GMB's Gallery of Stuff

[GMB]

Hi everyone,

Well, I figured I'd keep my pic posts to one contiguous thread, instead of starting a whole bunch and potentially cluttering the board up and annoying the mods. So every now and again I'll post a piece or two.

Today's piece attempts to show off a recent work, plus explain my screen name (GMB) and my avatar. "GMB," or "Gunmetal Black" is the long story cycle I've been working on for 3 years now and that means writing about 200,000 words worth of stories and doing reams of design work for it.

One of which was for the main character and star of my avatar, Kienan. Here's a bigger pic of him to start this off:

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I hope you all like it!

[Bubblegum Girl]

Cool!

[Rune]

GMB, I have to say I really like the style here, the colouring and different shapes and shades of that costume mesh together really well as well as being finely detailed. I'm already hooked so let's see some more please

[GMB]

Cool!

Thanks!

GMB, I have to say I really like the style here, the colouring and different shapes and shades of that costume mesh together really well as well as being finely detailed.

Thanks, Rune! I get a lot of compliments on my detail, and a lot of criticism too. I sort of walk a line between "hey, detail is good" (which I guess is the Jack Kirby side of my brain) and "A GOOD artist doesn't need detail to cover mistakes (The Bruce Timm half of my brain)"

So I try to split the difference and try to strike a balance. Hopefully it works more often than not.

I'm already hooked so let's see some more please

Done and done! Here's another couple of GMB characters, Omega and Sinclaire. Hope y'all like these too!

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Enjoy!

[GMB]

Bumping this back up with a newer pic! Hope y'all likes!

[Image Removed By The Artist]

[GMB]

Hi everyone,
Bumping up once again with the latest. Wanted to try to design an undersea "Aquaman" style character that didn't have uhm. . .well, one that wasn't boring or just a guy in swim trunks.

Anyways, here's the result. I hope you like it!

[Image Removed By The Artist]

[Rune]

Coolness! I really like the liquid-like colours on that last one, looks great against the fishy background, in fact in all of them the contrast between figure and BG is very nicely exceuted indeed.

[Frozen]

These are great - really nice dynamic poses and vivid colours. You've also got a great attention to the small details that help to make a picture that much more complete. Bravo!

[Tanooki]

it's about time i posted in your thread, eh? i must say, i love all of your characters. especially the "aquaman" style character! he's just so cool! the colors you choose are really quite mesmerizing. by the looks of him, i think he also has a bit of "legend of zelda" zora in him too. that's my favorite game series of all time! good job, gmb. *adds gmb to his list of people to draw*

Falcon

[GMB]

Coolness! I really like the liquid-like colours on that last one, looks great against the fishy background, in fact in all of them the contrast between figure and BG is very nicely exceuted indeed.

Thanks! The BG was a bit of a problem at first, because I realized perhaps "sea blue" is not the best colour to put behind a character who's main dominant colours are black and blue on there. Fortunately I remembered the ocean is green under certain light, and I think (I hope anyways) that it still gives it an "oceanic" effect.

These are great - really nice dynamic poses and vivid colours. You've also got a great attention to the small details that help to make a picture that much more complete. Bravo!

Thanks Frozen! I've really been digging your pics as well. Since I checked out your pics I've been expermienting with "cleaner" styles of colouring.
At the moment, however, it's clashing hard against my obsessive-complusive need to slap in as much detail as possible.

it's about time i posted in your thread, eh?

Well, Falcon if you post in my thread, I feel like I've "arrived." *L*

it's about time i posted in your thread, eh? i must say, i love all of your characters. especially the "aquaman" style character! he's just so cool! the colors you choose are really quite mesmerizing. by the looks of him, i think he also has a bit of "legend of zelda" zora in him too. that's my favorite game series of all time! good job, gmb.

Actually, you picked up on a little of his origin. The "aqua camo" pattern inside his cloak was inspired by Aquaman's old "blue costume" (His only decent one, IMHO) And yes, certainly a little Zora might have snuck in since I'm a longtime fan of Zelda too.

*adds gmb to his list of people to draw*

Thanks Falcon! That IS quite an honour!

To celerate, here's a pic right off the scanner. This is one of my chracters from my "Seven Spheres Legend" story (Now with it's own site) in his powered-up "Burning Angel" state. This pic was fraught with much anxiety.
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Hope y'all like it! Thanks for all the comments, it's what keeps me drawing!

[GMB]

Hi folks,

Bumping this one back up to the top. Inspired by WingZombie's Transformer post I thought I'd share my own attempt at mecha drawing from this place http://home.centurytel.net/owari/roj.html. This is a combiner mech, composed of 5 jets that link up to form the big robot (You can see most of them in the background) and man, it was a nightmare to do. *L*
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I hope y'all like it!

[Magwheel]

I really like your characters' armour and costumes and so on. I especially like your rendering of shiny metal surfaces. I've always wanted to teach myself how to do that, but usually end up giving up, but seeing other self-taught people (I think you said somewhere you were at least somewhat self-taught?) succeed at it is encouraging. Did you look to any specific artists as examples? Either way, cool style *thumbs up*

[GMB]

I really like your characters' armour and costumes and so on. I especially like your rendering of shiny metal surfaces. I've always wanted to teach myself how to do that, but usually end up giving up, but seeing other self-taught people (I think you said somewhere you were at least somewhat self-taught?) succeed at it is encouraging. Did you look to any specific artists as examples? Either way, cool style *thumbs up*

It's basically trail-and-error as far as getting metallic textures right. There are books and tutorials out there, but I really think it's one of those things each artist kind of arrives at on his own. You sorta find your own ways to solve problems, I think.

What seems to help for me is to start with a bold line on the edge or centre of the metal and kinda fade the shading out (I do this by using fine and finer pens) as I go out.

I don't even think I'm really all that good at it myself, but lately I've been looking at some Japanese artists who do phenomenal mecha work and seeing how they handle textures and shading on metal really helps.

Here's a link to one of the best that I've found:
http://members.at.infoseek.co.jp/monbanjp/2003TOP.html

And here's another picture, continuing the mecha theme. For a recent GMB novel I had the main character pitted against a squad of armoured alien guys, each of whom had a specialty ("GI Joe" rubs off on my work again. *L*) like stealth, heavy armor, airborne, etc.

And this one was another nightmare. *L* Basically I took each character, did a pic of them solo and put it all together in Photoshop. And a friend and fellow artist said, "I loved doing it so much I will never do it again." *L*

[Image Removed By The Artist]
Hope y'all like it!

[Frozen]

Ohhh... You like GI Joe too, huh? Played with them toys so much when I was a kid (except in England they were called Action Force), an' I collect 'em now (yeah, I know, I'm just a big kid...)

Anyways, gettin' back to your picture - my immediate reaction is the pictures too small! Can you re-post it a bit bigger 'cos it's a starin to see all those neat characters!

[GMB]

Sorry, Frozen. Been out of contact for a few days. We had a bad ice storm down here and I'm just now catching up. Sorry for the late reply.

Ohhh... You like GI Joe too, huh? Played with them toys so much when I was a kid (except in England they were called Action Force), an' I collect 'em now (yeah, I know, I'm just a big kid...)

I know the feeling. I still collect some of them--mostly the COBRA troops because I liked the way they gave each anonymous specialist a cool costume and his own personality. I'm probably the only person who actually searched far and wide for a Strato-Viper figure. *L*

Anyways, gettin' back to your picture - my immediate reaction is the pictures too small! Can you re-post it a bit bigger 'cos it's a starin to see all those neat characters!

Will do! Here's a link to the original-sized pic! [Image Removed By The Artist]

And one of my newer pics, from my "Seven Spheres Legend" story, Vertiga:

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Hope y'all likes!

[Rune]

*distant sound of jaw hitting the desk*

Just as with your other stuff these all look so professional, I especially like the guy on the far left

My only regret is my stupid dial up took an age to load the page - but it was worth it!

[Dudley]

Nice artwork, GMB!

[GMB]

*distant sound of jaw hitting the desk*

Just as with your other stuff these all look so professional, I especially like the guy on the far left

Thanks, Rune! I'm not sure how "professional" it all is--I've never done much in the way of paid work and I still think I have many many miles to go before I'm as good as people like Falcon, Delia, and Frozen (and everyone else I didn't name)--but the biggest reward for me is that people like it.

My only regret is my stupid dial up took an age to load the page - but it was worth it!

You know, I really probably shoulda said something like "56K users, might wanna grab a sandwich after clicking." *L* As one who has dialup himself, I sympathize. *L*

Nice artwork, GMB!

Thanks, Dudley!

Here's a new pic, just off the scanner. This was an effort to come up witha Captain America type character who wasn't blonde and was kind of non-traditional for a patriotic characters.

Her top came from a design I saw on a motorcycle's gas tank. As for the rest of her outfit, I figured, "what's more American than blue jeans?"

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Hope y'all like it!

[Dudley]

That's very good!

[GMB]

That's very good!

Thanks! My ladies are the one thing I'm always working to improve. The tricks is making them cute and tough all at once.

Like everything else tho, it's quite an uphill battle.

Anyways, here's a guy for a change of pace. One of my many sword-wielding baddies from one of my novels. His sword generates windstorms, something I was able to approximate in Photoshop, but it took hours of experimenting.
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I hope y'all like it!