Sketches And Excitement

I did these character sketches the other night. I didn't really plan them.

I just drew and then there they were.

I like them. I think they might live in that hotel I talked about a couple of posts ago.

In other news, I"M GOING TO SIGGRAPH TOMORROW!!!!

 

The Conference is going to have an amazing keynote session with 8 top notch 

animated film directors such as Pete Docter and Chris Sanders.

Holy crapcakes. I'm going to geek out so hard.

Maquette Sculpting

Today I decided I wanted to try my hand at sculpting. REAL sculpting. 

None of that Sculptris nonsense. (I also do that) Sculpting digitally is fun,

but I like having something tactile and getting my hands a bit dirty.

To start, I amassed some supplies.

Including the most important supply for any of my creative endeavors: snacks!

 

I used that sheet of tinfoil as armature wire because I'm too unemployed to have real wire.

After about an hour this is where I was.

Then I upgraded my setup, using an old drum practice pad as a rotating stand

so I didn't have to keep picking up the sculpture and jacking up the armature.

 

I added clay in small increments, and used my knowledge of anatomy 

to build up the musculature and such.

  I used bulldog and gorilla anatomy as reference.

 Then I improved my setup even more!! I used some books to elevate my workstation 

to keep myself from hunching over too much.

A face began to take shape.

 I made a support out of a D20 and some random foreign currency from my desk.

And this is where it stands after about 3 hours of work.

House Painting.

 I didn't actually paint a house. I just painted a house.

 A nice bike ride led me to this house and I sat by the side of the road to paint it.

I got more strange looks than I ever have before doing this painting.

This one lady slowed down to about 5 miles an hour and rolled by 

making direct eye contact with me. It was weird.

 And here's two random sketches that I particularly like.

Monday.

Yesterday was Monday. I drew these things yesterday.

Just some random doodles.

Damn you, technology.

I had a bunch of drawings that I wanted to scan, but my scanner is in a really bad mood today.

It wouldn't let me turn off the auto crop thing so a lot of my drawings were cut in half.

Eventually I just gave up and decided to post what I had. 

You win this round, technology. 

Weapons made from car parts.

Monster doodles done while watching WWE Smackdown.

More monsters and Randy Orton being put through a table.

 Some cars and Good old Vladimir

Some randoms. I've starting sketching a lot with prismacolor chisel tip pens. They're pretty sweet.

And I love this guy. This was one of the rare drawings that went exactly how I wanted it to.

I got the exact attitude and style I was going for. 

Go me.

Some things I drew.

I felt like putting together a post of a week's worth of doodles because why not, right?

This last one is the first sketch I've done for a story setting I came up with.

It's a massive hotel/apartment complex built next to a massive highway. The highway stretches from horizon to horizon in length and width and there is an endless stream of cars at all times of day. The complex is to house the toll booth attendants when they are off duty. Shifts in the toll booth last for weeks because some people have to go miles away to get to their spots on the highway. The building has been built up bigger and bigger over many decades as the toll people have children and travelers move in permanently. I'm imagining the scale of the bathhouse in Spirited away and the junkiness of Tekkonkinkreet. I've found a lot of small stories in this building and a couple very big ones.

Animalia

Here's some sketches from the past couple of days.

The buildings on the right are in South San Francisco, I had about 

twenty minutes to kill, so I sketched those. All of the animals in this post 

are from a local PetSmart. Once again, I had time to kill, so I went inside 

and skulked around the back of the store and drew.

This structure is some sort of old processing plant or something in Petaluma.

The society finch had an awesome hairdo and looked like some kind of

stoner character from the 70's, but I didn't do it justice.

All of the fish were incredible fun to draw, especially the Fancy Guppies.

And i don't know if I've just never watched hamsters before, but those things move so 

absurdly quickly and they don't stay I one place for more than like 30 milliseconds. 

They are the most frustrating animal I've come across to draw.

Creek Sketchventure

I went on a wonderful skechventure yesterday. The creek near my house is on of my favorite places and it was a beautiful day so I went down there to do some sketching. 

This is under the bridge where lots of homeless people live.

I managed to draw this squirrel and this rock before they both ran away.

This rock was basking in the sun. I had to be really quiet so I didn't spook it.

From the mind...

Today I decided it was about time to paint one of the random doodles I'm always doing.

One of the greatest things I discovered about painting over my sketches is that I can fix things

 I don't like in the painting, such as that jacked up eye. This is pretty obvious I guess, but it had never really clicked until now.

This is my first gouache painting of something imaginary, and I'd say I did vaguely well.
My favorite part is the eye.

Sleep? Na, bro. That ain't me

This will not be a very coherent post, so be forewarned. I can't sleep, and it's 4 in the morning. While I would usually have visions of sugar plums dancing in my head, I'm left instead watching strange animations and rap videos on youtube. Here's a fake law and order episode that I wrote, filmed, produced, directed, financed, and edited for the Shrunkenheadman club's DDAY 2013. Hopefully it will be finished uploading by the time you sleeping people are awake. 

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBY14x1kong

I did my first serious digital painting some amount of time  ago. It's my friend Geoff Nakanishi. 

Go to his blog. Bask in his glory.  http://grnakanishiart.blogspot.com/

He was playing Team Fortress 2

I obviously still need practice. I pushed the green too much near the eye, and I'm still crap at blending.I'm stoked about that nose and the fact that it looks more or less like him though.

Ugh. My brain is dumb right now. I feel like I'm in finals again. Only there's infinitely less coffee in my system. I'm off of school for the summer, so I will have a lot more time to play. 

I also may be getting an internship this summer. So that's cool too. 

I just want to lie down in puppies and sleep right now.

Let's make this happen.

Painting and Stuff

I went plein air painting yesterday with my partner in crime, Sam Fish. 

We found a nice empty field filled with dry grass, cool trees, and piles of garbage. 

Our paintings that we did perfectly showcase one of my favorite things about art.

 This is my painting.

This is Sam's.

We were in the same place at the same time on the same day using the same medium, but we came out of it with two completely different paintings. I saw a whole scene whose feeling I wanted to capture, whereas Sam saw something in that tree that he liked, and tried to show the character of it. 

I love how much variety there is in art. Each artist sees, hears, and feels something that they want to remember and communicate to others. I guess you could say that we're all on the same road going to different places *strokes beard philosophically*. 

Portfolio

I just submitted my portfolio!

It will now be reviewed by the faculty and they'll decide whether or not i'm worthy.

Wish me luck.