Xan Redone

So recently i've been using all my time as wisely as possible. I know i have a tendency to jump around personal projects alot and i seem to never commit to one. This time however I have every intention on fleshing this out to the end. I tok some feedback on one of my favorite characters named Xan. Many friends were stating that he looked kind of hill billyish. With this in mind and some inspiration from Garret Hanna; I recreated the character to be more old school videogame oriented. This was ALOT of run to design and paint. Making this dood really sent me back to my childhood. Playing old school videogames for hours and hours. Enjoying the intricate 8bit melodies. The songs so catchy that you just couldnt stop humming them for days. Games that were fun to play, fun to explore, and sparked inspiration.
Turns out Garret and I out share a passion for old school games and music. We have been 8bit jamming for the past couple of weeks using various plugins and listening to alot of nindendo melodies. We have decided to join forces. I've made about 9 different 8bit beats and chose one to flesh out a bit to sort of tease those that are interested in what ive been doing with all my free time. Do have a listen and tell me what you think. thank you!


ps- sorry for all those people who i dissappeared from. ive been very busy doing what i love ;D
-Betel

Isi namid. this is the pink haired girl minus pink hair. i felt she was more mysterious with platinum like in the original sculpt. maybe she dyes her hair different colors later on. went for a rough painted look on the render. i like where its going and will probably dabble with a similar vibe for 2 more characters in this story. the painted lines on her are tentative until i can think of some neater designs to be painted on her skin.
im really looking forward to Burning Man. aug 29th-september 5th. I will be camping with a group called the galactic jedis and the pyronauts. i thought that was kind of funny seeing how ive been working on a fire spinning fighter for the past month.
cant wait to see half naked babes runnin around lookin like this one :D

Isi Namid

This is infact the same character from the previous post. Her tentative name means deer star dancer. visually i was going for a burning man mononoke vibe. her hair is going through some growing pains. thinking about having her wear some hair extensions or they might be natural dreads branching off of possible a faux hawk.
The outfit design is basically final. I will only make minor changes to it NEED TO MOVE ON lol. As you can see I did several different quick sketches of this character befoer coming to the final design at the top of the pages.
Also I would like to note that the masks were heavily inspired by Francisco Ruiz Velasco . I saw some sketches of mask concepts he did for hell boy 2 recently. I watched the movie JUST to see those masks... They were each in ONE scene for about 2 seconds... FAR in the background. I was very saddened by this and chose to create a clan of masked fire spinners to accompany Isi. The 3 other masks are roughs of what im thinking for em.

Isi Namid trains her fire spinning skills to mask her fighter spirit. Martial arts training is banned so she learns fighting in dance form. Her abilities have no connection to magic initially.... but she soon finds that her haunting past has the ability to evolve her technique into something else entirely. :P

Poe

I nicknamed the Gal Poe after the ghosts in ocarina of time.
Experienting with my rendering style. Lots of lighting and surface tweaks. wanted a sexy greasy feel. but not too much. ill probably do a couple of different iterations for the rendering. some more painterly and loose than others. This will be going into zbrush as well. Ive already started fleshing out her story and got some great ideas from my friend Maddie. Check her work out here http://www.koko-san.blogspot.com/
Hint: itll have something to do with martial arts and demons

MegaMang

Just a quick doodle at work.
We have photoshop friday art jams sometimes and the theme was megaman. i googled fat megaman and found a neat pic to base a sketch off of.
originally i only had 30 minutes to work on it and submit it. i spruced it up a bit. took another 20 minutes on it to clean up some edges and experiment with lighting.

Life Drawing at Carbine

Organized by awesome Jon Jelinek. He got this cool old dood to pose for us for 2 hours. I was absolutely amazed bu his ability to return to his pose after 3 short 5 minute breaks. even the folds in his clothes remained in tact. skilllllllllz

Obsessed with this Haircut

Ok LAST old work post. I promise.
I want to reshare this wip turnaround because
A. I will be doing a 2D concept of the full character in a much mroe inspired 2D style that you folks arent use to seeing from Ol Betel. Ive met alot of extreme talents at my new job and I have to anty up. Character design is my passion. So i gotta rep. woop woop!
B. I absolutely love this haircut. I draw it alot on random chick characters and I feel it needs a nice finished body to live on.
C. YOUR MOTHA FUCKIN FACE

this speed culpt was done in a little under 2 hours. the poly paint is what slowed me down honestly. Had to reintroduce myself with those Zbrush tools..
I really feel that polypainting is a bit aways from being finished.. there is no master opacity jitter for the color application. it really bugs me. I feel like im painting with mspaint on a 3d model. Its great for a basic base to start on. But im still loving 3D coat for more refined detail. and photoshop for touch ups.

I still dont know this girls name. I dont know where she lives. I dont know what she does. But I know she will have awesome hair. and awesome boots to stomp your face in. i might even mold her story into a past character. who fucking knows! You will in a couple of days!
check back soon
OOGA BOOGA
Betel