The End: Moving On (Thank You!)

Well... I think we're nearing the end of this blog's usefulness. With my final semester looming and real life after that, I really need to start getting my art out there in ways that people can find me. I'll continue on Tumblr (which I've begun posting on!), and probably Instagram (EDIT 1/26/2025: Just checked in on this and it leads to someone who is not me. I had an account but deleted it a few years back and someone claimed what I was using as my tag. So yeah, I'm not going to link to my Instagram account here anymore since it no longer exists! Thank you, love you!). If you have no interest following me to another platform, I completely understand- Thank you for being here while I've struggled and pushed to improve. 

Here's a final pose and render on the character I've been working on. I'm still trying to figure out materials and textures, and I'd like to do a more exciting pose, but that will come soon!

Some materials and pre-pose.

This next was a progress shot on the character's hammer.

This is one of the things I'm working on next. He's a big punching punchmonster.

So there you go. Thank you for everything, and hope to see you soon.

Independent Study Week 4: The Wire

Despite the remaining two weeks of independent study, it really feels like things are happening quickly. I started another character this week. It's coming along, but I'm still embarrassed by how it's looking, so you don't see it yet. Here's progress on the demon guy;

Kaitlin tells me his toes look like Cheetos. I feel like compared to the rest of him, his legs are lacking something. I can't decide if I want to do shoes or armor on his thighs. That will probably be decided this week, in addition to building him a war hammer. I also aim to have the other character in a presentable state.

I got together with some art friends yesterday and it was a really good time. We had great discussions about work and drawing and it really got me pumped. I drew some stuff in my sketchbook I didn't hate. Is the slump coming to an end? I certainly hope so.

Here's a thing I'd like to finish. Behold the Psychic King, a giant alien entity from beyond the edge of space hell-bent on enslaving humanity. We find our hero at the apex of his rocket jump, the climax of this duel: When he presses a button, his blade's turbine spools up and the boosterblade carves in twain all matter unfortunate enough to stand in its way. Wind whistling through his ears, he knows there's only chance to strike the vulnerable brain of his foe before losing his mind to the crushing mental influence of the King. He prays his timing is correct and pulls the trigger.

This next one is an edit by me. I drew it with a pen in my sketchbook as seen above, but I moved the jumper for the sake of the design. I'll probably go with this instead.

The rest of my sketchbook from yesterday:

There you go. I'm gonna do some cool stuff this week! Wish me luck.

Sketchbook Dregs

We've almost got the summer's second block scheduling woes squared away, which I thought would be nice, but it's turned out to be the least of my worries.

The figure drawing class has been a frightening nightmare. We had an assignment due this week and I spent 8-10 hours struggling to complete it on time. Because of this I had no choice but to get behind on sketchbook. I spent most of my day yesterday and a few hours this morning catching up! It's nice to finally be where I should, but I'm concerned the next assignment will throw a wrench into things again. 

Here's the last of the sketchbook I was talking about last time. This new sketchbook is off to a rough start, which I'm actually okay with because I had a really nice couple weeks. I'll get it back.

When I get a spare second I work on UV's for the 3D guy. It's super slow going since my time is all being funneled into figure drawing, but hopefully now I'm caught up I can spend a little more time getting through this and getting to the fun part (texture painting).

Major Change: Complete! Also, Why the Slant?

Hi! This post is so long in coming because I got wrapped up in making a sword:

 I just snapped a screenshot because I deleted the camera and didn't have time how to figure out how to light it and render it properly. Modeled in Blender, 512 diffuse, painted in Photoshop. I don't know the rest of the information (polycount, etc). I don't even know where to look to find it, but I guess it could be solved with a quick Googling. Maybe next prop. Probably more bladed weapons until I'm more familiar with Blender.

So yeah, in the end I did change my major on Tuesday. I'll be getting a bachelor's in science with an emphasis in arts and visual communications and an associate's in associated sciences. I think. It's a huge mouthful and I'm still unclear. I'll graduate this Fall, but I'm being cautiously optimistic until it's over and done with. I was planning a pretty grueling Summer of training but I guess I have to take classes now. Hopefully, they too will gruel me.

Here's some recent sketchbook stuff. 

I've noticed I seem to be slanting the same angle every time. I think I have some excellent bad habits that enable me to lock angles into the same spot every time. I need to break this. Everything is slanting the same direction. And in this first sketch, one of the bald guys and the bottom-left person-monster appear to even have the same collar on their coat. Freaky!

This is a character turnaround  I hope to model in 3D sometime down the line. It's kind of stupid, based on a doodle I did in my notebook during a call at work.

Short and Sweet

Hello! I'm here to post pictures I drew today. I really need to do some 3D but I'm moments away from finishing my sketchbook and I'm just trying to get rid of the last coupla pages!

I may try to continue adding visual interest to this first one, but I like how it looks right now! He's like a cyborg warrior guy. I used reference for this (my own arms and quadriceps). There's a picture of me at the bottom of this post, you can see for yourself.

I used reference for the guy on the right. His buff foldy arms were difficult otherwise.

I showed Kaitlin this guy as I was drawing him and she suggested I put him in an environment, a scene. So I did! Eheheheheh! I excel at being an obnoxious husband.

This is a picture Kaitlin took of me earlier this week when we were celebrating my birthday. We walked to the dollar theater to see The Good Dinosaur. I thought it was too sad for a birthday movie, but I like watching movies with my wife!

26/5000: Birthday Boy

Today I am 26 years old. It feels weird to type that. The title of this post has a 5000 in it because that's the goal I'm setting for myself. Years, you see. I figure I'll have gotten fairly good at art and played through all the games in my Steam library by then. Probably not all because some are not games I'd actually play, but I'd like to play a lot of 'em. Hopefully Kaitlin decides to live to be 5000 with me or I'll be lonely and sad. She is the best wife.

Here's some sketchbook stuff from the last couple days:

(I'm really pumped about the guy with the sword above his head in this next one. I think it's so freakin' cool! I want to do more on it)

I promised you an update on one of the pictures I posted last time. I'm terrified to work on the muscle knife guy (and I'm gonna be honest, I might not come back to it!), but here's an update on that ship (I love a chance to use the "Vehicular Mayhem tag):

I tried something a little different with this one and added a rusty texture I found on Google. I don't know who did it, so if that's your rust, let me know and I'll credit you!

Being 26 isn't that different from being 25. I wonder when I get older?

Don't Get Your Hopes Up (But Works in Progress)

Hey! I'm here posting again this week. I, uh, don't really have anything finished, but I'm planning on finishing at least one of these things. I'm posting to become accountable. I don't know if it will work, but it's worth a shot. 

I've been super busy lately. I'm working on a couple projects with friends and I'm also trying to work on personal stuff, too. I should probably direct my energy into those particular assignments (and perhaps homework even before that) but I'm not!

Also, I went back through some posts and they're full of typos. I'll probably go through and fix those or something sometime in the future. Hmm.

Here's some sketchbook stuff from the last couple days. Really it was just from Thursday, I won't lie to you.

This guy started from a hideous sketch (which I can't seem to find, maybe I'll go dig through the billion emails in my trash, hold on. Ah. Found it.) I've included the sketch beneath. Anyway, last post I included that one guy's head? It just flowed out in like half an hour. I thought it would be simple so I just picked a sketch I was feeling good about and started going to town on it. This is what I have so far, but I'm hating it, honestly. I get so clunky and stiff and lose the magic when I try and polish stuff up. I think this might have potential but it's going to take some serious willpower to try and figure out how to be loose and fun and hip and cool and still polish this off. This really doesn't feel like me right now. I think the bit that exemplifies this the most is the elbow of his right arm (our left). In the original, it's more stylized and pointy and fun. I seem to have lost that. I tend to drift too far towards "Serious and realistic" when trying to finish. Gotta find a workflow that allows me to avoid that.

I thing I doodled out a couple nights ago. I want to add some grunge and damage and stuff before I call it done. Also, it doesn't appear to have any weapons on it currently, which many (i.e. me) would view as inappropriate.

This is a screenshot from something I've finally picked back up. Sheesh! Remember this post? This guy sat on my desktop for awhile before being filed away in the appropriate location on my hard drive. But I  need a model for my rigging class so I thought I'd power through. This is the model after being ZRemeshed in Zbrush. I brought it into Maya because I was going to retopologize with the Quad Draw tool, but I may try something in Blender, instead. I think then I'll take that back into Zbrush and do a high detail pass and then I'll bake out a few maps or something. I think that's how it works, anyway. I've done parts of this process at different times using different tutorials, but I still feel like I'm a bit unclear on appropriate workflow. Also, before I remeshed this it was 1.6 million points and Maya had to think for like 15 seconds each time I clicked. It was really scary and I though it would crash and ruin my life (it didn't).

Okay, next time I post I have to have progress on at least one of these!

R.I.P blog? LOL.

No, I'll do it. I'll be back.

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.

STYLUS: Found! SKETCHBOOK 2: Complete!

My stylus was deep within the couch, where we had checked a million times. I finished my second sketchbook this week (Yesterday afternoon on the bus). I started it on the 1st, so to finish on the 30th is one month and spiffy! 

Here's a sword:

I think there are a few things I still want to do, like generate maps and sculpt a bit more and paint some more.

These first two were back when I still had a blue pencil. I don't know what happened to it. It's probably floating around in my backpack. I'm really trying to add more personality to all my stuff. The turtle has graffiti on his shell, and it says YOLO. And what's in that parcel? I think it's a PSG-1, personally.

Since I lost my blue pencil, I started using a red one. Disclosure: On the bottom right guy, I used this reference from Creaturebox.

So there ya go. Expect more 3D this week, now that I have a stylus things should move right along? Also, aside from the huge sword in the first image, I'm perturbed by the lack of weapons in this post. We have a cane and perhaps we have a sniper rifle hidden away. More weapons next time.

Also, for Inktober 31, Thomas re-envisioned a previous drawing. It's freakin' sweet! Check it out here.

Today, I Was Naughty.

Well...  This was a doozy of a week. I did some terrible drawings. These ones were from just after my last blog post and after this I drew a lot of puke. I've been trying to keep up on homework but I'm not really interested. People are saying that I need to "Make assignments my own" but the classes I'm in are not conducive towards that. I woke up at 6 this morning and while Kaitlin was sleeping in (Saturday is the only day of the week we sleep in. I try to sleep in but my body demands I get up around 6 so I get up and get to work) I did some art and started a couple things. Once I get them a bit further along I'll show them to you. But about the title for this post. We randomly ended up with some time where we weren't doing anything this afternoon. I should I worked more on projects, but I played videogames for a while instead. It was only a couple hours but I felt guilty afterwards. That's the sort of thing that gets in the way of getting better at art, right? UGH! What was I thinking? Hopefully it doesn't happen again. I did some work on the 3D character this week, but it wasn't substantial enough to show you. I did work on this guy some more:

Still got a long way to go, I really need to get the blacks out of the shadows. Next, I've got some sketchbook stuff. There's like a pig alien guy standing on the hill. He's going back to his spaceship after an uneventful trip.

I was walking to work from the bus stop this week. I saw 3 different varieties of mushroom, so I snapped some pics with  my phone. I drew a weird mushroom man. And a robot named Frank, but it's pronounced "Frahnk."

A dragon and a will-o'-the-wisp.

Then some doods. The text for the grouchy guy all balled up (which I seem to have removed at some point) said "Clothed Cannonball!!" The space marine at bottom middle is a victory because I attempted some perspective on his firearm. I should have used reference. If I ever want to finish it, I'll need to. There are no legs because I couldn't get them to look right. Urgh.

Yeah, that's all I got. I don't play videogames, really, but I think I have to get better and managing my time. I need to be completing work when I'm at home but homework and stuff gets in my way and is too darn distracting. I don't think it's worth it to wait for big 6 hour chunks of time, because those don't happen. I need to cram work into the 15 and 20 minute blocks so at least I'm taking baby steps. I'll figure it out. Have a good week!

I Turn 25 Today

Your prize is some things I drew.

I went to a lecture by Sam Nielson on Friday, these were some People I Saw Today (and no, he wasn't smoking).

And then a couple guys I doodled in class today. I'd like to take them further, but we'll see:

School continues to keep me verrrrrrrrry busy. I was talking to classmates today about how I never really draw for myself right now- It's all homework. It was nice to doodle out the above two guys [Even though you were in class? - Ed.] and relax a bit. My goal is to get another planner (I've lost 4 in the last 4 or 5 months) and write out my life so I have time for all the things I need to do.

So yeah. I survived 24 years. Now I'm 25.

Last Post of 2014

Well, so much for 2014!

Here's a thing I was touching up from what feels like 100 years ago (LINK). I'd like to touch up the values a bit more, but I'd like to go waste some time before my wife gets home and we begin the new year's festivities [More wasting time? - Ed.].

Just some sketches from the last couple days. Maybe they'll grow into something more?

I'm outta hereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee~!!~!~!!!!

Paladin

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