002-04:00

Busts - more studies

2008-05-06T08:52:00.002-04:00

I'm working on lighting and facial structure, so busts seem like the right way to go. Here are the first two. I'm realizing more and more that I work better on my Tablet PC (Fujitsu T4215) than on the school Cintiqs. Anyway, more to come.

lighting study #2

2008-04-28T13:57:00.001-04:00

more practice...

2008-04-28T11:53:00.002-04:00

big door WIP

2008-04-25T15:05:00.002-04:00

Here's a sci-fi door I'm working on... it still needs definition and probably a color / texture pass.

Light study #1

2008-04-23T13:00:00.002-04:00

I'm planning to do a number of lighting studies. They will be done from photographs at some point, but for the sake of simplicity the first will be done from computer renders. Here is my first one - which deals with bounce light from an outdoor source. I also added some objects in the scene to make it my own - check out the progression for yourself!

Industrial Design of the Week #68 W.I.P.

2008-04-21T22:04:00.004-04:00

Today I've been working on a weekly challenge put on by www.conceptart.org. The brief is as follows:

Brief:
1. Design and draw a Timber Harvester!
2. It must be able to cut down the trees and process them up to a certain point, so that it can be transported.
2. That's it... now draw!

I've included some process shots -- the colored image is not finished -- there will be two wood harvesting devices on the ends of the arms, as well as other details and a bottom view. This is all I could get to today.

Snake tracker

2008-04-17T19:58:00.002-04:00

This is still in process, but probably close to being finished.

Sometimes they just need one more day..

2008-04-08T23:39:00.004-04:00

I was encouraged to polish the painting from Sunday to a better state of finish. Here are the results -- before / after

Sunday painting

2008-04-07T10:44:00.003-04:00

More paintings

2008-04-07T10:39:00.002-04:00

I forgot to post these when I made them over spring break.

Dominance War Finished!

2008-04-07T10:34:00.004-04:00

Here are my completed images for the competition. With over 1,000 other 2D entries, it'll be interesting to see how I rank up....

Dominance War Progress

2008-02-25T17:32:00.005-05:00

I just got back from GDC and have not had a lot of time to work. Now I have to get to my actual homework, but I'm excited to do a full illustration of this character.

Dominance War III

2008-02-18T10:09:00.003-05:00

Yesterday was the beginning of Dominance War III, which is an annual game art competition. I'm on the GameArtisans team. The prompt can be seen in full detail here, but in short it's a fantasy warrior/mage design. Here are my thumbnails and character roughs. Here's what that means for my process:

1)thumbnailing - rough small drawings in photoshop - prodominantly black.

2)thumbnail variations -- I find one that I like and make a bunch of copies. From here, I alter it until I find one that I like.

3)character rough -- I take my favorite little image from the last stage, enlarge it, and fill it with more details. At this point I'm trying to think about form, mass, and materials. Still very loose and painterly.

Mini-Comic cover

2008-02-01T12:06:00.001-05:00

I'm in a mini-comics class right now, and our first assignment was to make a portfolio book of recent work. The actual goal for the project was to practice reproducing and binding books, but it needed content as well. Anyway, the night before it was due I remembered I needed a cover -- so here's what I came up with.

There are no space marines in the entire comic... in fact, it's not really even a comic at all. I had a laugh making the cover though.

Robot

2008-02-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

I took an hour and a half last night to stop everything else and paint. It was great! I even got out my technical pens and some real paper for the occasion. This robot is what came out of it... it feels good to get back into personal work again.

More environment ideation

2008-02-01T11:52:00.001-05:00

For these thumbnails, I grabbed a bunch of cool looking photos and texture images. I cobbled them together with perspective in mind, and did a tiny bit of painting on top. I'm pretty happy with the potential of this method -- it expands my mental library of shapes and materials.

I will probably take the third image to completion (yes, color).

Environment Ideation

2008-02-01T11:49:00.000-05:00

I'm working on new methods of building environment paintings. For these two, I made quick abstract cubes in sketchup, and then did a paint-over. Maybe I'll make them full illustrations later? I need to find more free time to make personal art...

Robot Turnaround

2008-02-01T11:43:00.000-05:00

Here is a robot turnaround for practice - I'm working on making character sheets without any linework. The inspiration came from those guys at Massive Black... they really know how to paint.... Anyway, hopefully I''ll do more like this when I find some time.

Engine Room

2008-02-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

Yikes! It's been a long time since I posted. Thank you Ross for your encouragement -- here is an engine room plus material samples. Sketchup is a great tool for quick paint-overs!

project TANK- some concept work

2007-11-03T10:55:00.000-04:00

Here's some stuff I've been working on for a game called TANK.

Monsters for the cave

2007-10-24T22:50:00.000-04:00

Here are two monsters to do battle with. More for Cowboy Cave. Also, I launched my new gallery site today --- check it out if you get a chance!

www.mattkohr.com

Collaborative sketch jam

2007-10-20T10:19:00.000-04:00

Last night some school friends and I did some collaborative drawing. We worked in 20 minute rotations before trading images. Here is my favorite image that came out of my portion:

More skin rendering practice

2007-10-15T22:26:00.000-04:00

This is a Loomis study, in my continuing skin practice. 1.5 hours on this one.

Lighting / Rendering practice

2007-10-14T15:19:00.000-04:00

Just working on skin. It's a hard thing to render, and I need to practice. Potentially some still lifes coming up soon... we'll see.

2007-10-12T12:15:00.000-04:00

The cave where the cowboy goes...

2007-10-11T19:09:00.001-04:00

Today i was experimenting with texture.

2007-10-10T22:50:00.000-04:00

Here's a painting I've been working on this week. Loading docks in the morning.

Our hero...

2007-10-09T17:24:00.000-04:00

Here is the hero of the game. He's a mechanic and a gunslinger.

Cowboy guns!

2007-10-09T17:19:00.000-04:00

I'm working on a school Project called "Cowboy Cave". It's got steampunk and cowboys -- and takes place in a cave. Here are some guns I drew today:

A blank slate

2007-10-08T17:32:00.000-04:00

This is my sketchblog where I will be showing some of my daily scribbling. Some will be more finished than others. Stay tuned!