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mattjohnss.bsky.social
matt johns ༘⋆
@mattjohnss.bsky.social
1.7K followers 1.1K following 320 posts
shape enthusiast | 🏳️‍🌈 | 2D Artist on Wax Heads | prev. concept artist at Double Fine Productions ミ✶
Available for work July onwards
based in Glasgow, Scotland

https://mattjohns.carrd.co
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mattjohnss.bsky.social
drew my own water/ghost type starter pokemon last night !!
(dex entry in the alt text)
concept sketches for my own water/ghost type starter Pokemon - I took influence from rich blue hues and soft purples to create a gloomy lil trio with serpents, lizards and fog. a bit out of my comfort zone, but hope to explore creature concept art further #gameart #pokemon #fakemon #characterdesign #creaturedesign #conceptart Serphog - the serpant fog pokemon, they can be found deep within foggy swamps, the lack of light allows them to get optimal rest, over time they have developed toxic scales on their back to prevent other pokemon attacking them while they sleep Misphom - the phantom mist pokemon, a whispy haze sits atop their nasal area, it’s form may change if the pokemon feels threatened, manipulating it and utilising it’s ghostly abilities in battle, it’s scales have grown more assertive, thus preventing fights with larger swamp-dwelling pokemon Polhaar — the polar haze pokemon, as this pokemon has evolved it’s developed an armour-like shell, it’s grown wise as it’s evolved, despite it’s aggressive features it is naturally submissive, it’s toxic scales have strengthened over time, now resembling intoxicatingly decorative poison armour
September 3, 2025 at 3:07 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
you + your fave pokemon
a piccy of me, matt - beard, beanie and flannel the pink hammer welding pokemon, tinkaton - from pokemon horizons: the series
August 31, 2025 at 2:22 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
better ratio for viewinggg
frog character drawings - they’re doing things, looking at their phone, sitting patiently, doomscrolling, holding medicine, trying to kiss one another and playing games #characterdesign #conceptart #gameart #animation #illustration frog character drawings - they’re doing things, smoking, playing cards, crying, being grumpy and snoozing frog character designs - they’re doing things, gossiping on phones, carrying a large iced coffee, lounging and showing off their big tush !!
August 31, 2025 at 12:57 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
frogs by me
collection of frog character drawings - I’ve been unwell the past few months but finally on the mend, here are some of the character sketches compiled into one large image #characterdesign #conceptart #gameart #illustration #illustration
August 31, 2025 at 12:50 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
enjoy some rambles with minor spelling mistakes as I look for character design work in the games industry !!
a collection of research images for the prompt of an old scottish crab seller/fisherman, looking at the aesthetic of fishermen, celtic folklore, motifs and crabs, their design and specific patterning. I start to decompose references images/research and begin to make character silhouettes out of limited shapes, from there I begin to flesh out some simple designs for characters using some of the references from my research, ensuring that they have enough differences while still adhering to my main initial silhouettes - essentially just giving purpose and intent to those base forms. here I look to explore a character with slightly different proportions that are more anatomical to a real person, start to better examine how the character is put together, some details about how clothing is worn, explain how and why the hair is worn in specific ways and what it subtly references and some more detailed sketches of the characters face/how they express etc. final spread, taking into consideration information of this character - a crab seller that hasn't caught any crabs in a long time, so they now catch fish - their body and frame is based off of the main body of a crab with scraggy carapace (upper crab body/shell that's more textured) the sleeveless shirt with torn shoulders references this, the sardines in the pocket - because why not? - generally a fun little quick side project where I explored designing in a style outside of my primary style, I'm content with this as a final and managed to pull in a lot of design elements that really sell that this man is a man of the sea and I maybe want to marry this hunk of a beefcake hehe
August 30, 2025 at 4:14 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
I'm curiousss
prompt asking "what's my art trademark??!? as in what makes you go "oh hey, this is_____'s art!11!!" or what's the msot remarkable thin about my artstyle in general?"
July 17, 2025 at 12:42 AM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
blocked out a pretty basic/abstract scene in blender - thank you displace modifiers - a fungal lands card to start things off, I'm going to draw over and test some basic art styles and add card info and graphics over these #conceptart #gameart
rough black and white scene block out in blender, consisting of soft rocky pillars and geometric fungal growths to add contrast to the shapes within the composition rough black and white scene block out in blender, consisting of soft rocky pillars and geometric fungal growths to add contrast to the shapes within the composition - similar to the last but sightly panned out, so the scene feels more busy and populated with framing elements and depth
July 16, 2025 at 5:57 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
wind down sketch from last night, feel this card game will be in a vastly different style to my normal soft n' squishy characters I often post - I adore comic landscapes and feel I'll possibly use this project as an opportunity to jump back into the art I used to make around 2015 haha
an almost alien landscape, green pillars of rock breaking through a field of lavender coloured flora - drawn loose and rugged with a wobbly brush in procreate
July 16, 2025 at 12:48 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
made a rough visual mock of how this trading card game would be played
simple graphic diagram of how a tcg idea of mine would be played
July 15, 2025 at 11:59 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
last week, in a daze from all the morphine I created a Pinterest board of inspo for a card game I hope to draft up within the next year - not sayin too much about it, but this is the visual mood
collection of reference materials from pinterest, landscape photographs, concept art for environments, objects and historical relics from the real world
July 15, 2025 at 4:33 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
hewwo pwincess
Portrait photo of myself in Hospital wearing an unused cardboard vomit bowl as a fedora
July 6, 2025 at 12:48 AM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
if I posted this on LinkedIn would I get blacklisted?
edit of a meme tweet that is begging for connection, relevant to me trying to secure work as a freelance concept artist in the games industry. the text in this meme reads; "Art Directors if you're reading this I am free to concept cute characters for you please contact me if you would like to work together on a game !!!!!!! when I am free"
June 20, 2025 at 5:46 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
lil update: my freelance schedule will be open at the end of June and I'm looking to concept characters for some fun lil projects!! please let me know if you want to make art together and (maybe) giggle during working hours!! ༘⋆

#gameart #characterdesign #conceptart #visualdevelopment
character concept sketch spread of a squishy scientists that are in some questionable, yet adorable mechs, preparing for an expedition to strange lands, sketches are traditional, scanned and then cleaned up digitally, tonal values and texture added to make them more palatable! :) #science #characterart rough sketches of plant characters, small snippets of what a tree with a face looks like, shape inspiration from dandelions, using that as a reference, I then created a small friend wearing suit trousers, colour halftones used to find digital ways of adding texture to my sketches miscellaneous collection of blind box character toy designs, characters that followed the theme of "biblically accurate clowns" this is a side-project/collab with my dear friend across the Atlantic, Corey Montemango, we still have plans for this to go somewhere, but we're currently between jobs. #blindbox #popmart vis dev spread, figuring out what's at the bottom of the sea - image is missing annotations, explaining design choices and the mechanics of what and why these organics exist at the bottom of the sea, but some fun exploration of world-building and narrative development is present in these concept sketches. #environmentart #worldbuilding #visdev
June 19, 2025 at 3:09 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
took a minute today to create a submission for @pictoplasma.bsky.social 's call for entries: CharacterKitsch

I've used "Still Life" by William Michael Harnett, 1888 to show a character struggling to light their last cigarette - it felt right for the mood of this classic painting
paint over of a character struggling to light a cigarette in the classic painting "Still Life" by William Michael Harnett, 1888. a simple paint over of the original, the focal point is a soft and squishy simply designed character sweating as they grasp the subject matter and lean into a lit candle in the attempts to light their cigarette. there's some texture in the piece from natural paint textures of the original painting, some emulated noise and digital texture overlays. #illustration #characterdesign #sketchbook #pictoplasma #design
June 5, 2025 at 5:38 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
imagine explaining these purchases to your accountant
cummy worm manufacture error, all connected, seller claims they look like a dinosaur or human and that it's ultra rare triple conjoined green gummy bears, seller claims it's extremely rare rare haribo merry mix, seller thankfully doesn't claim this gummy candy is rare again, another seller claims this small haribo bag with only three gummy rings is extremely rare
May 28, 2025 at 9:55 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
that feeling when you grow a nice lil tache
May 28, 2025 at 8:56 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
botanists are hot !!

#characterdesign #conceptart #gameart #illustration
character concept sketchbook spread - these concepts explore biologist characters, soft and squishy friends that use found materials, repurposing them to mod themselves to better navigate through their lil world, all drawn by hand, scanned and rendered lightly in photoshop - this is essentially my rendition of any given gundam, but like, wayyyyy more passive haha
May 23, 2025 at 2:23 AM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
weird that some people use their brain to do bad bad things, but I use mine for ham dog

#characterdesign #conceptart #illustration
angelic dog made of roast ham, it's very cute and looks tasty, has a pair of wings and a bone for a tail, silly little t-bone nose and a small cloud floating above it's head
May 23, 2025 at 1:09 AM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
me needing one of these directly after watching
ambulanceroid a yu-gi-oh card
May 1, 2025 at 3:15 AM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
fun fact; this character is the cosmic mother who creates the sun and the moon characters in my story - her design is based on the image Nasa captured of the birth of a star
diagram of the birth of a star image captured by Nasa, fluid, soft and sharp shapes create a really lovely balanced silhouette
April 30, 2025 at 10:17 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
have started working on an old concept about a sad lil moon and hope to turn it into a short film

interested to see how this will develop over the next year

#conceptart #animation #visdev
April 30, 2025 at 10:08 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
note to self: trash bandit (racoon holding banana gun, just robbed a sandwich store of all their PB & J’s)
a fun little masked racoon character concept, this little guy is holding a banana like it’s a gun, wearing a paper bag over their head - they have robbed a sandwich store and are carrying so many PB & J’s in a little sack
April 27, 2025 at 4:15 AM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
shell studies
4 digital studies of shells, drawn using inky liner brushes and a light HB pencil brush, these shells are graphic and have a comic quality, expressive and loose
April 25, 2025 at 12:40 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
over the past few months I've been slowly working away, designing digital brush textures and stamps for Procreate - this help when trying to express physical mediums digitally!

hope to release them properly in the next few weeks!! ༘⋆

#digitalbrushes #procreate #characterdesign #illustration
visual example of digital bushes I'd made in use! some have a slight tactile and wet look like emulation of ink, translucent watercolor pencil, scraggly ink and small messy splatter brushes visual examples of some ink brushes, some have a lot of texture and visual grit that feel like dry ink or spray paint, some others that act similarly to watercolors (edges are dark) and some that are loose and fun like the most expressive line in this line-up visual example of some softer medium brushes that plays with pencil textures brushes, slight undertone of texture that resembles paper, some of these brushes utilize pressure to help with opacity changes, like if you rendered using a physical pencil, there's build up and depth - alongside these pencil brushes are some more examples of sharp, but rough media emulation, inking brushes in a variety of sizes visual example of the textures these brushes can make when combined - I used this texture in some of the brush designs, repurposing my exploration into the physical brushes themselves - big full circle moment, this texture feels like a close up of bark, it's grainy and has linear contrast
April 2, 2025 at 8:50 PM
mattjohnss.bsky.social
this is too adorable:’’)) had to draw them 🥲
illustration of an indoor plat pot shaped as a cartoon frog - warm green and yellows with a pop of red for the cheeks of the frog, it’s in a sitting stance and a pothos is growing gout the back of the frog :)
April 2, 2025 at 7:58 PM