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.

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.

Zero Views Per Day: Slow Going (ALSO! I LIED)

Hey! Long time no see. It's been since MARCH 20TH 2016! So much has happened since then- Kaitlin had a birthday, I had strep throat, I registered for Summer and Fall classes (the last time ever?!), we finally saw Star Wars (which I liked a lot!), Dark Souls III came out (which I can't afford/play), etc. Life has been busy.

I've been putting this post off for weeks because I promised you that I'd finish painting that character from last time. I actually started but was having a very difficult time getting it to look how I wanted. It could have been I was painting with only the vaguest sense of color scheme. With my rudimentary feel for color, it was certain death. I also need to uv it again before painting, just another step to worry about. I want to complete it, but I was sad that I'd been neglecting my blog for weeks.

A couple weeks ago, I was playing with a custom action in Photoshop that was feebly attempting to be the mirror mode that Photoshop still lacks and I came up with the sword sketch this model was based on. I finally finished painting it today, so here it is! There are a couple spots that could use some polish, so maybe I'll revisit it. The top two views were rendered with perspective present, so I included a third view with no perspective (flat from the side). 978 tris, 1024x1024 diffuse map.

I sketched this sacrificial knife a couple weeks back and banged it out pretty quick in Blender. I spent hours painting it, though. I really like the hand-painted look for textures and have been playing with that as a way to avoid learning more modern ways of generating maps. I'll be getting to that this summer, hopefully. Also, I figured out how to take nice screenshots today, which means the image I snapped of the dagger looks nasty, but since I'm in class I can't make it look nice. Maybe I'll swap it out when I get home (EDIT 4/15/16 - I snapped a new shot and the quality difference was negligible, so I'll just leave this image here).

I've almost finished another sketchbook. I'm on track to do so within a month, which is nice, but it's been a doozy for me. The first half is just atrocious. None of you will ever see any portion of it. I'd been slumping pretty hard until I switched to a black Prismacolor and for some reason I've felt much better while drawing with it. These first two splash pages were done when I'd just changed drawing utensils, so I was still hating my life and everything I drew.

This next one has a cool sword I'd like to model and a character with a flaming head I'd like to model. I'm saving him for a summer project. Also, that really ugly guy in the bottom left!? It's depressing.

After I put the above 2 collages together, I've been on a roll. By the way, when I say that I'm not tooting my own horn, it's more a description of how I feel when I draw. Drawing while slumping is a frustrating thing to do, and with these next ones I just felt really good about everything. On this first one, I really like the monster at the top.

I like the weird antlered creature down on the bottom. If he had legs he'd be grade-A awesome.

I like the guy who's too serious on the right. What's his problem!? He needs to take a chill-pill.

That's all I got! Hopefully next time I've got that character finished, but if not there will be more 3D. I really need to branch out from bladed weapons when it comes to props! Treasure chests, potted plants, braziers, etc.

I just realized I haven't eaten lunch and I ate breakfast at 6:30 am (it's 2:49 pm now). I'm hungry!

Special Anniversary Post: 3rd Year - Portfolio Site Is Live!

Whoa, it's hard to think that this blog has been part of my life for 3 years now. It's gone through several changes in that time, most notably the amount of posts per day/week/month. I can only hope the slightly different approach to posting has led to an increase in quality overall. Since I haven't posted in awhile, I'll treat this as a normal blog post and then proceed with the standard yearly review. 

First and foremost, I have to tell you the secret I've been whispering about for the last few posts. I decided to stop stalling and launch my portfolio site. I've been working on this for several months and will be switching the current images for more appropriate finished compositions as they happen, but I think it's time to stop messing around and let it go live! Click here to visit zachheckert.com.

Some of these are older pieces that will be getting some attention since I've learned some things since they were started. Those will be swapped out as they're improved upon. I have other works in progress that I'm trying to finish up. I've had kind of a rough start on doing artwork this year, despite my new year's resolutions. There should also be an increase in 3D work soon, too. I'll still post here, but I'll try to collect the best stuff I have over there.

I'm too lazy to go back and see if I talked about it last post, but my aunt and uncle gave me a card to Utrecht for Christmas. I bought some fancy Polychromos pencils (y'know, I'm thinking I talked about this last post after all, but just humor me) and a Moleskine notebook. They make some good drawings, but a downside I've found is that since it's not spiral-bound, it's difficult to scan stuff. I draw all over the page and am constantly getting into the spine, making that part horrible to scan. I really like the materials it's made of, but it's a bit too soon to tell if it will fall apart before I finish it like the cheap ones I normally draw on. Here's a handful of stuff from the first half or so.

This first one? There's a guy with that big gun that says C-42. I'm modeling that in 3D at the moment!
And the guy on the bottom with luscious hair is wayyyy stupid. What was I thinking and shame on me.

What the heck, this guy's stupid arm. It's even labeled "My stupid arm." What was I thinking and shame on me. Also, the guy on the furthest right only got into this image because I liked his hand.

My anatomy is disastrous. I've basically not been working from reference at all. It shows! The guy on the bottom left (who was also posted to Instagram) has noodle arms, and the guy above him has the opposite of noodle arms (big meaty meat arms). I don't know how it works. What was I thinking?! Shame on me!

I have no current issues with this one, except for the space scooter is facing to the right which I find irksome for some reason. I may become upset by these characters later.

That does it for recent stuff. Here's the year in review, with stats from last year in parentheses:

Total posts: 556 (510)

Total page views: 32,510 (24295)

Total comments: 1414 (1225)

Total followers: 30 (30) [Like last year, there's some weird numbers involved here. Google+ says I have 63 followers, but I don't think those people see or follow regularly.]

Total coolness improvement: 0%

JANUARY

I picked this because the faces looked good. They mostly even resembled the reference I was using, which I felt was a big step forward. Nice!

FEBRUARY

This one was competing against a sketchier sketch of the standard monster fare typically found on the blog. I picked this for diversity, to show that I'm capable of doing something more naturalistic. I also felt it showed growth over other faces I've attempted in the past.

MARCH

I like the guy in the upper right. His face and hair are what earned this image the right to be shown here. The guy with 3 eyes is cool too, I guess. His body doesn't really make any sense, but if you don't look down that far you'll be a-okay.

APRIL

I think that the armore is the reason I chose this one. I like it. I also like the fish chainsaw sword.

MAY

I chose this one because it was sorta-kinda-finished, even though some stuff needs work. That's fine. It's actually on a pile of stuff I need to improve.

JUNE

This was another contested spot. I chose this because I really like the drawing. I feel like this character could go somewhere. His design is simple, but I'm into it!

JULY

This was the final for my figure drawing class last summer. I put this one in to show, once again, that I'm capable of doing something outside of monsters blowing each other into gibs.

AUGUST

This was a study from a film still. I like it because I only spent an hour and it was a definite improvement over the preceding study I did. I have fond memories of this one, even if it's not totally representative of the source material.

SEPTEMBER

This one turned out pretty cool in general (in my opinion), but I like the guy with the ridiculously long arm and the sword and beard. His body is kind of funky but I feel like the musculature is believable-ish. I felt it showed progress over other stuff.

OCTOBER

Some 3D. I like this mostly because of the arms, though perhaps not the hands. That might be the only reason I like it, actually. This one goes on the growing pile of  "Tune up and get it onto the portfolio site" stuff.

NOVEMBER

The hands on these characters were good. That's why this is here.

DECEMBER


This one was picked because I like that I did it in an afternoon. It gives me hope that I can get stuff finished quickly. I'm hoping it means that there will be more, despite the relatively slow pace of January.

So there you have it. Another year, another dollar(s). I won't lie, this has been kind of a frustrating month. I've felt a bit slumpy and have lacked motivation. I've got some plans for how to reverse this, though, so you should hopefully be seeing nice junk soon. Thanks for coming to my blog and looking at the stuff I draw. Even though I only know a couple of you, it's cool that you can all come and visit. Hopefully all this posting is helping you in some way, too.

 To improvement. 2016 will be a good'n.

See you next time.

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!

TAG MAYHEM (Apologies)

So, I accidentally removed my "Armoire" tag (which, some of you might remember, was my [misguided] attempt at creating a humerous, non-generic "Armor" tag) completely from my blog. I had meant to replace it with an "Armor" tag, but I failed. So we're starting from square one in that department, until I find the willpower within myself to go back through 551 blog posts and fix tags. So it was like 2 steps forward, 551 steps backward. I blew it. Those of you who search using the tags (i.e. only myself) are surely overwhelmed with grief. Sorry!

I did the initial sketch for this first one last week, and have been fiddling with it since then. I think I'd like to add textures or other cool details or something. Also, his right thumb (OUR LEFT). It's kinda funky. I'll keep tinkering.

I also found my blue pencil:

 

Lastly, here's the progress on my character. Slowly but surely, I suppose. Still no ears. I've done 2 or 3 different sets of feet but I can't get them to look right. I'm hoping to get the boots locked in this week and get a consistent level of detail across the whole thing. I'll post my concept sketch below. It's really nothing special, I don't know why I'm so interested in bringing this particular scribble to life. Also, the beard is wrong and the belt is too fat and the pecs are not flat enough. Hrrm. Sometimes things don't really make sense in 2D space.

That's all for me, have a nice week!

Helleaux

Hello.

Here's some stuff from this week (and why is everyone wearing scarves now!?):

Also, I started a new 3D project. I wish I could show you more, but he has no hands and feet or eyes or ears and looks silly. So you get beard. Next weekend I'll hopefully have more to share.

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.