Straechav's Fallout 3 Character Paintings

[straechav]

Hello everyone, this is my first post. I joined this forum specifically for this purpose. After playing through Fallout 3, I decided to do some fallout related art. For years now I no longer post my art in anywhere, but I felt that a fallout forum might appreciate my art more than any art-only forum would anyway, and so I decided to put my fallout stuff here.

All my paintings are A4 in 350 dpi. Which means 2894x4093 resolution. So if you want an wallpaper, I probably can accomodate, after some heavy cropping of course.

Note: If there's something you want me to paint, get a GOOD screenshot, in as high resolution as possible and great angle & light, and we'll talk about it.

But let's start with my favourite character design, Harold. I tried to show him as slightly melancholic.

Next, a random wastelander. I'm making a bit of fun of the rather milky eyes of vanilla Fallout 3, most people look like they're blind. So, I made him blind...

That's it for now, I'm afraid. I'll update the post once I get movin' and paint some more. Thanks for looking, I hope you enjoyed them. If you have great high-resolution screenshots, point me at the link and I'll see if it's something for me to make into a super-high-resolution painting.

 

[rcorporon]

Great work. I'd love to see you paint some old school BoS stuff (not the shitty new power armour).

 

[straechav]

Would love to, but I'd need fairly high-resolution reference material. The small gray bag of pixels on Fallout 2 isn't quite enough info for me. :p

 

[alec]

But let's start with my favourite character design, Harold. I tried to show him as slightly melancholic.

Are you sure you want to call this one of YOUR paintings?
How about I just call this a high-resolution screenshot to which you added a few brushstrokes?
I'd honestly be ashamed to post this as my own work if I were you.

As for the portrait. Random wastelander? Pf. That could be a kid from my class. It's good, but seeing your Harold "art" is just an extra layer added to a screenshot, I don't know how much of the portrait is actually your work. Sorry, kid, I just don't buy it.

If there's something you want me to paint, get a GOOD screenshot, in as high resolution as possible and great angle & light, and we'll talk about it.

If you have great high-resolution screenshots, point me at the link and I'll see if it's something for me to make into a super-high-resolution painting.

Would love to, but I'd need fairly high-resolution reference material. The small gray bag of pixels on Fallout 2 isn't quite enough info for me. :p

No shit: the small gray bag of pixels isn't enough for you to work with? You need high resolution screenshots + great angle + great lighting and only then can you produce "artwork"? Shit. This must be the Bethesda generation of artists. They lack imagination, sense of proportion and knowledge of anatomy. Go you!

EPIC FAIL, kid. Epic fail.

 

[straechav]

But let's start with my favourite character design, Harold. I tried to show him as slightly melancholic.

Are you sure you want to call this one of YOUR paintings?
How about I just call this a high-resolution screenshot to which you added a few brushstrokes? I'd honestly be ashamed to post this as my own work if I were you.

As for the portrait. Random wastelander? Pf. That could be a kid from my class. It's good, but seeing your Harold "art" is just an extra layer added to a screenshot, I don't know how much of the portrait is actually your work. Sorry, kid, I just don't buy it.

If there's something you want me to paint, get a GOOD screenshot, in as high resolution as possible and great angle & light, and we'll talk about it.

If you have great high-resolution screenshots, point me at the link and I'll see if it's something for me to make into a super-high-resolution painting.

Would love to, but I'd need fairly high-resolution reference material. The small gray bag of pixels on Fallout 2 isn't quite enough info for me. :p

No shit: the small gray bag of pixels isn't enough for you to work with? You need high resolution screenshots + great angle + great lighting and only then can you produce "artwork"? Shit. This must be the Bethesda generation of artists. They lack imagination, sense of proportion and knowledge of anatomy. Go you!

EPIC FAIL, kid. Epic fail.

You definitely are credit to your nickname, Mr. Pooper.

I'd like to thank you for several things.

1) Thank you for assuming I'm a kid, being that I am 28.

2) Thank you for checking out my portfolio, Flickr Account, and my website to see if I am a complete poser.

3) Thank you that you told me that I have no sense of anatomy, or creativity. Being as it's obvious that I don't have ANY at all, since I bothered to even do some fan-artwork in the first place.

4) Thank you for your polite, erudite, and well though out reply and criticism. I'll be sure to pay it all respect that it is due.

5) Thank you for your excellent grasp of technological issues. I mean, obviously, if you take a screenshot and scale it up about 10 times, the painting is already half done! I mean, that's so obvious. Why hadn't I realised that before? Shit. I could save so much time on all the stuff I've done...

I mean look at it! Why did I add just few layers of brushstrokes to it?! I mean.... it's just pointless. I could have left it like that, and contacted Bethesda to be their lead-artist. I'd be cashing on the big cash, and just scaling up screenshots. Beautiful! I should have figured out this sooner. Thank you so much Mr. Pooper, for your insight to art and computer technology! You, my friend, are genius. Keep it up!

Seriously answering few questions:

1) For requiring high-resolution is that I didn't want a flood of screenshots from everyone. I don't like telling no to everyone, so I tried to limit at least the quality of them. THAT screenshot you see there, btw, is 1920x1200 scaled to the size of the painting, as you can see, it's not exactly a whole lot ot go on from. So, just imagine a screenshot of 1280x1080 or something scaled to that size. I'd rather not, I am too sensitive.

2) Well, I could make a painting out of Fallout 2 power-armor, but really. Have you looked at the game lately? I could make a painting, but it'd be 95% percent imagination. Which would kinda defeat the purpose of painting an "True To The Old Canon" kind of power armor. How would I know if I was true to the canon? I have nothing to refer to. Which would lead to people complaining that I didn't stay true to the canon. Oh yay.

Edit: fixed few typos.

 

[Josan12]

I don't get it - are you saying you DO or DON'T use in-game screenshots as the basis of your work?

If you DO, i must say i do find it a slightly disturbing way to create art. What would our grandparents say?!

I've used other people's work as the 'outline' for stuff i've done (in fact, 'kit-bashing' is a good example of model 'art' made this way)
But at it's most essential level i think art should come directly from the mind of the artist (or as close as possible)

But from what you show above you seem to have some pretty good technique going on. Why not make a try at starting from scratch? The T51-b power armour seems like a good suggestion - don't worry about canon too much: it's your art so you can do what you want with it.

If it's Fallout-y or post apocalyptic i for one would love to see it!

 

[Brother None]

While alec may be harsh, he has a point. That picture of Harold does nothing more than a screenshots from the game would - there's just nothing interesting to it. It'd be an awesome painting otherwise, but now it just kind of feels like you took someone else's pictures and coloured within the lines.

Why not challenge yourself and put your fantasy to work on the basis of Fallout 1/2's superior possibilities. Fallout 3 doesn't leave any blanks for you to fill, so why bother?

 

[straechav]

Challenge myself? I challenge myself with my personal & professional artwork. You can see some older pieces on my website, plus in the flickr account.

This is merely a diversion, I'm not going to spend THAT much time on it. It's also a way to give those who like certain visuals in the game a chance to get it in better resolution and/or look. Frankly, Bethesda has never been really good at visuals. I mean, I would never use a screenshot from fallout 3 as a wallpaper unless I wanted to kill my eyes. So, I did that Harold pic with that in mind - nevermind the wrong aspect ratio. But that's why I stayed so true to the original model & mood. I thought it was awesome design.

In fact, I think it's the only truly great piece of visual Bethesda has ever done, and the single best thing of Fallout 3 - nevermind the lack of logic. The firm has always been a bit crapass visually.

But, hey, no problem. I don't HAVE to post here. I was just making a WAG that some people might appreciate this kind of stuff. If not, not a loss. I'll go back to painting for my boss.

And Josan12, after 12 years of painting and 8 for money, I've gotten a bit jaded about art in general. It's easy to be more idealistic when one hasn't been in the industry too long. Anyway, I might give the T51-b a shot some day. But at the moment it doesn't inspire me, really. I don't know how to approach it - which is the biggest problem. That's how the reference art would help, it might spark an idea for the pose/setting/mood/lighting. I can overcome everything else, but I'll need an approach first. Fallout 2 never inspired me visually, so playing the game is little use. I always liked the mood and the desolate world, but visually it had/has very little going for it.

 

[Darkform]

let straechav do his art if you don't like it then don't click this topic.

 

[Brother None]

But, hey, no problem. I don't HAVE to post here. I was just making a WAG that some people might appreciate this kind of stuff. If not, not a loss. I'll go back to painting for my boss.

Now you're just overreacting. We're being critical to this piece because it doesn't do anything interesting. From what I'm getting, it's not intended to do anything interesting, just to be a nice copy of a piece of in-game art. That's fine, but then you shouldn't be incensed at people not being impressed.

Not criticizing your abilities as an artist in general. Just saying, Harold the Tree - probably not a big favourite of people here anyway - posed in a way that I could basically get him to look in the game, is just not interesting.

let straechav do his art if you don't like it then don't click this topic.

Uh, no. If people post their art on this forum, they by default give people the right to shoot it down. That's how it works, this isn't a haven where artists can get a nice pat on the head for doing uninteresting stuff.

 

[TorontoReign]

Good job man. I checked out your site. Damn good work all around.

 

[straechav]

Now you're just overreacting. We're being critical to this piece because it doesn't do anything interesting. From what I'm getting, it's not intended to do anything interesting, just to be a nice copy of a piece of in-game art. That's fine, but then you shouldn't be incensed at people not being impressed.

Well, I'm not sure if I was incensed at anyone, besides Mr.Pooper, because he displayed such a dazzling display of intelligence that he made me feel like a sub-50 IQ. I'll never recover from his razor sharp wit and his astounding powers of observation (not to mention his rentless researching of every subject!). He is truly a credit to this forum, responding to first-time posters with such gentle and thoughtful words. He has truly given a lovely Vile Poopin' Face to this board. Shouldn't it be "No Mutants and No New Members Allowed" Forum?

Okay, I'm getting a tad carried away. Can't be helped, my sense of humor takes over occasionally.

Nothing against the rest of you, though. Sorry if I have given the impression. I've been told that I can come across rather harsher than I mean. A bit like a strict math teacher, I think my ex called it.

Not criticizing your abilities as an artist in general. Just saying, Harold the Tree - probably not a big favourite of people here anyway - posed in a way that I could basically get him to look in the game, is just not interesting.

Not to you, but it does what it was meant to do, so I'd imagine there's little to be criticize about - because I'm pretty sure that technically there's nothing to fault. All I expected to get at worst is to be told that it's not very interesting, not being accused of scaling a screenshot several orders of magnitude up and posting it just like that. Or "coloring withing the lines", right. Try it yourself. But, regardless of what some of you think, I now have a very nice wallpaper. Job done. Too bad there's no paycheck.

I don't really like the character "Harold The Tree" btw. I just like the model. It's pretty damn cool, and the lighting is as well. Not quite what I expected in that point of the game. And I wonder who did it? Because when you look at the game as whole, it's not very inspired. Except maybe the broken highways, those are very iconic (which is what appeals to me) visuals. Never been a landscape painter, though.

let straechav do his art if you don't like it then don't click this topic.

Uh, no. If people post their art on this forum, they by default give people the right to shoot it down. That's how it works, this isn't a haven where artists can get a nice pat on the head for doing uninteresting stuff.

Hmm, are you defending yourself or Mr. Pooper? Is this a haven for bashing first time posters, then? Because that makes a difference in my reply. If you defend yourself, I all I can say that you seemed to assume that doing the "Harold Portrait" exactly like in-game wasn't challenging - which displays a worrisome amount of ignorance of art in general. Other than that, you've been nothing but polite and pleasure to talk to.

I could criticize you, though, since you've obviously agreed that it's a two-way street, and say that your posts here have not yet been worth the time to write them. You haven't really said anything insightful beyond superficially obvious. Since if you do indeed agree with Mr. Pooper's Dazzing Display of Wit - your posts can be summed in to the rather boring "x2" variety of messages.

Good job man. I checked out your site. Damn good work all around.

Thank you very much for the kind words. I don't do much personal artwork or post it in the internet anymore, so I don't have much to show. I was much more active around millenium or so, but these days I do mostly boring internal-illustrations that I own no rights to. It's funny how career evolves, some days I think I'm more of a office drone nowadays.

I'll see if I can get more "creative" and "interesting" about fallout one of these days. Although it's Christmas time, we've always busy then at work. Year draws nigh, or something like that.

 

[straechav]

Oh, right, I've been forgetting to answer one question: No, I didn't use screenshots to make those artworks. Unless you count about 50 screenshots of howard from all possible angles that I used as a reference art. As any serious artists knows, never paint anything without references.

Aaaanyhow, I got asked to do an artwork out of a screenshot. Just to amuse ya'll who think it'll be easy (I doubt), I'll be documenting what I need to do. With proper commentary about "Ze Horrors" of the "JPEG Artifact Monster".

Few important points: I'm taking this particular pic as a challenge. I think I MIGHT be able to do something worthwhile out of it, but I am not promising anything. So me posting about progress is in that way rather arrogant. Pride comes before the fall, they say. In this case, replace "pride" with "terror".

I've never done quite anything like this, so my approach is my bess guesstimate how I'm supposed to approach it.

Now, here's what I have to start with:

Yes, that's the full resolution. 800x600. Not exactly a thrilling prospect. So why did I post that message about high resolution screenshots in the first place?

It has few things that bug (= scare) me. The angle isn't one I'd have picked, there's stuff on the background (OMGZ! A BG?), and as anyone who uses even a few seconds browsing through my past artwork on Flickr will notice, I don't DO backgrounds. Howard piece is one of the five or so exceptions I've done in my career. And that is one vague background, anyway.

Now, I've got few thoughts.

1) I'll crop the picture, I think it'll look better in 16:10 or so, so I could use it as a background on desktop without issues. It'll reduce some of the clutter and such.

2) Remove shit from the foreground.

3) Cry over her face. I have no idea how she'd supposed to look like (dunno even who she is), and the light isn't hitting her face. Either I'll just make the shadows even more stronger and hide her face (but that'll make the picture kinda ominious) or just completely repaint her out of that much cherished "imagination".

4) need to extend the table, and maybe change their poses. First when I looked at her, I thought she was holding an hand... looked a tad odd. :p

5) I'll make it a bit smaller than my usual artworks (only 3840x2160), because I decided to try Mr. Pooper's approach to all art, that is, paint on top of the screenshot. It should be easy, right? (I hope) Albeit, scaled to proper size, as anyone with ability to rub two brain cells together should be able to guess, the JPEG artifacts will make you blind. Just look at this.... this is what I have to work with:

So, you want to use that as a model to paint someone's face? I sure don't. But not like I have a choice.

Besides, I like a challenge.

Right now I haven't done much, I've merely decided on the direction to go to and applies few slapdash brushstrokes to see if my ideas are worth the bother.

Here's the progression so far. First pic has the right cropping, although it's not really ideal, it's the best I can do with the pic, and the rest display my slapdash brustrokes. I think the direction is right anyway. We'll see if I change my mind halfway through (it's happened before).

I also removed a lot of stuff from the background and aded a lot of shadow. It's starting to look rather dark and ominous. I don't think I am capable of doing artwork that isn't... oh well... I'll try to minimize the "horror look".

We'll see how it'll go from here. I'm not sure if I want to even touch those people's faces. They're just terrifying close up... Hehe. I can see I'll have fun with this challenge, whether I'll fall on my face or not. It'll be a technical challenge, no matter what ingenious ideas I might get, that's for sure.

 

[Josan12]

I have no idea how she'd supposed to look like (dunno even who she is), and the light isn't hitting her face.

Someone pointed out on the FO3 discussion forum that the lighting in the FO3 is ocassionally completely wrong. I remember this one screenie he/she posted showing a room with sunlight streaming through cracks in the walls from two angles! it looked completely wrong. There was also a screenie similar to yours above with an NPC in a fully lit room, but the face that looked like it was in a cave.

So anyway, my point being - don't presume Beth know what they're doing when it comes to 'realistic representation' (if that's what you're aiming for)

On a more general level, i suppose your justification for why you like to take in-game screenies as the basis for your art sounds plausable. At the end of the day my opinion is you don't even need to justify your own art.

But to me honest, it just doesn't excite me. I find it midly interesting on a technical level, and i think you bring some good skills to it, but i'm left feeling .... well, flat.

 

[alec]

Oh, right, I've been forgetting to answer one question: No, I didn't use screenshots to make those artworks. Unless you count about 50 screenshots of howard from all possible angles that I used as a reference art. As any serious artists knows, never paint anything without references.

See, I find that really hard to believe, especially after you yourself post a pic like this:

Also: you didn't really change anything. The Harold in your pic looks EXACTLY like the in game Harold except for a few extra brushstrokes. You wrote you wanted him to look somewhat melancholic. Wouldn't any other artist then not also change his pose, the lighting in the pic, the composition? I'm sorry, but what you say makes no sense to me, I don't believe you.

I dare to say this because your sites contain similar "coincidences". On one site you post a drawing of a flower done by you, on another site you post a pic you took of a flower, but what-do-you-know?!



It's the exact same flower! To the millimeter. Don't tell me that's not simple tracing and then colouring in between the lines. And that's cool in a way, it's probably not simple at all, but why would you then not simply admit that that is your modus operandi? And why would you not allow others to criticize that?

Aaaanyhow, I got asked to do an artwork out of a screenshot.

What a coincidence!

 

[TheRatKing]

Even if what you are saying is true alec, I still like both of his paintings. I don't care how art is made, as long as it looks cool.

 

[alec]

That's not my point. My point is: why is he denying it and why can't other people criticize such a modus operandi? That's all.

Whatever the case is, I would still like to ask him to upload his art to the fan art gallery.

 

[TheRatKing]

Your criticism is perfectly valid, and I would like to see straechav paint something from Fallout 1 or 2. It seems that his (he is a guy right?) painting style is good, and it would be cool to see some original works from imagination. The person who drew those guns with a fallouty twist is a good example.

 

[Stag]

Alec, there's a difference between a trace and a study.

That aside, sorry straechav, alec definitely has a point. As talented as your brushstrokes may be, I'm not going to start cumming all over myself over some very direct and clear studies, or traces, as the case may be.

 

[Wooz]

Well?