Christmas Present

Every year my wife's family draws names for Christmas. The rule is that you have to make a present for that person. This year I had Alex Dean who is 15 and loves snowboarding. There are a few inside jokes imbedded in this, but I thought I'd post it anyway. It's a 20" by 30" poster.

Final Dump

So here's how finals went this semester. I was totally swamped (aren't we all) and didn't really get any of these looking the way I'd intended... on the bright side though, it is done!

The first post is my 3d final... it's silly but it wasn't easy to do...

The next 3 are for my character design class. I'm fleshing out a story that I would like to make into a film some day. I think the designs still need a little work (especially the villain design).






*watercolor brushes by bitbox

Artist Links

A few of my friends in the animation department have been asking me to post a list of some of the artist blogs I follow. So, I'll start with ten of my favorites. I might also add that I think these blogs are such a useful way to get inspiration and insight from other students and professionals in the field. Just be careful not to get caught up in blogging for blogging's sake... it's a means to an end not the end in and of itself.

Ben Balistreri
Brittney Lee
Shane Prigmore
Skottie Young
Tatevik
Joe Olson
Ryan Wood
Hadi Tabasi
Willie Real
Benjamin Huen

These are in no particular order and there are many more to come. Enjoy!

Emulation

For Ryan Woodward's character design class we had to emulate a different artist. We were supposed to pick someone who had a different style than the one we were used to working in.

I chose Sean Galloway who is a character designer and comic book artist. I feel like it was at least fairly successful.

Face Doodles

Walter...

Walter is an evil mastermind who's super power is the ability to bring the things he imagines to life. He can influence how events unfold, and with some effort, he can conjure up terrifying creatures and loyal evil henchmen to aid him in his diabolical plans. Walter is also in 5th grade. Most of his teachers think he's very sweet. little do they know...

(brushes by Bit Box)

Heros and Villains part 1

The background on the top image is a special photoshop watercolor brush by Bit Box.

Caricature Attempt

This was a challenging assignment, but I learned alot. Mostly I learned that it probably takes a life time to learn how to do these well. If you don't know who this is, it's a rotten caricature... If you do but it's still boring I still failed.

Plants

Here is an assignment I recently completed for my story boarding class.

Random Post: Some More Old Stuff

Still Not Finished

So now that school has started up again it looks like this project is coming to a halt. It's not finished and the fog doesn't really have me convinced either, but I thought I'd better post this one because the previous one has a pretty bad almost tangent in it. Nothing really turns out the way I want it too but I sure did learn alot along the way.

Any suggestions with the fog?

Assignment #1

I'm taking a Character Design class from Ryan Woodward. For our first assignment we were given two photos and were told to make them into characters. The french maid in the actual photo was really kinda scary looking... manish... Anyway here are my designs.

Recent Sketchbook

Old Creature Sketch

Here's a sketch I did last fall. I really wish I had more time to just doodle and paint. Anyone have any name suggestions for this character?

Unfinished Past Projects

When I peruse other art and design blogs, especially those of other students, I like to start back at their earliest work and move forward. It is encouraging to see their progress. It gives me hope that I too may progress from where I am in my own abilities. Hopefully someday I will be able to look back on these projects with new eyes, knowing that they were stepping stones in my learning process and, hopefully, be able to see a world of improvement.

Here are two projects that I never finished. A few terms ago I took an independent study course in illustration to better my color and compositional skills. With that in mind I did learn a lot as I worked on these projects. Often times I reach a point where I become disinterested and unhappy with a piece I'm working on. I wind up leaving it behind and starting something new. Perhaps some day I will make my main focus "finishing" projects.

So here they are, for whatever its worth. The middle image is an old value study for the one above it.

Doodles

Path Progress and Process

Here's the next in the Hansel and Gretel series. It is still not finished but I thought an update would be good anyway. I'm really enjoying working with flat simple shapes. It has allowed me to focus more closely on design and composition.









This is an update of my previous post. There ate still a lot of things I would change about it.

Hansel and Gretel Visual Developement

I've been working on my own versions of Hansel and Gretel for months now. I've already created some paintings, and a mountain of sketches, most of which aren't fit to post. The only thing I think I might add would be another distant mountian to the right of the house.

By the way, I finished up the image using some great photshop brushes from Bit Box. Quality stuff.

Sketchbook

The top image is a character painting I did in acrylic last week. Like most things I do, its not finished yet. It was mostly just for fun and I wish I had made it make more sense as a narrative. The second image is from my pocket-sized moleskin.

Animation Final

My Intro to Animation class is only half a semester long.  This is my final for that class.  Sorry, it's a little washed out. 

Black Box

Occasionally I'll concoct an idea to make homework a little less dull.  This is an illustration I did last semester for my biology class.  The idea was to trade writing a paper for creating an illustration of our experiment.  It was an exercise which helped us to better understand the scientific method. It was, in fact, quite an effective teaching tool.  No one knew what was in the black box.  We were allowed to run tests to find solutions, and this was my best guess.  In the end the illustration probably took much longer than a paper would have.  I'm always spending too much time on things that don't matter.   

Sketches

I was putting together a portfolio this week and thought some of them could stand to be posted.  The grandpa sketches are concepts for a project a friend of mine was starting over the summer.