Color and Light - 01 Grayscale value studies

I've been bad. I stopped posting again, so of course I have some classwork to kick my butt! I'm currently taking Color and Light with Ryan Lang through CGMA. Loving it so far and I'm learning a lot about applicable color theory.

This first lesson is doing value studies of black and whites of different scenes based on the key group. Some of them definitely need some more work, so I will post my edits once I get a chance.

Character Design for Animation Week 06: Searle and Jay Ward

This week's assignment was to practice working the style of another artist. Two actually. Nate was explaining that as an artist, sometimes you will be working for a studio that requires you to match a certain style. The exercise was to design/draw a dragon in the styles of Ronald Searle and Jay Ward.

Ronald Searle is mostly a pen and ink guy, with the occasional wash of color/tones. Think 101 Dalmations and Jay Ward is the mastermind behind Rocky and Bullwinkle.

Here are some samples pieces:

Searle

Jay Ward

As you can see, both artist have a very different aesthetic. Here is my stab at the design challenge. I drew a chicken dragon since birds are the descendants of the great Dinosaurs. Dragons are basically winged-dinosaurs (besides the pteradactyl). Ward on the left and Searle on the right.

Character Design for Animation: Week 5

Two Characters, One Bench. That was the theme of this week's assignment. I didn't get a chance to work on the homework this week, things at work and home got a bit nuts. When I finally sat down at the table today, my mind just hit a blank. I was scribbling and doodling for hours and nothing was hitting me. Took a break for a couple hours and I decided to try messing around in Photoshop. Then... at 11pm, about 3 hours before the assignment was due, I finally get something. However, that didn't leave me a lot of time to flesh out more details so I just touched up my rough sketch, through some random color in for some more liveliness.

Story: The Pierrot was having his usual liquid lunch. It was another sobering day in the life of a French clown. The dog just wants in on the treats.

Character Design for Animation: Week 4

This week's assignment was LIBRARIANS! Three librarians based on the circle, square, triangle concepts, but instead of full bodies, they're just heads. Nate said to focus on the personality of the character in the expression and details of the face/head. Here's what turned out! Scroll down for their backstory.

Left to Right: Agatha, Joe, and Karl

Inital marker doodles

BACKSTORY:
Karl is very eager and sociable, he loves to help people find the books/materials that they need. He also loves to talk, since he doesn't get out much, the library is where he likes to socialize. Enthusiasm is the name of his game, sometimes...too enthusiastic.

Agatha is the strict one. She expects people to follow the rules exactly how they are written, and is very cross when they are not followed. She doesn't like Karl, since he's always chattering away. Karl doesn't notice. He's too happy-go-lucky.

Joe is the quiet one, but not in a grumpy way. He's usually tired from staying up late reading, and prefers the companies of books rather than people. He sees the interaction sbetween Karl and Agatha and shrugs it off, and prefers to stay out of it.

Character Design for Animation: Week 2 and Week 3

Going to make an effort to post my homework that I do for class this time. I'm currently taking the online Character Design for Animation class through CG Master Academy with Nate Wragg as the instructor. I'm enjoying it a lot so far and it's great to see other people's work.

I was out of town when the first week started so I don't have a post for the first lesson, but I hope to make that up when I get a chance.

Week 02
Assignment: Medieval Crusader

Silhouette explorations

Final design - will rework

Lost a bit of the dynamism from my early silhouette explorations. Proportions should be more exaggerated for a better read. I had fun doing the research on this one, didn't realize there were so many different types of Crusaders and uniforms.



Week 03
Assignment: Pirate Character Line up

Chinese pirates

 Even though I started concepting earlier, I didn't focus on the two outside characters enough in the sketching/concepting phase. Tried to tie them down without fully understanding what I wanted to do with them. It was also tricky since the reference material wasn't as abundant than if I was to research Caribbean/European pirates. More research will be needed. I hope to go back and clean it up the lines and reinforce the shape language better.


and... here's a capybara!

Foodimal Frenzy Artwork: Characters

GAMEART DUMP #2! More artwork I did for the game. Just as an disclaimer, all of these renders are based off of concepts from the movie and concept art that was not done by me. They were done by the very talented Vis Dev team over at Sony Pictures Animation. Please don't sue me.

Foodimal Frenzy Artwork: Map Backgrounds

It's been almost a year since I've posted. THUS BEGINS THE ARTDUMP starting  with some backgrounds I made for a game I've been working on: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2: Foodimal Frenzy!

Each background is based on a setting in the movie, check it out :D

Cheespider Lair

Sardine Circle

Pickle Village

Big Rock Candy Mountain

Officescape

HOORAY, I'm not dead!! It's been a long time since I've updated, but once again, I promise I've been drawing still. Just not uploading. Anyways, I felt adventurous today and tried to paint some clouds in Photoshop. I'm going to make an effort to just try working in Photoshop everyday-ish, so I can feel more comfortable with it.

This is a view from my office window of Treasure Island and the Bay. Still pretty rough, and took way longer than it should have for the quality. Ever the student, always learning. But that's also just the way I like it.

Maggie out!

Quick Update: Flowers

During my lunch break, I did a quick speedpainting of a flower arrangement on my desk. Took about 45 minutes, slowly practicing to get faster!

Painting Practices

I've been staring out the window lately, and the clouds have just been amazing. The clouds seem so tall and vast that they could just swallow me up whole and send me to somewhere I've never been before. When I see those clouds, I feel light. A small part of a greater life existence.

So for the past three days, I've done three different cloudscapes as practice. The first one was plastery looking so I applied a blending mode on it. Definitely helped. Color and Light by James Gurney makes really good reference material. It's all about keeping the clouds light and fluffy, light passes through all of it but still dense enough to cast shadows.

Anyways, I'll let the paintings speak for themselves :)

Day One

Day Two

Day Three

I was taking a walk up to Buena Vista Park around 7am and the view from the Terrace was breathtaking. The sun was blazing above the Bay, making the water sparkle like something out of a dream. The light was washing over the city and I could see the cars on the freeway glimmer in the distance. I don't ever really think about it, but the city is like my heart. And my heart is mine.

See the Forest for the Trees

Sometimes I focus too much on the trees, rather than the forest. Many people are the same way. It's easier to analyze and confront the thing in front of you rather than seeing the big picture. I need to start focusing on the forest and not worrying about the trees. Otherwise, I'm gonna get myself lost.

Here are some tree sketches I did awhile back.

Kiwi the Sequel

More kiwi compilations. Plus one unfinished honeypot. In my quest to learn more about digital painting, I'm taking at a pace I'm comfortable with for now, just so I don't freak myself out and quit at the last minute. I'm starting to really enjoy sketching in Photoshop, I don't feel as intimidated by it anymore. Hopefully, as time goes on, I can make some more elaborate pieces!

One thing though, I REALLY need to pay more attention to feet. I'm awful at feet and hands on any species, real and fantasy. I'm going to be taking a workshop on drawing hands and feet so I hope that helps.

The green thing was a gag response to a friend about green kiwis...

Sketches of the Day!

I haven't posted in a while, but I'm still drawing... just gotta get this stuff together. I have a couple batches of sketches that need to be cleaned up for posting! In the meantime, I've been on an animal kick... so I decided doodle my favorite bird, the Kiwi!  The kiwi bird is the cutest bird (to me) evar, because it's basically a beaked peanut with legs. I want to hug them till the pop.

Kiwi Bird Poses!

Back in Action!

And we're back up! Rather, *I'm* back up. I was on hiatus from an artistic freakout, so as a temporary remedy, I took the blog down. This time around, I'm going to try and keep posting (still drawing of course) on a regular basis. Currently working on a digital painting so I can practice my photoshop chops.

Anyways, I have to do some animation homework (which I will post about later) so I leave you with this:

I made this as a Valentine's day present for my dear friend Chris Vear, a cupid Love Pug! I hope you like him, as he likes you very much :D

Felting Adventures: Seasonal Comeback!

I guess I'm trying to post for myself as much as I can before I leave for vacation. On the 29th of Dec, I'll be flying out to China and Vietnam for two weeks. While I hate long plane flights and I start to go batshit crazy, I'm excited for the change of scenery. Maybe I'll get in some awful life drawings in eh? I promise to draw and post some when I get back.

Photo Courtesy of Aurora

In the meantime, I finally got around to felting again! It was a Christmas gift for my dear friend, Aurora Alcantar. She's been wanting a green Totoro for a really long time so I buckled down and stabbed this one to life! I ordered a new batch of core wool, so hopefully that will motivate me to make more felties over time.

Owls, Dogs, and a tree

Second post. Words escape me.

Guinea Pigs Galore

First SuperGus on left and Final SuperGus on right

One of my coworkers had this great of idea of a Secret Art Santa, so we had a sign up sheet for artists at Crowdstar who wanted to participate. They gave us small 3.5 by 2.5 in frame that we'd make a small drawing/sketch/ painting for our Secret Gift Getter. We pulled names out of a hat, and I got my coworker, Barlow Gilmore. It was definitely a tough process to come up with something to draw, even though it could be anything we wanted it to be.

I ended up doodling some guinea pigs and I finally settled on.... SUPERBATGUS. Barlow and his wife, Hallie, have two pet guinea pigs and they are ADORABLE. It struck me that guinea pigs were a good bet and make Gus a superhero was irresistible. I had a lot of fun drawing these :) More doodles below.

Drunk guineas

Moar guinea doodles

Rough n Tumble guinea pigs

mOAR!

I'm doing my darndest to keep posting on a regular basis! Even if it's just a sketch or two... right? I hope so.. ! Things have been pretty busy at work lately, but I've been making more time to sketch. Investing in a scanner is definitely something I need to do.

So one thing I've noticed, that helps me with sketching, is using a harder pencil. I normally prefer really soft and rough pencils, like a 2-3B pencil. The Kimberley General's layout pencil makes such a lovely black swatch on the page, but it smudges like no other.

I started to use a 2H pencil when drawing and forcing myself to not press down on the paper as hard forces me to think about my lines more, and less careless mistakes. I also really like drawing with a ballpoint pen, for some reason, I feel more carefree with pen than I do pencil. I wonder why that is? Anyways, on to the sketches!

Tree on rock

Mountain on a precarious point

Done during my Halloween phase

Favorite life drawing sketch

Drawing done for "Blitzen to 7"