Paul Richards Concept Artist

 

This is a piece by Paul Richards.

I was introduced to this artist through a friend, and instantly understood why he found Richards such an interesting figure to check out.

Paul Richards is a concept artist currently situated in Seattle, USA. He's worked in a variety of different studios such as Blizzard Entertainment and 3D Realms, but is most famously known for his concept work produced for Vigil Games on 'Darksiders', where you play the role of War, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.

Unfortunately after Darksiders II being released the series was stopped due to Vigial Games falling through shortly after. (Depressing times for myself who like the games!)

Nevertheless this doesn't stop the huge appreciation for this artists work that I have! 

Creating individual designs with highly intricate detail, Paul Richards creations always have a sense of personality and life, with perfect posing and perspective. My favorite pieces are the creature designs such as the horse from Darksiders and dragons that pop up throughout Richard's work, which I have recently been using as influence for my own work! 

 

There is also a really helpful amount of information on Richards blog, where he explains is own work flow and gives hints and tips to other artists. One very handy tip I read was that even with symmetrical creatures they will still always have slight differences on either sides; changes in horns or detail on skin creates a more realistic view to an otherwise 'too perfect' design. 

This kind of approach made me think of how my creature can have have slight differences made to the original design to make them look more natural, especially things like broken teeth and different length tentacles on my creature, so I'll take this into account later on whilst modelling!

It's likely I'll write more about this guy in the future... because of how amazing his drawings are. 

Check out Paul Richards!