Post College Graduation

You may or may not have noticed the long absence of blog updates. In fact, today literally marks the one year anniversary since my last post. Which, to be honest, is a complete coincidence and was in no way planned. I actually meant to get back to posting much sooner, but things didn't really work out that way.

So what happened? Where have I been for the last year?

Well to put it simply, I graduated college and got a job.

But it's a little more complicated than that. I had to move (three times). Get situated as an independent adult in a different state. Find new doctors. And a whole slew of things related to relocating alone. Not to mention being on Crunch for a project the last 2 to 3 months.

On top of all that, since I am no longer a student and am instead working full time, the majority of the work I do now is under NDA. And while I'm still creating new art, a good portion of it falls into that category which means I'm not at liberty to share it here.

So not only have things been extremely hectic, but I also haven't had as much to post about.

The good news is, things are finally settling down. My job is fantastic. I've been learning so much every day. And I recently got to play a pretty major role as the environment artist for a game we recently wrapped up(sorry, I can't say much more than that), which was an unbelievable opportunity.

And that about sums it up in terms of my year long absence. Of course before I go, I've got a few new images to share.

The first thing I did over the summer after graduating was a small some what experimental canvas painting. I had had this image in my head for a while of a painting I wanted to make that also incorporated actual buttons sewn onto the canvas. I initially wanted it to be more abstract in nature, but ended up so focused on painting her skin that she turned out fairly more realistically styled than I intended. Each button was hand sewn onto the canvas, which was a huge chore and caused me to burn out on the painting before I got everything I wanted done. But I'm still pretty happy with it, considering it was more of an experiment than anything else. I might come back and work on it again in the future, but for now it's done.

This was a quick 1 maybe 2 hour mix media piece I did because I just felt like it.  It's fairly large, 18"x 24." If I remember correctly there's some charcoal, china marker, and white paint. Maybe a some type of wax crayon as well, I'm not too sure. I was using a bunch of the random art supplies I had left over from school. 

I improved my digital painting quite a bit, much of which is thanks to owning a cintiq. The thing about this piece is you can literally scroll down to my second to last post to see where it was when I picked it back up. I only spent 4-5 more hours on it and managed to get it to this point.  It's still not done but I'm loving all of it except for her face, which needs some work.

I've been happy with my improvement with digital painting, but since I still want to get even better I decided it would be beneficial to do a traditional still life from observation. I didn't want to go all out though, so I decided to keep it simple and to just do a small clove of garlic. It took me 2 and a half hours exactly and I couldn't be happier with it. The small peel on the left is my favorite part because I really feel like you can really see it's translucense, which has been something I've struggled with rendering appropriately in the past.  The only downside was that by the time I was done my entire bedroom smelled like garlic!

And that's it. Well not all of it, but by far the best picks out of everything I've done outside of work over the last year.

I'm hoping that I'll have enough new work that I will be able to do another post next month or maybe sooner. Weekly posts are unfortunately going to have to be a thing of the past as I simply just don't have enough work that I can share.

Final Dance

The biggest news I have is that my thesis is officially over! Things turned out better than I expected and I received an A for the overall project and results. I posted the final shots I have of what the level looks like in the UDK engine on my thesis blog, but I'll repost my favorites here as well.

I've still got some polishing left to do, but overall I am very happy with it!

I've also got some final projects and results from my Lighting and glass class to share.

For lighting I decided to create the storage room for a theater company. As usual, my plans were much more elaborate but time forced me to scale them back. I wanted much more dirt, dust, and maybe even cobwebs, but it's important to recognize when you need to scale back and sometimes you just can't do it all. I'm still very happy with it despite not having everything I wanted.

I collect glass paperweights, so whenever I could pick what to make in my glass class I decided to make them. I actually ended up only making one cup because I didn't find it as cool or exciting.

My first one turned out a little derpy because it was the first thing I made in the hot shop. I had a lot of trouble keeping it on center because keeping the pipe turning at an even and constant rate was difficult with my tendonitis. As a result the top of my paperweight ended up being lopsided.

My second one turned out much better and my teacher let me experiment with rolling the glass into a cone-like shape.

My third paper weight is one of my favorites because of the colors and how the design on the inside turned out. We used a speciall type of blue color that reacts when mixed with other colors, so I ended up with some really pretty white speckles and swirls where it reacted with the purple color. The big silver thing in the middle is actually a giant bubble, and it's really cool because on one side of the globe the color swirls up and kind of hides it. The pictures don't really do it justice.

I don't have photos of the final paper weight I made yet, but it was very fun to make because my teacher let me experiment again with cutting a flower into the colored glass in the center. I also got to use a special crimp on the flower's petals so when I covered it with the clear glass all these tiny bubbles formed from the air being trapped in the grooves on the pedals.

And of course as usual I have a plethora of other drawins I've done in my brief momments of free time to help me relax and just take a break.

I actually spent quite a bit of time on this one, I revisited it several times before I was actually happy with it. The main thing to know about this one is that the female is real, as in she's part of reality. Whereas the mail is more a part of her thoughts and feelings. The whole idea is that she constantly struggling with her emotions and no matter how hard she tries to move on and get past them, they are there toying with her in this endless dance.

 I really like this one design wise, although I'm not entirely convinced I haven't seen it or something similar somewhere.

 I'd like to actually finish this one someday, although I don't really have any plans set in stone for it.

 A quick painting I did. Didn't spend too much time on it, just needed to let off some steam.

I liked this one at first, but now I don't. I think it's the facial structure that bothers me. I didn't really spend a lot of time planning it or making sure it was correct.

Just another drawing where I was playing around with design ideas and photoshop.

I'd Like A Sanity Check, Please

It's been a while since my last post. Part of that is because I've been busy with my thesis (which if I have been updating the blog for weekly, so that's a good place to check if I don't post here) and part of that is because I've been so busy with work and school that I don't really have any other stuff to show.

My Self Portrait sculpt hasn't been updated enough to really show. My teacher told me I was the only one who was re-topologized and ready on time and because of that he gave the rest of the class an extra week to catch up. He then asked me to go over UVs in our next class, so I then got further ahead by also doing my UVs a week ahead of the rest of the class so I'd have something to show while going over my process.

I have two things I'm really excited to show, because they are more or less complete (or as complete as some one with not very much time can make things.

 

I'm the most excited about this piece because I literally just finished it about an hour ago. I basically had the phrase "Sanity Check" in my head as I drew it. I didn't have much of a plan for it, but it was one of those drawings that just kinda flowed onto the page without me really knowing why. If I could do anyhing different I'd definitely redo her torso and limbs. They work well enough, but the body language isn't quite right for the attitude she should have. I'm very pleased with her face and all the crazyness popping out of her head, I don't think I'd change it very much.

This is the first pen drawing I have done in several years. I just kind of sat down and decided I felt like drawing something decent. I spent about an hour and a half on it, just kind of made it up as I went. The proportions aren't right, but I think I'm ok with it considering I didn't really rough anything of it out before hand.

Those are the two main things I wanted to share, however, I did recently discover a drawing I thought I had lost that I'm going to hopefully work on some more and finish. 

I was really upset when I couldn't figure out where the file for this went. Turns out I saved to the default documents folder(not very useful when on a public computer) instead of switching to the desktop like I usually do. She's your typical goth punk girl, doing what else but voodoo, like all good little goth girls do. I really like the style I had going and I'm eager to see how it turns out. Hopefully I can keep it cohesive enough that I don't decide I hate it in the end.

I don't have much else other than that, so until next time!

Life Size

It's officially mid terms which means of course that the quarter is in full swing for me. I've been running around between all my different projects and my two jobs so things for the blog are naturally off schedule. I'd like to say that I can get back to weekly posts, but I don't foresee that being realistic any time soon. Nonetheless, I will be doing my best to update as often as possible.

I had a rather exciting last two-weeks art wise. I got to do my first ever life-sized figure drawing which was also live (meaning in person from a model), which was the most fun I have had drawing in a long time. 

I knew I wouldn't have enough time to shade the whole thing supper neatly and perfectly so I decided to just have fun with the materials instead. I end up doing a ton of smearing with my hands just whenever I felt like it. I then kept some of my shading untouched so that the strokes were still clearly visible and in the end it came out with a cool mixture of both.

 I am over all extremely happy with it, except I think the shoulder area and back of her kneck is not quite right. Unfortunately, that's because my view changed a little bit after the model too her first break and that was the one area I hadn't clearly mapped out in the first 30 minutes. There are a few other minor issues, but I am still extremely happy with it. It's also really cool to have a drawing that's literally as tall as I am.

 I've been working on creating a self portrait in 3D for my Modeling Strategies Class, and I've been having a lot of fun.

On the Left is the photo I took of myself. Since I'm not doing details just yet I decided to go ahead and mirror my face and work from it like that. Once I get closer to the end I can switch to working asymetrically, since no one's face it's perfectly symetrical. 

I think my profile view isn't as strong in terms of the accuracy of the model, but this has only been the first week so there is plenty of time to make adjustments. I'll be spending a lot of time fixing the nose which is almost entirely wrong in terms of shape. And I need to work on getting my cheek's bone structure right, it's a little more fleshy (for lack of a better word) than how I have it on the model at the moment.  I haven't touched the eyes at all so they are off in both the front and side views. 

I also started a new digital painting that will mostly likely end up on my never ending pile of unfinished work. In terms of time and access to the right tablets, it usually just isn't realistic for me to even be starting these, but it is something I really do want to get better at. The only way to get better is to practice, so I try and fit it in when I can.

NA big difference here though is that unlike most of my other digital drawings I started this one from a sketch I did in pencil. I'm much more comfortable and better at drawing characters from scratch in pencil. I have improved at it on the tablet, but I think it'll be a long time before I can surpass anything I can do on paper just because I have so many more years of experience with paper. It's turning out pretty well, I think her waist/hips might be a bit small for her upper body, but that's easily adjustable. I like how the fans turned out, although I'm not too sure about how convincing their angles are. We'll have to wait and see how this one turns out.

The rest of what I have this week are mostly just doodles.

I've been getting back to drawing in pencil, I think drawings done on paper always have so much more life to them than ones done digitally- at least in the case of my own work. He's unfinished as I'm still trying to visualize what he's wearing. I pretty much had the idea of the wolf hat (unoriginal, i know) and drew him because I wanted to draw that, but now I don't know what to do with the rest.

This is a Drawing I did of my friend Ben really quick. I like it because it looks exactly like him. 

And finally, whatever this thing is. Don't ask because I really don't know.

Countdown to Finals

There's only one week left of classes for the year and I'm still in over drive. I've been working to hammer things out so that I wont be down to the wire come next week when I have to present my work for final critiques. As of right now, things seem manageable but based on past experience I know I can't let that distract me. The unexpected is always possible and I can't afford to let any thing throw me off.

I am currently working on balancing my rendering final with my Project Pipeline Final. It's been tough because I can never be at the same point with either of them. Working on one means putting the other one off and they are both equally important.

Right now I'm behind on rendering as I made a big push for progress with project pipeline. This week I textured almost my entire character.  Unfortunately not everything went as planned with the character and I was unable to practice painting normals in mudbox.

 Right now I just have the flat color worked out and I'm really hoping I'll have time to add some bump and fix up the specular map, but I can't say for sure. Ideally I'd want to continue working on the color as I think it could stand have a lot more details but I'm having to put that off for now in order to get this thing done.

Rendering is turning out well, but I'm not as far as I wanted to be at this point. I have the displacement maps almost done, some of them need to be fixed up some more and I've only just begun the colors.The issue was figuring out exactly how to get the look I wanted, which took quite a bit of trial and error in terms of painting the displacement and colors.

 The Ottoman is not the right color and I will absolutely be changing it. I also need to change the pictures on the wall.

I was hoping to have the whole thing textured by the start of this week, but things did not work out that way. My plan is to finish them tomorrow so I can begin working on the lighting and the render settings. I also want to add some special paint effect toon lines to give it that outlined look that Van Gogh often used, but I am unsure as to whether or not I will have enough time.

Despite the crunch for time I'm extremely happy with the direction things are going and I'm staying positive about the outcomes. We'll find out after next week if things worked out or not. I am confident however that everything will be ok and I'll be able to manage my time effectively enough to get things done.

Painting 3D

Only two more weeks until the quarter is over which means I've been stepping up my game and going into over drive mode. I spent the weekend designing a UI for Galactose, as well as hammering away at my rendering final. I'm crunched for time and will be until the end of the quarter so my posts may be a little later and or shorter than usual. Still, I will try to keep things as up to date as possible.

For rendering we had to draw out our composition for our final. Mine was pretty easy since I'll be using the same scene from my last project and pretty much had the composition set already.

I did move some things around as well as add in a few new objects. I tried to give somewhat of a sense of the look I was going for, although I'm not quite sure I pulled it off as well as I could have. 

Aside from that I also started working on the displacement maps which are going quite well. 

I've got about a 3rd of the displacements done and I'm hoping to finish them and color the scene this week. I decided not to change the rug like I have it in the drawing and just kept the one I had before. I am also not too happy with the displacement on the ottoman, so if I have time I'd like to go back and redo that. We'll see how things work out though.

One last thing before I go. I did a quick doodle the other day in about 15 minutes for fun. Just thought I'd share it as well.

A Good Book

I've been feeling ill on and off all week so I'm going to be keeping this post short. I mostly just want to focus on the updates with my rendering project which I finished. Last week I mentioned that I wanted to find a way to recreate a painterly style with the room, which I did quite a bit of exploration for. However, I decided that due to the amount of time I had I wanted to save that for my final project in rendering and just focus on creating a traditional living room scene for this week.
I still spent quite a bit of time on the assignment though because I wanted to make all of the textures by hand in photoshop. I had a lot of fun with it and I'm very happy with the final outcome.

I think that if there's anything I would want to work on more it with be to make the lamp and picture frames a little dirtier because they stand out as being more "3D" than the rest of the image.  The lighting was done using Sun and Sky and bringing that into the interior scene using a portal light. I then added in Final Gather and Global Illumination to give it that nice soft look and feel.

Surreal for Breakfast

Before I get into posting new work, I have some very exciting news to share. I found out this week that I am a semi-finalist for the scholarship I mentioned in my post, Spring Is Here!. My art/essays passed the first test and now I'm up against roughly 40 other semifinalists for the grand prize. I am extremely excited and honored to have made it this far and I will be sure to share any updates as they occur.

And now on to the art!

First off, I finished the doctor and I have a quick turn table of him to share.


I am very happy with how he turned out. I only wish I had enough time to make a scene to go with him. That's something to save for later though as I already moved on and finished the next rendering project.

The only project requirements were that we use displacements in our scene. I didn't really have an idea of what I wanted to do for this assignment but for whatever reason I started thinking of a dry desert with cracked earth. Then that somehow led to me looking at surrealism which eventually led to me  putting together this quick concept of what I wanted to do.

I only had a week to do the assignment, so it's not that crazy or out there in terms of surrealism. I made several changes in the composition though once I actually started making it in 3D. 

It's definitely not a portfolio peice or anything I'm too proud of. I wanted to put a lot more time into it than I was actually able to so it ended up falling short of my expectations. I'm glad I changed those awful arches that where in the original concept I made in photoshop. I never really liked them but they at least gave me a sense of what I wanted to do.

I really wanted to be able to get the metal texture that is on the front hand in the concept, and I had a texture that I was going to use. But for whatever reason the shadows just weren't working right on it and I didn't have enough time to investigate so I ended up just changing the texture all together.

I feel like trying to make something be surreal in 3D is cheating because it's so easy to get that look to it. Even more so since I could add things in in post and play around in photoshop. The weird part is despite all that I still didn't really get it to be what I wanted.

That's all for school work at the momment, but I do have a little something I did last night on the side.

I was done with work for the day and decided to do a quick self portrait in photoshop based on a photo I had. Nothing too fancy but I thought I'd share anyways.

That's all for now!

Fishes are so Delicious

I have quite a few updates and new things to share. Let's start with the updates on projects from my last post.

First of all I completely redesigned the character I am making for my project pipeline class. I realized that I didn't have a clear idea of who my character was and it was really holding me back in terms of being able to let her inner personality show through in my work.

I'm really glad I decided to rework the design. Going back and doing thumbnails really showed that I didn't have a style really nailed down, and even as I started to form a better image of my character in my head it still took me several tried before things started to become more consistent.

She's still very simple design-wise. I mentioned last time that I really wanted to keep the design conservative so that I could really focus more on building my skills instead of spending time making everything really complex. My professor pointed out that something I should really work on is trying to make a unique profile for her so that she's more identifiable. While I was purposefully being conservative, I think my professor was bring up a really important issue. Right now she doesn't really stand out at all, and if I can find a way to change that while still keeping her simple I think it would







I spent a lot of time playing around with hair styles. I knew I wanted her to be a more butch and serious looking female, but being a girl myself, I know how many different things can be down with hair. There is no such thing as just "short hair," there are hundreds of different styles and types of short hair.  But there are ways to limit options, luckily, and since I wanted her to feel more professional and serious and it was pretty clear that anything too wild or messy would send the opposite message. Not only is she a professional, but she's also very rational. I decided she's the type to keep her hair short not because it looks good but because it keeps it from interfering with her work as a soldier. really help.

With all of this in mind, I've decided to go with hair style number 2. My second choice would be number 6. I'm going to begin modeling her today so I should have more to share next time.

Now on to rendering!  I finished my last project. It's not too different from the image I posted last week, but the lights are better and there's some AO in the picture too.  It's still not the most exciting thing I've ever done, but it's not too bad.

I've also begun my second project for rendering in which we have to make an image using only procedural shaders. I decided I really wanted to challenge myself for this one, and boy did I pick a challenge. I decided to make a gold fish, which doesn't sound too bad but if you've ever had to make scales using procedural texturing then you'd know it's no picnic.

It took me three hours to get just the shape of the scales alone. It took me a while but I finally managed to get the shape using just ramps. I then added a bump map, color, incandescence, and some other attributes. In the end I used mostly ramps for a good portion of the entire shader.

The next challenge was getting the texture for the fins, particularly the tail since the lines need to follow along the split "Y" shape of the tail.

They're still not perfect, but I need to work on finishing the rest of the scene and the eye before I play with them some more. It's due on Tuesday, so I should have a finished image to share next week.

Before I go, remember the doctor concept I created in my post The Doctor is In? Well I'll be using him for my next rendering assignment, so make sure to check back to find out how he turns out!

Spring is Here!

I apologize for the late post. I've been trying very hard to keep on my once a week posting schedule, but my schedule for Spring is so crazy that I had to immediately hit the ground running in order to keep up with my course work. On top of that I've been rather sick this past week.

I have two updates, both of which are for a scholarship I am applying to. The first is the digital painting I shared in the last post. I am having to call it on this one for now. Ideally I would love to keep working, but the scholarship deadline is coming up, not to mention I need to be focusing on school work.

I'm pretty happy with it. I'd like to add in more details and really just push it further in general, but all things considered, it is probably the best digital painting I have produced thus far. I had a lot of trouble trying to figure out the lighting for the leaves and I'm still not convinced I got it quite right, but it is much better than what I originally had.

And now for the other half of the scholarship application, a character that goes with the environment.

I was very frustrated with myself today when I opened it up and realized that at least 3 hours of work I had spent on it earlier this week was entirely gone. I had added a lot more details to the base of the harp to make it more balanced, but somehow managed to lose all of it. Unfortunately, I've run out of time and have to submit it without.  Again, ideally I'd like to fix it up more but that's just not an option right now.  I wanted to give her more of a back drop/setting but I had to chose between that or polishing the character as much as possible. And since the character is what is actually required for the scholarship, it was obvious I had to go with that

Possible scholarship aside, I'm very happy that I was able to produce both of these images because it was an incredible learning experience. I've never gotten to sit down and really focus on a digital painting before, and even though I'd like these both to be more polished I am extremely proud of how far I was able to take them  both. It was definitely an extremely worthwhile experience.

Outer Space, Doors, and Ice Cream

Woot! I'm done with finals! Which means I have a ton of stuff to share! Seriously, I have so much to show it's not even funny.

First of all I finished the textures on my character.

I still don't like a lot of things about it, but at this point the issues I have have more to do with the model than with the textures. I am extremely happy that I managed to do the entire thing with procedural textures (with the exception of the patterns on the belt which I drew by hand in photoshop). I think that the wrinkles in the white shirt turned out extremely well for being a procedural bump map.

So remember way back in December when I said I was going to be assisting some seniors on their thesis projects? Probably not because I haven't mentioned it since (click here to see my post, "Working Toghter"), but I'm actually done with that as well now.

I was working with Skybase on his film The Door to Tomorrow to make some of the settings for his scenes. I modeled a very simple Hospital room and hallway which he then rendered and painted over before adding the animations.

I've got some renders as well as the painted over versions that Skybase was generous enough to allow me to share. I did the models but he did all the rendering and painting.

Please note that the renders are purposefully noisy because of the process he was using to paint over them worked better when there was more noise.

 He presented the finished film last night and it was absolutely beautiful and I am so honored to have been able to have been a part of the project. As far as I am aware the full video isn't currently available online, but he has several trailers which you can find here on his Vimeo. I highly recomend paying it a visit as the stuff he's been doing really is amazing.

I also worked with my friend Kyle West on his senior thesis. He created an asset package with a character and vehicle. He developed this really cool idea of an ice cream man with a special customized ice cream truck. My job was to make the logo for the ice cream company, which he had a pretty specific vision for so it was more just making that idea a reality in illustrator.

He really wanted the logo to be simple and straight forward so the overall concept was always pretty set. He knew he wanted an ice cream cone, for obvious reasons, and that he wanted the company name to be on a banner. So the things I played around with was the style of the cone and ice cream as well as different shapes and placements for the banner.

We came up with the idea of the bow tie because the character wears one as part of his work uniform so we thought it would be a kind of cool way to add a little branding to the company. I think we definitely made the right choice in the end. I wasn't a huge fan of the soft serve cones I was comming up with.

Another thing I did was make the eyes, teeth, and eyelashes for his character.

I know it's a pretty creepy render. He looks like he's wearing a ski mask, haha, but I didn't want to post up Kyle's face model, so I just used the parts I used to match things to. The eye lashes I modeled one lash and then animated along a curve and had it generate copies as it animated.

And one last thing I have is yet another digital painting I've started, hoever I'm going to be finishing this one. I'm doing it for a scholarship so I'm hoping I can finish it up well enough to have a shot at getting some financial aide for college. I've only put four and a half hours into it so far so it's not done, but I'm extremely happy with how well it's going considering I'm not extremely experienced in digital painting.