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!

I AM ALIVE: Mild Confession

Here's what happened.

Kaitlin and I make goals for the new year and I take them ridiculously seriously. I come up with a strict and insane plan for what I want and set a couple goals to do that. I can't do more than 3 or 4 simple goals because my minimalist mind is immediately overwhelmed and I roll and weep in a puddle of tears, but I try to make those few goals goodins.

The moment Steam told me that Dragon's Dogma was available for pre-purchase on PC back in November, I bought it and anxiously awaited mid-January for its release. Videogames and I have a tumultuous history and for the last few years I've been extremely cautious with them so I can focus on art and more important things, but it's a game I knew a lot about and was keenly interested in experiencing.

I made an exception and put "Play Dragon's Dogma" on my list of goals for 2016 so I wouldn't feel guilty for gluttonously gorging my brains out on it. Kaitlin sagely pointed out that such a goal probably wouldn't stretch me too much and might actually be counter-productive, but allowed me to leave it on my list.

Dragon's Dogma came out and I've played a bit too much since then.

I realized over the weekend that I had wasted some serious time on something pretty trivial. With technology there to support us in everything we do, it's fascinating that we insist on using it to be lazy blobs. I haven't finished the game and I'd really like to, so I'll allow myself to play for a couple hours on Saturday mornings while Kaitlin sleeps in, since taking a break every once in awhile is important. But that's all.

It's interesting to see how a few weeks without strenuous exercise of my art muscles makes me cranky and unhappy. The moral of the story? Do more art? I don't know.

Here's a lunch doodle:

Then some recent sketchbook stuff.

Credit: I did a study on this by Sergio Toppi on this top one.

Credit: Evan Richards (sometimes NSFW) for his study of the cinematography of Birdman, which looks cool but I've never seen.

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.

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.

Misery: I've Lost My Stylus

Woe is me! 

I don't even know how this happened, but it has absolutely cramped my style this week. 

I've mentioned here that I've been trying to use my phone effectively? I downloaded the Pluralsight app and have been watching a sweet video on generating assets in Zbrush. I've been learning tons. 

Thursday evening I finally got some free time and was going to start applying what I learned. But my stylus was gone.

...That's about it. Still unable to find it today after tearing our domicile apart looking for it, I bought a new one which will arrive Tuesday. Because of that, this is all I can show you (and it took me like 3 horrendous hours).

Also, this morning I was helping a lady in my neighborhood move and there was this buff guy there. I was staring at his arms trying to memorize what the muscles did as he moved around, (hoping he didn't get the wrong idea) so I could draw way cooler arms. That is all.

Some dudes:

Some more dudes (and thumbnails/environmental practice [which can be hard to see. Right click and open in a new window for easier viewing]):

Every Other Week? (SUMMER '15 #2)

Yeah, it's shameful. This figure drawing class I've been in has been keeping me busy. I haven't done any 3D this week, despite having a chair in my brain that I'd really like to get started on. I finished one of my sketchbooks, so we can check one of those boxes for my Summer Goals, but I should be working on my figure drawing sketchbook and every time I work on other things I feel guilty. There's just too much to do! But yes, that was my big accomplishment for the week. Freakin' sketchbooks.

Jeez. Colors look WAY too hot on this first one. Were they that bright before I uploaded them? 

(Sketch)

(Colored)

This last one made it in cuz Thomas gave it his stamp of approval. 

Yeah. Still working on not failing all my goals. REALLY REALLY need to use referenceeeee

I Can't Decide

It's funny.
I've been building websites now for a few weeks and my thoughts on many things have changed. I want to go through and fix all my labels, make them not be so utterly useless. I don't know how I'd do that, but I'm sure it would just be a quick Google search away. In fact, I'll go look right now...

Yeah, maybe it will take some time. Anyway, I feel comfortable fine-tuning a post in the HTML editor and other weird things now.

As far as the title of this post is concerned, I couldn't decide if it was worth it to throw color over this. I don't really have time to do that, but I think that it can be a simple thing. I'll try to do that next week. This week has been hectic. Anyway, here you go.

Also, Feed the Birds, from Mary Poppins. I know it's silly, but I really,really like this song. It's quite different from my normal musical choices, but there's just something about it.

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.