Finals

Hey'a guys/gals. Sorry I haven't posting here, I've been busy with finals and IOH. I'll try to post here more often. -Cheers!

Heres a screenshot of the illustrations I've been working on for the past few weeks. Reworking the environment from Senior Portfolio 1 because it didn't fit well with the universe that the story came to be. I thought I should upload something since I haven't really shown anything since the tonal values, so here are the work in progresses. Going to try and squeeze a couple of character designs for Industry Open House. I hope everyone is well! Remember to try to eat well and rest well. One more week seniors! LETSSS DO THIS!!

ALSO! Jane Choi, Charlene Chand, Amanda Vidad and the other Graphic Designers will be presenting their Capstone this coming monday (4/30/12) come in and watch Jane be shy! hahah

Myself, Anna Koan, Karsen Slater and all the other Illustration hybrids will be presenting with the animators! on May 7th! at 4pm. Come early! or you'll miss my presentation! I'm the first one -_-'

As Bob Dylan said it best, "Times they are a'changin"

Research Question

Hey everyone!

Thanks for the invite and I'll start posting stuff soon and commenting on people's stuff.

I have a question in people's research methods. How do you guys research? Is it different per assignment?

I use Google primarily for research but then I make a list of words on the characteristics of the assignment. For example if I have to do a character design of RoboCop, I would then not only look up the obvious: "robotics", "robotics parts", "modern robots", "military robots", etc. I look up those words on thesaurus.com and search on the synonyms on those words to spice up the search engine. Then go on a tangent with the searches and combine different words. Sometimes it works but just wanted to see if anyone else has any other good techniques.

For character reference I go to:


http://mjranum-stock.deviantart.com/
http://artsyposes.com/
and sometimeshttp://ffffound.com/

Bill Perkins study

yes! (here click for original)

Tree house

I was have trouble figuring out what was the focal in your first comp.  The tree house and the figures both seemed like you wanted them to be the focal point, but you couldn't decide.  Multiple points of interest are great for leading the eye around, but it seems like for an environment/establishing shot like this, you would want the island/tree for thing to be the focus and use everything else to support that.  Also, everything seemed pretty 50/50 as far as the original composition went.  There was equal amount of ground/foliage, as there was sky, the island and the kids (which both seemed to be focal points) were basically mirrored across the corners. Further, to establish the house as a focal point, i think it might help to give a little more breathing room around it, and use the extra room to us roots to help the composition.

Hope this helps! Good luck on all you work, applications, and schoolwork!

I think more space around the house could help the composition

More Peter Pan Port Stuff

Here's some more work in progress with my portfolio stuff.  I'm kinda working on them all at the same time bit by bit. Keep in mind on some of them I still have stuff I know I need to fix/render but haven't had the chance to yet. I'm also freaking out a bit because it's due on the 20th and I have a lot of homework/projects due in my other classes this week too.  I hope I can finish everything on time and of great quality. D:

Feedback greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Alex

Trying out Corel Painter

I'd feel weird posting any of my hand studies since i doubt anyone finds them particularly interesting to look at.  I've basically been just copying pages from Michael Hampton's book.

On another note, my texturing class teacher is making us learn Corel Painter a little bit, so this is my first endeavor in the program.  There are definitely some things I really like about the program—something I didn't expect.  I could potentially see it as a useful tool to use back and forth between photoshop. 

Wendy's bedroom

Hey Alex, here are some thoughts on your bedroom piece.  Again, considering you're studying something slightly different to me and there might be different "rules," not everything I say will necessarily be applicable.  In fact, I'm just going to use this disclaimer for all future critiques, rather than typing it out each time. haha. Just keep that in mind for all future critiques.

The thing that really jumps out to me the most is perspective.  There doesn't seem to be any universal vanishing point. Several angles go to different vanishing points, and some don't even seem to rest on the horizon line (particularly chair and the wall closest to peter.  This makes the scene feel fake, like it's s set design for a stage or something, and the window isn't real, but painted on a backdrop.  Along with the perspective issues, the curves on the chair peter's sitting in looks wonky.  It'd be best to grid this off and get the arch exactly right—this is way too close to the focal point to just fudge it.

I like the suggested detail in the foreground, but it bugs me how much clearer it is than the rug wendy's sitting on.  That area on the floor looks really muddy/unclear, when it should have more detail since that's where the focus of the scene is, especially the area on the floor where the light is shining.  I like the attention of detail in the foreground, but remember if you have that much clarity on something that's supposed to be in shadow and out of focus, that raises the bar for the areas that are in focus/near light.

Also, you probably this, but the light doesn't make perfect sense.  Obviously, peter's shadow doesn't count, but the chair's shadow doesn't really make sense.  This may be intentional thought, because the shadow would fall toward Wendy and wouldn't have that nice "spotlight effect" you have going right now.  I think these things you can get away with more in animation, just wanted to make sure you're aware.

Otherwise, great color and composition. It's got a nice painterly feel.  Peter's expression is much better.  I'd say the most important thing to fix the the perspective though.  If you're not trying to go for a realistic perspective, be clear in the style of perspective you're going for.

Peter Pan: Bedroom WIP 2 and Treehouse

Some more progress on the image.  I fixed Peter's face a bit.  Turns out the eyes were too close.  Feedback welcomed!

I also worked on another piece.

Alex

Peter Pan: Bedroom WIP

Here's one of the pieces I'm cleaning up for my portfolio.  Feedback would be great.

Thanks!

Alex

PS I'm not a fan of Peter's expression. :/

Parent's 25th Anniversary Final

Hi everyone.  Thanks so much for all the great feedback!  I printed the drawing, framed it, and gave it to them, and they were really happy about it! So thanks so much, I couldn't have improved it without you guys.  I really appreciate it. :)  I can't wait to see us all grow and help each other out in the future.

Next up is working on my portfolio. So nervous about that D:

Alex

Justin Corrections

Hey Justin,

Alex told me that you were interested in a red-line so I did a multi-color overlay if you don't mind! As she mentioned earlier, shapes and anatomical structure is just as important as a line drawing would be before rendering. I should probably start with a disclaimer since I'm not quite familiar with your style (not the same case with Alex) so I'm not quite sure where you were originally planning on going with your character design.

I based many of the corrections on my personal animation aesthetic, so please feel free to pick and choose to your liking since I understand game art styles vary a lot depending on the game and direction. I know game art also doesn't focus a lot on gesture and movement like animation does, but at the same time I think it would be a great asset to know it and apply it when necessary to help give your characters more 'life' in the drawing. Using shapes in your design also helps give that unique look you're probably looking for.

Definitely work on playing up your shapes with the hair, the face, the clothing, any kind of character accent (headband, earrings, waist stash, etc?) so that everything comes down to a unified design. Furthermore, I shrunk the head down a bit so that he was proportional with the rest of the body (not sure if the big head was intentional or not?) and keep an eye out for any kind of opposing angles [hips vs shoulders], not to mention angles are a natural thing in the body so include it! Same concept goes for a straight angle - oppose it with a curve!

Hope this helps~

Jen

Just this one girl...

hands start tomorrow...

paintover

Hey Alex I did a paintover of some things that I thought might help.  You can take or leave anything, but these are the things that stuck out to me:

-The values were getting a little lost in some areas.  Particularly the dad's sleave and the sky, your parents' heads and the sky and the beams and the letters (and the sky).  I get he feeling you want the feeling of the sun behind your parents or something, but it was getting just a little lost.  It's help to try to define those edges just a little bit.  I know sometimes blogger distorts values (at least I've noticed it has for me before), so it may look better in your original PSD file, but either way i think it would help to diffrentiate those values just a tad.

-your shape of your mom's dress.  The way you drew her figure is so smooth and fluid, from the hair, to the shoulder's, to the dress—and then there is this weird point right in her lap (which makes me think of the infamous minister from the little mermaid =[ ).  It makes it really confusing in trying to understand the dress, and what causes the folds.  If you're going for a poofy dress, use more lumps and curves, like you did everywhere else in her figure and try to indicate some anatomy so we can understand the folds better.

hope that helps!

Parent's 25th Anniversary S'more Progress

Hey. :)   This is the last time I can show progress before I have to print the image tomorrow at noon, so any feedback now would be greatly appreciated!

I was also thinking...even though this originally started off as a place for master copies, I thought it would be cool to just post anything once a day and make it more of a place to get feedback, share tutorials, and just hang. I think it should still focus at least on a work you did once a day though. What do you guys think?

 Alex

Parent's 25th Anniversary Progress

Here's some more progress on the image with Jen's suggestions. :)

Alex

interesting article

Thought you guys might enjoy this short article on progressive learning.   Maybe you've heard something similar before, but hopefully there might be something new you can take away from it.

http://www.conceptsofalex.com/blog/2011/6/21/progressive-learning-how-to-become-a-professional-artist-in.html

I think I'm going to try to set up a focused schedule for myself in a similar way.  Practicing on drawing hands for two weeks and then focusing on a different part of anatomy after that. I have a PDFs on hands from Burne Hogarth, Loomis, and Watts.  Anyone else have any suggested reading?

A character I'm working on

Hey again. So I'm not sure if you animators (and ex-animators) are aware, but us game art students had the advancement review this weekend and I've been up working on that for the last few days getting my portfolio together (thus my absence from this blog).  But my portfolio has been submitted, so rest assured I will make a valiant effort to keep up now! (and refrain from resorting to excuses).

Haven't had much time for studies or anything lately, so I thought I'd post a character design I'm working on .  This is Rasko who is a young mischievous boy who gets cursed by a dark magic.  He acquires mystical powers, but begins to see demons in ordinary people/things (and consequently hurts others unintentionally).

The setting of the story is based in Nepalese-like location and so the clothing design based loosely off of Nepalese culture and it's geographical location.  Any ideas, suggestions, or critiques are welcome!

And thanks for the feedback from earlier! Any help i can get is greatly appreciated.

Alex Corrections

Hey Alex, I decided to overlay some anatomical corrections to your base drawing if you don't mind. I'm very bad at sitting poses so that definitely needs reference but I mainly wanted to point out the body language of your mom's character - in your original drawing her body has an unnatural curve and her legs don't seem to attach correctly in relation to her upper body. Also, be aware of the choice of fabric and how it rests on the body. There are some other minor notes on the sketch too. (Really tired right now lol.)

- Jen

Parent's 25th Anniversary Color Key

Here's the color key and my start at rendering the picture. :)

Alex

Parent's 25th Anniversary Drawing

Hello people :)

Thanks for being so active so far!  I'm going to take a short break off of master copies as my parent's 25th anniversary is coming up and I wanted to work on their present.  Here's the rough drawing so far.  Feedback is welcomed! :D Thanks :)

Alex

Greek Sculpture

David Womersly's Tangled

So I choose this from the Art of Tangled book to work on construction.  I should have looked at it closer though before I started, because mid way in I noticed the perspective was fish-eye, which made it difficult. -.- Oh wells I guess.

Alex

Scribble 001

★ Hello!

I'm Jennifer! I was an Animation major before my current switch into Graphic Design. But I need to improve a lot of things so that when I paint for leisurely it won't look ridiculous. ):

It's a simple image to get myself warmed up. I'm rusty. D:

Thanks for looking!

- Jen

Jeff Turley's Tangled

Jeff Turley is another favorite of mine, and I absolutely love this scene.  The copy isn't perfect, but I hope the story and the mood came across.

Here's his blog if you haven't looked at it yet. Amazing stuff: http://turleysketch.blogspot.com/

Alex

Chris Chien - masterycopy -01

Thanks for the invite Alex. This blog is pretty cool.

This is something I posted on my blog.

1) Take an image you want to copy

2) Trace on top of it

3) Make separate layers and color pick

4) Toggle original on/off to check accuracy

4) Done

[My] First Post

Hi everyone, I'm Justin.  Majoring in Game Art, emphasizing in concept art and visual development. So this is my first post of the blog...not super flattering, but hey—that's why I'm here.  

I'll probably be posting mostly studies and copies as I'm currently trying to focus on my foundation skills when I'm not doing schoolwork.

Two things I learned while doing this:

1) I need to get faster (possibly looser, in the beginning stages at least)

2) It would probably be better to block in everything in flat shapes and color rather quickly, so i don't get caught up in noodling certain parts.

Also, ignore Sully's awkward face. Thank you.

John Singer Sargent 's Nonchaloir

Sargent's a favorite of mine. His paintings are so great. :)

Alex

First Post

Hi everyone! It's nice to meet you.  I'm currently a student learning to become a Visual Development artist and Background painter. You can check out my sketch blog here: onceuponasketch.blogspot.com or my portfolio here: alexandravo.blogspot.com

My goal here is to do a master copy a day to help me learn from the best.  I actually started last  Saturday, so here's one for each day since then. I know these aren't perfect, but I'm learning a lot from them.

Saturday March 31, 2012:

MC Wyeth's The King's Huntsman

Sunday April 1, 2012:

Disney's Bambi

Monday April 2, 2012:

Paul Felix

Hopefully from now on, you'll here from me once a day. :)

Thanks!
Alex