Botanical study

Characters? Or environments? That is the choice I am constantly faced with in my major. Well, I love them both, So I am going to practice both.

So in order to practice environments, I have started off with doing a basic botanical study of the trunk of a tree.

Most people wouldn't bother to study their own body, much less a tree. Two parallel lines with a few shades of brown and we are done, right? Wrong. Trees in many ways are more complex than human beings in form. Despite standing straight up, trees have curvature, they have form, they have motion, and they have very gestural poses. Not only that, but trees have more gradients and more complex textures than a human body would ever have.

It's the background artist job to master all of these elements, and believe me, there are more aspects to a background than there ever will be with characters.

Every videogame is 20% character 80% background. And believe me, it's a very complex and diverse 80% that requires due respect and attention. So today I have begun to pay my respects!

btw, this was done in watercolors. Watercolors and various paints are primarily how I will gesture my botanicals, landforms, and environmental surveys.

Technology issues!

Ugh... Technology is really being a jerk to me. With little money, getting a computer that can do what I need it to is a royal pain... So for now I have to deal with using POS machines my friend's lend me, and dealing with the absolute crap internet provider my mother uses when I visit home on weekends.

It's great...

Anyways... less of that, more art! First up today, we have a little bit more on "Glitch" my character that I am going to design, and then model. So today we focused on beefing up her wing designs a bit more, mainly her right wing. The idea behind the right wing is that it's supposed to look as if it is falling apart, glitching out, or in general coming apart. I attempted this appeal, while also doing my best to not compromise the overall silhouette design. This seems like a fairly strong spread to me... What do you guys think?

And a gesture from yesterday... ugh... I was having technology issues yesterday, and found myself unable to post this gesture. But here it is! A woman curled up sleeping. She feels a bit off with her proportions and various forms... But... I suppose that is something I can always push, should I choose to use this in the future.

Sorry for the break in updates

Sorry for the small pause in my daily sketch updates. This week has been a bit hectic. First off, AWA was this past weekend! Yay! It was a lot of fun, and very productive! I passed out tons of free art prints that all had my information on the back, so that really helped get me some exposure as well as got my name out there. I look forward to befriending and seeing more from all of the artist there that I met and exchanged info with!

So... For now! I have just a few simple gestures.

Gestures

Gearing up for AWA in two days! Really excited. Today I spent all day making my website. I finished it, but the Godaddy servers need 24-48 hours to update the changes. I really hope the site is up in time!

ohh ohh! I got my prints today that I am going to pass out. And they look awesome. I was very pleased about that.

Right now I am working on new decor for my Blog here, as well as working on personalizing my Facebook Fanpage, and twitter page.

Hopefully everything will come together right as the convention arrives.

Look forward to seeing some new paintings, digital, and traditional! Also, after the convention I am putting my Glitch character designs on full throttle. So get psyched for that!

For now here are today's gestures. Total defense man, and this woman doing a ballancing gesture.

Despite both being extremely standard poses... they were actually very challenging.

Final Storyboarding Project

So, for my scriptwriting and storyboarding class, we had final projects recently.

The project was to take the stoyboards we had been sketching all quarter, and render them in higher detail and color them.

I got special permission from the teacher to try out this Noir style instead of doing normal coloring, and I have to say... I truly enjoyed it.

All of the frames I did traditionally in white charcoal, White prisma colored pencil, and Sharpie paint pen.

The original storyboard had 63 frames in it, and for the final animatic I was forced to drop that down to 21 frames. I definitely needed more frames, however, I did the best with the time that I was given.

I hope you enjoy! I have been meaning to post progress shots of the frames for weeks. But, the final product will give you the feel of what I have been working on.


http://www.youtube.com/my_videos?feature=mhum

Hard work

And there you have it... The product of several hard days works.

I was worried about this one, but it came out all right I think. If you show up at anime weekend atlanta, look for me at the artist alley, you will get a free print of this piece!

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Here is a fairly large update for today! For starters, I am working on a promotional picture that I am making prints of for an anime convention (anime weekend atlanta). While I am there, I will pass out free small sizes of the print that have my info on the back!

I was going to post progress shots of some story board images I have been working on. But jesus christ. This Blogger engine sucks.

I have literally been attempting to resize and upload these pictures for a soild hour now. I am loosing too much sleep over this. So until tomorrow... Fjlkd;lkj;lkja

Big progress!

Ohh man... for two days I have been working like mad to get this sculpture to a more finished state. I am actually very happy with the progress I have made...

Things I have accomplished

-Thined out her exoskeleton and gave more definition back to her form

-filled in all 6 spikes

-finished both webbed hands

-Blocked in feet

-cut all excess wire

-blocked in basic terrain

Things I need to do...

-finish head, helmet lips facial structure

-Finish hair

-Finalize feet

-Finalize terrain

-correct various anatomy flaws

-smooth entire sculpture out +texture

Enjoy, and please do feel free to let me know what you think.

Gift

Today I have been hard at work on a gift for my best friend, Leilani.

It's her birthday today! So I wanted to give her a labor of love.

Hope everyone likes it.

Sculpture in progress

So! For the past few weeks in one of my classes we have been working on a little bit of 3D art. Sculptures to be exact. It all started out with some research, some concepting, then rough sketches.

We had to combine three animals together into a human figure. I chose three prehistoric creatures that barely anyone knows of...

These are the creatures...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ceratarges_sp_Alnif.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RedlichiidaTakooensis.png

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Latimeria_Chalumnae_-_Coelacanth_-_NHMW.jpg

So... I started off by referencing these creatures and combining their various traits in on various parts of the female form. Giving myself plenty of options as usual, I came up here with many possible design options.

Then, I moved onto more finalized sketches.... Followed by a turn around. The turn around and the full body sketch, don't nessesarily reflect what the final product will look like, but they give me a clear direction for which I can use for measurement while I sculpt. Note also, that the three point turn around is drawn to the actual size of the sculpture. 14 inches.

And so! After a few weeks of sculpting here are some in progress shots of the sculpture. So so so so much more needs to be done. Hands, feet, the basic head shape and shapes of the exoskeleton features are only blocked in roughly... The ribs that I just blocked on roughly today, need to be adjusted to correctly accentuate the contours of her body, as well as get downsized and shaved down a bit... That way they don't subtract from her overall form.

A lot more needs working on... But all in all... For my very first sculpture... progress is progress. It shall get there.

Stay tuned for the finalized versions soon to come in the coming weeks!

Live Model day

Every week during the school quarter, there is an open figure drawing session where a model comes in and we have the option of drawing the nude model in order the gain more skill.

Think of Gesture drawing like practicing chords and scales for musicians.

You might notice that these drawings are all.... well... bad. Bare in mind that these drawings are not nessesarily meant to look pretty. They are meant to loosen the artist up, and help them draw more quickly, and more accurately, as well as recognize basic forms and anatomy of the body.

Also, the drawings are all done on 18x24 paper, so I had to composite them in photoshop. The reason for using such large paper, because the drawings are all done in a minute or less. So... The less times you have to flip the page, the better. Also, drawing big is much harder than drawing small. Anyone can draw a figure small.

These are a few pages... (this is only the tip of the iceburg)