Then he Said

Without effects

 

 I finally tried to add a few effects to make it look like the image had aged, its a mixture of noise, a filter effect and i changed the image levels to try and darken the blacks and make them stand out more.

Its all just Black and White

 

Here is my attempt at a Combine staff room in Neal Adams style. I wanted to capture a lighter side of the evil enemy. I also encorporated two little easter eggs, hats from team fortress 2 and the companion cube from portal which are other Valve top games. I really like this image in just black and white, im a bit tentative to add colour but i want to go for the original batman style using block colours and an old grain style.

A Hail of Fire

 

 I wanted to try my hand first on something easier than a full person. I felt trying a fairly straight edged object would be easiest, so i went with the classic HL2 weapon the AR2 rifle. I felt i managed to get this working pretty well, the pure black wide lines are where they should be, the only thing im not so keen on is the shadows, i find it hard to get the cross hatching down right especially over the entire object. I feel the wide lines show the basic position but they need more cross-hatching. The only time the lack of cross hatching works is when the object is under direct light.

Break Time

 

 Ive added these pictures because i wanted a quick look at lunch break rooms for an idea of Combine chatting about their day during break. I also looked at how the army are jsut regular people who all chat take breaks and have a laugh.

Revenge of the Giant Face

 

This is my attempt at the iconic Combine mask. I find it pretty difficult to get straight edges with my cross hatching, but i feel the block black i have placed seem to be in the right areas. I just try and pick the darkest spots that blend into one. The weakest parts of this image is the ventilators at the front

Dad's Army

Instead of going down the generic good guy route i have had an idea to use the bad guys in the scenario, the Combine. An elite transhuman army commanded by aliens. I wanted to show the more civil himan side of the group, an idea i had is what do they do when they arent hunting Gordon Freeman? They are just people after all.

I also like the combine because they remind me of the foot soldiers from comic books, with their very brutal style and covered faces. In general i just want to try and show a bad guys day off.

I am the Batman

Some research pictures.

I love how Neal Adam uses his line strokes, specifically i love how he can use block black and still make the drawing stand out and look like its shaded.

I think i prefer his line art more than his coloured pieces. The detail he is able to put in is extraordinary.

Neal Adam's most iconic character, I really want to try to use negative space for detail like Neal Adams does as seen above, less is more.