Ranarh's sketchbook

[Ranarh]

As of 3rd September 2016, my new sketchbook thread is here: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/sho...etchbook-Vol-2

I'll post sketches and speedpaintings here, in pencils, digital, and whatever comes up along the way. I hope to motivate myself to sketch more this way.

[Ranarh]

My current sketchbook is A4 sized and too daunting with its huge empty pages, so I aim to fill it quickly and get a smaller one. Lately I've sketched all sorts of animals as preparation for designing some fantasy creatures.










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Mount for my world Genius Loci. Part gazelle, part giraffe, part greyhound. Really fast, too.



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Testing a new set of watercolour grunge brushes I found online.



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Sketches I did recently for a game; the themes were rogues and elementals.

[Ranarh]

Barely a speedpainting, more a coloured sketch, of one of the flying ships of my setting. Damn difficult to figure out ship hulls in perspective.

[Misty Feather]

Beautiful start! Lovely, just lovely!

Now keep at it! Fight past the stars! WHEEE!

[Ranarh]

Thanks! I will!

Another speedpainting for Genius Loci. Check out my world Genius Loci in my worldbuilding blog starmakersgaze.blogspot.com

[Ranarh]

There're a lot of magical signs and symbols in my world; here are some designs of them. Some look like skin issues or bruises, or leave strong after images, depending on how bad the thing they symbolize.

[Misty Feather]

Woww, lots more gorgeous work. Really like your concepts.

[Ranarh]

Thanks again, I like doing design work aside of illustration, it's very relaxing.

Landscape concept for my world Genius Loci. Standing stones are sort of important, and I love painting those mounts (they're called vempons).

[Ranarh]

"I should have waited for the others..."

[Misty Feather]

Oooo, interesting enviroos.

[Ranarh]

I was trying out a few methods to create lens flares without using the dreaded filter. The filter isn't even half bad, but so recognizable.
It turns out the satin layer effect provides interesting results, by creating a soft stroke around shapes, and the rectangular to polar filter by making rings from gradients.

[Misty Feather]

Stunning. I mean, what's a planet without a little lens flare action!? Keep it coming!

[Prawn]

Those planets and space scenes look amazing you should consider doing a tutorial on that.

[Ranarh]

Thank you!
Well, these are very sketchy, I could have spend some more hours on details and planet textures. I do plan to create a tutorial on lens flares as I couldn't find any decent ones. As for planets, I found the wonderfully detailed tutorial by Alyn (justalyn.co.uk) so useful I won't make my own.

[Ranarh]

This is a concept sketch for an airship idea. Plants gathering lighter-than-air gases lift a living quarters construct that's as light as can be. They can barely be steered and are difficult to maintain, but I wanted to have more than one kind of airship in my setting.

[Ranarh]

An elven apothecary from my world Genius Loci. I'm inching my way towards more confident brushstrokes.

[Ranarh]

Some concepts for Genius Loci: In the desert where people use gliders to get around, they build spires into the flat land to start from.

[Misty Feather]

Wow, great work! I agree-- You are getting more confident! I think you could have pushed that elf even further. You're on the right track!

[Ranarh]

Thanks! It was kind of the point to stop early though. But next time.


Susanna is a character of mine from a sci-fi setting. I depicted her magical and psionic abilites by surrounding her head and hands with fractals.

[Misty Feather]

I love fractals, and I love the way you incorporated them into this concept. Truly well-rendered. My only critique would be the hands-- Needs some work. Maybe do some hand studies? But, anyway, still awesome!

[Ranarh]

Thanks. I love fractals so much I try to use them whenever I can. The hands were deliberately sloppy - I wanted to see with how few brushstrokes I could get a visual idea across - but in retrospect, I think even less would have done them good. Otherwise, I always use reference for hands.

[xAscent]

Are you painting those planets from scratch?! Man I'm jelly, I seriously loves me some space. I gotta sit down and start practicing that kind of stuff... I'll have to use how far ahead of me you are as motivation haha you gotta do one of a planet being blown the f!%$ up or a super nova. Something along those epic lines. Great stuff man

[Ranarh]

Thanks. Yes, I create those planets from the bottom up; I prefer textures of rock and stained paper, and burnt film photos provide good craters. Yeah, planets blowing up are cool, but mostly when animated But it's a good idea, I'll try it someday.

[digydan1]

when i saw those ten trillion speedpaints all in miniature i was shocked

[Ranarh]

Haha, thanks, but they're not quite that many. Each took me between ten and thirty minutes, but I did feel close to fainting after doing more than ten per day.

[Ranarh]

Costume concepts for the upcoming The Far Reaches MMORPG by Voyager Games. I always like doing loose fashion like pirates or traditional tribal costumes that offer much freedom but still stick with the trademarks.
Check out the game at http://voyagergames.com/ or on Gamepedia http://thefarreaches.gamepedia.com/

[Ranarh]

Weapons concepts for a sci-fi game. I never really did many guns, so this was new to me; I looked for inspiration in Brian Sum's wonderful guns designs for Mass Effect. These are two handguns, a shock club, and a grenade launcher.

[Ranarh]

Having fun with Painter's mirror function. Character for my world Genius Loci.

[Ranarh]

This is a race concept for a sci-fi/fantasy setting; beankohar are tall and furry, which made it an interesting challenge to not make them look like wookiees. Next, coloured version.

[Ranarh]

Another row of planets. These are the playable worlds in an rpg setting called Pearl Worlds.