Tuesday, January 29, 2013
Sunday, January 20, 2013
"Hear me roar"
Or is it "A zombie always pays his debts"?
This was my entry in a Gnomon monthly challenge. The theme was 'zombie safe vehicle' and my main goal was to avoid what I imagined all the other contestants would do (spiked wheels and guns on armored cars). I accomplished my goal but did not win. It was a fun experience though and my sketches and studies leading up to it were beneficial in many ways.
This was my entry in a Gnomon monthly challenge. The theme was 'zombie safe vehicle' and my main goal was to avoid what I imagined all the other contestants would do (spiked wheels and guns on armored cars). I accomplished my goal but did not win. It was a fun experience though and my sketches and studies leading up to it were beneficial in many ways.
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Friday, January 18, 2013
Why Halo there!
So I don't really do fanart. I prefer to take inspiration rather than just doing my take on existing designs,but I did this piece the spring before Halo: Reach came out. Bungie had yet to show off the Hunter design for their upcoming game so I took the opportunity to try my hand at a small battle between one of these behemoths and the original pair of Noble team Spartans.
This piece was before I learned a lot of the techniques and basics I know now and I can see the issues with it. Still it was a step towards the type of art I've recently been creating. Enjoy.
This piece was before I learned a lot of the techniques and basics I know now and I can see the issues with it. Still it was a step towards the type of art I've recently been creating. Enjoy.
Caverns
This one started as a thumbnail I sketched on my iPad. It was 200 pixels across and I sent it to my laptop and bumped it up to 2000 across. I worked on it for several days and at one point I even thought I ruined it by making it too dark. I was able to salvage it and it's one of my favorite works from last year. Makes me want to go exploring...
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Night on Clarity
An unfinished concept piece from a few years ago. I remember not being very happy with it so I avoided looking at it for many months, but was very pleased with it when I did. Amazing how wrong our negative perceptions can be.
p.s. While I love the scale and the teeth and the waterfall, my favorite part may be the starry sky. Instantly changed the piece when that went in.
Testing mobile posting
Reading A Feast for Crows all night makes posting on the go a necessity. This piece was my first after discovering Feng Zhu's work. My mind was blown by all the things I learned from his blog and YouTube channel. I'm really pleased with how the carapace turned out, including my texture work which was taken from a personal photo of a Galapagos tortoise shell.
Monday, January 14, 2013
Welcome!
My plan for this blog is to chronicle my experience going through assorted courses offered by the Computer Graphics Masters Academy. Here's a bit of background info if you're interested (if not, at least let me know if you enjoy the artwork).
I've been drawing and painting my entire life. I always had a knack for it and my parents encouraged it by signing me up for multiple art classes in my youth. I also took every art class I could through junior high and high school, but even then I wasn't really interested in what I was taught. Yeah, I grasped perspective enough to tell if it was 1, 2 or 3 point and I painted the color wheel ad nauseum...but I was never really taught how to create lighting schemes. Or how to properly render. Or how to convey mood. Or storytelling. Or any number of things on a very long and bitter list.
So I picked those things up where I could. Reading a book here or a magazine there. That's a tough way to further yourself and as a result of that and of my changing interests I quit art for close to a decade, went to college for engineering instead and expressed my creativity through songwriting and guitar playing.
Years later I started to hear about digital painting. Being a huge Star Wars fan, I had picked up the "Art of" books for Episodes II and III and was instantly drawn to Ryan Church and the amazing work he did for those movies. When it came time to upgrade myself to a new computer in 2007, I decided to take the plunge and purchased Painter X and a Wacom Intuos 3.
I've rarely made such wonderful and life-changing purchases as that one.
My first efforts were clunky. Ugly things ripe with clashing colors and poor technique. But I loved the process. I loved painting on layers and having an undo button and a color picker (mixing pigments was the bane of my earlier days dabbling in oils) and the speed at which I could create these monstrosities made them worth it. I didn't have to waste an evening to get all my supplies out and prepped and then cleaned and all put away at the end. I had a (semi) mobile art studio right on my coffee table and life was good.
But the more I tried to improve, the more I realized that I was lacking in those basic bits that were required to make the type of images I had in my head. I found help where I could. YouTube. Forums. The brick and mortar bookstores that are slowly disappearing. All great resources, but ultimately what I needed was a real instructor.
Two weeks ago I stumbled upon the blog of a teacher at CGMA and curiously clicked on the link to this online school. I have great hopes that THIS is what I've been looking for all these years. In one week, I'm starting Intro to Perspective for Entertainment Design. If it goes well, I have a rough curriculum plan mapped out for the rest of this calendar year.
Over this next week, I'll be posting personal pieces of mine that I've done (all within the last two years) to show as a reference point for where my art was when I started this. For anyone interested, I'll be showing the more interesting assignments from my class throughout the upcoming term. I'll also be showing off any personal pieces that I feel need to be displayed, especially if they showcase the knowledge I'll be acquiring.
I hope I can look back on this moment in a few years and see the improvement. I hope that I learn more from this experience than just art skills. And I hope that I can inspire you. To be a better artist, to try something new...I don't really care what in particular. The things we inspire in others are greater than all we could accomplish alone.
C
I've been drawing and painting my entire life. I always had a knack for it and my parents encouraged it by signing me up for multiple art classes in my youth. I also took every art class I could through junior high and high school, but even then I wasn't really interested in what I was taught. Yeah, I grasped perspective enough to tell if it was 1, 2 or 3 point and I painted the color wheel ad nauseum...but I was never really taught how to create lighting schemes. Or how to properly render. Or how to convey mood. Or storytelling. Or any number of things on a very long and bitter list.
So I picked those things up where I could. Reading a book here or a magazine there. That's a tough way to further yourself and as a result of that and of my changing interests I quit art for close to a decade, went to college for engineering instead and expressed my creativity through songwriting and guitar playing.
Years later I started to hear about digital painting. Being a huge Star Wars fan, I had picked up the "Art of" books for Episodes II and III and was instantly drawn to Ryan Church and the amazing work he did for those movies. When it came time to upgrade myself to a new computer in 2007, I decided to take the plunge and purchased Painter X and a Wacom Intuos 3.
I've rarely made such wonderful and life-changing purchases as that one.
My first efforts were clunky. Ugly things ripe with clashing colors and poor technique. But I loved the process. I loved painting on layers and having an undo button and a color picker (mixing pigments was the bane of my earlier days dabbling in oils) and the speed at which I could create these monstrosities made them worth it. I didn't have to waste an evening to get all my supplies out and prepped and then cleaned and all put away at the end. I had a (semi) mobile art studio right on my coffee table and life was good.
But the more I tried to improve, the more I realized that I was lacking in those basic bits that were required to make the type of images I had in my head. I found help where I could. YouTube. Forums. The brick and mortar bookstores that are slowly disappearing. All great resources, but ultimately what I needed was a real instructor.
Two weeks ago I stumbled upon the blog of a teacher at CGMA and curiously clicked on the link to this online school. I have great hopes that THIS is what I've been looking for all these years. In one week, I'm starting Intro to Perspective for Entertainment Design. If it goes well, I have a rough curriculum plan mapped out for the rest of this calendar year.
Over this next week, I'll be posting personal pieces of mine that I've done (all within the last two years) to show as a reference point for where my art was when I started this. For anyone interested, I'll be showing the more interesting assignments from my class throughout the upcoming term. I'll also be showing off any personal pieces that I feel need to be displayed, especially if they showcase the knowledge I'll be acquiring.
I hope I can look back on this moment in a few years and see the improvement. I hope that I learn more from this experience than just art skills. And I hope that I can inspire you. To be a better artist, to try something new...I don't really care what in particular. The things we inspire in others are greater than all we could accomplish alone.
C
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