commission info: here I've been keeping this organised on my side to make it easier to mentally slot new comics and illustrations into the masterplan (tm) so I thought I'd share with you guys and pin this so people can enjoy the heavymedic goodness. enjoy! i'll keep this updated!
Just wanted to say thanks for all the tf2 art.
Your art is great and is really reminiscent of the comics. I hope Valve hires you in some official capacity to work on something tf2 related cause your work is just fantastic.
Cheers for the lovely comment! HAH that would be a dream come true but it's also cool that the 'TF2 project' as it currently stands is a tight consistant team of artists, writers and creatives - that doesn't happen much in the industry nowadays.
that pyro and spy drawing reminds me of the marshmallow test to be honest
hah! I can see that! We've seen Pyro running a (very) successful business so he'd probably be able to wrangle both treats off Spy whether by hook or crook. I sort of like to imagine that money doesn't really mean anything to the mercs...they all get paid such ludicrous amounts and either have goals that don't align with 'wealth' or that the their personal wealth is a means to a very silly end (Heavy and his custom bullets, Spy single-handedly supporting the Italian haute craft industry through his tastes etc) that you end up with a bunch of people who are like out of touch British politicians when it comes to finances. Miss Pauling totally gives them all crib sheets on how much a pint of milk costs when they have to do public outreach. So in Spy's eyes how much could a lolly cost anyways? 500 euros?? I guess. Might as well. 🤷♂️
Trick or treat! ^~^
500 euros or a lolly! Tough choice.
trick or treat
You get a bad joke. What a treat! (trick??)
TRICK OR TREAT
+ worthers orginals!
Hiiii hello! I've been seeing your posts in my feed lately and decided to subscribe (I LOVE your art and Heavymedic and I ADORE the way you portray them) and then I noticed you liked dinosaurs too! That's so so cool!!! Idk if this has ever been asked before but what's your favourite dinosaur?? 🥺🥺🥺
(mine is ubirajara jubatus they're so neat)
Thank you for following and your lovely comments!! Glad you like how I portray them! I'm quite particular which definitely inhibits the volume as I end up doing a lot of self pruning lol I hadn't heard of ubirajara jubatus before! I LOVE any dinosaur which has a silly feature like Majungasaurus' TINY non-exsistant arms, Deinocheirus general whatever-the-hell-it's-doing or every-ceratopsian-and-their-stupid-varied-skulls will always be my favourites. Psittacosaurus and Styracosaurus come to immediate mind BUT i'm only human and a massive sucker for big charismatic megafauna (and a huge basic bastard to boot) so Spinosaurus ends up eeking everything out.
I love it's weird shape...I love that it only gets weirder the more pieces we (re)discover of it! There's a leaked paper synopsis circulating at the moment so I'm eagerly waiting have a read through of that with a cuppa when that is published. I'm very anti-'clutter' so me having this guy watching over me as I draw on a bookcase is a testament to how much I like him...he's friends with my Heavy lol
Me when I see your art:
thank you so much!!! ;; same reaction i had receving your ask!
💥Spontaneous chemical reactions; spontaneous laughter
can you draw some more medic and pauling...? I would love them just gossiping
have some doodles! Something something patient confidentiality....
How the hell do you manage to superimpose the hilariously exagerated proportions of the tf2 mercs into a cohesive 2d style? I always struggle SO much with like, the way the mercs' models have huge hands, the way they have relatively low-poly definition on things like arms, shoulders, and legs... and Especially the way like, the models are kinda janky when you pose them for art purposes- when using movement tools, things like armpits and seams between body parts get all deformed... Which makes the study of form and silhouette rather difficult.
I assume that a lot of your ability to translate the concept of the mercs from their original mediums into your own works of art comes to you quite naturally- through experience you have with drawing and art style stuff, as well as through intuition. I was simply wondering if I could poke at your mind and get some insight into your process, any thoughts you have about the proportions and silhouettes of the mercs, any quirks you've found while drawing the mercs, or simply what you enjoy drawing about them. Like, don't be afraid to infodump about something just because you think people wouldn't find it interesting- I am here, I am sitting, and I am listening- if you so choose to speak.
I am utterly fascinated and enraptured by the more behind-the-scenes aspect of art. The mundane things that come second nature to great artists yet seem so revolutionary to less experienced artists.
I love your work, I look forward to seeing more of it, and I hope you have a nice day :]
Sorry for the late reply! I've been a little…stuck on how to answer this but that's mainly because to me, drawing is composed of SO many different little skills - you have form, anatomy, shape language, silhouette, appeal, rhythm, acting and posing…not to mention everything AFTER your raw draughtmanship like line style, rendering and colour theory. Trying to distill a multiude of small skills into some pithy advice is overwhelming to my brain. So I'll take the invitation to ramble instead :))
I don't think I have any new or revolutionary insight into the tf2 guys specifically - more I'm using them as work horses to excercise general silhouette/posing/shape-language and further my skills when it comes to drawing characters!
I do agree though the proportions are rather silly when you stop and think about them realistically…they can be kinda tricky if you follow their 'actual' proportions. what looks great individually was maybe never meant to be directly compared (ie: Heavy's hand size against Spy's lol). It would've been funny if the TV show exsisted and we had more content to review…would the animators have had rules like Spy and Heavy can never shake hands? Would they cheated the proportions for shots? Or would they have said WHATVER it's gonna look weird and embraced it? (Like Kingpin in Spiderverse lol)
Paul Lasaine for 'Into the Spiderverse' This is AWESOME. But it's also one of the silliest designs I've ever seen comitted to screen. The varied scales of the characters work because of the unifying treatment (lighting, rendering, consistant hand anatomy, consistant clothing fold treatment etc) and because they are sort of proportional within themselves. A common mantra is that hands should be about as large as a characters face....which they all are here!
Human brains are very flexible and forgiving though. It's totally fine for you to put a character with huge hands and head next to a teeny tiny character! Vanellope and Ralph from Wreck-It Ralph look grand next to each other! And in that film you even have varying levels of stylisation sitting against each other (unified by the look dev treatment of the shaders and lighting). I think as long as the chracter is proportional within themselves it sort of works out. IE: a general rule is that a hand should be as large as the face so…you can have some large arse hands as long as their placed on a body with a big arse head. Unifying characters with the same treatment (ie: lineart brush, colouring style will also help them look cohesive next to each other :) )
I don't actually reference the 3D models/animations very much at all and instead draw their proportions based on my tastes for stylisation following their general vibes/silhouette profiles. I don't stick THAT close to their in-game looks and there are artists who do that are so so so much better than me (Creedei and Flapjack come to mind). I'm not amazing at body-type differentation and TBH they're all wearing chunky clothes all the time so I usually draw the guys as one-of-three body shapes: Heavy is the uniquely wide guy; Sniper/Scout/Spy are all tall and slim and Demo/Soldier/Medic/Engie have a little more of the generic 'hero' bodytype with varying tallness and broadness of the shoulders
Something like this! You can vary all these individual elements in terms of size, thickness, taper amount etc to create different characters. If you ARE going to reference the 3d works though you'll need to apply some anatomy knowledge to overcome the weird shoulders, armpits and knees which desperately need blendshapes to correct the 3D volumes and approach it a little more like an animation supervisor. There's a reason why you see in making-ofs and art-ofs character designers, character leads or animation supes doing drawovers of the models. These are character models that have had great effort put into their 'base' silhouette but it still needs to be reinforced in every frame for maximum appeal.
Shiyoon Kim for 'Raya' This sort of thing will occur at multiple stages during the animation process. Shiyoon Kim's notes are post final model but pre-animation. Most likely for internal rig tests, exploring what blend shapes and alt shapes are needed for the rigs etc. If your production has time, this will continue all the way to final anim. IF! But it's interesting to see how he emphasises the shapes and enhances the character acting of the 3d model.
As for 'mundane things' - I wouldn't say they're second nature! (If that makes you feel better!) I have to actively really persue certain advice and try to figure out how to best apply it. This can sometimes involve redrawing and redrawing an element of the drawing until I've grasped the nettle of whatever I'm after or…..until I get frustrated and either delete the drawing or just call it done lol
Here, I'm looking for a really specific flow of the head that sells both the acting and a subtle head tilt. I'm also trying to apply the general mantra regarding faces that converging lines (set by the eyebrows and mouth) are more appealing than parallel. It's tough! I also tend to use a drawing I've already done as a template/reference on the page too. Oh! This page is an amazing example of why I'm not an animator or storyboarder…consistancy? Who is she? 💅
Converging lines (that form tapered shapes) are always more appealing than parallel. Using this logic you can loft the facial features across converging lines to create dynamic appealing espressions. Combining this with anatomy, perspective and rotation is the tough part though. I'm still learning o7
The things I probably think about MOST are always flats vs curves, simple vs complex and general line of action/flow...and then eliminting tangents. Each of these can be a dedicated visual-essay on their own - hence my stumbling as to answer your question. Anyhow, not sure if it's ever come up on this blog but I looove dinosaurs :)) so i'm using a wee piece to demostrate these ideas! (but also to demostrate these concepts apply to everything from humans characters to animals, props and background design)
Okay, I'm getting self-aware that this is getting really long :') I have a wee tutorial tag for my blog if anyone wants to comb through my garbled art-thoughts. Learning, studying, repetition and practice will always be the greatest teachers! I'm glad you like my art- thank you so much for the lovely comments - I feel like such a noob still and not qualified to give people advice but we're in it together learning! High-five! 🙌
Partnered up newheadcanon with for this years tf2bigbang ! Send your love their way for the fic (read here!) - I love anything which is a taste of a could-be episode of a TF2 tv show! Coolhorse also did a piece of artwork for this fic too!
A sketch! one day i'll finish my 'summer antics' photoset - it just wont be in the summer lol
'It took four people to give you this? You're getting sloppy my friend.'
sucks that you have Covid!! I’ve only gotten it twice n they both sucked. Hope you get better soon!
Thank you so much! Fingers crossed that's it for you too! I've felt terribly naff this week but i think I'm FINALLY on the mend 🥴 idk why I've had it so often - I blame living in a tourist city and the fact I can't stop licking the local train station railings /s
'We go together!' 🤝