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.

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!

Sketchbook Completed: Independent Study Is Go!

It's true. I've FINALLY got second block classes set up! Independent study is happening! This means I can drop a class Fall semester and still graduate. Won't that be nice? I'm hoping to take some of these sketches to a finished state and build them in ZBrush. If I came out of summer 2016 with 4 or 5 (or 3 or 2 or 1, let's be honest) finished characters that would be aces. Moving on!

Today is Thursday? A week from now my figure drawing class will be over! I've done some nice drawings and will scan those in to show you. I'm posting today because I finished a sketchbook, the last in my 3 pack. My new one has 100 pages compared to the Moleskine's 60 and is significantly bigger (9x12 inches vs 7.5x10). This larger size is what I typically use, but I'm concerned that after having filled 3 smaller ones I'll have a tough time finishing in a month. I had forgotten how massive 9x12 is!

These sketches are the last of the Moleskine. 

In this first one we have the punching guy. Punching is a theme in my work, I think. It's great! I want to work on him a bit more, but we'll see. I seem to have a hard time finishing pieces...

Recently, I was going through some older stuff I had uploaded to this blog (circa 2013). It's terrible! I'm shocked by what I thought was viable upload material. So much of what's on here from that time is basically scribbles. It's nice to see that I've improved, especially when it can be difficult to feel that improvement in my regular day-to-day. 

Back to work!

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.

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!

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.

A Few Things

Hi! It's been awhile, hasn't it? Finals are over, I passed all my classes (unless some horrible post-semester grading algorithm rears its head and destroys me), and I have a couple weeks to work on projects. 

You'll remember that last time I mentioned that updates here would be happening as I finished work in order to force myself to get stuff done. I can't say that I've necessarily used my time the most effectively since my last post (I'm currently playing about an hour of videogames per day on average, which is too much right now), but I've gotten some things to a state I'm calling "Done!"

Also, I'm working on another semi-secret thing that I hope to share with you next time. It blossomed out of a school assignment. That's odd in itself, as most of you know, since I despise school and have a hard time jumping through hoops and being a student. But that's just about ready to be seen. Keep an eye out for that.

Here's what I've done:

This is kind of my finished version of the guy from last time. Below that, an earlier draft can be seen for further comparison.

This next one is nice because of the speed it happened. I scribbled it out and then sat down and painted it in a couple hours. Most of the time when I try to finish stuff I hit walls. Maybe I just really liked the sketch (which I included below for reference). Kaitlin asked me what the deal was with his hand, and I guess I didn't flesh it out too much. He has a thumb, but the rest of his hand is just for clobbering.

And I've been putting some of my sketchbook stuff together when I've had free time. This is in chronological order, with newest at the bottom.

So there ya go. It was a bitter longer than I would have liked to go between updates, but I think I have some cool stuff here. I've got a couple 3D projects to finish, the aforementioned semi-secret thingy, and a sketch to polish that might be biting off more than I can comfortably chew. I certainly have my work cut out for me as I work towards the next post. See you then!

Bizarre Friday Post (and News about Future Updates)

Hi! It's our first anniversary Sunday, so we'll be gone this weekend. I thought I'd get these things uploaded before we head out this afternoon.

Here's a work in progress guy based on a sketch I did. I was going to show the sketch to you, too, but it's pretty ugly.

A western bandit, a pig man, a guy with an armored arm, a guy with two pistols, and a robot guy about to do some gongfu (also, according to the definition in that link, gongfu is "...any study, learning, or practice that requires patience, energy, and time to complete..." meaning that I, as an artist, am a practitioner of gongfu).

Here we have a crazy guy with a sword, a spaceman, a small guy with a sword, and an evil demon creature. He's upset.

This last one I kept mainly for the hand in the bottom right hand corner. I think it turned out super spiffy!

Okay, on to the news.

When I first started this blog, I posted every day. Then, I realized I didn't have to post everything I did and only started posting the sketches I like. I've kinda stuck to that mindset for a while with various degrees of post frequency.

I had a chat with a friend yesterday and we chatted about art and stuff. During the course of our conversation I realized how much time I was spending preparing sketches to be uploaded. I'd say these took me like 3-4[?] hours to get all scanned, cut out, placed, and selected. Sometimes it takes longer. That's a lot of time to spend on a sketch! 

I think that to learn what I need to I need to start pushing pieces further, and so I'll be taking one sketch at a time and working with that, spending the time I'd previously have spent preparing sketches to take it to a finished state. I love updating the blog, but I'd like to have some really professional stuff to show.

So I'll be taking on one thing at a time and really nailing it before moving on to the next one. As I finish things, I'll upload and do a post. Once I have a larger body of (finished) work, I may go back to posting sketches like I've been doing for the last couple years. 

So there ya go! I'm off for the weekend. Hopefully I'll be posting again soon! Between the colored work in progress at the top of this post and the weird fish man from the last post, I have a couple things that should be getting finished.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just Give Me Two Weeks (SUMMER '15 #1)

Geez! Where have I been? Very busy! Aspects of this 3D nonsense have proven much harder than anticipated and I've been floundering in my attempts to paint the object(s) I've created. Also, the figure drawing class that started this week [as an inappropriately lengthy aside, I thought classes started on the 12th, but apparently they started on the 11th. I'm very sad I missed a first day of class, even if it is just the day we discuss the syllabus. I like to have near perfect attendance.] is looking to be more demanding  than I had planned on. I'll keep trying to chip away at 3D, but I don't know how far I'm going to get with the sketchbook for figure drawing looming over my head.

Anyway, here's stuff I did:

These first 3 images are what took me so long. The 3D sword was giving me tons of trouble. Coloring that junk in? Jeepers. I hope the next thing I do isn't anywhere near as painful. 

(I rendered the sword in Maya because I was overwhelmed and cranky. I'll try for a more elegant solution next time)

These next few sketches are images I'd like to take to a more finished state in the next couple weeks.

Then I have the normal scribbles.

I saw this guy on the bus on Friday morning.

I didn't see this guy, nor would I want to.

So yes... Two weeks in and I'm not exactly where I planned. But I have a finished painting and some good sketches to start from and a couple ideas for more 3D props. I still need to find a way to work from reference more (or just get out and draw from life more), but hey! I have the whole Summer, right? Some of these guys have the EXACT same face, or hand, or feet, or pose or whatever. I aim to avoid that in the future.

Hopefully the next update comes much sooner. 

"Let's Warthog it Up!" - MIDWEEK MADNESS (Bonus)

Surprise! It's me, here on a Wednesday. Today's title comes from my wife Kaitlin. She told me yesterday that I woke her up because I said "Let's warthog it up!" in my sleep. I'm not sure what it means, but I thought it was a silly thing to say.

So yeah, a midweek post. This was a way of getting me to color something in. I figure that I won't have time to do any more good sketches this week, so I'll have to work with what I have and paint a couple of these guys so you can see them Sunday.

It's almost Finals Week, and things are as they always are during that time.

Horrible! ZING.

One last thing? The guy in the upper left hand corner of this top image is one I'd like to model in 3D sometime this Summer. I have a lotta things I want to do and that's one of them.

Okay, I'm brushing my teeth and going to bed. Have a good rest of the week (and why do almost all of characters want to face to the right!?)!

I Was Thinking (Has This Been a Title Before?)

I'm coming up with some clever Summer goals and I think you'll be pleased with me!

I was going to color these but it's Easter and I have stuff to do! Maybe I'll get around to it?

AH! You think I'm a liar, do you? Well here's the thing: I did color (sort of) some things from last week:

Maybe I'll actually finish coloring these in and turn them into finished pieces? LOL

I've been really struggling in my head drawing class for the last couple weeks. It felt like I was unable to see things right and get them down on paper correctly. But this week I did a couple drawings I didn't despise:

Also, some sketches I didn't hate from this week:

And then for one class we went to the museum and drew some animals. I did hate some of these, but for variety's sake they're in here:

Also, this week: SHUFFLE MADNESS! I like when improbable things happen as I shuffle through all the songs on my mp3 player. I heard Stains of Time from Metal Gear Rising and then the instrumental version, one right after the other? What are the odds of that?!!? Very slim, my friends. Very slim. Metal Gear Rising has a completely silly soundtrack, but the game succeeds perfectly at what it's trying to do (i.e. be silly). I was reading somewhere and the writer was joking about how the game's mechanics let you chop a guy's head in half after chopping it off. It's preposterous.