Progress on the Cutie

Progress on the work in progress. I hope to have him armed for the next update, and maybe textured. That would be excellent!

I did a one-hour study from this collection of photographs. I wish I had the line work, because I felt it was much more spot on, but apparently I closed the document without saving, so this is all you get.

Finally, I have some sketchbook stuff I didn't hate from this week. I've noticed that I have to slog through about an hour of warmup nonsense before I start doing stuff I like. I need to make the time to squeeze in more sketchbook, since I'm not going to finish this one by tomorrow. I'm not even halfway there!

Until next time.

Dark Times: Slump City

It's been a busy couple weeks. I scanned probably 8 sketchbook pages for upload, but when I opened everything up to prepare them, they were't really good enough to put here. I'm just under halfway through my current sketchbook. I won't finish by the 18th (or 17th, I can't remember when I hit the month mark). So far, it's a bit of an embarrassment in there! I've been slumping pretty seriously in that department. I really want to push myself out of this soon.

In other news, independent study is going fine. Today marks the beginning of the 3rd week. The first week I spent working on a previously mentioned project for a client. Last week I finished the basic sculpt for my first character. This week I want to do a detail pass and extrude clothes and armor. It would be ideal to finish this guy so I could do a couple more, but this is going slower than I anticipated. Hopefully things pick up! Expect more of this guy soon, as well as stuff from the figure drawing class from first block.

Oh, as a sidenote, I'm using a great tutorial from Kurt Papstein's Gumroad. Check him out here. He's great!

BONUS: I Did It?

I told you I'd polish the guy from last time,

and I DID!

Also, two posts in a week? Sink me!

Now I have to go do homework until Kaitlin gets home! She's at a baby shower.

EDIT @ 5:40 PM: I just realized that his big punchy right arm doesn't seem to connect to his body properly. I didn't notice it until now! Also, his head design is kind of silly and I think lost the magic of the original sketch. I may have to revisit this one!

Summer Is Busy

I have to go to bed, but here's stuff I've sketched on the bus and between figure drawing poses in class. I haven't done 3D for weeks and am still working on getting my second independent study squared away. Glancing at these again, I feel like I missed something. I'll have to go look. There's two weeks left before 2nd block begins. 

Also, I can't stop listening to  Dasein by First Fragment. If you're into deathmetal, give it a listen.

I Thought of Something Funny

I don't remember what it was!

Here's some pictures from this week.

In my figure class we just started doing draped models and I'm learning so many cool things.

Oh, I just remembered the funny thing I was going to tell you. It's not really funny, but it's something. Last Sunday I was complaining about how I wanted to update my tags. I did figure out a way, but I haven't really done much about it yet [I.e. you are a lazy fiend! - Ed]. I made a couple changes but it will take a while to reconfigure everything the way I want it to be.

I just remembered the real funny thing I was going to tell you. On Wednesday I went with my work buddies Eden, Cord and Nui to a comic jam hosted by Jess Smart Smiley. He had this crazy idea to have everybody make comics with branching storylines. So we folded paper in such a way to allow the other artists to add on to our ideas. It was hilarious. I'm posting my favorite path from my story here (right click and open link in new window for a better look):

Some figure studies I didn't hate from this week:

Then, for that same class, we had to draw 100 hands. I picked some faves, cuz there were some truly rotten hands and junk. Reminds me of this post. I also used the same tool from Pixelovely to handle that. Hand-le that. Ha.

Then some other junk. A merchant guy.

This next one? I'm posting it because in between waiting for paintings to dry in Richard's class, he walked by and said he loved the sketches I was doing. Now that's a heckuva compliment! So you get this guy, diving gracefully through the air as he peppers his foes with bullets.

Finally, this week one of my favorite bands announced a new album/tour. Great news and congratulations to Between the Buried and Me!

Special Anniversary Post: 2nd Year, Sometimes Awkward, etc.

Another day, another dollar. It’s been another year! I like to think I learned a few things. I didn't post as much, and that was due to that one time back in that one month (Was it September?). I always felt pressure to get something up every day and because of that I felt like I had to be perfect all the time so you’d keep following me. And by the way, that post was August. The one I was talking about. Just barely. ANYWAY. All I was saying is that I wanted to wait until good things happened naturally so that I could just upload stuff for fun without feeling the need to impress the entire internet. I think it worked out for the better, although sometimes my posting habits got away with me and I insisted on posting tons of stuff just the same. I hit my goal of 500 total blog posts, which is nice. What else happened this year? Oh yeah. Kaitlin and I finally got engaged, then married. That is nice. Pretty much nothing else happened. Look, guys, it’s the 25^th and this isn't due for a coupla days but I won’t have time this week cuz school is consuming my soul and my life. So I’m doing it now. But I was up til midnight (which is unheard of for me!) last night working on Global Game Jam 2015 and I’m tired. It’s 10:05 PM right now.

Images. Oh, I guess I could do some updated stats (with the stats from last year in parenthesis):

Total posts: 510 (286)

Total pageviews: 24295 (11724)

Total comments: 1225 (484)

Total followers: 30 (24) [This one is also hard to measure because it says I have 45 people following via Google+, I'm not sure what that means]

Total coolness improvement: ±#yolo % [I'm not sure what this means, either]

Two years of this madness. Maybe someone will hire me and then we can all move over to my Tumblr page, which I've been keeping secret from y’all. But NOT YET! The time for the Great Migration is not yet upon us.

Thanks again to everyone for supporting me and coming and looking. Frequently I post puke, but you come to play with me anyway. HOW PLEASANT.

As far as what I picked, there were some where it was hard for me to decide now! I picked things for varying reasons, but constrained myself to one per month.

January

I picked this just cuz I thought it showed growth when compared to now. So there’s not a big complicated reason. But I think I’m better than this now. I hope so, anyway.

February

Gah. This is kind of embarrassing. Again, I picked this one to show growth. I think I was using reference for these people from the internet. It’s kind of shocking. I don’t know if my improvement in this area came from a trillion hours of practice or just teaching myself to slow down and put more time into things, but this is pretty hideous. That frog man getting blasted down at the bottom is also kinda funny (but don't ask me what Urethram Panoosi is, I have no idea what that means).

March

It’s ScarlettJohansson. I think? There’s not really a likeness, which is embarrassing, but I think this touches on February’s issue. I had a class with Richard, and the work he had us do really forced me to spend more time on things. Did I really improve or just force myself to pay attention to details for once? I’m not sure but it sure looks quite a bit different than what normally happens on this blog.

April

Some scribbles, basically. What’s weird is that I can see some pencil under drawings happening down there. I was pretty stiff. If I had loosened up I might have been able to let things move a little better. I figured that out later, but in the meantime I struggled to throw lines over a loose pencil sketch.

May

This is kinda fun. It’s riddled with problems, but sometimes I lose some of this spontaneity- it’s something I think I have to consistently focus and work on. The Slurpee Guy appears to have two elbows in his left arm, but the characters have a surprising amount of personality. So I guess I learn multiple things from this: I had some artistic weaknesses that I’ve worked on, but I also had some good ideas I still need to work on.

June

Junes? There’s some nice foreshortening happening here. I knew it was something I struggled with at the time so I made a conscious effort to work on it. I think that mentality led to what happened in July…

July

Ah, yes. This guy. It’s funny- I see it now and there are things I want to fix and tweak… His quadriceps especially. But this piece, for me, cemented even more in my mind that my personal destination (should it be possible to even arrive) should be “Artist”. I had the idea and asked a friend for some help with some of the painting, and things just clicked. I remember just sitting on my bed, looking at the finished image. That’s the first time that I've ever felt so much satisfaction from something I created. It was a good feeling, and pushes me forward to create more. For me, this is my picture of the year- a new beginning with endless potential. That being said, I'm gonna be going through and fixing those darn legs of his.

August

This guy was mostly picked because he has a cool right hand (his right!). He also has a wide assortment of Liefield-style utility pouches. Too many, in other words. (Parenthetical thought: It's kind of terrible how this guy and the post from July have like the exact same post minus hand position. What in blazes?!)

September

I picked this because it was an important shift for me- forcing myself to pick 3D back up. I’m taking a class now that should act as an excellent refresher, but I like that despite not remembering everything well I still managed to throw together something cool. I think it’s cool, anyway.

October

I feel like I learned a lot the last half of 2014. I feel like here the importance of a nice, loose under drawings underneath some well-defined shapes finally started to click in my brain. I think this character is better for it. All I remember is I had an outrageous fever while I drew this. Hmm. Maybe the trick is to inflict illness upon yourself? Does that make you good?

November

A continuation of the previous idea, I really liked this character. He had a nice face and sword and belt. It’s nice realizing that sketching a bit before committing to lines is a healthy and effective way to do things.

December

Again, workflow and commitment. I started with a basic sketch, took it into Photoshop, and worked it until I was done. His hands are cool, the sword is cool. I wish I had better and more consistent results, though. It’s like sometimes when I’m painting things just click and I power through it like it’s no big deal, while others (like that bearzerker I’m currently lolly-gagging around) just don’t work. I wonder if it’s a comfort zone thing? Like I do tons of armor-wearing guys, maybe I’m more familiar so it goes easier? I don’t like that. I want to push myself more.

January

Back around. There weren't a lot of posts this month, but I picked some drawings I did from life to contrast against the ones I posted earlier. I think I've learned something there.

It’s a comforting feeling knowing that perhaps some growth took place. 

I’m just letting you know that I’m not content to stop here, though: I’m pushing myself further! This month I joined the online art community Polycount and I’ll be working there (especially when I get going in 3D) to really improve and take my game to the next level. Hopefully by this time next year I've really grown, it would be nice to apply for sweet internships for the summer of 2016! Questions? Comments? Good advice? Bad advice? Leave a comment, we’ll have a chat.

EmBEARassing

Hey, school is busy, keeping me busy, busy, so I'm not posting a finished painting right now or anything, just some stuff I drew yesterday.

For my Drawing for Animation class, we had to design a character based on a prompt. We could do a spaceman, a bear, or a schoolgirl. I figured that the spaceman would be too obvious for me (based on what I'm always doing) and the girl would be stretching myself too much. So I did a bear. These are some of my concepts. Well, the first couple are. Ha. Things got out of control later on and I drew some other bears that were barely bears. I left those in cuz some were kinda cool. When I get my final draft back I'll upload it so you can see what I ended up with and submitted.

This was my final concept before I finished it up:

Things were getting wild.

Bearzerker? I'd like to render this out and turn it into a cool 3D model or somefink.

A tank bear and a...

Yeah, I don't know. I do know that I should get some reference so next time I draw a tank it looks more tanky.

Paladin

Just a paladin I'm working on. Started with this sketch from a few days ago:

Almost There...

"Another post?" you think. 

I have to hit 500 by the end of the yearrrrr!!! 

And I also have to finish my sketchbook tomorrow. Once I take care of those two things I'll go back through the last coupla weeks and pick some favorites to finish up and paint.

Onward with the stuff I drew today!

So there's like a tiger warrior guy and a couple other guys.

Some guys.

An alien doctor guy.

He has these two lever-action rifle things. Maybe they're shotguns. I don't know, but he'll wreck you

Shooting. This guy is cool cuz his legs/feet. I like how they turned out.

I decided to upload another stupid thing today. Lately I've been doing this thing where all the characters shoot lasers out of all eyes. So that's what's happening here. They're just blasting each other.

I was worried about the fly... Flies have compound eyes, so wouldn't it act like a prism and shoot lasers everywhere? I don't know.

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!

A Brute

According to the ancient lore, the sword is "Cursed Blade Yankm'grer'g," which has to be one of the stupidest names ever

I'm still alive: A work in progress, some doodles

I have to pack up and get going, but I just wanted to show you what I was working on for UVU's annual October art show, Gallery of Terror:

Here are some doodles I was tinkering with.

It's been really busy and crazy trying to schedule time to do art while school is going on. I have an anatomy and figure structure class which is adding to this stuff but everything else is very time consuming. I spent a couple hours yesterday working on 3D, but school as a whole is getting in the way of my artwork.

I might have another update this week. We'll see.