Sketches and Doodles by Edwin Rhemrev

Pirate heads!

2009-10-27T13:39:00.000-07:00

As it had been a while since I posted some character stuff, here's some characterdevelopment for the pirate thing I'm still working on. I had alot of fun trying to push the shapes, and explore different stylizations and expressions.

I wanted to do at least 101 headsketches, but because I just can't stop playing Uncharted 2 (also the main reason it took me a week longer to do this update), you'll have to do it with only around 75 Pirate heads ok! :D

-Edwin

Pirate Sunset

2009-10-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Here's another image I did, which is actually the last shot of a small storyboard sequence I'm working on. I hope to be able to work on it some more this week, so stay tuned :)

-Edwin

Environment doodles

2009-10-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

Here are 3 environments I did this weekend, they took aprox. 3 to 4 hour each, done in Photoshop. They came out quite colorful, I had alot of fun trying to push the colorpallettes....I'm working on some more pirate-themed environments at the moment (read: I did some quick sketches on the train :P), so stay tuned :)

-Edwin

Waterfall

2009-09-21T13:20:00.000-07:00

I spend some more time fiddling with custom brushes in photoshop this weekend, above the result. Though I liked the trees I did in my previous painting (below), they were very graphic; so I thought I'd try to give the leafs and grasses in this painting a more softer feel.

As always, feedback much appreciated, thanx!

-Edwin

The Arrival

2009-09-09T13:41:00.001-07:00

Here's a painting I did for fun, to get myself acquainted with painting in photoshop instead of painter. I'm especially enjoying working with custom brushes, which in this painting are mostly visible in the trees. I really like the graphic effect it brings to painting, and ofcourse the simplicity of working with them :)

More photoshop experiments coming soon! :)

-Edwin

Children's Book - Environment Layouts

2009-08-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

And here are some of the thumbs i've been doing to visualize some story ideas for my project; they're not in any particular order, nor does it contain a complete story...story fragments at best:)

To broaden my horizon I'm also still trying to get the hang of painting in Photoshop instead of Painter, i'll post some of those results here aswell soon!.

Thanx for looking,
-Edwin

Children's Book - Character Doodles

2009-08-31T13:28:00.000-07:00

I finally had some time to scan in some of the stuff I've been working on. As a sideproject I'm currently developing a children's book, above some of the pensketches I did for some of the characters.

What i got sofar is a giant that doesn't really understand why his clothes don't fit him, a bunch of very 'handy' critters (my personal favourites), and the girl with the ponytails, which I took from my Wizard of Oz girl sketches.

Next up: environment doodles!

-Edwin

Darkness/Witchblade - Pencils

2009-08-08T00:56:00.000-07:00

Here's something a little different then usual. I used to really be into reading and drawing comicbooks, but as time passed by my interests shifted towards concept design and gamedevelopment. As I was cleaning my room last week, I came across a big cardboard box under my bed,filled with all the comics I used to collect.

I started re-reading quite alot of them, which inspired me to do the above illustration. It features the 2 maincharacters of 2 Topcow Comics; Witchblade and The Darkness. Apologies for making the Darklings (the little guys in the picture) look like minions, guess that comes with the job of working on Overlord 1 and 2 for the last couple of years :D

This illustration was done with a blue non col-erase pencil for the undersketch, with tight pencils done with a HB technical pencil. Papersize is A4, which was big enough for this nostalgic piece of fanart :P

I also have a colored version coming up, aswell as a batch of story thumbnails I've been working on, but more on that later this week. :)

-Edwin

Pirates!

2009-07-19T07:25:00.000-07:00

Quick Color Pencil
Here's the Pirate Parade I mentioned earlier, which was alot of fun to do! I can't find the time to color the whole thing, but I did slap on some basic colors to pop out the silhouets. Focus was to do a piece with some more movement and dynamic poses, less about characterdesign....looking at it now, I probably shoud've pushed the Pirate theme much more. Oh well. :)

I also have a photo of a work in progress version, but it's on my camera at work, I'll post that on monday. Now I'm off to play Little Big Planet again.....:D

-Edwin

EDIT 31/08/2009: Better late then never, here's the WIP photo of this illustration:
Happy now, Nick? :P

Wizard of Oz: Dorothy

2009-07-14T13:22:00.001-07:00

And here are the thumbs for Dorothy!

Designing Dorothy proved to be quite challenging aswell, as you end up with 'just some random kid' quite easily. I eventually stumbled upon the pigtails to the side, which creates a strong silhouet and gives her attitude at the same time. I'm already looking forward to exploring her facial expressions and gestures :)

Only 1 character left of the main cast (Lion), but I'll have to dig through some reference before I ca start that character, so I"ll get back to you on that one :)

On another note:
I've also almost finished another 'parade' drawing (similar to my previous 'Witch Parade' and 'Circus Parade'), featuring alot of pirates. And monkeys. And even more pirates!:D
I hope to have that up here in a few days aswell! :)

Soooo, staaay tuunneed! :D

-Edwin

Wizard of Oz: Tin Man

2009-07-14T13:05:00.001-07:00

I spent the weekend at my parents place,and got to work on my personal Wizard of Oz project some more. Above the thumbnails for Tin Man, which is such a great character to explore! A big inspiration was the Blue Sky Studios movie 'Robots', for those who haven't seen it, go watch it now! :)

I tried to keep Tinman's face as human as possible (except for the TV head :P), so it'll allow for a wide range of expressions.

After I've finished thumbnailing all characters, I'll probably start doing studies of expressions and gestures. I'll post Dorothy in a few minutes!

Wizard of Oz: Scarecrow

2009-07-08T12:58:00.000-07:00

To keep myself occupied on the trainrides to work, I gave myself the assignment to redesign the characters of 'The Wizard of Oz'. Above some of the sketches I did sofar for ScareCrow.

As with the lifesketches, I used a 0.2 inkpen, and Photoshop for the digital color. Drawing with pens somehow streamlines my thoughprocess better, and forces me to think better about what I want to get on paper. If you're an artist, you should defenitely give it a try sometime!

Thanx to my collegue Gilles for making me switch to pens again :) Check out his blog at http://gillesketting.blogspot.com/, he'll appreciate it!

More stuff coming soon!

-Edwin

Bird Woman

2009-06-21T14:18:00.000-07:00

Pencil sketch:
Here's something I did last week, sketch done in pencil, colors with Painter IX. I'll post up the sketch tomorrow ok!

Update 22/06: And here's the pencilsketch! :) As I've been doing more often lately, I've used a blue 'col erase' Sanford pencil to do the initial sketch, and did the tighter pencilsketch on top of this. The blue I filtered out in photoshop, leaving the pencilsketch as shown above.

More stuff coming soon!

-Edwin

Gameville - Triumph Studios Tour

2009-06-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Any of you ever heard of 'GameVille'? I hadn't actually, not before this dutch gameprogram showed up at our studio, putting together a featurette on Triumph Studios. :) Me and some of my collegues get interviewed, it's shows my workspace (above) and some closeups of my artwork (Gameplaysketches / Overlord thumbnails / Elf / Blue evil Overlord). :P

It aired this afternoon on RTL 4, but I forgot to watch it.....doh! Long live the wonderful world of internet TV! Check out my ugly mug at

http://www.rtl.nl/components/games/gameville/index_video.xml (Episode 9, skip to 7th minute or so)

It's in dutch though, but it should give a good impression of the studio nonetheless :)

And now, back to things that DO matter, more art! :D

-Edwin

2009-06-01T09:27:00.000-07:00

Initial Layouts:

Here's a cover illustration I did for the dutch comicmagazine 'Paper'.
(Check out their site at http://www.brabantstrip.be/brabantstrip/peper/peper.htm ) .
The idea behind the cover was to display the 'joy of reading comics'. I did 2 quick layouts, the more dynamic one was chosen (yay!).

Because I didn't really like my last color experiment (Sultan, below), I tried to come up with a more traditional look (though still done digitally, I need my CNTRL-Z!). I ended up doing almost everything with the Chalk Tool in Painter IX, which gave it a nice and gritty look.

More stuff coming soon!

-Edwin

Just like old times....

2009-05-26T13:35:00.000-07:00

I sat across this rather old lady in the train today, who was carefully putting on her makeup....which sparked the idea for this doodle :)

-Edwin

Sultan Squasher

2009-05-22T10:46:00.000-07:00

Above the sketches and final color illustration I did just for fun, after browsing a bit through my Aladdin Artbook. :)

I started with the small inset illustration of the sultan trying to squash the little bug, which sparked the idea for the final illustration; the sultan about to be squashed by a dinososaur-type being :P

About the process:
Last week I've made the decicion not to do anything directly digital anymore, but instead first come up with a solid design and linedrawing on paper first.

Therefore, I've been fiddling with the process of first using a non-repro blue col-erase pencil to sketch things out, and tighten things up with a normal grey HB lead. It has it's pro's and cons, but the big advantage is that I tend to work much faster, and seem to be able to streamline my designprocess better.

Coloring was done in photoshop, which had been a while since I last did this. Normally I paint directly over a sketch with Corel Painter IX, and don't leave any the lineart intact.

Similar stuff coming up soon! :)

-Edwin

Subway Sketches

2009-05-17T10:10:00.001-07:00

Here's a collage of some of the pensketches I've been doing on my way to work lately, trying to capture the wide arrange of people I see on the train, subway and tram.

I started 'subway sketching' after stumbling into the blog of Bobby Chiu and his Toronto sketchgroup, check it out sometime, inspiration guaranteed! :)

Their blog: http://bobbychiusubwaysketchgroup.blogspot.com/

As always, feedback much appreciated :)

-Edwin

Witches on the move!

2009-04-28T11:48:00.000-07:00

I've been reading 'The Witches' of Roald Dahl lately, which inspired me to draw up these witches on the move, enjoy! :)

More stuff coming soon!
-Edwin

Back Online!

2009-04-24T16:21:00.000-07:00

Just a quick update to let you guys know that I finally managed to switch providers and put all older JPGS back online, so no more invisible pictures on my blog, yay! :)

Also, if you want to contact me please use edwin@rhemrev.com again, thanx!

More pencilart coming soon!
-Edwin

Circus Parade!

2009-04-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm currently not getting as much personal work done as I would like to, due to crunchtime at work and my wrist acting up again.

But, today was a good day, above sketch was the result. It's a sketch that started out as a scribble in front of the tv, and ended up being the rather weird parade as it is :)

More happy news: I made it through the first round with my DominanceWar Entry, YAY! :D

My characterdesign came out 7th (out of 97), with the first 8 entries progressing on to the next round (I only barely made it, I know, but that what makes it so cool! :D). Check all finalists here: http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/dw/4/mini1/en.php

I'm also still working on the Main Challenge, for which I hope to have some updated characterdesign sketches for my Giant soon.

-Edwin

Robot Sketches

2009-04-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

Some sketches I did after playing Ratchet and Clank on the PS3, check out this excellent game if you have the time, the characterdesigns alone are worth a playthrough! :)

Dominance Wars IV Update

2009-03-23T14:15:00.000-07:00

Hey guys, here's quick update on things.

I've currently started work on the Main Challenge for Dominance Wars, check my thread and development sketches here:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=282&t=742526

Some development sketches:

I'm also still struggling to switch providers, which I hope to have sorted out within a week (which would mean all images in my blog will be visible again.)

Important: those wanting to contact me can email me at erhemr@hotmail.com , my only email currently still working! *sigh*

-Edwin

Dominance Wars IV!

2009-03-02T12:20:00.000-08:00

I'm currently participating in one of the biggest online artcontests on the internet called 'Dominance Wars IV', below my entry for their warm-up 2D Challenge. The assignment was to create a 'Warcommander portrait', so I came up with 'Junior'.:D

The backstory behind the character is that he's quite a bad-ass on the battlefield, but has a softspot for his mother, and carries her photo everywhere. :P I added a cheesy frame to my entry to add to the backstory, as the frame might sit on his mother's nightstand or something :P
The frame was a bit of a rushjob, but considering the deadline I'm still happy the way it turned out :)

For an overview of the competetion, please visit http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/view_entries_cgsociety_2d_1.html
My entry and votingpage can be found at http://www.gameartisans.org/contests/minis/finals_cgsociety_2d_1538.html

Voting starts March 6th, all votes are much appreciated! :p

-Edwin

Spidey, Ninja-bunnies and more....

2009-02-10T12:52:00.000-08:00

I spend a very relaxing weekend at my parents place this weekend, and did quite alot of sketching. I mainly focused on trying to come up with cool and dynamic poses, and what better to draw then snake-squishing girls, spideys and samourai bunnies! :D

-Edwin