Im not Dead

Just picking up pieces of work here and there and everywhere

I want to achieve greatness but increments are expensive.

have a touch of too many brushstrokes:

Back to the Basics

My time at Direwolf Digital was an enlightening one and I think I got much more out of it than I ever expected walking in. The first day was daunting, to put it lightly, and every day in succession was just as wild. Unfortunately I never met the goal of finishing a piece in two days and honestly looking back at it I had to return to a very native state just to meet the quality standard. You learn a lot of techniques and skills in school and on your own you think you execute them correctly but you'll come to find that you weren't as in-tune with your art as you thought you were. For me this wasn't the only thing that I found needed checking up on. More of my time at home and school was spent fretting over time and time management as things started rolling along at the internship. I honestly wish that I had taken care of that more gracefully than I had but things happen and after learning what does and what doesn't work I believe that in the future when opportunities like this arise I will be much more prepared.

As far as art goes, we learned what my weaknesses were very quickly and in the next two terms I intend to practice a couple of things to get to that optimum speed AND quality for painting (and... all art in general!).
Of highest priority are-

-Environments, both in correct perspective and creativity. Environments that correspond with what is happening in the composition and compliment the subject matter. Environments in environments on environments with some more environments.
-Thumbnail readability and stroke economy (which needless to say stretches across the board)
-Depth and volume; stepping out of that flat realm.
-"Unobvious" color schemes. This is something I personally want to take to the extreme and experiment with after reading Gurney's Color and Light, particularly the side-by-side strokes of complimentary colors.

Aside from those, everything else could use working-on too but I noticed when I finished my last image at the internship that I created a roadblock for myself with these particular things on every image.
Of course there was plenty of positives that came out of this despite my jumping right into what needed working on. In fact I couldn't list everything I learned there but I have never been more obsessed with improvement than I have upon entering the internship. I pushed my art further than ever before and as a result actually conceived some finished images. By the time I can show them though, I want to produce some seriously amazing shit. I'm excited for the future, as always, and while I need to run off for now I will be back to work before school even starts trying to optimize myself and my art.

Aw yea, things are going to get really intense around here.

2004-2012 quick piece

The other day I went through some old pictures I had archived and found one of the oldest 'colored' pieces I had ever made digitally that I was at one point in my early high school years rather proud of. It was small so I decided redoing it at the same size wouldn't hurt. The results were pretty interesting and I think to myself that in a couple years even the one on the right will look much different to me than it does now. Moot point but I believe there is no rescuing the subject matter on this one I was going for just an aesthetic re-creation without altering too much of the original piece. The mechanical creature in the back got a revamp and I couldn't interpret what I was going for with the little critter by the girl so I sort of free-handed that. Creepy stuff.

Meeting Roger Chamberlain

   Yesterday I had the exciting opportunity to meet the Art Director of Dire Wolf Digital, Roger Chamberlain thanks to my Game Animation teacher Cliff. It was a real eye-opening experience and we were fortunate to get some critique on our portfolios and really take another glance at where we have been going with RMCAD and where we need to start honing in our skills. For me I had a lot of presentation fallacies particularly in the manner of which pieces were ordered. Roger explained how certain methods of presenting can make or break you when showing to potential employers- particularly in the 3D department. I know that 3D is my weakest attribute and I'm still struggling to decide where I want to see it develop if at all. (Considering what I love to do is mostly 2D its hard to say when I'm looking at graduation in a couple of semesters.)
   I like to visualize Roger's critique of the portfolio overall as being given a sapling--but first we had to cut down the tree already in place. By doing so we gathered what was useful and kept it as kindle then took what wasn't which in my case was my 3D and less powerful compositions and shred them. Then we talked about what wasn't present at all and tools we could use to make a better tree- so referencing and checking value with tools that won't lie to you like your eyes can sometimes. I intend to take this sapling and grow a bigger, more fruitful tree through the course of the next semester. Of course down the road we're going to have to chop it down again and continue the process. Chopping down a tree and watching it crash is not a painful thing if you make sure it doesn't hit your house- I feel the same about critique and while its a very scary thing to walk into walking out of it leaves you glowing and thirsting for more knowledge (because when you're not welcoming to critique it can feel like your home collapsed on itself. )
   I couldn't be more thankful to both Cliff and Roger for bringing back solid and honest critique back into my life. For a while I was beginning to miss it. Where I want to go with my art is a place nobody gets to without working really hard for it and I want to be able to show in my work has gone through that process. In the future I hope to be able to showcase work that's not only high quality but also proves my ability to produce accurately to given specs applicable to any studio scenario.

Finals Week

Finals week is probably the most agonizing week for me where all of a sudden all that planning you did is totally irrelevant. I don't intend to turn this into a personal personal blog but my art's feeling the heat really bad. Here's to hoping I survive

War Teaser

Now what on earth am I doing up at 5:13 AM and not playing video games.

Another Horseman Update

We're getting somewhere with this, only still missing some pieces here and there. Coloring is going to be one heck of an adventure.

A Horsemen Update + More

I finally picked up that commission I was working on again. I've been having trouble with confidence lately and I just want to feel like I'm accomplishing something really challenging. Here's a screenshot at a small percent of the whole picture! I also have another piece I posted earlier that's progressed in value.

Weapon Renders

Some weapon illustrations for a story; they're sentient so there's gonna be some glowing things on them but otherwise they're washed out for color.

Pixel Art

Definitely not isometric so less impressive but what I spent the evening concocting. Can you identify the video game bosses they're dressed up as?

Gestures, Studies, and some Abstract

Almost made it to March without updating but I'm making this Leap Day matter, I suppose. Midterms have got me in a very unhealthy spot where I'm literally making myself ill. Not sure what to do at this point but to ride it out. I've never ever been so messed up so I'm taking it with stride. I feel like we all kind of have to hit rock bottom at some point how else do we learn to prevent it you know?

Pepin Card Prototyping

Its coming along real nice, I cant wait to actually paint the thing. Many thanks to Carmen for helping me with composition! This pose derives from the first set of thumbnails I did. Background is not 100% permanent

Pepin Thumbnails

Thumbnails for a composition involving one of my favorite characters, Pepin. This will likely be a part of a business card design (the side without information on it)

Updated Composition (Horseman of Conquest)

I'm attempting Tyler James' woodcut method on one of the pieces I am working on and I'm just trying to block in more of the entire piece. Need to reference more horses for this (all I have been doing lately is horses?) because the perspective and the legs are looking a little helpless.

A couple compositions

Here are some very horizontal compositions I'm working on right now, I'm doing a lot of this and that here and there so the ETA for these is still up in the air. The more complete one is a gift for a friend mimicing the Sailor Moon style.