Hello! 29,998 Views!

It's not quite 30,000 [Update: Soon after this post, we did actually pass 30,000 views- Ed], but I was too impatient to wait! I had to do a post.

Today is Tuesday. I've been to all my new classes. I have an animation class that will be fun. The rest will be... School.

Here are some things I did.

I wasn't going to post this (it's last night's 1 hour study) but Kaitlin saw it and said, "Is that Jake Gyllenhaal?" I was flattered she knew who it was!

I have a break between my first class and work today. I did some studies from Pascal's Pinterest stuff. He posts such cool junk!

I did these yesterday.

I DID THIS TODAY. Why is it important? It's because of the foot. Look at the awesome foot. Our right, his left (I drew an arrow so you could find it easily, but it's kinda aimed right in the middle)! It's just one of my favorite feet. And look at the cute little mushrooms!

Lastly, there's this song (Hail from the Past) from Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin. In my opinion, it was a mediocre game. It was fun, but mediocre. But the desert song? I haven't played it since I was 16, but this song is CONSTANTLY going through my head! I know I'm sidetracked now, so it won't hurt if keep talking. Alucard's running animation in Symphony of the Night is one of my all time favs. Jonathan's running animation is pretty weak in comparison. I can't find one for you to see, sorry. But anyway, my only real recollection of Portrait of Ruin is Jonathan's running animation syncing up to that desert song. Anyway, my whole point with this dumb story is that I go running multiple times a week to keep from going insane and sometimes when I go running I sing that song in my head in time to my running. It's pretty stupid. 

THE END: Debriefing (SUMMER '15 #16)

Before I talk about my summer goals, I want to talk about this!

I've been doing these studies from film stills lately. James Gurney posted about this one place and I've been taking cool pics from there to work on painting and lighting. Anyway, I try to keep it to an hour or less. Just trying to see big shapes and color and how they wrap around forms and other nerdy junk like that.

Here's one I did yesterday:

You can see that I got into little details on his lapels and basically got distracted and wasted time instead of blocking in important things. I also didn't get stuff like his face in there.

Here's one (from the same movie as the first, actually) I did tonight:

Yesterday I was expressing my complete failure to paint well to Kaitlin and what I was going to do differently. Basically prioritize shapes, pay attention, and try not to noodle around with tiny initially inconsequential details. I tried and look! It's way better. Next time I'd really like to nail the actor's face more better. But yeah, that's a thing.

School starts Monday. Bleh. I just have 2 years left! Or so they tell me. 

School makes me cranky, don't talk to me about it right now!

How did my goals go this summer? Way better than last year.

Copying and pasting my goals from the briefing post:

1. Finish the two remaining sketchbooks [from Spring 2015 semester], (one per month tentative): 

Did that. Whatever!

2. Finish 3 (or more) pieces (color/painted): 

I think maybe yes? Let's see... This one, this one (even though his legs are dumb and I want to fix them), and this one. You even have some other options, if you hate the ones I picked.

3. Render 3 Characters, one per month:

I think that this was a close one. I'm not totally proud of what I made, but I did end up with 3 characters: This one, this one, this one.

4. Make some props in 3D (Chair, table, sword):

This one was hilariously vague. It says "Some" props, which I did. I made a coupla swords. You can see them here and here. I'm still working on the second sword. It's actually changed quite a bit to fit better into Dota. Now I'm just trying to figure out maps and texture painting. And Valve has all these mask things that use all the channels and whatever. Urgh. I'll get it.

5. Be a good husband:

I just asked Kaitlin and she said, "Yes! You were a good husband. You win."

6. Make sure it doesn't say "Student" anywhere online:

Done! Go ahead and check anywhere you want. LinkedIn, Twitter, whatever.

7. Try to incorporate more environmental aspects into work (architecture, plants, etc):

There were a couple instances of this, but I'm comfortable saying that I totally failed at this one. I'll keep trying.

8. No more B+W posts UNLESS there's also somefink [sic] colored:

I blew it a couple times here, but I really make a good effort to work on my colors now.

9. Use reference for everything and stop drawing out of your mind.

I tried. I'm getting better! Remember all the faces I've been painting!?

So there you have it. Another summer gone. I tried so hard. Maybe I'll try putting a little portfolioid together? Hmm. I hope school gives me a chance to draw tons and paint tons and model tons of cool 3D junk. Wish me luck! I'll keep you all posted with posts post-haste!

School Starts on Monday? (SUMMER '15 #15)

Sorry... It seems like everything I need to do has been jammed into the last few days. Paying for school, fixing the car, whatever, etc. I've been struggling with some 3D stuff (that infernal sword!!!) and just drawing and doing digital studies and whatever.

I booted up Dota 2 for the first time to see what it was like, as I want to make assets for it. I also watched some footage from The International. Umm. What else? 

Yeah, I don't know. I'm going to start modeling a character tomorrow or something. I just want to blah.

Blah.

Oh yeah. Due to some cool stuff happening we were able to get me a smartphone again (I haven't had a smartphone since late 2012!) so I jumped on the Instagram bandwagon. You can follow me here: @zachheckert.

I've just been posting lots of bus doodles there.

Well, not lots. 

You're still my first love, blog friends. And we also got that missing follower back! Back up to 30!

:( (SUMMER '15 #14)

Ever since my last post, I've been slumpin' like a maniac! I don't know what's up, but everything I do is feeling a bit weak to me. My drawings feel really clunky and generic and "Bad-Habitty." I really need to work more from reference and try to do more studies of stuff. I still want to finish my sword, but it's been pushed to the back burner for a sec.

This is a dumb thing I started yesterday. I'm really trying to get down a good Zbrush workflow, and it's slow going (although I did successfully get a low poly model into Maya and get a texture map and normal map from the high poly onto it. It looked like butt, but it's a start. I would have posted it here but I can't find it. My desktop is super messy right now). The socks were my wife's idea. I wanted to give him shorts, but she said only socks would be better. I think she's right.

This next one was a study done from one of Aris' pieces. I thought I would try mixing stuff by doing a monster instead of a portrait. As a lighting exercise it's nice, but as far as enforcing basic drawing principles is concerned, I found it lacking. Since it's a monster (and thereby not as familiar as a human face) it's much easier to justify bad measurement taking and general sloppiness. It wasn't a waste, but I feel like I have so much to learn from the human figure that maybe I won't do this as much.

Yeah, with all this hubbub about The International 2015 going on right now maybe it really is time to finish up my Dota sword.

Okay, back to work!

Face (SUMMER '15 #13)

The guy with the fists? I think he's getting painted next.

Sickly! (SUMMER '15 #12)

Hey! For those who don't live here and look at every post a million times (everyone who's not me, in other words) I've done a lot of posts lately. You should scroll down and have a look!

Well, I followed through! I kinda sorta finished a thingy. Or at least brought it to a more finished state. Observe (cloak pattern by Kaitlin):

A girl from reference I found somewhere. The internet. This was hard! I spent probably two hours on her mouth and eyes. I don't want to talk about it! Time to move on!

Couple things- All these studies I've been doing of people's faces have nasty, sickly quality to them. I know I should be putting warms in the cools or cools in the warms or using complementary colors and junk but still the mystery evades me. I'm working on it!

And the other thing is that I lost a precious, precious follower! What a fiend they were! I went from 30 to 29. I don't know how the Google+ followers factor into this. Thanks for stopping by, though. Okaybye