Happy Holidays!!

I wanted to ply around a bit with value. My initial goal was to paint up a portrait with top lighting so the upper half would be light on dark and the lower half dark on light. Not entirely sure it was a success but fun to create none the less. I've been wanting to go darker with some of the themes in my personal work lately but haven't quite set aside the time. But with Halloween coming up soon this was a good excuse to experiment.

CGHUB CP#50 Update

Well the deadline is coming up. Only have about 4-5 days left with this. Not entirely confident I'm going to make this deadline but dammit we'll try.

Some rough concepts/thumbs for the final two assets in this competition. I'll explain more about the creature and landscape in the final sheets.

CGHub Creature Planet #50

What's up everyone!

There's a contest over on CGHub right now. I haven't taken part in one of these before but was...coerced by Jon Baker and Raul Ramos to join in this time around, and I gotta say this stuff is pretty cool. I'm having fun exploring my own world and it's inhabitants. Apparently the contest requires it's contestants to show process work throughout, which put a damper in my plan to save everything for the deadline. BUT! Here we are. Welcome to Planet Eon 14 G.a, a tidally locked ball of ice on the outskirts of Galaxy A (working title...)

The spheres at the top are a deconstruction from left to right of how I built this planet in photoshop. Just some custom brushes, photo textures and color adjustments. First time trying one of these so I looked up a few helpful tutorials on deviant to get me started. Might try a few more in the future if there's a time and a place for it.

I'll be posting more as time goes on. The deadline is October 28th so I'll definitely have final pieces to show by then.

Laters.

Design Dump

It's been a long time, lot's of stuff happening lately so I'll get right to it.

I'm graduated and currently working on a few projects that I'll hopefully be able to share some work for in the coming months. Until then here's some work, some old some new you might or might not recognize from a while back ;)

A fashionable warrior chick from the Siberian Plains. She gon' cut chu ;)

This idea came about after listening to Aloe Blacc's track "I Need a Dollar" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iR6oYX1D-0w

The premise has to do with a male character who tells tales of his travels and past lifes to the town's children for coin. Against their parents wishes, all the kids save their allowance week after week just to watch the Talesman bring his dark stories to life through his magical pipe.

Big thanks to http://victoreart.blogspot.com/ for blasting his music in Shore 101 every night and bringing about this inspiration.

Some character silhouettes studies for the day. I'm trying out different methods for creating these guys in the most efficient way possible while still maintaining a quick read. Might post more as time goes on.

Video Time lapse

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9brG6o-PEs

Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/28741256

Thanks for checkin'!

Custom Shapes

For a while I kept hearing about this magical new approach to building up compositions using custom shapes. The idea came from Sparth (if you don't know who that is...let's just not even go there) and for the longest time I questioned it's effectiveness. I generally like to block out big shapes and cut back in for detail. It's a process I've used for a while now to generate enviros and up until now it's worked pretty well.

The problem I kept running into was populating the scenes with detail and getting my shapes to read as I intended them. A rock didn't QUITE look like a rock unless I spent a few minutes slicing out all the cracks and chips, and it never felt quite natural. But this new approach to thumbnailing circumnavigates this two step process and cut's production time by more than half. Here's the thread you'll need to get started: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=201403

Below are a few of my first experiments.

I started with one shape and use that exclusively to build up a quick scene.

From there I altered the first shape painted over and cut back in with negative space to create a new custome shape. I used both of these in tandem to create the next scene.

Shapes alone stack and incredible amount of detail in literally no time. But using them together with stock/custom brushes has been ideal. The custom shapes work as a base to build up on top with brush strokes.

Which is exactly how I've started one of my key shots for my Comp. Illustration 2 class. Depending on how calculated to want to be with this method I can see it working both as a graphic white/black technique, or (as I plan to do) a basis for a full color painting.

SO! Just thought I'd share. I'm definitely enjoying this fast and messy method, and the results are great for the time it takes to produce. I'll see if I can't get a tutorial up once I finally do a color paintover. 

And finally broke open the new Molskine. Some renders/sketches from photo reffs.

Goggles girl and ninja lady from DA:
http://valentinakallias.deviantart.com/
http://sifu.deviantart.com/

The rest are friends of mine from high school. Some insanely talented models and one of the best photographers I know. Show her some love ;) 
http://sinfuleyes.deviantart.com/

Have a good one!!

Creature Designs 1st Round

Alright I can successfully say this is my first real attempt at working with creature design. Unless you count the one piece I tried when I was in 6th grade :/

Or the dragons I used to draw back in 7th and 8th grade -__-

Anyway, I guess my point is I don't spend a lot of time in this particular design arena. But Having been through a couple of these now (with some wise guidance from Sr. Ramos :) I can definitely see the appeal. These have been a blast to create and hope that shows through in some of the work.

I'll keep this space updated with any new developments for this project but for now http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFk2_5RkwlA

And for anyone who WASN'T at Red Rocks last night, you missed out on one HELL of a Bassnectar show. Whomp, whomp, warbly, whomp, WHOMP!! ;)

SPRAWL Building Update

Here's a progress update from the SPRAWL team. Adam shot me another screen from one of the corner blocks to flesh out a multi-complex structure. I'm superimposing the piece on top of the original screen plate. All that's left to do is get some signage scribble in some last minute details and lay down proper color. Thanks for checkin!