School Has Begun, Small Update, &c.

Hi, everyone! I'm a busy boy! School started, I've been sick and not going to class, and work has been fine. Christmas was great, and, uh, I can't remember the things I was going to mention. Oh yeah, here's something I learned Monday. There were hiccups in my school schedule and I'll be graduating with my bachelor's degree in Gaming and Animation in Spring 2018, a year later than I planned. That will mean that it took just shy of 8 years to get a bachelor's degree. I think that whole four year thing is a bit of a myth, unless you just bang your head against whatever you knew you wanted to be when you grew up when you were 17 years old and do 18 credits a semester.

Anyway, it is what it is! I'll try to be positive and make the most of it. Peradventure I may be an artistic power house prior to my graduation. Anyway, school is probably okay. I'm not sure since I've been sick and missed two classes because I was desperately trying to recover. I spoke with teacher (he mysteriously taught both classes I was absent from) and he just said to read the syllabus (which I diligently tried to do today but the classes don't apparently exist online yet). That's all, no more school talk in this post UNLESS YOU REMIND ME PLEASE DON'T

So! Some exiting stuff this post! Here are some sketches. These are from yesterday and today and maybe Monday, I can't quite recall through my feverish haze. Maybe they're from last month. And the two leftmost characters seem too similar. Whatever

And my current project! It's a demon I've built in 3D, based loosely on an idiotic little doodle I found completely hilarious at the time and knew, "I must model this!" but in reality it was kind of a weak reference. It's UV'd and ready to be painted! I'll probably get to work on during my breaks tomorrow. And if you think this is dumb, I included an earlier attempt I did last month for laughs (with facial geometry straight out of the late 90's) beneath. I may be posting less, as per this manifesto, but I've been working, honest!

Something else- My aunt and uncle gave me a gift card to Utrecht and I bought some really nice pencils (better than Prismacolor? Maybe. My pal Rod gave me one before and I used it until was a tiny nub) and a Moleskine sketchbook. Moleskine is all the rage, but when I can get as many pages for a third of price I'm hesitant. But I've always wanted 

Last thing- that secret thing I've been whispering about will be unleashed upon you all on the 28th of this month, which is this blog's 3rd anniversary. It's basically ready (I haven't worked on it much since my last mention of it) but I'm lollygagging around. 28th is the day, come heck or high water.

Red? Ask Me When I'm Not Asleep

Oh me, oh my.

It's gonna be a busy week. I have some homework to do, and it's kind of getting jammed into the little corners so I can try other things. Things like this:

Original Sketch:

MOM! I know you're peeved about his feet, cuz they're all little and tiny, but I was thinking he's like a crab guy, y'know? He has red armor and crab feet. So that's how I justify away the need to draw detailed feet. I feel like I lost some visual interest in the leg area from the sketch to the final (is it done? I have too much to do!), but that's the way the cookie crumbles.

A little update on the guy from last time, I think I might call it good unless I wake up tomorrow and absolutely have to fix something when I see it again (I'm looking away right now to make sure it doesn't happen):

A little thing. I drew a ton of stuff this weekend, and have so many ideas I'd like to push a little further lying all over my desktop. I tell myself I'm going to paint everything, but really, none of it's homework and I don't have time. So here's a pen n ink thing, but not Inktober. Just normal. So some brawler is going to brawl an opponent into submission and the ghost of his dead master hath appeared to guide him toward certain victory:

I have to finish my Gallery of Terror piece. My Flash assignments are killing me. I'm going in early tomorrow to sink three or four hours into my midterm, but I'd really like to work on some 3D stuff. I look at objects and take them apart in my mind, using Maya to reconstruct them into shapes. What tool would I use to get the curved edges? Where would I extrude? Would this work better to build from a single polygonal primitive, or should I start with several and combine them further down the line? I need to do that tomorrow night. I also need to re-teach myself how to UV a model. The default tools just aren't utilizing space effectively. Maybe I'll skip art history? Ugh!

Just a simple post

Long time no see, here some stuff and some 3D stuff and stuff.

Too busy, school is busy, I have no time.

All works in progress unless otherwise noted. 

Blehhhh

Slower day today. I have to go to work, so I don't have much time to do anything. I did some other things, but I didn't properly warm up so I don't want to share with you. I made this Lord of the Rings-esque sword in Maya today. I was going to paint it, but I'm OUTTA TIME!

Thomas is at it again over at his blog. He did a treatment of the Dreaded Laser Horse this time, and it's swiit.

Hideous textures

But whaddaya gonna do.

The guy was generating UV's in THE MOST complicated way I have ever seen. Maya 2015 has proven (so far) to be fairly good at pulling them out, so I just did planar stuff and painted the chunks in Photoshop:

I'd like to go over it and paint some more, but I have to go to work. So it's all I got!

I had some landscape studies from class today I'm proud of, but I can't find my flashdrive so they're still at school.

I'm tired and kinda cranky

I've been fighting with Maya all afternoon...

It's awful trying to remember this stuff, really slow going. Here's what I have so far today, the normals are kinda wonky but I think I'm going to do some textures for it tomorrow:

Yeah, people display their 3D models and they look awesome but I don't know how to do that yet, so go away (but come back tomorrow because I might have figured it out!). Now I'm looking at that sword and hating it for how symmetrical it is. OH WELL. It's a first attempt.

A Change of Plans: Summer Goals Recap Week the Fifth (5th)

I failed again. I didn't really do anything related to my Summer Goals. 

BUT!

I have some plans to mix things up. I redownloaded Maya this week. I know I did this last year (probably about the same time of year, actually) but I really need to get my 3D muscles working again. So I drew this sword today:

I'm going to put it together in Maya and model it. Since I'm not getting any 3D done at school, I'm taking it into my own hands! So 3D will take the place of weekly watercolor. That's the change to my summer goals. I'll just have to work hard to incorporate more of those books into my work week.

This next one has my favorite thing: That guy at the bottom is SO FUN! Blam blam blam!

I was excited...

But once I lose the lines everything falls apart. That's just showing there's holes in my understanding of everything. Just look! I was using a tumblr for some architecture. My sketches were dynamite and legible. But... I threw some paint onto it and want to throw up. Ha! Maybe  just have no experience with watercolor!? Yeah, I think that's what it is. Whatevah. Maybe I'll avoid the watercolor for a while. I'm redownloading Maya, maybe with the new digital painting skills I have I could throw a texture over a mesh and create something reeeel simple n cool.

Some stuff I drew today. I'm proud of the guy in the lower left corner of this next one. He has potential.

Progress on my "Retro" themed image. That monster is presshussh. Yesterday's image here.

BONUS: Maya revival

I haven't touched Maya since Fall 2012.

Today was the day I downloaded Maya again and tried to pull that info out of my skull.

It was a long time ago... And the image shows it!

It was a huge pain in the butt! As I was going stuff was coming back to me. I think the texture is 256x256, the object is far too complicated geometrically than it needs to be and I literally just blorped paint over an auto uv-mapped texture. 

So it's ugly.

But even now, my brain is remembering things and realizing where I made things complicated and where I can improve. I did this without consulting any videos or tutorials. I think this isn't bad for over a year later and about an hour and a half.

(Edit at 7:23 P.M. So yeah, it was less than a year ago. That was slightly dramatic. But it's been awhile, okay?)

(Edit at 8:19 P.M. After an hour of painting a much higher quality texture I'm still frustrated... I appear to have become stuck at the same place I do when regularly painting something. It looked much better than the image posted here but it was still ugly. Hmm. I'm going to continue practicing my mesh-building and uv-mapping skills, but painting is still scary )