Rook's sketchbook

2 years of Mafia Wars

2011-11-14T18:32:00.000-08:00

(all images in this post are © Zynga Inc.)

While I do feel like a complete failure for not updating my blog for over 1.5 years, here is a sample of what I've been doing in the mean time at Zynga.

This is some of the item artwork I've made. There's plenty more but I think this gets the point across hehe. Each image is 200x200 but was created at either 400x400 or 800x800. There is a mixture of pure photoshop, painted 3D renders, and maybe a few photo mashups. Also, I don't know if it's just late or what, but it looks like blogspot's gallery is ruining the image quality on everything. :\

(to view these images up close, click here)

City specific work:

-Bangkok
-properties

-Vegas
-properties (stages 1 through 5 - all pieces upgrade individually)

--each building has 5 upgradable interiors, here is a sample of 4 stages of the poker room and 1 of the hotel:

Social job art, leading up to the snoop dogg publicity event:

-Italy
--properties: concept to final

(I was responsible for building and painting the environment. Karl Espiritu, Claire Marshall, and Gina Van Meurs helped with painting the individual properties)

Having been given the responsibility of leading this project, I was very happy and proud of our team for what we created in such a short span of time.

-Brazil
-Properties

stage silhouettes for the refinery property

(alternative layout idea)

(final background)

-Misc. images

(a couple characters based on members of the Mafia Wars team)

Sketches...

2010-01-26T00:16:00.001-08:00

Here's some new stuff... Kinda lost focus for a bit but I'm back and really inspired to work on my own art again. I think one of the basic things I really need to work on is starting with an idea. I really enjoy just making marks until something starts showing up, but I frequently end up with compositions that have almost no focal point at all. Ah well, live and learn...

^^ That movie was pretty bad ass I gotta say :D

It's been a while...

2009-12-21T02:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately... can't believe it's been over a month. I've been real busy working at Zynga but it's been a blast so far. We just had our Holiday party on Friday and it was amazing! Aside from all the fun I had hanging out with friends and making new ones, I was told that in a couple weeks when we come back from the Holidays, Zynga will pick me up as a full time employee :D woot woot! Oh and I couldn't make a post without posting some art, so heres a CHOW I grinded out this evening (yes yes there are many issues with it).

Oh and the topic was some sort of interdimensional surveyor or something - the story they wrote for the breif was pretty cool.

That big news I mentioned...

2009-10-27T15:38:00.000-07:00

Just letting you guys know that I got a job (3 month contract to hire) at Zynga, doing 2D art for their Mafia Wars game :D. Because of that, I'm moving back to the bay area on Friday - woot!

Also, I was invited to join a speed painting blog called SpeedSpot which was a pretty damn cool surprise. Take a look - there are some really incredible artists posting there :)

A sketch...

2009-10-19T16:14:00.000-07:00

Just testing out a 'new' brush I made from watching a tutorial vid on Dave Rapoza's blog. There isn't anything too special about it but it's pretty cool to sketch with - and I used some old brushes as well.

Hopefully I'll have some big news to post soon... :D

Edit: ... and another sketch - I really need to get back to UEC if I want to have any chance of finishing haha. For some reason I'm just way more interested in characters this week.

UC #4

2009-10-12T21:29:00.000-07:00

Did some quick color work on 18...

UC #3

2009-10-09T22:56:00.003-07:00

Today's sketches...

UC #2

2009-10-08T18:41:00.000-07:00

2nd Unearthly post... By the way, the topic is "Last Level" - I forgot to mention that in the last post. Anyways, I'm still exploring ideas for a final image and we are allowed to submit 3 finals. I have some work to do!

Unearthly Challenge

2009-10-07T15:08:00.000-07:00

Hey art people - I just wanted to let you peeps know that Gameartisans.org has started their Unearthly Challenge, which is an environment challenge almost as big as the dominance war. I highly recommend joining if you are interested in 2D concept design or 3D modeling. http://www.unearthlychallenge.com/2009/en_index.php

If you join and apply yourself, I gaurantee you will better your artistic ability, learn important presentation skills, and get better at giving/recieving feedback. If you join up, let me know so I can follow your thread as well!

Here is a link to my thread as well as my first thumbnail page.

http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=11454

something new...

2009-09-29T19:16:00.000-07:00

So here is something that is sort of new... hope you like it.

Also a couple things... I just wanted to let my friends know that I am in fact looking for a job now so if you know of anything 2d (maybe even 3d) related, please let me know! I'm mostly interested in full-time but contract is cool too.

More importantly, I'm probably going to be an uncle in a couple hours!! My sister's baby is almost here and I'll probably be scooting off to the hospital again real soon. I can't wait to meet her!

Between being an uncle and looking for a job my plan is to get back into some weekly challenges. Conceptart.org currently has a really awesome CHOW topic but I might miss it this week, we'll see. I'll also be doing their COW (creature of the week) as well... As much as I feel I need to work on my human anatomy, I have probably ignored monsters for a bit too long hehe. Anyways, till next time~

Kyle

Jeff's 5 items or less... and more!

2009-09-17T18:17:00.000-07:00

After completing an art test about a week and a half ago (maybe I'll post it sometime...), I took a little break from being creative... This was a fun challenge to get me back into gear. If anything looks really bad I'm blaming it on being sick this week!

Here's a couple random things... This environment was one of my previous thumbs that I liked and wanted to work up. I think I started coloring it the night before I got my art test and at this point I likely won't keep working on it... so here it is! The other image is a warm-up study I did a while ago.

...and more practice.

2009-08-30T23:43:00.001-07:00

I got a bit more confident with what I was doing while working on these - I started enjoying them a lot more too. I really like some of the results so I decided to let the image remain pretty large. I will probably do another page for fun and work up my favorites to colored illustrations.

A random but fun use of the above madness...

Practice, practice...

2009-08-28T21:21:00.000-07:00

Practicing values here as well as other things... It was my goal to work fast and I mostly succeeded, though I did probably noodle a couple things to death a long the way. I'll probably try doing a page of thumbs every day for practice. The page with the larger images was done before I decided to work smaller... I'm not trying to say they are better than the others~

Also I think the Unearthly Challenge on Gameartisans is going to begin soon. It's kind of like the Dominance War but for alien landscapes - sounds interesting.

A couple new things...

2009-08-26T19:05:00.000-07:00

Random stuff for fun.

Persephone

2009-08-20T17:52:00.000-07:00

I don't think I've posted this before, but since I couldn't think of a good way to integrate it into my current portfolio site, here it is. This was my portrait sculpture final back in sp of 08.

More...

2009-08-05T17:40:00.000-07:00

Here's some of the contract work that I did for CloudPlay. For some reason these files are a bit on the large side and compressed fairly poorly :\ Let me know what you guys think!

Maps: (scaled down to roughly 30% actual size)

Posters:

Units:

Back to business

2009-07-28T23:30:00.000-07:00

Getting back to my portfolio, I put together some images tonight that I will be adding to my website real soon. I'm awaiting to hear if I'm allowed to use some of the work I did for Cloudplay Games (formerly Cast Iron Games). But, I am very pleased to be able to finally show people Shiva from The Offering - the animated short that began it's life a year and a half ago. I cannot wait to see the finished film. On a side note, if anyone with the right access can get me a full shot of him I'd be in your debt!

More to come!

Oh yeah - my Strangers in a Strange Land entry won first place :D

Also, if anyone can recommend a better font to use on my images please help me out!

Chow 166 'Pride and Prejudice'

2009-07-14T00:14:00.000-07:00

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The task this week is to do character designs for either Fitzwilliam Darcy, or Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice. I've read as much as the wikipedia summary on this novel, so I don't quite know who these characters are. Anyways, heres my start - I'll post more as I go, though no promises on finishing as I'll be out of town this weekend.

Btw these challenges are a lot of fun - if any of you other art people have time you should join up.

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=163014

WIP - I'll be in the bay area this weekend so I'll get back to this Sunday evening.

/old

Just for fun, heres a WIP spread of how far I got this evening.

Chow 165 'SuperCute'

2009-07-13T13:00:00.000-07:00

Heres my entry for Conceptart.org's character of the week #165... I hope I score a few votes :D

Art community competitions...

2009-07-09T20:44:00.000-07:00

I wrapped up my Strangers in a Strange Land entry the other day, so here it is. The voting for that one starts on the 12th I think... There aren't really any prizes, but it turned out to be a fun reason to keep building my portfolio. Because of that, I decided to take the plunge and start becoming involved with conceptart.org. There is no denying how big that site is, so it's as good a time as any to start posting there.

I jumped into conceptart.org's character of the week competition (otherwise referred to as Chow). The deadline is Monday so I have half the time people normally would... but I don't have a job so I should be ok :P Interesting topic too - Super Cute! ... that's definitely out of a comfort zone for me. Anyways, here are my first thumbs for Captain Lilly of the Lollipop protectorate~

step 2...

Website and other stuff

2009-06-30T22:49:00.000-07:00

I realize I haven't posted much in the last week... I've worked a little on getting a website up and running [here]. It's still pretty simple and rough, but I had to get that rolling. It showed me that I don't have nearly enough art to actually put a portfolio together (that I'd be satisfied with). Consider that gallery temporary if you take a look. Also, any crits on web design would be good to hear... I know there is a small design glitch in IE - it doesn't kill the site but doesn't look quite how I want it to.

Aside from that, I decided to read The Fellowship of the Ring finally - awesome! I can't wait to read the other 2 if I feel like I have the time...

Next, I did a little drawing today. I'll probably enter some small mini comp on Gameartisans. The topic is pretty wide open 'strangers in a strange land'...

--- update

Sketches and Studies #7

2009-06-22T00:46:00.001-07:00

Just having some fun and experimenting in Photoshop.

Sketches and Studies #6

2009-06-18T21:49:00.000-07:00

Well this image has its fair share of bad decisions, but I do like how some of the values and colors ended up. I hope you like it.

Sketches and Studies #5

2009-06-16T19:29:00.000-07:00

I guess this was a test showing what I remember (or don't) from portrait sculpture. I used no reference, which might be obvious, but I am pretty happy with how it turned out. As you can see I discovered how to apply a canvas texture... stop me if I start over using that! :D Fun exercise regardless.

Sketches and Studies #4

2009-06-16T01:09:00.000-07:00

Heres another study/photograph copy.

Sketches and Studies #3

2009-06-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

Well this went a bit outside the bounds of being a quick sketch but heres another post at least. I would like to start working on a more subtle use of color... I think I get really carried away sometimes.

Just for fun, heres the drawing that sparked the image.

Sketches and Studies #2

2009-06-11T00:01:00.000-07:00

Worked on some more stuff today. I did quite a bit of drawing from Bridgman - which I'd post for the hell of it if I had a camera - as well as attempting some figure painting studies... I'm actually stealing this idea of painting MMA fighters from a very inspiring artist that I found (here). This guys studies worked for him, so I'm hoping they help me too!

I will note that it was contour traced (outside of figure only) and color sampled - I'm not trying to fool ya. I think the purpose of these will be to give me more knowledge of skin tones, lighting, and most importantly, attempt to make sense out of Bridgman's crazy drawings.

Sketches and Studies #1

2009-06-09T23:53:00.000-07:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I have decided to go back to learning from reference and books for a while. I realized my ventures in painting from my imagination were helping me find a technique and style, which is great, but I wasn't advancing my knowledge in anatomy, perspective, color, or lighting very much. That is my new goal for the next couple of months.

I've just barely been able to tap the books and review torso anatomy, but heres sketch #1 - I think its some kind of American Gladiator / super hero?

Landscapes

2009-05-27T23:52:00.000-07:00

One more for now. I think I am going to switch gears and hit the books for a while...

Today I decided to do some 30 minute paintings to see how far I could get... Primarily I found out that it isn't quite enough time (currently) to find the composition, color and concept. I was usually done figuring out the general composition at 10 minutes, color by 20, and sketched for the last 10... They aren't much to look at, but speed is key and worth working towards. I did end up liking the middle one though. Perhaps I'll do this again tomorrow.

This really isn't a landscape, but I liked the thumbnail.

I decided to do some thumbnails today instead of anything real big - though you might be able to tell that I got carried away with one of them. I was so pleased with a brush I made 100% myself that I spent the last 2 spots (E and F) showing it off. You see the brush in F, and what it will do in a couple seconds of painting in E. I used it to block in all of those - I really like the shapes it gives me, and the texture to start a painting.

Small update for now - I've been real busy the last few days with wedding stuff for my friends Keith and Tina (congrats again!!). It's back to work on this stuff for me though.

As it turns out, I may be setting the Dominance War mini challenge off to the side and working on some landscape paintings instead. But we'll see, keep checking the post below this one for updates as I'll just edit the post rather than make another one entirely.

Anyways, here is the first of probably many landscape paintings I will be doing this week and maybe next week. I'm pretty happy with how this first one turned out. I jumped into it head first with a basic value sketch and went from there. Tomorrow I'll do some thumbnails to nail down more unique ideas (hopefully!).

Dominance War IV mini challenge

2009-05-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

Following the main challenge, a new mini challenge has been posted for Dominance war. The subject is War General Pets... This is a take-off of the mini challenge that preceded the main event which was War General Portraits. Take a look at this main competition graphic though, notice anything? (I've circled it to make it easier) hah!

Anyways this is a short 9 day thing which I will try to finish. First up just some thumbnails I did last night and a painting I started today.

Dominance War IV final entry

2009-05-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

The gameartisans server finally accepted my entry so I'm all finished up! Overall I'd say that this was a totally worth while experience. I learned quite a lot about concept design and painting along the way - I should be starting another project real soon to put what I learned to use.

Dominance War IV entry:

2009-03-17T00:06:00.000-07:00

Finally working on the color illustration...

The above image is me dropping the sketch onto the old value comp, plus working it up a lot more. Something was lost though and I'm not sure what the composition is lacking now... I may paint back in those ribbons but I don't think that will be the full answer - more to come.

Working on a better drawing of the character to place in the scene. I'm hoping this is more proportionate than she is in the color comp. I'm also hoping her leg isn't broken haha... seems reasonable to me :P

//last edit

First attempt at a color comp for my final illustration, as well as a new value composition. I will probably end up sticking with the new composition. More to come.

Still looking for a composition with a good feel to it... Some of these are getting there. I think 3F could be good with a more clear background (but it is a thumbnail afterall). I'll probably try some landscape ideas - that might work better for me.

Not sure about these compositions, but I always had the idea that this character would be in more of a peaceful looking and forested environment. This is a war, but the character is named Serene for a reason. Shes the one that can restore peace to the world. I want the demons to be frozen/turned to stone, or bound somehow, and be represented as ornaments in this area. I'm not really sure how to do that yet, but this was an ok first step... If anyone is actually reading this, comments/feedback would be most appreciated!

Working on a new comp. This idea started from the first thumbnail on the page - it's as if a HUGE demon ripped through the dimensional wall (provided story) and acted as a carrier for the invasion forces. This large demon would probably be torn to pieces or scathed as a result of moving between dimensions... I have to make it kind of horrible, they are the bad guys! :P

This was fun, but not exactly how I was expecting to use the lower space... I needed the foreground elements to add to the sense of depth but these guys don't do a very good job of that. They do, however, show off her ability more clearly than it is currently on the larger guy. In any case, time for a new composition!

An earlier version (below):

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Hey guys, I officially joined the war today :D I'll keep this post updated as I go along, although you will also be able to see my work being posted at this thread...

http://www.gameartisans.org/forums/showthread.php?t=7834

If you want to learn more about this challenge, check my last post. It began on Sunday and will go till May 11th... that means you can still join and have plenty of time to participate!

So the War is pretty open ended. My job is to create a character that is either a norm (pretty much any human or anthropomorphic being) that is either a warrior, cleric of sorts, or spell caster. In their possession they must have an item of great magical power. Pretty typical fantasy stuff really, but that's not a bad thing. The other races that could be chosen are Machines or Demons. All would be really cool - I'm tempted to go the Demon route so I can really produce something bizarre, but I need the practice concepting human characters...

My character will essentially be a bard, though for the rules of the comp its considered a "clericon" I want to develop a clothing style that is similar to the Art Deco fashion, but with a futuristic - post apocalyptic feel to it. That's the goal anyhow, and I'm far from it. Heres the beginning.

The head in G came out pretty funny in this thumb, so I rendered it a little bit more to show people what I saw...

(I really like the drawing B on this page, but it's not quite my character...)

Random sketch:

Alchemy and the Dominance War challenge...

2009-03-14T23:12:00.000-07:00

I discovered a pretty interesting painting program called Alchemy recently. It's a fairly bare bones program, nothing like Photoshop (I don't even think it has undo), but it has some neat tricks - it looks like it is designed for concept artists. Consider it an alternative to fancy photoshop brushes for the design phase, though photoshop is a great second step. You can find it here:

http://al.chemy.org/download/

Also, there is a huge online game art challenge starting tomorrow, unless it gets pushed back again. I can't believe I hadn't heard of this before, but its called the Dominance War. It pits the largest online art communities against each other (cgsociety, cgtalk, polycount etc). It sounds really awesome! The challenge will have its fair share of industry professionals kicking everyone elses butt, yet at the same time they will be offering great feedback to the rest of us. Sure there are prizes, but a portfolio piece and loads of beneficial critiques are gauranteed - not to mention it could be a great way to get noticed. I'm doing it, let me know if anyone else is - I want to keep track of my friends as the challenge goes on... which by the way, might be a long time! I'm getting the impression it might be a month+ long challenge to allow people the time to participate.

http://www.dominancewar.com/

Heres a warmup I did today, which began in Alchemy and was "finished" in photoshop. (the sig is pretty much temporary)

Curves are fun

2009-03-02T23:12:00.000-08:00

I painted this image today. I'm still messing around with those brushes I got, though there seem to be only a handful that are really useful to me. I'm also attaching a quick image strip showing how curves can affect a painting. I absolutely love color, but I know I kind of suck at painting it and coming up with color palettes - so I've learned to embrace PS and its adjustment layer goodness. This may seem like an evil sin to some, but I've learned over the last 2 months of digital painting for work that it doesn't matter how it gets done (as long as it doesn't infringe on copyrights) just get it done good, and fast! Though I feel it is very important to watch what adjustment layers (in general) are doing and learn from them.

The top image in this strip was my original, though I will admit I had done a very similar curves layer halfway through or so. My image ended up being a mix of 2, 3 and 5. I'm not sure I made the right choice here, but I'm not too worried about it.

Fun with brushes...

2009-02-26T18:15:00.000-08:00

Note: Added bottom pic later.

Here is an image I made this afternoon while playing with some new PS brushes I found on the net. As with everything on this blog (except for some of the models) this was a quick job - I promise I'll post more serious projects someday.

Also, sorry about the lack of posts for the last couple of months - thankfully I'm still working so that keeps me pretty busy. The game I'm working on might be ready for beta soon so hopefully that will let me show some work off.

Yoda Challenge...

2009-01-04T16:36:00.000-08:00

I've been really inspired to work on my digital painting recently after stumbling across some really amazing artists. The following image was done using a few brushes by Melanie Delon. The brushes themselves aren't anything too complex, but it is fun to work in different brush strokes as it can really change the feeling of an image. I think I will even bite the bullet and purchase a Cintiq 21UX in the next few days.

Jeff Jackson's latest challenge is centered around Yoda, who is quite possibly the coolest character ever.

Before you ask, I have NO idea where this came from. It's strange but I like it.

Colors (nds)

2008-12-23T21:26:00.000-08:00

The following images were painted on my Nintendo DS.

Not too long ago I installed Colors! a free digital painting program onto my DS and I have to say it is pretty awesome. It's a bare bones program, no layers, no adjustments, not even undo - so to that affect, it emulates traditional painting a little bit more than Photoshop. You are limited by how small the DS screen is which makes it a little hard to draw, but its really fun sketching with a stylus directly onto a screen. Consider it a $150 dollar cintiq that you can take with you anywhere. I recommend it to everyone interested in digital painting.

These are all really quick sketches. My biggest goal these days is to work on incorporating saturated colors into my work... and these are a little more saturated than I expected them to be but I guess that means they are a success.

If you own a DS, or want to look into this more, checkout this URL: Colors! - Setup Tutorial

Job(s)

2008-10-21T19:07:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to let my friends, who may check my blog from time to time, know what I'm up to.

I signed on as a contractor to a start-up game company in Redwood City where I'll be responsible for concept design / modeling / level creation and other assorted photoshop work that will need to be done. I couldn't have imagined that my first job would be something this fun :D I'm really looking forward to being able to continue to increase my drawing/painting ability and get paid for it - and on top of that the game is already looking very cool! The company is working in 'stealth mode' so I'm not able to say much about it, or show work that I do, but from the looks of it it won't be long till I can post/link some fun stuff.

I also have another contract going that will be creating 3D assets for the casual game market (ex; iphones). This one hasn't begun yet but should shortly.

Wow I'm gonna be busy, and it's gonna be a lot of fun!! :D

---- Also, I haven't entirely forgotten about the ogre. I actually rendered out a turn table of him with a composited Ambient Occlusion turn table on top and it looks really great! The only problem is it is 88 megs and I don't know how to shrink it without losing much quality. If I ever figure that out I'll post it.

Progress and Learning

2008-10-09T20:26:00.001-07:00

Continuing with the idea of having kittens in the scene, I decided that I wanted to have 3; one looking up to the ogre, one sleeping, and one playing with a butterfly. This update shows the placement and general posing that I'm going for. Things that are missing or unfinished, are the butterfly and the bedding the kitten is on won't be just a block - I'm just not sure what to make it yet.

Now for things that I've learned during this small step. For one, the smooth tool in Modo is amazing. It will average out so many issues that arise from posing meshes, I only wish I had used it more a while ago.

Also with the help of Christian and Mike I figured out how to make my renders look better. This image (above) is an ambient occlusion render with the white range turned way up to minimize the amount of dark values that appear in the scene. The purpose of this is to take this render, and composite it with a color render (below) using the multiply blend mode in Photoshop to really enhance the shadows of your scene. The result is the image at the top of this post. I will update more soon.

WIP movie

2008-10-01T01:32:00.000-07:00

A WIP turn-around. The biggest issue with the model when I last posted, was that it was just an ogre-like figure. That is already cliche, so I need to work the scene to make it memorable otherwise it will probably be a wasted slot in my reel. I don't know if my direction is working, so any comments are helpful, but my idea is to add kittens to the scene to show that this big fat ogre is really a softie and that he is protecting them from some outside enemy (which I may need to hint at).

Well this turned out to be really low quality, but I'll leave it up for now. Heres an image as well.

That ground texture sure is hurting up close...

Actually working.

2008-08-28T20:14:00.000-07:00

So I did almost nothing today... I reposed him a bit, turned his head slightly, tilted it more. Raised his right arm, straightened it a bit. I then shifted his torso over slightly to get his weight over his right leg more. I think some of it reads better, although the tilt to his head makes him look borderline retarded at certain angles. I really need to get an anatomy crit before moving forward with smaller details :\ What to do, what to do...

/post
--------------------------------
Fewer noticeable changes today... I modeled the teeth/gums/tongue as well as some bandages around his left leg. I also slightly reposed the left arm and gave much better gesture to the hand. I also decided to try rendering with a black background and thought it looked pretty cool.

/post
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Update: Starting to block out the scene and give the guy some of his stuff! I designed the weapon as if the Ogre tore a tree out of the ground and fastened a blade to the end of it. I think it was a cool idea, the execution could probably use some work though. Also added a belt, but the cloth has yet to be sculpted so it looks a bit plain.

Overall it's going well IMO, and I can't wait to actually get to sculpting higher res detail - right now all the muscle detail I can get is dependent on my loops and a reasonably low poly wire frame. I also want to push the gesture a lot more if I can...

/post
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So I've actually been working on stuff lately even though I haven't posted anything. Lately I was doing some contract work for a local game company doing models that will be used as pre-rendered sprites for their game. They are currently in stealth mode so I won't post any of the work, but it was fun and a good experience.

Here is something else I've been working up when I have had the time. This is the ogre from 2 posts down. Mostly he's lookin' cool but his pose and style still need a lot of tweaks (which consequently lead to countless anatomy tweaks).

(his right arm in the last image will have some strange creases, that's a result of posing a model and will be ironed out.)

Let me know what you think! Thanks!

Is this working?

2008-08-10T19:44:00.000-07:00

So I created a business card real quick tonight and I'd like to know what people think. Due to me buying the wrong paper tonight at Officemax I won't be printing till tomorrow or so, so if by some odd chance someone sees this before then - let me know if it works! Thanks.

This is best viewed without clicking on it, so you can see the white border (if your browser window has the default white background)

Something new

2008-07-27T18:51:00.000-07:00

I feel pretty stuck on that model right now, so instead of spinning my wheels I feel like starting something else. These are just some quick drawings trying to develope a character that I think would be fun to model. He will be posed, unlike all my other models, and I'm thinking something similar to the bottom right drawing, but with a few changes. Maybe I could even have him defending something like a kitten just to add a little comedy and character to the scene.

The energizer bunny of modeling projects

2008-07-21T16:20:00.000-07:00

I spent today finishing up UV's on the rest of his gear and started laying in some color. Everything that is black hasn't been touched. I may have to put this project down for 2 days and focus on some sculptures, so I probably won't update tomorrow.

Well today wasn't as productive as it could have been, but that's ok... here's an updated WIP. The colors on the textures so far are looking pretty flat.. I'll have to touch that up. I also plan to spend about 2 days with hypershade in maya to do the detailed material work.

Still working on this guy, although with Siggraph just around the corner, this will have to be done by next weekend. Anyways, I just felt like posting a WIP because I'm pretty happy with how the concept is evolving.

A quickie

2008-07-10T16:10:00.000-07:00

I modeled this in roughly 5 hours, maybe a little less. Its a throw back to an old school Final Fantasy monster that was for some reason memorable... This can be considered a WIP (work in progress) since it isn't refined, but I don't think that was my intention. Although if people like it I could do some nice detailing and texturing.

An art post.

2008-06-18T16:01:00.000-07:00

Modeled/painted for Jeff Jackson's current challenge - favorite villain. While I don't really have a favorite villain, I did think the Witch King's concept was really bad ass for ROTK. I'd love to keep working on it but I don't think I have the time.

Added a 3D wip...

Graduation

2008-05-18T01:45:00.000-07:00

My lack of posting recently was a result of my last semester at Cogswell demanding every second of every day - but it's finished. On May 10th I graduated (with honors! :D) along side my brother, and it was probably the best day of my life. I'm so thankful that my family was able to be there. Now onto the real world :)

Here are some pics.

Both Christian and I received outstanding student achievement awards - pretty cool huh? :D I'll add more pictures soon, or link to an online photo album.

Some random things.

2008-04-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

I was finally able to scan this illustration today that I did a while back. I am happy with how it turned out considering some of the challenges that the background texture presented. I am probably going to enter this into the Cogswell Fusion Awards.

And this is my sculpture midterm... It didn't turn out all that well, but it looks decent from this angle.

I'm not done yet!

2008-03-19T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today I realized it was crappy of me to fall short of this commitment since I made it so long ago - I will probably put some class work on the side to get this done soon. I'm going to continue to update this throughout the night, tomorrow night and god knows how long until this is finished (although I don't think it will be appreciated if it's longer than a week).

Just throwing it out there...

2008-03-18T20:05:00.000-07:00

Here are some WIP images of my current sculpture project. Unfortunately I had to go with using flash on these pictures, so it makes the details either look cool, crappy, or they disappear entirely - not the ideal choice, but I'll worry about getting better pics when it's done.

So far, so good. I'm ahead of the game as far as where most everyone else is in the class, and thankfully the due date was pushed back to Monday (previously this Wednesday) but I would have planned my time differently had I known that - oh well.

Kwoon... wow,

2008-03-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

Ok I'm not going to get in the habbit of posting work that isn't mine, but Cassia showed this to me and my jaw was on the floor the entire time I was watching it.

Amazing music, animation and visual style - definitely worth a watch, or ten.

I've seriously watched this several times a day since I first saw it. I find it to be very inspirational to me. Here is a site for more information on it if anyone is curious.

ILOTM

Stuff.

2008-03-03T18:41:00.001-08:00

Going to hold off on describing what the heck I'm doing until I get more images done...

A couple days ago, at a studio not so far away...

2008-03-02T19:30:00.000-08:00

So on Friday after a trip to the Asian art museum for a class study, myself, Cassia and Jill were given the chance to go on a tour of ILM (Industrial Light and Magic, they are kind of a big deal) and Lucasarts, since they share the same building now in the Presidio of SF. The tour was given by a friend of Cassia's that works there, so thanks again Cassia and Kamel! Unfortunately we signed an NDA before going in so I can't really say much, but it was really cool to see one of the most famous visual effects houses in the industry. We got really lucky on the tour when we were invited to check out the art department of ILM by a passing supervisor (I think). Time wise this was a very small portion of the tour but REALLY cool. Anyways, heres a pic of us after the tour infront of the Yoda fountain. Thats Jill, Cassia and myself from left to right.

ILM hire me, thanks!

In progress: animal blend self portrait sculpture

2008-02-24T18:34:00.000-08:00

So this is my maquette (sp?) so far for this assignment. It's meant to be a blend of myself and a polar bear... It has looked like a rat and meerkat so far, but hopefully it will look like a polar bear in the final version :o The hoodie is something I'm trying out... it isn't really working yet but I was hoping it would fill out the silhouette more and make the neck feel heavier while not changing the neck anatomy radically.

Drawing Salon 2/14

2008-02-14T00:48:00.000-08:00

So I spent about 6-7 hours today drawing, which was great! I started working on the sketchbook project and then went to drawing salon tonight. From all the warm-up I was really happy with how almost all my drawings were turning out. Here is one sample but I will try to add a few more (probably some 1's and 2 minute drawings) tomorrow. This is a 5 minute pose.

Redesign on the brothers...

2008-02-08T22:03:00.001-08:00

I stumbled upon a new idea last week for the brothers to be dressed up as fast food mascots. I thought it was funny but I had no idea how to make it work. Essentially they are going to be ex cons. The story is still up in the air, although Jeff Jackson liked the idea so much he came up with a full story surrounding these characters. I'll post that when I can...

I like this one so far.. It's a wip, as everything pretty much is right now, and I plan on drawing more face thumbs on it when I dare to actually express something.

This is something I did today at school.. I was playing around with making this character look more like an otter. I may not have succeeded there but it got me to play around with the face a bit more.

Figure drawings...

2008-01-19T19:03:00.001-08:00

I meant to keep posting my figure drawings from Wednesday nights but it's been hard to get into the photoshop lab at school around my schedule and classes that meet in there. So I figured I'd scan a few at home, although I'll update more whenever I can actually get into that lab.

Here are some 2 minute poses of last week. I have a lot more 2 minutes I want to scan when I get a chance that look a bit nicer than these eheh.

Next up, the model this week did a combo pose or what ever he wants to call it, both poses were 1 minute and it was up to us to draw it so they fit together - very cool idea.

Last, I got a little daring with a brush pen later on during the 5 minute poses. Turned out a lot better than I expected hehe.

More to come when I have time.

Designing Henchmen for The Moon

2008-01-07T13:35:00.000-08:00

Small update for The Moon sketchbook...

I recently decided on an idea for St. Peter and the Heavenly Hosts that appear in The Moon. Disregarding the religious context that St. Peter appears in, for the story he is kind of the grumpy neighbor from upstairs that comes down to put an end to the party. So I see him as being some sort of a diabolical CEO of what ever space station or colony the story takes place in. At his side of course, are the hosts, his henchmen. Here is the first photoshop of one of the four hosts... the rest are thumbnailed, just not detailed quite yet.

This little guy is inspired partly from the fact that I just read The Hobbit over the winter break :P The painting is by no means finished, but that isn't what this project is all about. I'll update the rest when I get em.

update:

The next Host is here! I'm having a lot of fun drawin' up these guys. I decided not to do a full render this time around since what I did with the dwarf is going to take a little bit more work to do a full line up later on.

I'm happy with where this character is going. I tried to design his body - wings included - to look like a wine glass, which could probably come across a little stronger. I was however ready to run with the 2nd drawing I did (lower left) as I think it looks more henchmen like, but exploring it more was fun.

Another. It comes across unique yet I think still fits together with the other hosts. However, this is maybe the 2nd drawing of him and that's bad! One of the wings was cut off because that was the edge of the paper and I didn't feel like photoshopping it atm. -___-

Merry Christmas!

2007-12-23T13:34:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas all!

In spirit of the season I worked on a Christmas'y painting. Originally intended for Jeff Jackson's challenge for this month, until I actually read the challenge and realized it was specificically for Santa! Ho ho ho whoops. This ones for you though, Rudolph!

My finals:

2007-12-19T21:53:00.000-08:00

Here are the products of my laziness.

First up - the illustration final. To get this into digital form I had to do 2 scans, which were both a bit bright, but close enough - much better than a camera was giving me. This isn't 100% done. I still would like to tighten up the horizon line and a few things here and there, but I also feel like I should move on. Ultimately I am happy with it, and it looks much better in person than on the computer :o

Next, my first reel. Ahhhh the first reel, the one you never wish to show any employer, but ultimately have to make it as a starting block to build from.

And lastly, my model. It seems I need a better computer to actually zbrush real high res stuff, go figure.

Another semester down, one to go!

2007-12-18T23:23:00.000-08:00

Thank god that semester ended, now I can work on other projects in my "free time" until the next one begins again. I plan on posting my first reel, my illustration final and a render of the model I was working on in the next few days. However, until I can get a good picture taken of my painting I will hold off making that post. Until then, I'm gonna post some stuff here as I get cranking again on the sketchbook project.

Disclaimer: My laptops screen sucks, so I'm really not sure at all how dark this is going to look on other monitors haha.

Anyways, I'm always 0n the hunt for a new way of painting in photoshop. This process began with just drawing with black and white, no opacity. Once I got a scribble that looked cool I turned on opacity with pen pressure and started adding in value to render the form. Then once I got a few that I liked, I stuck em in a line up - added a multiply layer gradient and painted on top of it to bring out the highlights a little bit more.

I'm a bit unsure as to the usefulness of stuff like this. It seems more costume design than character design, but maybe that too is useful.

And more! This is one of the simpler approaches to concept design. I'm just painting black for a silhouette and then adding in some negative space to define the idea a little bit further. The middle guy is a revisit of an idea I posted a while ago.

More more more more!

Ok I realize some of that is really ambiguous, but it's fun to draw ^_^ Now heres an attempt to make use of that approach...

Today was pretty unproductive after getting a wisdom tooth removed :\ Here is another page. I somewhat like the character in the center although I'm not sure who he is. The sketch in the top right came out cool though, and sparked an idea for the 4th sibling which was the one I had never been able to figure out. The idea is the master/slave deal where this little girl would ride on the shoulder of a large robot. I'm thinking she could be super animated and expressive to contrast with a lifeless robot that might resemble a large hulking zombie.

Illustration final - coming up with ideas:

2007-11-30T02:19:00.000-08:00

The semester is almost over, and that means it's time for finals! I'm so excited! hah :P I'm going to post as much as I can of my thumbnail ideas and sketches for my final illustration project. Again, not sure how many people actually check my site, but for me to see it all together might help. This post will be updated with more progress as I go.

First up, and an idea I've been wanting to illustrate since I did the concept as a sculpture, are the Sirens. This is a "quick" sketch that I painted before bed, and I may very well wake up tomorrow and wonder why the hell I posted it. But for right now, I'm tired and I think it's looking pretty cool. I'm a little disappointed with how little I pushed the color, I should be better by now, argh... anyways, more to come.

And another... Not sure how I'm liking this one. It was an interesting idea but really hard to make work. It really needs 1 more scene to tell a complete story, even as simple as it is. Of course it's just a value comp as I wasn't going to mess with trying to come up with the idea + color at the same time :P

One more update... I had to go with the sirens as my fall back. I thought we had one more week this semester so things are getting really crazy. This photoshop isn't finished, but due to the lack of time I'm just gonna move onto the real deal and wing the rest.

Model progress...

2007-11-29T23:57:00.000-08:00

So this model is coming together now... I've almost got every bit of him blocked in with the exception of 2 pieces of clothing. It's looking pretty cool, but without any high res detail or textures it is still pretty far from realizing the concept. By the way, I don't know why this image is forcing you to download it and not opening like all the others in a new window - strange.

I'm also gonna share a progression clip I made for one of the masks. I actually did this for all of em except for the one on his head :\ but since the one with horns is the most interesting right now, I'll just post that one. :D I did this by setting up the render early on, so while working I could do some quick renders at unique stages and then compile those jpeg's together using Movie Maker. This is a pretty effortless task that gives a really cool insight into how the model was made.

That's it for now. Ideally this model will be finished (modeled + high res sculpt) in about 2 weeks... Ouch, time to get working.

Sketchbook Pages

2007-11-28T22:42:00.000-08:00

For going on 2 months now, myself as well as a few other current and graduated Cogswell students have been working on a sketchbook which is to be presented at Comicon 08'. The project was put together by two instructors, Jeff Jackson and Dave Perry. Our task is to interpret and conceptualize the Grimms Fairytale The Moon (which you can read here). Things are still in the early stages, but I thought I'd share with who ever actually knows about my blog what I have been doing so far. I'm not going to narrate these images, just know it is a lot of thumbnails (quick ideas). Most of the characters are for the 4 'brothers' or siblings as I'm going to go about it. The small blocky head dudes are going to be my interpretation of the undead, and of course the 2 old guys are labeled as St. Peter.

It really isn't that important to mention this, but it is an effort for me to go for more of a cartoony look. This isn't my native drawing style but it is a fun process and you definitely have a lot of freedom to come up with cool and interesting things.

Pixar! and a painting.

2007-11-17T16:19:00.000-08:00

So as I mentioned before my school put together a private tour of Pixar. This was made possible by Roger Rose, a long time Cogswell alum who has been working at Pixar as an animator since the first Toy Story. The tour had to be kept small so we didn't completely mob Pixar, and somehow out of the 7 or 8 spots, both Chris and myself were lucky enough to go.

Here is everyone that traveled with us in Chris' car. That's me, Robert Moore, Marika Timmerman, Christian and David Hines. Aren't we cool standing in front of the Pixar gate? Not pictured are the slackers in the other car (Barb, Katie, Andrew and Matt) who just had to go to KFC first.

We met up with Roger outside the front door, we said hello and introduced ourselves and went inside. Right away we ran into Rich Hurrey, a technical director whom Chris, Andrew and myself had met during the recent bay area Modo usergroup meeting. He recognized us even if he doesn't have any idea what our names are. We shook hands and everyone else was like "uh you guys already know other people at Pixar?" That was pretty damn cool :D

So the tour started and we pretty much got to see the whole complex. We walked around towards the render farm where all the busy little computers are churning out their next big hit movie I'm sure. This "farm" was actually a lot smaller than I had imagined. Roger mentioned that even since he's worked there it keeps getting smaller and smaller.

From there we walked the upstairs hallways and got a chance to see a lot of cool artwork, original storyboards, scene color comps, maquettes (friggin' awesome sculptures) and the doorways of various important peoples offices. I wanted to go in and bug everyone but we had to remain respectful. /sigh

We went downstairs again to check out the Pixar theater and Daily room (a smaller theater where they review progress). This was the only 'disappointment' of the tour. I was really hoping we'd see some sort of a sneak peak of Wall-e but ah well! From there it was off to the animators area which was really cool. Each individual office was decorated in a unique fashion. Some were made to look like individual shacks with cool props adding to the atmosphere, and some looked like they were in more of a jungle setting. I wish I could have gotten pictures of this part, but I think these hallways can be viewed in some special features you just gotta know where to look. Rogers office was also cool. The face of it was decorated like a western saloon, complete with the swinging double saloon doors.

From left to right: myself, Christian, Roger, Katie, Robert, David, Andrew, Marika, and Matt

After that, the building was pretty much covered. We went back to the lobby to hang out for a bit, chat with Roger and spend money at the little store they had. At least 4 of us just had to get these cool brown athletic Pixar sweaters.

Aren't we dorks? Anyways, this was just a completely awesome experience. Pixar is without a doubt one of my dream jobs. Those of us in Chris' car made a promise that we were all future Pixar employees, and when the first one gets in (probably Marika) we will try to get the others in.

Lastly, and not related to this trip, here is a photo of my first acrylic illustration project. It is currently hanging up in the hallway at my school, so I think the bad lighting tinted this a bit too orange. The board should be white as well as the highlights, oh well. This was one of my first paintings and it turned out great I think.

Drawing Salon

2007-11-14T22:35:00.000-08:00

So every Wednesday night's I go to a drawing salon that's held at my school. For ~3 hours I draw naked people :P It really is a lot of fun and VERY important for an artist to do as often as they can. I am going to start posting some pages or drawings from each session, even if it doesn't go so well (which happens from time to time for everyone).

5 minute poses:

They are not without error of course, but I've only been doing it for a couple of years.

Teaser...

2007-11-14T14:47:00.001-08:00

I guess you really have to be excited about something to be teased, so maybe this is only a teaser for me haha. I couldn't resist combining the elements of this model even at an early state to start to see where it's heading. Getting the masks, or at least the one on his head, to lay down like the painting probably won't work but we'll see. Also all these masks are modeled from a reference photo, but even after I give the lower one his beard and hair I think the facial features of the one I painted are more interesting, what do you think? If you can even see it that is.

Oh yeah and I'm going to Pixar Friday. Hell yeah!

Things I'm working on...

2007-11-11T00:51:00.000-08:00

Hey, so I've never had one of these before so this will be a learning process for me.

Here are a couple images of things I'm working on for classes at Cogswell Polytechnical College in Sunnyvale, CA.

This is a WIP color comp for my next illustration project. This was painted in photoshop, but the final will be in acrylic.

Next up are some components for a character model I'm working on. (seen here)

It feels like I'm working on 100 other things, but that's all I'm posting for now! Now to format this page...