Catchin up

Hey all! Holy cow, it's been over a month since my last post. Well, I have a very good reason for my slacking off. Actually, I have two good reasons.

First, I have produced pretty much ZILCH since my last post. I've been so caught up in reason number two that I haven't had time to really do anything worth posting about. That's the truth, and you can take that to the bank, though they'd probably just hand you a giant loan just for walking in as dictated by the fed.

Anyway, I digress.

Secondly, I've been facing an occupation change for the last month. A few friends of mine from college recently founded a design company called Zubian Studios. So far, they're trying their best to get on their feet by doing various design jobs, logos, tshirts, anything that will bring in money for the company. I've been prospectively hired to head their iPhone game department. Very exciting for me, obviously. I can make simple games that go on the cool iTouch and iPhone, and then post them on iTunes for all the world to see and buy. This is a VERY big step in the direction I want to go.

Obviously, the fact that it's a new company is a little worrisome. They've decided that actual wages won't be paid until about September, so I've been holding onto my current full-time job while also going to class 5 nights a week and devoting all my other spare time to Zubian. No joke, it's been MAD hectic. It's been fun and exciting for the most part, but still sleep depriving.

I was hesitant about jumping ship for a while and going to a job I had no guarantee would last a year. However, ASF has begun changing their production process pretty significantly, and it will definitely make my position there completely superfluous. I mean, would you pay a full-time wage to someone who walks in and then is done 2 hours later? I don't think so. That's mostly solidified my decision to jump to Zubian in the near future. As in, within the next couple of months.

That's my two reasons, and I hope you are all quite placated so as not to spam my comment fields with hateful messages. Though, admittedly, I'm sure if I continue to be so long winded, you won't even get that far. :D



So I'll cut to actual art. I have here one of the products of my Life Drawing Class. No, it's not a nude model, though they might be, but you can only see their heads. We spent the last couple of weeks practicing heads. I have a few others that I don't feel is worth posting here, but these, I think, were my best. The two on the right came before the other 4, so you can see a change in shading technique that I've come to like. Please give me any criticism you have and let me know which head you like da best, though I think I know what everyone's answer is going to be. :)

In other art news, the polls have closed, and my viewers have weighed in. Once I have some pieces that I want to post that involve nude models, I will upload them to a separate site and just give you a hyperlink with large, annoying warnings about the content. Hopefully everyone will be nice and happy with that.

I'll have some more stuff to post later on, so thanks for checking in!

Gillard WIP

Hey everyone! I haven't been making very much lately, have I? Well, my best excuse is that most of the things I've been working on recently haven't been worth posting. All a lot of technical stuff, experimental crap and things that just aren't easily posted and wouldn't be too terribly interesting to anyone, including me.

BUT, I have this work-in-progress (WIP) that I'm actually quite proud of. I'm still trying to figure out how to color him, but once I do I'll be sure to post the final result. As for now, enjoy and tell me what you think :)

P.S. Clickie for big image!

Ourobourus

Here are a couple of things for this post. The first is a really old vid my friend Dan and I made back in High School. I found it in my archives and realized that I had never posted it here (or maybe I'm just losing my memory with old age). It's just a silly project with shaky camera movement (I'm the cameraman) and a lot of fun with video running in reverse. Maybe you like RHCP, or maybe you like watching Dan steal food from me while saying it's for the video we're making. And if that doesn't hook you, Hardy makes an appearance, too, so that should be all you need to know!



Also, I begin a new term at school in a couple of weeks, and one of the classes is Life Drawing. I've asked the question before, but now that the class is imminent, I thought I'd post a poll asking for opinions. Since the class will no doubt include nude models, I want to know how everyone feels about having the sketches I come up with posted. Take a look at the options, vote, and leave comments if ya likes.

Enjoy!

Filler Post

I keep this blog for the sole expressed purpose of presenting my artwork to my family. I have accounts on DeviantArt and ArtBistro, on the other hand, to present my artwork to the world (aka, whoever finds it). Usually I refrain from posting anything unless I have an actual product to present, but since the blog has been dead for a while, I thought it best to keep it active by posting a little bit about my projects and perhaps some of the procedures that I go through to make them.

Currently I have a couple of projects going that either haven't been completed yet or are pieces I don't consider high enough quality to be posted. I've created a strange pangolin creature thing that wears a gasmask and walks anthropomorphically, possibly wearing a suit later on in the future. It's not too bad for my first real attempt at a completely organic creature, but for right now it's not ready to be unveiled. I've also been asked by a friend at school to help him on an animation project as a prop/environment modeler. Once that kicks off and I get some stuff made, I might also be able to present the objects I make and hopefully the end animation.

On my own time, I want to return to a couple of projects I have let gather dust for a while. The first is my Chopin video, which only just began before I got distracted. The biggest hurdle on that animation is finding the right actions, lights, or animations to use for any given part of the song. It's hard to put together some kind of interesting show that accurately fits the music and remains interesting throughout the length of the video. Couple that with some pretty processor-intensive rendering options, and making a simple 3 minute animation becomes quite a task. I have a couple of ideas for the animation, like setting the whole thing on the top of my Observatory tower, but if anyone else has ideas for what can be done with it, please leave a comment.

The other project is my Russian Roullete flash game. I posted the working "maze" generator while I was still working on it, but I got stuck trying to give the player the ability to manipulate the dimensions of the maze, and ultimately got distracted like I usually do. I want to return to it, but I haven't yet decided how I want to attack the project. I've got a pretty functional maze generator already, but I'm not sure if I want to worry about how the player manipulates the options or how the bullet you will eventually shoot will find a way to move through a maze that is randomly generated. The biggest issue with the latter is that I have to be able to give the code within the game a way to keep track of how the maze is put together. I can make a bullet and tell it to move, but I have to give it a way to know where the walls are and how to react to them. The process should be as simple and intuitive as possible and apply to every situation regardless of how the generator creates the maze. I believe that if I can get the core features of the game in place, I can then worry about how the game looks and how the player can manipulate the experience.

Well, those are the things I'm working on, along with my Algebra and Humanities class at school. Things remain busy, so I apologize for the decrease in activity on the blog. I should have some good stuff to show soon.

Also, since I'm breaking the norm of the blog already, I'd like to refer some of you to a couple of the works I've found and really liked. These are on DeviantArt, so if you have something against the site, don't clickie!

Thunder Factory
Best Homework Excuse Ever

Also, my friend has decided to put together a little internet comic about Left 4 Dead. If you've played the game, or just like funny little comics about games, I think you'll enjoy this. I've been throwing lots of ideas at her, so I can sorta take some credit for the content *evil laugh*

(possible language warning!)
L4D Tales: How not to survive the zombie apocalypse

Homemade wall-mine:

An instructional pamphlet designed to show you how to create your own solution to the "pesky guard" or other bipedal nuisances.

For my modeling midterm, I was to create a hand-held object, so I decided to model a tape gun! Then I got the idea that I should also model a grenade, and this entire idea was the natural progression of things. The two models are created and done for the midterm, but this pamphlet was just my own self-indulgence. :D

Enjoy! Clickie for bigger image.

Flythrough and Stamp

Hey all, just a couple small things to show today. First off, I tested my new computer by rendering my old flythrough animation again with all the nifty bells and whistles. Global illumination, distance blurring, actual MATERIALS on everything. Before, it would have taken my computer a night and a day to render this. My new computer pulled it off in an hour and a half. Not too shabby!



The only other thing is a new stamp that I and probably only one other person will get. Check out the new stamp to the right, and enjoy!

Zbrush and Commish

Hello again! I've got a couple of quick pieces to present today. First off, I've been messing around with Zbrush again, and I came up with this. I'm finally starting to get the hang of the controls and the interface, but I've still got a long way to go before I can call my self competent. Even so, I made this "Clay Ghandi", as I call it. He sorta reminds me of him. The composition would have been more interesting had I been able to get the stupid thing to export a displacement map. Maybe I did something wrong.

Anywho enjoy that.



And the other piece is Dianna's request of an Aquarius stamp! I've posted it in my stamp list to the side. If you would like a copy, I can get it to you. :)