Practice iPad Digital Paintings

I'm learning more how to handle drawing on my iPad because being as forgetful as I've been, I packed my Wacom tablet and sketchbook in one of the moving boxes for my move to New York without thinking that they wouldn't be unpacked until I have a place to move them into. But while staying at a hotel apartment hunting, I've been working on my digital skills and taking advantage of the absence of my usual tools. Of course I could buy another sketchbook, use notebook paper, or draw with a mouse... but this is more fun! 

The clown face painting guy I did started out as a simple colored head study to apply techniques I learned from various art courses I took last year. It looked pretty boring just as a plain head, no hair, so I added in hair and vibrant colors to his face to explore different results I'd get with different blending modes. I also wanted to pay my respects to clowns...cause I love clowns :)

I present Clown Guy! or Why So Serious?

I saw a hella creepy creature art piece done by Ian Joyner on CGHUB and it gave me inspiration to do my own glowing eyed creepy alien critter which is also my very first post on CGHUB. Wooh!

 New creature concept inspired by Syfy's Face Off's Cosmic Conspiracy spotlight challenge. The challenge was to create an alien creature that reflected a certain decoded planetary distress signal.

Polluted and Toxic Environment sounded interesting. I wrote down a list of brainstorming terms that I wanted to show in my concept. Without taking the "Low hanging fruit" (a phrase I learned on the show), which might have been to go toxic green in my thoughts, I looked up pictures depicting real toxic and oil spills to get other ideas. Orange brown was a color that showed up a lot along with black-ish brown for oil spills. 

There is another historical event that I referenced from and that was Agent Orange from the Vietnam War between 1962 and 1971. It was claimed to be a pesticide to be sprayed over the jungles to get rid of unwanted plants and insects, but a contaminated batch ended up doing more damage than intended to the soldiers and residents living in the area causing deaths and children born with birth defects. Agent Orange still affects lives today with the future generations also becoming victims. Vietnam Veterans have dealt and are dealing with the affects as well. It's a really brazen event that shows what toxins can do. This key point drove most of my design choices from here on out. Sad images of victims and the environment helped me see how this creature would be affected if it were living in a toxic environment. A lot of it was really depressing to see, but I wanted to ground my creature in reality as much as I could without solely going off of my imagination.

Most of what I referenced: Gas masks/ half masked respirators, chemical burns, peeling skin, forest fires, oil spills, Agent Orange, pollution, toxins, pollutants, animals dealing with oil spills, polluted environments.

All these were done using the ArtStudio App by Lucky Clan for iPad and a stylus. Please feel free to ask me any questions. Hope you enjoyed this post and thanks for reading!

First Post of 2014!

Boy, time flies! The last half of 2013 after I graduated in May from Full Sail University was chaotic and eventful to say the least. The studying continued as I was really deciding the next territory I wanted to venture in. So since I didn't get to update earlier last year, I decided to cram in all my adventures into one blog post...

A month after I graduated from Full Sail University, I went back for an internship to assist the online students in the 3D Foundations course for the Computer Animation degree program. It was wonderful to see students with the same immense passion as I had, anxious to finally learn what they've always dreamed of learning -to bring their imagination to life.

To keep with professionalism, I updated my resume frequently and I got my business cards that I designed while in Full Sail printed by Primo Cards.

During the same time as my Full Sail internship, I also had the good fortune of interning with Legal Demonstrative Exhibits as a 3D Artist, where I was asked to model an anatomical human male skeleton to be used in medical illustrations and animations for legal cases. I became more aware of the true importance of understanding anatomy especially pertaining to the medical field. Renders can be seen on my website.

After the internships ended, I made myself available to volunteer freelance work for a bit.

In September, I took a trip with my dad to the other side of the country, Los Angeles, California! There we attended the Gnomon Workshop Live Event. For two days, ten industry artists talked about their work and experiences. The demos and presentations ranged from technical to artistic with all of them being insightful. I had the pleasure of meeting and networking with talented artists, students, and experienced industry professionals (That's where those business cards come in handy).

It was expensive, but it was worth it. If not going would have meant at the expense of knowledge, inspiration, not to mention the revitalized energy, motivation, and focus I experienced... it was definitely worth going.

What's crazy about it all is that I grew up with the movies and games that these artists presenting helped in creating and realizing. It was such a surreal experience for me and yet everyone was so casual and professional, which was even more surprising. I grew up with the crazed fan conventions and it was nothing like that. Everyone treated each other like professional artists. It was nice.

Sketch collage of the 2013 Gnomon Workshop
Live Event presenters: Because artists rarely get
drawings done of them and I love drawing faces!

Finally got to meet Neville Page, a brilliant creature and concept designer who has worked on Avatar, Cloverfield, Star Trek, Prometheus, and much more. He is a big inspiration and one of the reasons why I wanted to pursue a career in the industry. To see a design you create then to become full reality in a movie is a dream of mine and I didn't realize that until I saw Cloverfield. Another inspiration was Peter Konig, a concept artist for film and game, whose resume jumps back to Jurassic Park and Starship Troopers. Izzy Medrano worked on the concepts for Tony Hawk: American Wasteland, and God of War III! And the list goes on and on.. Of course, every single presenting artist has inspired me to this point. Seriously look their portfolios up and your mind will be blown!

While the artists presented their demos, I took a plethora of notes and managed to sketch each one of them (in the dimly lit room). Here are the sketches I did with a few color corrections in Photoshop.

All the presenters were very inspirational with their work and stories and made me want to work even harder on my art skills when I got back home.

To illustrate that, while I was on a camping trip, since it just happened to be the first of the month, it was perfect
timing, and for multiple reasons, I decided to take advantage and start a personal creature challenge exercise where I would make up a creature every day for 30 days in any medium and post on social sites. I didn't concern myself over if they were completely thought out or unique, but just to have the excuse to practice everyday, seeing where it would take me, how much I could expand on my creative ideas and imagination, and what I could get inspired with especially with being in the outdoors for half the month!

Redid my website, changing my title from Character Modeler to Character and Creature Artist. I love every step of the visual effects process and as of yet to find something I absolutely dislike doing, but my biggest passion for the longest has been the character and creature development aspect.

Towards the end of the year, I enrolled in the online Gnomon Master Classes where I networked, learned more on visual effects, and got inspired some more! I definitely recommend it if you have the funds. It's a terrific learning experience.

Last but not least to start the new year with a bang, I got added to the Avalanche Studios team in Manhattan, New York! The thought of moving and starting my first major gig in the game industry is a thrilling feeling, but I am ready as I'll ever be and I'm looking forward to starting my new career.

I hope that I can post more frequently this year, which is a new year's resolution of mine. Thank you for reading.

Updates About Updates

I have new things to tell and I haven't had much time recently to dedicate to keeping this blog up to date (as much as I want those things to be told). But I will tell you, there is a lot to be said! I am currently working on a new website with a brand new art direction and updated portfolio, which should be up and running by the start of next year. This is an update about more updates to come. So keep your eyes peeled and thanks for reading!

Loved The Thing, Alien, Starship Troopers? Then Back This Practical FX Creature Film On Kickstarter!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film

So this is not a post relating to my artwork. However, this is related to an artform in general.

Practical FX! 

I grew up wanting to do this stuff, then I developed a new passion for art in the digital realm. I still would love one day to work on props, getting my hands dirty with silicon and clay, mold making, and creating animatronics.

That is why I donated (a pretty hefty amount for my budget) to make sure that the Harbinger Down project gets funded. ADI (Amalgamated Dynamics Inc.) is responsible for making the monsters and creatures. They helped bring to life Alien, The Thing, The 6th Day, Jumanji, Spiderman, and many more! I believe a great FX film cannot be great without a good balance of practical and visual/digital FX.

Please, if you have any dollar to spare, it will go to supporting a movement of a wonderful medium that gave us so much in film. You also don't donate without getting rewards! =D Check it out and see if there's really a way to escape from contributing, cause I couldn't :/ lol.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1117671683/harbinger-down-a-practical-creature-fx-film


Here is their first pitch on launching the Kickstarter project. Alec Gillis of ADI also talks about some of the work they've done. It's pretty sweet.

Check out ADI's Youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/user/studioADI?feature=watch

Demons Are EVEEL!

Do you know about Stan Winston School of Character Arts? If you don't, check 'em out:

https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/

They were holding a Demon Art Contest the last month and were asking for art that depicted a demonic character in any shape or form.

This is my submission!

He waited on top of the china cabinet. Waiting…. Waiting until the next victim passed by so he can take their sins and bring them back to his boss.

Yes, it's gross! I was even wincing at the idea, buutttt that is what I'm going for so SUCCESS for me =]] I wanted to focus on the eyes. I gathered reference from past demon interpretations, theological demons, Gorillaz art, gorillas, movie demons, and more. As a result, gave me a lotta nightmares, which is cool D;

A bit more time on this drawing would have given me a chance to refine and push detail further which is my favorite part. I split up time between 3 days about 4-6 hours each for the actually making of it, but spent days beforehand thinking of a good concept. Might I say, I was also visiting in Ft. Lauderdale at the time. Perfect thing to do is work on art after sunburn :)

I don't usually color in my pencil drawings in photoshop so this would happen to be my first time seriously doing so. Gave me a chance to get more acquainted with setting up my color layers. Also got to play around with brushes, brush settings, and blending modes.

The End Is Nigh

Finally Graduating!!! I don't know if I am excited and ecstatic or nervous and completely terrified. Can be a little bit of both which could be the reason for my recent strange streak of forgetfulness this week. But however, with a new end comes a new beginning and for that I have something to show for the last 4 months of hard work and dedication. My finally finished demo reel is uploaded/uploading to Vimeo and Youtube ready to watch and will be taking its rightful place on the front page of my website.

I could post some renders and stills from the reel here, but I figure, why waste the surprise until you actually watch it and see everything all at once? =]] and since I don't have anything else to show, here is a quick sketch of Tony Stark I did while watching the first Iron Man. I did see Iron Man 3 and it is A-MA-ZING. I loved it. New favorite movie.

Lawless Hardy Model

Kay, so I have to update this! Here are some renders and WIP pictures of my realistic human model for my demo reel. He is supposed to be Tom Hardy as he played in Lawless. More WIP and renders to come!

 Sculpted pore detail in zbrush. First time detailing a human :D

He didn't always start out like this. At first he was inspired by the Forrest Bondurant character in Lawless, but the project eventually turned into a Tom Hardy likeness. Here is the character before the alteration. He was merely a countryman bootlegger. Now he takes on his new identity as... Lawless Forrest Bondurant Tom Hardy ;]