The Workshop

The Grizzlies!

2011-07-08T23:57:00.000-07:00

Clickie for better image

Here's one of my current projects (the only active one, that is). It's a remake of at least the head of a grizzly bear. As most of you know, I made a dancing grizzly back in my senior year of high school, and for a novice, it was fine. However, I've always wanted to do better!

So here is what I have so far on this endeavor. Much better than the original, though there's plenty of work still to do to it. I'm still working on getting the edges fuzzier, so the hair effect is really driven home.

For my classmates, this bust is at around 2700 polys, though the one I sent to ZBrush was less than 700.

Enjoy!

Rosebud

2011-07-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

Here it is! I've been working on this animation for a couple of weeks to enter into a competition Westwood is holding. A few will know the audio clip as the Rosebud Frozen Peas commercial on The Critic. I'm hoping a bit of humor will make my entry more memorable than other. Since the animation had to be 30 seconds, I added some silence to the audio to lengthen it and give me a chance to animate reactions, etc.

The character is the same I've used in other animations, but since I know how some Westwood students are, I included credit for the rig so no one starts whining about stolen work. Yes, THAT is how it is at Westwood. That and stolen flash drives.

There's still plenty of work I can do on this. Some movements could use some extra polish, and other actions need to be exaggerated a bit. I still think it's a worthy candidate for the competition!

Enjoy and critique!

BMW Z4 M

2011-05-17T20:48:00.000-07:00

Here's the car model I've been working on for a good while now. It's still unfinished, as I'm not satisfied with the texture work. But it's what I have at the moment, and I haven't posted anything on this blog for awhile. Enjoy!

Demo Reel 2011

2011-04-06T10:49:00.000-07:00

Flash Games

2011-03-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone. Welcome to the newly design Workshop! I was tired of my videos and flash content being shrunk to fit that tiny column, so I found a better, wider design. hope you like it!

So, not much happening with artwork, huh?

Well, I haven't been completely idle, and I have a couple of VERY simple flash games to present. I made these in an effort to improve my understanding of Actionscript 3, which is the programming language for flash content. These taught me a great deal about event handling, classes, and game architecture.

The first is the classic Tic Tac Toe. Sorry, but there's no AI to play against just yet. I will probably try and tackle that at some later date.

This game took 185 lines of code to create. For a game, I'm sure that's very few, but I found it interesting that something as simple as Tic Tac Toe would take so much coding.

The next is a minesweeper clone. This taught me a LOT about how to make lots of the same thing and keep them all organized. You have to hold the SHIFT key down to place a flag. You win if you flag every mine or if you uncover all the other tiles.

...Now that I write that, I realize I didn't do anything to keep you from flagging every box and winning....oh well.

This game too 353 lines of code to create, which includes the code for the external "box" class. In other words, I programmed a single grid square separately from the rest of the code, and had the "main" code make a bunch of copies of that grid, then tell them what to do and when.

All the explanations are for anyone who cares :P

Enjoy! Let me know if you find a glitch in either of them. Also, you can reset the games by clicking on the Win/Lose messages.

Fun with explosions

2011-02-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

Here's just a couple of videos I made. They're really bad quality, but you get the idea. Enjoy!

Stuff Dreams are Made of

2010-12-14T21:42:00.000-08:00

FINALLY this animation is...well, not DONE, but presentable. This is the final project for my Animation class. We've been working on this project for...4 weeks? That's 10 hours a week in class, for anyone counting.

Also, if you happen to be one of my classmates watching this, be prepared with some good critiques come the 'morrow!

Finally, imaginary brownie points to anyone who can name the source of the audio clip. Guess quick before Dad gets it!

Enjoy and please give feedback. Considering this as my artistic "calling".

Statistics are hard to program!

2010-11-29T22:34:00.000-08:00

This was done on a whim, and I don't freakin trust it!

While playing the classic "Clock Game" (cause I don't know what else to call it), I wondered what the odds of winning were. Famously, this game is only won a couple of times in a person's life, so the odds must be very much against the player, right?

Apparently not. I programmed this to simulate the playing of this game as many times as you care to wait for, record the wins and losses, and calculate the odds. Apparently, if you randomize the deck like a computer does, you'll win quite often.

Check it out, and be kind :D. Don't go hog-wild on the number of games, it'll take a while. I should really add a kill button. *shrug* eh.

Animation Dump

2010-11-21T17:56:00.000-08:00

Here's a couple of animations I've been working on at school. Please let me know what you think!

First off: Getting out of a Chair

Next: Weight Lifting

Parkour...ish

2010-10-26T21:36:00.000-07:00

Here's the animation we are working on in my Character animation class. A little project involving some running, jumping, and, in my case, rolling!

Gonna do a bit more animation for the class with lifting/carrying heavy objects and dialogue. Wondering if this might not be where I should specialize my skills.... hmmm.

Walk Cycle Night Project

2010-10-18T21:53:00.000-07:00

Here's what we did tonight in my Character Animation class. Teachers describes it as "going back to basics", I call it "learning how to walk again".

The model is NOT mine, just something I found for free online to use. Don't worry, the teacher directed me to the site it was stored on, so this isn't cheating :P

If anyone see's something they think I should improve on, please leave a comment. This isn't about artistic skill. You know as well as I do what looks natural and what doesn't, so no excuses! :P Anyway, I know the transition from the "end" to the "beginning" is rough, but other than that, all input is helpful!

Enjoy

Letter to Hanna

2010-10-02T15:47:00.000-07:00

(Navigate to the youtube page for a larger version)

Finally, the animation is done!

As I put in the description on the youtube page, this animation includes around 1,400 words, individually animated to sync up with the production of Glenn's "Letter to Hanna" speech, which was made into a full production by Stu.

This animation was done in Adobe After Effects and Illustrator, and taught me a LOT about how to separate and condense work loads on my computer as well as the limitations of both programs.

You'll likely spot some mistakes or issues with the animation, but chalk all that up to inexperience. Beyond that, enjoy!

Giant Project Sneak Peek

2010-09-04T17:28:00.000-07:00

I started a big project last week. Here's a little sneak peek at what it is. As always, if anything strikes you as wrong, leave me some feedback :D

No idea when I'll get this done. What you see is just a part of the first phase of the project, so there's still a LONG way to go.

Fowl Alien

2010-09-03T16:51:00.001-07:00

I went back to the first "concept art" I made with my cintiq and came up with this. Yeah, I didn't expect it, either.

A Warning

2010-09-01T20:41:00.001-07:00

Ever see those stickers on vending machines cautioning you not to shake the machine? They usually include an image of some poor, idiotic soul who has gotten themselves caught under the vending machine while attempting to dislodge that bag of sour skittles some OTHER poor, idiotic soul failed to receive.

That's what inspired this. Just another quick project to get more familiar with the Cintiq.

Enjoy!

First Conceptual Art w/ Cintiq!

2010-08-31T23:28:00.001-07:00

My 15 inch cintiq came in, and I'm quite pleased with it. Here's the first presentable piece I made on it. It was made at midnight, so please excuse the contradictions :D

Rabquin

2010-07-30T20:52:00.001-07:00

It started out as a bunch of random scribbles all over my photoshop window. It ended up like this.

TRYING to channel Neville Page on this one. Watched some of his videos recently, and I'm trying to emulate some of his techniques. Once you get into it, the process is pretty relaxing.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think it is :D

Humanity Animatic

2010-07-27T22:42:00.000-07:00

*whew* I'm REALLY not proficient at animation! Well, here's the animatic for the Humanity Story I posted not too long ago. With some more work, I could have gotten all the timing right, the shots perfect, the lighting, etc etc etc. Also, please excuse the horrible job Youtube did encoding it. *shakes fist*

Still, I think I did alright, cheap special effects aside. Let me know what you all think so I can do better next time!

Humanity

2010-07-07T17:21:00.000-07:00

I'm really not a writer. But since all other artistic inspiration continues to elude me, and since this is part of a class assignment, I figured I'd try to have fun with it.

This is for a script I'm to write for my final project. Instead of doing a dialogue-heavy script, I decided to do more action-oriented. I also decided NOT to post the script I'm using, but just use the script to write a simple short story.

Critiques are always welcome. I'm sure there's probably something wrong with it, but I figure it's destined for the scrapbook anyway.

Enjoy

---------------
Humanity

“Computers are incredibly fast, accurate, and stupid. Human beings are incredibly slow, inaccurate, and brilliant. Together they are powerful beyond imagination.”
-Albert Einstein

Contrary to thousands of online forums, Clarksville Robotics Inc. was not building Skynet. It was true that they produced humanoid machines that behaved in a believable fashion and could adapt dynamically to various environmental stimuli. However, it was not true that they were developing A.I.

What differentiates a human from a computer is the ability to learn. Human beings can absorb a massive amount of input from the world, which changes their behavior and attitude in ways that, even to the present day, psychologists had been trying to define. Despite all the research conducted, there had never been any evidence that suggested pre-programming in human beings.

Computers, on the other hand, are artificial. They are confined entirely to the program written for them, and are literally incapable of breaking free of it. The best they could ever do is crash, possibly give a warning defining the problem, then shut down. Failing the ability to alter their own programming, computers and, by extension, robots would never be able to achieve true Artificial Intelligence.

That, at least, was the consumer relations blurb that had been established at C.R.

Ever since robots had become the norm in modern society, C.R. had established themselves as the most highly regarded personal-service robotic engineers. Their products weren't designed for military action, espionage, or data collection and processing. Through complex mass-production, C.R. made affordable robots that could serve as household maids, seeing-eye bots, personal protection units, or anything that a private citizen could want. After a number of years, they had disproved the allegations that what they were doing was dangerous.

This didn't stop them from including extensive safe-guards. The fear of rampant A.I. was infectious, and would certainly prove disastrous to the company, regardless of the impossibility of a program altering itself.

Along a conveyor belt at C.R.'s main factory, at the final stages of development, each C.R. robot receives their heads, which includes the central programming and data storage. After applying a head to yet another robot, a slight malfunction in the machine caused it to catch one of the wires in the neck. A small spark, and what was thought to be impossible occurred.

Just as all the most brilliant scientists had thus far been unable to explain how amino acids, produced through chance by a lucky lightning strike, had created life, C.R.'s research team has never been able to determine how a robot came to life.

Gears and motors spun up prematurely. The eyes opened, and observed, for the first time, the world around it. Looking down, it could see hands that seemed to move just as it expected. Spinning quickly, the processing chip within it's mind made connections that would have taken a normal human being years to establish.

Just as it had grasped the existence of it's own body, the robot passed through a metal arc. Red lights flashed, followed shortly by a loud siren that blared in time with the lights as well as an LCD sign off to the right.

"Sentience Detected" the screen flashed repeatedly in bold red letters.

Comprehending the meaning of the words, but not their significance to it, the robot was caught by surprise when a large metal plate scraped it off the conveyor belt into the air. It fell into a metal pipe, dropping faster and faster through the darkness, until a light could be seen below it.

With a bang the robot landed in a garbage bin, the debris below it softening the blow just enough to prevent real harm. Instead, the sudden sound of large pistons being filled signaled how the harm would be inflicted. The open lid of the bin began to close, faster than the walls surrounding the robot. Wasting only a few seconds to collect data, the robot snatched a thick metal plate that rested beside him, wedging in between the two halves of the lid. While it held the door open for it, it didn't slow the crushing process.

Quickly, the robot hoisted itself up out of the bin, dropping to the floor.

The sound of crunching metal caused it to shudder and urged it through a nearby door, leading out to a brightly lit hallway. Turning a corner, the robot encountered C.R.'s backup plan. The initiation of C.R.'s Sentience Removal policy had alerted the nearby security detail.

Latent programming for personal defense fired feebly in the robot's mind. In the small space, there was nowhere to run, nor weapon to use. It only had time to register the firearms in the guard's hands before they fired.

The robot's metal casing was perforated, throwing sparks off in all directions. Falling to the ground, its mind began registering numerous errors and found more when it writhed for a time on the floor, feeling what a machine made of metal and wires should not be able to feel.

Finally, the last option for any computer was executed. The motors shut down, and the gears locked up as the eyes dimmed.

An extensive internal investigation was launched to determine the cause of the accident, but all evidence was destroyed. The public was not informed of the incident.

The Storyboard

2010-06-22T20:04:00.000-07:00

Oi. I officially hate storyboarding. I think it's mostly because I'm still so uncomfortable with drawing people and the whole point of storyboarding is drawing lots of pictures of the same people doing various things with various expressions on their faces.

So here it is, a flash version of my storyboard for #2,537,801, the screenplay for which you can read in the previous post. The storyboard shown is a slightly better version of a series of thumbnail sketches I drew over the course of a few hours. What I present now represents around 16 hours of work. The quality should make my inexperience evident.

Still, I hope that my storyboard gives you an idea of what a movie might look like, were this scene ever to be filmed.

Since this swf doesn't play well on Blogger, I'm going to have to redirect you to my DeviantArt page. Don't worry, it's safe :P

#2,537,801

#2,537,801

2010-06-14T16:40:00.000-07:00

This is yet another work that I can't claim expertise for, cautiously named #2,537,801, for an obvious reason you'll soon discover. This is for my midterm in Sequential Art class, which would be more accurately named Storyboarding class, but apparently also includes screenplay writing. We are to create a screenplay of our own, draw the storyboard out in it's entirety, and for our Final, we'll be creating an animatic. For now, I have just written a screenplay.

I deferred largely to another screenplay I found online for the formatting, so if the names and actions seem oddly formatted, it's because someone else did it, too. Still, the focus on this piece is the dialogue, so it doesn't matter much.

I had intended it to be a bit longer, but the work involved in drawing even what I have now is daunting, and I want to get the project done on time. I may add the rest later if people like what I have here.

What I would like to ask for is everyone's input. The more astute among you will see right through my little game, and possibly think it ridiculously obvious. Hopefully it's more subtle to those who aren't obsessive like I am about things :D

So let me know what you think should be changed, what spelling or grammatical errors I made, etc etc, but please give me your feedback.

Oh, and also, thanks to Dan Norton, my coworker and facebook friend, for allowing me to use his name. The date of his birth is fabricated, obviously, and is intended to establish the date this scene takes place in.

Enjoy!

--------------

INT. WAITING ROOM - VIEW FROM FRONT DOOR - TIME UNKNOWN

The WAITING ROOM is relatively quiet. Almost all the seats are filled with people, some old, some young, but all keep to themselves.

A few more people enter the room and find seats, only a few people glance up at their entrance. DAN remains lost in his own little world. Sitting along the right-hand side of the room, where the florescent lights keep flickering randomly.

SECRETARY: Mr. Norton?

DAN jumps as his name is called, seeming to return from a far away place. Dazedly blinking, he looks towards the front desk.

DAN: Yes?

SECRETARY: The board will see you now.

It’s a long walk down the tiled hallway. Very few doors populate the walls on either side of him, but one large, brightly colored door LOOMS in front of him. He pauses before entering, considering the obstacle.

He OPENS THE DOOR.

Inside is a slightly oversized room, with three doors, four chairs, one table, and three people. DAN walks cautiously forward and takes his seat before the board. They are hard to make out in the dim lighting, but the desktop lamps they each had revealed some of their more severe features.

HUGHES: Citizen two million, five hundred thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and one. DAN NORTON. Presiding on the board is myself, George Hughes. With me are board members Jeffery Bernard and Shawna Glade.

Another SECRETARY passes by DAN on his way to the board, holding a set of thick FOLDERS. HUGHES takes them with a quietly spoken “Thank you”, and passes the other BOARD MEMBERS one of the FOLDERS.

HUGHES: Dan Norton. Age 57, born August 21, 1965. Graduated from High School with unremarkable awards, worked for most your life at various menial jobs. No college education, is that right?

Their eyes seem to shine from their dark pits. DAN takes a moment to find his voice, then gruffly replies:

DAN: Yes, that’s correct.

HUGHES considers DAN for a moment, then turns to BERNARD. Who looks back at his FOLDER and turns a few pages.

BERNARD: You were fired from only a few jobs, but did not advance in any but one. You worked hard and saved enough money to retire early at age 50. You have since spent your time maintaining your home and playing with your dog, a Golden Retriever named “Duke”.

GLADE: You drive a silver Ford, which you maintain yourself at your home. As of it’s last test, it had one hundred and seventy five thousand, two hundred and fifteen miles on the odometer. You drive it often to visit your family in Georgia.

DAN: Yes, Ma’am.

HUGHES takes a few seconds to flip through the file. Pictures of DAN at his home, with his dog, and working his car are visible. Some were taken by the friends or family of DAN, but others seem to have been taken from a long way off.

HUGHES leans forward.

HUGHES: Why do you repair your own vehicle, Mr. Norton?

DAN: Uh, because I enjoy it, sir.

DAN shifts uncomfortably in the metal chair.

DAN: I find it relaxing, and it does save me some money.

The BOARD leans in to consider this new revelation. They whisper quietly amongst themselves, and DAN takes the opportunity to look around the room. In particular, he examines the two door set in the opposing sides of the room behind him. They look almost identical, but DAN gets caught staring at the door to his LEFT.

HUGHES: Mr. Norton.

DAN again jumps at his own name, snapping his head around to meet HUGHES eyes.

HUGHES: It is the decision of the board that Citizen two million, five hundred thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and one has not passed the preliminary consideration mandated by Act 125, Section 2,653, Paragraph 10. As per policy, we continue to the second consideration. Mr. Norton?

DAN: Y...yes?

HUGHES: Would you be so kind as to justify your existence to the board?

DAN shifts again nervously in his chair, looks around the room, as if to find some support from the walls.

DAN: Well, sir, I do pay my taxes regularly. And....and I also volunteer for the Boy Scouts at my local church.

The BOARD exchange glances among one another. DAN speaks louder, his voice sounding frantic.

DAN: I keep my house well kept, the prices in my neighborhood won’t fall on my account!

The BOARD again huddles to whisper, quietly. DAN doesn’t look around the room this time. He swallows a few times to calm himself. The BOARD again returns their attention to DAN.

HUGHES glances to each of the board members, receiving a nod from each.

HUGHES: The council has considered the testimony of Citizen two million, five hundred thirty seven thousand, eight hundred and one. We have decided that Mr. Norton’s life is not worth the resources to maintain it. Mr. Norton is not useful to our society or the common good, and it cannot be of much use to himself.

DAN stands from his chair suddenly, eyes wide open, sweat dripping from his chin. Two large men enter the room from DAN’s left and approach his chair.

DAN: You can’t do this to me! I’ve been a good man! A patriotic citizen! I paid my taxes, cast my votes! I was a loyal Democrat my entire life!

The BOARD doesn’t seem to hear, they are just spectators in a game they are already familiar with. The two large men take DAN’s arms and begin pulling him towards the door. Looking around, DAN realizes what’s happening and begins calling again.

DAN: I can change! I swear! I’ll do more community work, I’ll donate everything I have!

DAN and his two escorts begin down another long hallway, DAN fights feebly and is largely dragged the distance towards a large metal door. All the way he continues to plead.

DAN: Just tell me what I need to do! Who should I vote for, what should I think? Please, just don’t do this to me!

The metal door begins to close after DAN has been dragged through it. The boom of heavy metal echoes quietly to the BOARD, just as HUGHES closes DAN’s FOLDER.

A bit of writing

2010-06-06T22:10:00.000-07:00

This is a small deviation from my usual submission. (I've submitted a couple of written works in the past, none of which have been all that good.)

I wrote this for a short writing exercise in my Creative Writing Class. The instructions were to write a story that would connect the reader with a tree that stood alone.

I delayed for a long while before submitting this, partly because I'm not really a writer and would rather not presume to be one, but mostly because I couldn't figure out a decent name to give it. (Is it just me, or is that the hardest part about writing?) I ended up settling for the simple truth, along with a cheap joke for my Coloradan friends .

Much much thanks go to my good friend Blue(Lindsey) Munoz, who gave me her valuable input as my editor.

It's been quiet around here, since I've been so busy with other projects that I haven't had a chance to produce much artwork. I have an animation I'm struggling to get rendered properly so I can submit it, but I'm having troubles getting it all together. Been a good learning experience, though.

Anywho, enjoy!

---------------------------
The Lone Tree
In clear disregard for basic laws of survival, the old tree squatted, clinging to the edge of a rocky cliff, trying to ignore the passing hikers. Many stopped to snap a photo of the gnarled roots and tangled branches, and the tree eternally endured the many flashes of light. Hikers were so selfish, the tree thought, taking pictures of private events and then wandering off without even a moment of contemplation. Most of them were too stupid to figure out how to turn the flash on their cameras off. This alone made their presence tolerable to the tree, giving it a bit of simple, cruel amusement.

And the hikers were really its only companions. His neighbors had once surrounded him, giving him all the company and protection from irritating humans as he could possibly want. But one by one they had died. The soil, or lack thereof, was hardly suitable, and the wind rising almost constantly from the valley below didn’t help matters much. Still, the tree had already gotten old and stubborn by the time his friends had gone, and now he had no choice but to continue on alone.

He had initially thought about ripping his own roots out and throwing himself over the edge. Perhaps he would die in the process, but at the time it seemed alright. Even if he had survived, he could see quite clearly that many other trees still grew below. However, he was not able to bring himself to do it, which explains his appearance rather well. He seemed to some of the more morbid hikers to be an undecided suicidal man who had stood at the edge of the abyss for so long, trying to work up the nerve to jump that he had grown old and fat. Now he was too heavy to even shift in the breeze.

Now firmly planted in place, waiting for erosion to finally take its course and do him a favor, the tree waits for the next group of hikers with Kodaks to pass by and give him something to laugh at.
---------------------------

Frog Update

2010-04-15T14:19:00.001-07:00

Hey all, here's a quick little post showing what I'm doing with the concept art I posted. Right now it's still in its early stages of development. I'm making the general shape of the character, posed Da Vinci style for easier rigging. Once I've gotten this model to an acceptable level of detail, a friend of mine will take it and set it up to animate. Once he does that, I'll continue sculpting finer detail into the model as well as adding color and texture to it. Then, after meeting the approval of the man commissioning this, it will be set and ready to animate! Weeeoooo!

UPDATE: Changed the picture shown to the latest version
UPDATE: Changed picture again. Now shows the basic model accepted by my commissioners. Removed a toe and made some other more subtle changes.
UPDATE: Uploaded the colored and textured version of the Frog. Image isn't very big, but clickie for a better look anyway

Concept art: The Garden

2010-04-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

Some freelance work for a website that's looking for a mascot. Wants a frog character with some seed/plant influences. Submitting this one cause I'm pretty pleased with how the upper left sketch came out. Might revisit that one with a full make-over even if the design isn't accepted.

Step one: Basics

2010-04-02T15:49:00.000-07:00

My professor for Advanced Modeling has pretty much told me I shouldn't show up to class and instead use my time to work on some really awesome model to add to my portfolio. Alright, I said, I'll do it. He suggested I model a dragon and spend a heck of a lot of time putting some major detail into it. So that will be one of my focuses for the next I-don't-know-how-long. I'll be doing it almost entirely in ZBrush, and I figure, why not keep a little progress diary here on mah blog?

So here's the first post and the first step. I've got a couple of screenshots here showing what I have so far.

This here's a rock. Yup, look and marvel at the mound of hardened earth. This will serve as the setting for my Dragon. What I have here currently is really just an idea. I think I'll probably end up adjusting it as the model starts taking form. For now it's just a mound. Beneath this will be a podium. I plan on having a model I could theoretically send somewhere to be made into a game piece.

This is really the interesting part of the piece. This is called an armature. Sculptors who use clay have wire armatures inside the clay, which helps hold the clay together and makes the sculpting process faster and easier. The same goes for what I'm doing. This armature is still very much editable. I can adjust the proportions and make a very decent representation of a dragon's skeleton. Later, I'll be able to digitally add my "clay" onto it so that I can begin to sculpt my dragon. This armature will also help when I set about posing the dragon on the rock. I can move the legs and the necks around all I want.

Oh yeah, and the dragon will have 3 heads. I plan on making them all unique as well.

106 Miles

2010-03-30T15:24:00.000-07:00

My first ever romp with lip syncing! I took the cougar head, which is the beginning of what I hope will be a full fledged model of my Cougar Warrior illustration, and added the ability for it to speak! So, since nobody had any ideas on what the cougar should say (likely nobody even saw the status on facebook) I went with this classic clip... at least I think it's classic.

Enjoy the blocky geometry and awkward head tilting! :D

Badger Bugle

2010-03-25T19:35:00.001-07:00

Wow! Some artwork after all this time. And look, it's not 3D or photoshop work!

I did this for a special reason. At my job they release a monthly newsletter to all the employees, hoping to improve their crushing despair to simple discontent and give a select few of the employees a chance to make believe their journalists. (Pessimism humor, I does it)

This last issue introduced a new name and "mascot" for the newsletter. It is now known as the Badger Bugle, and is sponsored by a cheap illustrator graphic of a flag with googlie eyes. (That's not pessimism humor) This issue also included a drawing contest on the back. And against my better judgement and lack of motivation, I sat down and made my entry. THIS!

As always, please feel free to critique and comment. It's been a while since I used actual pencil and paper to draw something, but I'm pretty pleased with how it came out, hence the scanning and submitting.

Enjoy! Oh, and disregard the flag design, it too appears on the newsletter.

Howle

2010-03-06T13:17:00.000-08:00

My admittedly first - and hopefully successful - attempt at drawing something....cute. Instead of the usual fare of creepy/weird, I wanted to mix it up and draw something you could possibly use "awww" to describe.

Anyway, here it is, for your criticism and/or enjoyment. Please weigh in and tell me if I met my goal or if I need to give it another try.

Also, kudos to those who can pick out which animals I used as reference, but I don't think I'll be handing out any prizes for it

Spaceboat: Animation

2010-02-21T21:43:00.001-08:00

The final result of all those hours in class spent working on that ship. A very quick and dirty spacey animation involving my two models. Please be kind, as it was my first use of Adobe After Effects, and I really struggled to get it all working as good as it is. Anywho, it'll get me a passing grade on the assignment, so I guess it's not all that bad.

Enjoy!

Modeled/Rendered in 3Ds Max 2009
Composition done in Adobe After Effects

Fates

2010-02-19T21:13:00.001-08:00

(3150x2231 image. Clickie for big version)

They travel a road without any knowledge of their destination. They cannot see where they are, nor make use of any of their other senses. Willing slaves to an unseen force.

They have no choice; they smile the whole way.
-----------------
Just a random idea that I wanted to do. Mixin' it up with a different lighting scheme and multiple characters. I totally had a base image I used to draw this, so no praise for my suddenly awesome human drawing skills

For my next extracurricular project, I wanted to try and do something just out-right cute. I try and mix it up whenever I can.

Lobphant

2010-02-06T10:56:00.000-08:00

A rerendering of my older hybrid design. (Clickie for bigger)

I now call it a Lobphant. I think it's more punchy that way >>

Anyway, still experimenting with different methods of shading and rendering. Let me know what you think I can improve on!

This time around I focused on making sure the shading conformed to the texture base instead of relying on the texture itself to do that. Also, for this piece I did away with the "Lightest" layer, which I used to get the bright white specular effect on some of my other pieces. I didn't think it would work out well with the textures.

Anyway, enjoy!

Spaceboat

2010-02-03T20:33:00.001-08:00

Another spaceship project from my intermediate 3D class. This one I did from scratch, not really having any idea how it would turn out. I actually had thought it would look more Enterprise-ey, but I like the shape of this. It's not often that you see a spaceship that looks like a boat.

I used Jeff's ship model as the fighters for this model. I'm not sure how big he figured his ship was, but maybe that just makes this ship really really big :D

Modeled, textured, and rendered in 3Ds max 2009.

Jeff's Ship Render

2010-01-26T19:46:00.000-08:00

Woot! Look at that cheesy nebulae effect! Perfect for a completely gray, unmapped and uncolored ship :D

Anyway, here's at least the first version of Jeff's spaceship concept. I hope he doesn't mind the modifications I made to his design, or the aforementioned nebulae I included in it's render. >>

Anyway, here's another shot with a couple of angles. Left is the bottom from behind.

Cougar Warrior Revisited

2010-01-23T12:29:00.001-08:00

Continuing the trend of revisiting old projects and improving on them, I went and found this school assignment I did a while back. I wanted to try out some of the shading techniques I've been working on as well as employing a few new ones I've come across. The line art itself wasn't changed very much, mostly just cleaned up. The rest is obvious. Color included as well as textures. I found out that animal fur can be very hard to find.

Anyway, I'm planning on going back to my elephant concept art and doing much the same thing with that. However, I'd like to improve on my shading. At the moment, it tends to ignore the textures, which hinders the realism a bit. I'll see what I come up with for that later on.

Still working on school assignments, Jeff's ship, and things like this. At least I can say I'm not totally wasting my time being unproductive :D

Midnight Blue Redux & M1 Abrams

2010-01-20T20:43:00.000-08:00

First up we have the return of an older animation. I started browsing through my archives and found this. I thought I'd re-render it with a couple new bells and whistles now that I have the computer that can handle it. I added HDRI lighting (more realistic) and Depth of Field (also more realistic). Other than that it's pretty much what you saw before, but enjoy anyway!

The other is an ongoing project for my Intermediate 3D class. We've spent about two weeks on it so far (that's about 16 hours) and I'm still very far away from it being "done". It's more than enough to pass the assignment, though, so that's good. I've got all the basic bits on there, with a few cheap tricks used as well. The rest of the work is pure polish and detailing. Details details details.

The Long-Awaited Commission

2010-01-18T19:06:00.001-08:00

(clickie for bigger)

Finally I get this car modeled! I promised this to Elicia for winning some contest or other way back when, but never got it done. Well, here's what I would call a mostly finished model of Elicia's car, minus the dents and a few key features, like an interior.

Anyway, I had fun modeling this, and I think I learned a great deal. The biggest lesson is how much I hate Windows. The second is how much better the rendering power is in Cinema4D.

Anyway, this was modeled in 3Ds Max and composed/rendered in Cinema4D. Please enjoy and critique!

Maybe after this I'll actually get around to making that Starship Dianna and Jeff sent.....maybe ;)

CT Dummy

2010-01-01T09:57:00.001-08:00

Wow, something that isn't a part of any work or school project!

After watching several ZBrush tutorials in which the instructor rattled off all the names of all the different muscles on the human body, leaving me feeling very overwhelmed, I thought to myself "Screw that! I'm going to draw something that simplifies the human form!"

Well, not really, but it would have been kinda neat if I had.

I wanted to break away a bit from the style I'm starting to establish. Instead of the simple shading and very comic/cartoon way of illustrating, I thought I'd try to do something a bit more complex. I used some actual textures (google is my friend) with the shading technique I've become accustomed to to create this.

Please let me know how you feel about the new shading style!

Mask

2009-12-08T16:16:00.000-08:00

A nice little model I did while at Zubian Studios. This was so I could get more acquainted with ZBrush and also learn how to texture and paint on the models. I was actually modeling out the sketch of one of my coworkers, Evan Coad. You can see the original sketch of his here.

I'm pretty proud of it, and I plan on doing more ZBrushing later on.

Enjoy and Critique!

Done entirely in ZBrush 3, with only slight level adjustment in Photoshop CS4

Oooh, Shiny!

2009-12-05T13:46:00.000-08:00

(Click if you can't read it)

Wait! Before you go out of your way to vilify me for my depiction of the pokemon world, know that this is actually what I was told to draw for my weekly game analysis class. The two elements this week were:

-Pokemon
-Gore

So, I'm not to blame for my actions. :D

BTW, Meowth has always been my favorite pokemon, mostly cause he's neurotic.

Enjoy and critique plz!

Say Hello to My Little Friend

2009-11-28T22:31:00.000-08:00

It finally happened! Fanart! Well, somewhat obscure fanart done because of a homework assignment, but it still technically counts. I guess.

Troll Axe-thrower from Warcraft 2: Tides of Darkness

Done in photoshop cs3 with a wacom bamboo tablet.

Enjoy and critique! I still hate drawing the "human" body.

Oh, and here's my source image

Chia Beetle Tank (as named by Dianna)

2009-11-23T21:38:00.000-08:00

Yet another project from my game analysis class. This weeks hybrid includes:

Produce
Vehicles
Structure

Enjoy and critique please!

About 2 hours with photoshop and wacom tablet

Worst Show in the Universe

2009-11-21T21:21:00.001-08:00

This is supposed to be the comic relief between death defying, or life defying, feats of daring! Or something to that effect.

Another drawing project from my game analysis class. This time around the hybrid components were:

Aliens
The Circus
Disabilities

Enjoy and critique!

Muck a Muck

2009-11-08T19:15:00.001-08:00

This week's assignment from Game analysis class!

This week's hybrid is:

- A Weapon
- Hip Hop
- Politics

I tried out a very different style from my usual and I like the results, even if my shaky hands come through in the contour. Enjoy and critique, plz!

Less Than Meets the Eye

2009-11-01T21:27:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I know. It's just mean :D

Hybrid drawing for the week. Take a culture of the world and show one of its "symbols" as well as a transformer-ized version of it.

Take one random guess. You'll never get it!

New Experiment

2009-10-26T21:04:00.001-07:00

I'd like you all to engage in a little experiment for me.

It was suggested to me that some might be interested in reading what I think about politics and the like. For the most part, I've avoiding posting on this blog for anything other than art. I still want to hold true to that, but I'd like to see how a ranting blog for myself goes.

So, I'm announcing the establishment of my new sub-blog "The Soapbox". The posts on here will largely be me ranting, raving or reasoning about things in my own insane way. You might like what you read, you may hate it, you may wonder what's possessing Ben to try and be writer, and you might find it a good place for debate. Regardless, I'd love for everyone to go and check out the post that's already there called "Recycling and Evidence" and also to leave me some comments on whether you would like to see more of it. Naturally, if you'd rather see it quietly die in a corner, you could say that too. :P

Enjoy! I look forward to your feedback.

The Steam-Powered Gods

2009-10-24T14:13:00.001-07:00

A weekly drawing for my Game Analysis class! We're focusing quite a bit on character development, so drawings like this will continue!

Criteria was:
Water Element
Greek Mythology
Machine

Enjoy and critique plz!

Done in Photoshop CS3 with Wacom Bamboo

Cougar Support Character

2009-09-26T13:47:00.000-07:00

Part of my Character Design and Development final. A support character for my Ice Goat character.

Currently only in Black and White. I hope to come back to her later and add some color, but I'm somewhat crunched for time on this final, so it will have to wait.

Enjoy and critique!

Elephant Shrimasaurus

2009-09-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

Another project from my Character Design and Development class. This hybrid required I create a creature that contained features from the following three categories:

1.Prehistoric Reptile
2.Crustacean or ExoSkeleton
3.Mammal.

The result is this! I didn't color it, as I have a massive project to complete for this same class, but I wanted to shade it so there was more form.

Feel free to make guesses as to what different animals I used, though you get NO points for naming the mammal . Also, I know the man-figure isn't anatomically correct or anything. I slapped him on to create scale.

Enjoy!

Completed in Photoshop CS3 using Wacom Bamboo Tablet.

Goat Completed

2009-09-09T22:49:00.001-07:00

I have completed the Goat!

A drawing project from School. The prof told us to combine a mammal, element, and deity together to make a character. So I made an Ice Goatblighter. Goat, Ice, and the deity Soulblighter from the old Myth series. (look it up)

The coloring took several days for me, (being the noob I am) and I slapped on a really simple and poor background to give it some extra depth and space. I'll probably try to do something actually GOOD with that, but it'll do for now.

Anyway, enjoy and critique please!

Irate Lamb

2009-08-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

So I got a twitter account and tweeted a day or so ago that I was drawing an irate lamb. SO...here it is!

This is a combination of three things. A mammal (duh), an element, and some kind of deity. The element might not be what you think it is. I'm apparently not that good at drawing them yet. The deity as well may not be what you expect. If you can name it, I'll say something like "congratulations, you guessed it!" or something. Go ahead and give it a shot!

I'll get around to posting a link to mah twitter so you can all follow me.

New Chopin WIP

2009-08-16T08:43:00.000-07:00

Finally, a new edition of my infamous chopin video. With my new computer, I now have the processing power to tackle this thing. Unfortunately, it's still a ton of work and rendering time. This one is obviously still incomplete. It's not even the kind of quality I intend to have at the end of production.

The lighting is still a little blotchy, though I deliberately did that to keep render time down. That, and I think my crystals are off on their timing during the second half. If you see anything else that's off, let me know!

Longman WIP

2009-08-07T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here's a little something I finally got around to doing today.

Done entirely in photoshop using a Bamboo Wacom tablet. Sketching and 'shading' presented here. I intend to go back and get some color in there, make it a presentable piece, but I thought to post it on a couple of sites, including this one, to see what people thought. Anything that irks you or you think could or should be changed or improved, let me know so I can make it better! Thankies to all and enjoy.

Life Drawing Dump!

2009-07-23T15:16:00.001-07:00

Hey everyone! Thanks for being patient as I fix my post issues. I can now present all of my life drawing pieces in a much more convenient way. To start off, here are all the clothed pieces. I HOPE these don't overtly offend anyone :P Please excuse the stitched scans. I had large drawings and a small scanner to work with.

These were all done with participants from the class, but also many from my professor.

Decent Posture

Cold Shoulder

Aging Process (I think I made her look older than she actually is)

Recline at the Office

Fathead (Her head came out fat...not an insult, I swear!)

Laying on the Ceiling

And now the part we've all been waiting for! The nude models. I've broken these up into the separate models, male and female, and, as was requested by my poll, they are links rather than full images. So, if you are offended by nudity of any kind:
A) Don't click these links
and
B) Don't subsequently complain to me about offensive content :P

These are done largely in charcoal sticks, though some are charcoal pencils. The male model came first and all images are in chronological order, so you can see how I improve. I appreciate all input and criticism!

Male Model:

Pouting
Invisible Chair
Support Yourself
Enough Already
Uncomfortable Chair
Chillaxing Out
Sleeping on the Job

Female Model:

Ironically Bashful
Deep Pondering
Elbow Pillow
Not Listening
Reconnection
Cloud Watching
Everything but the Prada

Catchin up

2009-06-23T20:32:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

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

2009-05-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-28T14:50:00.001-07:00

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:

2009-04-02T15:53:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-20T15:25:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-15T16:04:00.000-07:00

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. :)

Neeko

2009-03-14T14:31:00.000-07:00

For the past couple of months I've been participating in a club at school called the GDO. The purpose of the group is to get together, spend some time playing games, watching movies, and working on production projects to build our portfolios and work on our skills. So far we've been working on a project called Neeko. (or Eeco or something, nobody's really committed to any one name)

I've been working on this model for the student film for the last week. I was given some concept art and now that I've pretty much got the model done, I've passed it on to another team member for rigging and animation. As this project moves along, I'll post what I make, but not what others make. This is, after all, a blog for MY work! (I'm not egocentric, I swear!)

Perhaps when the final product is complete I'll post a link or post the movie, but for the time being, I'd rather not post anyone's work but my own.

Enjoy!

Original Sketch: RobotBug

P.S. Clickie for ze BIG view

Chef Sammich

2009-03-05T20:13:00.000-08:00

Here's something a bit more light-hearted to offset the blood and gore in my last post. Naturally, I'll be taxing the rich among you to pay for this offset so that all the illegal immigrants can enjoy broadband internet wherever they live.

Don't be racist, dude. That's just so square, man.

Anywho, this is the final animation for my final for my flash animation class. Animation. Final. I took 2 and a half hours to get this put together, though I did come up with the idea last week, so not ALL of the work was done that quickly. Be kind with the quality, since I did it so fast, and enjoy!

Note: if you want to see it again, you'll have to reload the page. It's set to stop playing at the end.

SOS!

2009-03-04T21:02:00.001-08:00

Here's one little piece I threw together along with it's own stamp version.

There are two possibilities for why this one popped into my head and got done so quickly:
1. I'm in dire need of a vacation (which I am)
2. I've been listening to WAY too much talk radio

Probably a combination of the two. Anyway. Enjoy

And apologies to Elicia and Dianna for not having their commissions done. I have a perfectly legitimate reason for not having Elicia's car, AKA it's really HARD, but Dianna's shouldn't be taking this long. My only defense is that I'm in the "finals" period at school and haven't had much time or motivation to do any extra-curricular work. BUT it won't take me too long.

Boto Zbrush

2009-02-23T14:49:00.000-08:00

Hey all, finally have something to show. First off, I've got my latest project from photoshop class. And secondly, I have something from a program I got just yesterday and am very excited about.

Here's the first:

For this project we were told to find a fairy tale of some kind and create a photoshop image illustrating the tale or a scene from that tale. After searching around for something good, I asked my friend if she knew any fairy tales and the best she could do was refer me to a Brazilian legend about Boto. These Boto are actually a kind of dolphin that were said to live in the rivers of Brazil in this legend and at night they transform into men and go clubbing trying to seduce women. I found the concept so amusing that I had to go with it. The result is my Boto Bond piece above. Enjoy and critique please!

Second:

This is the first experimental product of my fooling around with a program I've known about for a while but just barely got excited about. Zbrush is used by so many professional studios that it makes my artistic mouth drool. I attended a 5+ hour demonstration at a high school half an hour from here at the behest of one of my friends from school, and I have to say it was totally, totally worth it. Two artists from ID Software and one freelancer currently working on Iron Man 2 came to show us a few things about the program. (ID gamers might be glad to know that Doom 4 is in production)

After watching these guys work with this program I knew I had to get my hands on it. It's more of a digital clay sculpting program than it is a 3D modeling program as I understand it, and it's just fun. I got it at it's whopping 40 meg size and started messing around with it. It's quite a lot of fun, even though I don't know what I'm doing and using a tablet is still weird to me. I intend to keep learning this program and creating some fun models for my own amusement and eventually actually paying for the program. (whistles)

As always, enjoy and critique!

FLASH! (ah-ah)....

2009-02-06T19:28:00.000-08:00

...and some other things

I've got a couple of flash pieces to present today. Then I have a photoshop piece! Let's get started:

The first flash item was our first major project for my flash class. It's a frame-by-frame animation of...well, a guy hitting a baseball. Bonus points to whoever can see one of the big mistakes I made! Whoever wins gets.....something. Maybe a request?

The second piece is a flash game I'm trying to get developed. It's a simple "maze" generator right now, but I hope to get it into a fully functional game with all the bells and whistles. Options, decent graphics, and hopefully a little fun. For now, enjoy the mastery of what only I understand! (/snobby joke)

Finally, I worked on a rock band poster for the band "The Raygunomics". The lead singer of the local cover band is an alumni of Westwood, so he commissioned my class to whip up some gig posters for his group. Mine will be used for the gig described down in Colorado Springs. It might be used as posters or just web content, I'm not sure. Either way, it makes for a nice portfolio piece. Everyone please enjoy and critique!

Mood by Color: The Old Sawmill

2009-01-16T21:35:00.000-08:00

This was basically the last project we did in my Color Theory class. I had to wait over the christmas break for them to be graded before I could scan them in and post. But here they are! I'm very proud of them.

(click for larger version)

The assignment was to pick a nice little scene, trace it TWICE, then color the two pictures so that each portrayed a particular mood. Twas an exercise in color use and mood control. Obviously, you know which pic is what mood......right?

Anyway, enjoy!

Warning: Violence

2009-01-11T16:37:00.001-08:00

I've been working to get some kind of product to show lately. None of my projects are holding much interest to me of late, so I don't have much to show. But I did do a simple photoshop project with a slightly violent theme.

I call this "My Projects Hate Me."

And I want to know your opinion on something. Would you consider this "Po-Mo"?

Bors the Robot

2008-12-31T18:25:00.000-08:00

Hey all, since school is going to start again soon and one of my main classes will be Introduction to Photoshop, I thought it would be a good idea to practice a bit. I don't know that much about real ART in photoshop, but I've used it before and picked up a few points that help. So I thought I'd start with some coloring. I went and found a pencil sketching of a robot online and used that as my reference.

I got this sketch from a guy named Jeff Bell. I didn't think I'd do very well, but I liked the results so much that I contacted him and got his permission to post it on a couple sites. If you're looking at this, Jeff, leave a comment and let me know what you think!

Same goes for everyone else. I'd like all the criticism you can come up with to help me improve. And while you're at it, go and support Jeff by checking out his site and work.

Jeff's Site
Original Sketch

Class Project

2008-12-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

Finally, we got this thing scanned and assembled. Well, actually, -I- scanned it and assembled it. Oh well, I had fun putting it together. (Many thanks to Dad for showing me how to manipulate layer opacities that one time)

This is a class project from Color Theory. We voted on the image, cut it into strips, then made them bigger and each took a strip and recreated it as you see it here. I had a lot of fun with it and I like the end result.

I did the blue strip. Worked with the people above and below me to make sure all the lines lined up. :)

Enjoy! Click for a monstrous size.

AC Cobra Daytona Coupe

2008-12-10T15:02:00.000-08:00

Well, here's that inevitable piece that every 3D artist simply has to do or they can't call themselves 3D artists! The car. Yup, I finally got around to modeling a car for the first time, and I'm pretty pleased with how well it came out. The body work isn't that smooth, but I can learn how to do it better later on. For now, I'm pretty pleased with it.

Enjoy!

Update, walkthrough, and future projects

2008-12-08T21:36:00.000-08:00

Okay, so this post isn't about any new piece I've done, but just a little bit about what's going on, what the self-portrait is all about, and what I have in the works.

First off, school is going good. I have hardly any time to breathe, let alone sleep or do my own projects, but getting the education in is still worth it to me. I just passed the year mark for at ASF, and I am now collecting vacation time each paycheck! Woot! Aside from that, life proceeds as normal. My current term at school will end in another couple weeks (next week, maybe, I think) and I won't have to go back until I believe the second week of January, so I'll have a nice break from things.

For my future projects I've got a bunch of things that will most likely not ever be finished, but I still have high hopes for. For instance, I'm still working on my robot legs and motorcycle, though both have kind of come to a standstill. I've also started a car model which is progressing better than expected but is already losing steam. I've also got a stamp idea that I really want to make. It will be hilarious if I get it done. Aside from that, the chopin music video is still sitting on the shelf for the moment, but hasn't been forgotten. I just haven't had the time to work on it at all, and I'm still wondering what the other musical elements will be in my scene.

And that, my friends, is what I'm working on!

Now, to the meat of the subject. An explanation of just what I was thinking when I drew my self portrait. I had the first general scene idea when my professor presented the project. It evolved quite a bit from it's conception, but I still crammed as much information as I could into it. SO. Let's begin in the back, shall we? Many of the symbols work together, so bare with me while I try to get them all.

First, the giant chess pieces. These serve two purposes. Obviously, one is that I like chess. It's one of my favorite board games, though there's hardly ever anyone around who wants to play. Secondly, I used them to reinforce the idea of my way of thinking. I think logically, as you can probably tell, and the chess pieces work with the gears you can see in the floor to put forth that idea. Gears and chess seem to me to both be pretty logical, wouldn't you say?

(side note: those gears are under glass. Did I get that across in the illustration?)

Aside from the above symbolism, the gears don't serve any other purpose.

The books on the lower left should be pretty obvious. I like to read. So...I put lots of books there.

On the right hand side, the blue thing is the logo for the 3D modeling program I use. Cinema 4D. Just kinda laid it on the floor like that to keep the perspective, and drew the blue lines to reinforce the idea of 3D. That's there as a sight of my hobby.

Now, moving on to the figure in the middle. First off, he (I never intended the figure to actually be me) is sitting on a swivel chair, holding a keyboard. Both work to convey the obvious fact that I love computers. (we'll get to the....decals later) The hair choice was deliberate, and Elicia got this right, to a point, that Sweeney Todd is one of my favorite movies and characters. Not really a "I want to be" kind of deal, just a symbol of a "like". The hair coincides with the clown mask. The clown mask shows, not that I hide behind humor, but that humor protects me. Think of it like a hockey mask. When things get stressful and insane, I try and use my humor to maintain my sanity. The coloring of the mask is better suited for a frowning clown mask rather than a smiling one, which helps reinforce the idea of my innate sarcasm. The mask, along with the hair also portrays my black humor. I've found that a lot of people don't appreciate black humor, but I enjoy it quite a lot, and Sweeney Todd is all about black humor.

Lower down, you have his white shirt. The kind and color of the shirt aren't symbolically important. The white shirt, however, is in stark contrast to the black background, which serves to make the figure pop off the page and also draws the viewer's eyes to it. Not only that, but it's mostly positioned right in the center of the page, which also serves to draw focus there. The blood seeping through the shirt was kind of a silly addition I decided on. I was thinking a Pink Floyd "Bleeding hearts and artists" kind of analogy. An artist should have a bleeding heart, should he not?

The jeans are similarly not important in and of themselves, but I guess they do show my difficulty in finding good-fitting pants. That was an unintended symbol, I guess. The shoes, on the other hand, do have significance. They are rough recreations of the sneakers I wear currently, but I tried to make them worn and dirty. I don't think I got the worn part very well, but they do have a brown tinge to them at the bottom, don't they? They symbolize how I enjoy hiking, especially where the dust is brown, red, and deserty. Moab, specifically, was on my mind when I did that.

Now, the shield the figure is holding has it's own significance to it. I decided to portray how I've learned to shield myself from others, not so much as the recluse that I am, but just being able to ward off what people say about me. Kind of like having thick skin, but drawing thick skin is kinda hard. A shield worked just fine. Not only that, but I also tried to make it worn and broken in places, showing that I HAVE had to use it. Most people have, you see, but I included it for myself.

And, finally, the blood on the keyboard shows that typing, writing, things like that, are my weapon of choice when fighting back. Granted, this doesn't always work well, and people DO get hurt, some of which don't deserve it, but nevertheless, that's how it works.

There you have it! I don't think I missed anything, did I?

Windmill and Self Portrait

2008-12-05T13:29:00.001-08:00

I've got a couple new pieces from school today. They are both very color related, naturally, so let's get to it!

Here we have a windmill scene done in an analogous color scheme. Which means three colors in a row on the color wheel.

Here is our psychological self-portrait piece! Woo! This was a ton of fun to make. Let's have a little friendly competition and see who can name and explain more symbols? Something like that? :)

Oh, and I'd also like to draw your attention to the newest feature on my sidebar. Dianna suggested I make some kind of progression post for my Chopin project. It gave me the idea to put the videos somewhere accessible without constantly posting videos that have only tiny changes. So instead of posts, new links will appear on that list. Keep an eye on it!

Chopin 0.3

2008-12-02T21:27:00.000-08:00

I made a little bit more progress on my chopin music video. I'm trying to get all the elements put together before I tackle the rest of the animation. In this version I'm posting I made two important changes. First, the crystals give off their own light, and I also added the bass element to the scene.

Enjoy and critique plz. Kthxbai.

UPDATE 0.3:
I've made a couple minor changes on the video. This time around I've centered the crystals on the platform (they were hanging in the air ABOVE the platform before) and tweaked the lighting effects to make a more realistic look. I've actually got the lights casting shadows now. Also, I improved the timing of the bass object. Next version will include some kind of object for the electronica sound you can hear.

Other Incompletes

2008-11-29T17:03:00.001-08:00

Here are a couple of other projects I've just started on, and hope to finish later. I can't guarantee when of IF they'll be finished, but I have high hopes for both. Presented here for your enjoyment and criticism.

Front wheel to some kind of motorcycle. Ran into a snag making the bodywork. We'll see.

Robot legs from a blueprint I pulled off the internet. There isn't much of a body shown on the blueprints, so there might be some personal innovation. We'll see. :)

Enjoy all!

Chopin Sneak Peek

2008-11-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

I went back and tried to do this project again after meeting with no success every time I tried it on my mini. Now, with my hackintosh, it seems to be working alright. Here's a quick preview of my little music video animation that I've been wanting to do for a while now.

Enjoy and critique, please! :)

Brass Hourglass

2008-11-26T04:49:00.000-08:00

Here's another older project that I had set aside and forgotten about. I was going to use this to build a scene to showcase another object, but ultimately scrapped the idea and did a different scene. I kept the hourglass though for future use. Here it is for all to see and enjoy. :)

Old Model

2008-11-22T18:46:00.000-08:00

Here's an old project that I had forgotten about for a long time. I was holding onto it, hoping to do something special with it, but that just fell through. So I put it away and didn't think about it until today. I was browsing through un-finished projects, and this came up. And now I present it for all your criticism!

Enjoy :)

Icarus 2 and Other

2008-11-02T18:05:00.001-08:00

Finally, I've got some other things to post. Took me a while to get these other pieces scanned, but now that I can use the scanner at work, it won't be quite as difficult. As always, click to view the larger version. And Enjoy.

Finally, the second Icarus poster. I'm pretty pleased with how this one came out. It is staged inside a large cavern overlooking a mining camp. Featuring Ziti, of course. :)

My first project for Color Theory. Most projects in Color Theory involve different kinds of color schemes. This image is not mine. I traced it from a photograph I found online. The color scheme here is Triadic, which is three colors on the color wheel, either Primary or Secondary colors.

The second project. This one has a complimentary color scheme. Colors on opposite sides of the color wheel. Again, the image is not mine.

Creatures

2008-10-17T05:17:00.000-07:00

Hello all. I know I said I'd have the second Icarus poster up LAST week, but the prof. held our portfolios for grading. I have it with me now, and I just need to get it somewhere I can scan it so I can post it. The new term has begun, and I'm taking another 3 classes: Color theory, College writing, and Personal Relations. The latter 2 are general ed classes and mostly throw-aways if you ask me. Color Theory is going to be a lot of fun though, I can tell. Will have stuff to post for you soon.

In the meantime, I've been playing around with Spore. The Spore creature creator, to be precise. It's a lot of fun to go and create your own creatures and have them automatically come to life! Here are a couple of vids for you.

First, Bill and Bob. It looked to me like there were two creatures, one attached to the other, so I called them...Bill and Bob!

The second I made especially for those in the know. :P I call him Bumpy.

Icarus 1

2008-10-04T13:08:00.001-07:00

Finally, something to post! I finished up with the first poster of two we're doing for our last project in art class. The second is all penciled in and ready to be colored, and I'll have that ready to post next week.

Enjoy, and please critique to your heart's content. :D

(click to enlarge)

Pictured here is a poster of a game idea I came up with for this project. The game name is Icarus, named after the first inter-solar colony ship of humanity. This colony ship, built and sent as a global effort to show off man's colonial prowess, was sent to Alpha Centurai. On arriving, an Alien Slave race took the colonists into custody so that they could do the "Keeper's" manual labor. The game takes place 30 years later. The character portrayed on the poster and the main protagonist is the player's character. Her name is Ziti, and she works as a scout for the mining operations taking place. She is used to treacherous terrain, close quarters, and working alone. In her free time she works for the Human Resistance Group.

As part of the Alien's attempt to maintain their control and avoid any kind of resistance, they bolted shut the mouths of all human beings and the offspring thereof.

Update

2008-09-26T16:50:00.000-07:00

My blog has been quiet for a while, hasn't it? Well, this post is to let you all know that I haven't posted anything recently because I'm working on my class's final big project, and it's taking some time. I've got to draw and color two posters for a game idea I came up with, and I've still got two weeks to work on them. Until those are done, I doubt there will be any other posts to make.

But just so everyone doesn't stop reading just because they think I died or something, rest assured I'm very proud of the posters thus far. ;)

Pumpkin Dinners, and Parallel Dimensions

2008-09-13T12:48:00.000-07:00

Time for another update on College work. The education scene is going smoothly thus far, and I have a few new pieces to present.

So let's get right down to it, shall we?

The first is our first project using markers and colored pencils together to color a piece. We got two objects that had complimentary colors and put them in a still life scene, drew them, then colored them. I found that halfway through the project, I was slapping on colored pencils with abandon, not really worried what the final outcome would look like, and my professor claims that the more colors that are present, the richer the color is. So I guess my recklessness payed off.

Next, I revisited my Age inking you've seen before and did a little preparatory project. This time around, we used various shades of gray markers to map out the shading and shadow casting of our cities. I found that it was pretty intuitive once you've picked out where the light source is. That may be a side effect of having done 3D modeling in the past. In any case, this was very helpful to look at when I was actually doing the big project...

Here it is, the big project! A full colored and shaded version of my Age inking. I decided that the best kind of light source for a Myst-ish scene would be sunset, and I used my old Shizukeza piece as reference for the colors. It was very helpful. I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get the water to look like WATER, but I think it at least is distinct from the sky.

Anyway, please enjoy, critique, and discuss. :D

Repost and New

2008-09-06T10:38:00.001-07:00

Sorry to all for the lack of updates here. I haven't gotten very much artwork done the past week or so, as I've been swamped with classes and work and stuff.

I finally got around to getting real digital scans of all my work thus far, so I'm reposting the new scans here. The quality is a lot better, and they are a bit darker than the previous pictures I took. Also, I'm including in this post my latest project, which will be featured at the end of the post.

Short descriptions will follow each image.

Enjoy!

My first project in College. A simple still life of a few fruit with a single light source. Not bad for a first project, but there's still plenty to learn.

The second still life, this one with a few random art supplies. This one came out slightly better than the last. Even so, the shadows don't play in a very interesting way. Even so, the end result isn't bad, if I do say so myself.

Our first project with real criteria. Something reflective, something transparent, something that was once living, and a time piece. I bet you can all guess which is which, eh? :P

The first project we had with a human face. I found an image on DeviantArt that I just couldn't pass up, the expression was priceless. Please follow the link to see the original shot so that the original artist gets their due credit. Tomas Mckeon

My latest work. We have been spending the last week and a half in class working on 2 point perspective drawing. We were required to find some reference images and create a perspective image of a city. I chose a very Myst-ish theme, though I had to include modern building because there is NOTHING in and of the Myst games that have straight lines. I included a couple trademark building from the series anyway. What you see is an island rising up out of the water on natural pillars. Those weird lines that don't seem to go anywhere are where the island meets the water. I will later be coloring this as part of another project later on, so it will be improved.

Face Proj

2008-08-20T19:26:00.000-07:00

Here's the product of this week's work. We started out by getting an image of an interesting face and translate it from the photo to the paper. It was an exercise of human faces and shading. I'm pretty proud of this!

I got the resource image from a fellow deviant on DeviantArt. If you like, you can see the original image here: Tomas Mckeon

Last of the Week

2008-08-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

I've just got done with the last drawing class I have this week. We did a couple more still lifes, and next week it sounds like we'll be doing some drawings of faces. This will become the common practice as long as I have art classes. I may have to work something special out for some of my later classes. Later I'll have a life drawing class which will include nude models, so it may not be the most appropriate work to post. :P

But anyway, here are the still lifes.

Tuesday, August 12 2008

Wednesday, August 13 2008

School

2008-08-12T15:20:00.000-07:00

I guess I might not have been very clear here on what's up with me and school. So here you are.

I'm attending Westwood College near here for evening classes Monday through Thursday. It makes getting enough sleep near impossible, but I'm getting enough to function, and I can catch up on Friday or over the weekend.

I'm enrolled in Westwood's Game Art and Design program, so there are a lot of art classes ahead of me. Westwood is on a term schedule, which translates to 10 weeks of the same classes then a small break. Then the next term begins. After completing 15 terms, I will receive my Bachelor's in Computer Science. Roughly, that translates to 4 years, but there isn't such a thing as summer vacation. There will be some breaks for holidays, I'm sure, but no annual, long break. That's okay with me, really.

I'm taking three classes this term. The first and major class is Introduction to Drawing, which is 4 hours each night Monday through Wednesday. It's a fun class so far. We've begun still life drawings, which is what I'm presenting today. I apologize for the odd coloring, but I could only use a camera to take this and the flash reflected off some of the graphite.

The other two classes are Computer Application and Success Strategies. They both take up 2 hours on Thursday, and they are both generic classes that pretty much everyone takes. I predict that they won't be a problem, as what they're teaching is all the basics on organization and using the computer.

New Stuffs

2008-08-08T21:27:00.000-07:00

I've got a few things to present this time around!

But first, news. I started my college courses on Wednesday, August 6, and it's going to be fun. I'll be up late and waking up early, but I've got a drawing class and a couple of more basic classes, so I'm excited to seeing what will happen.

Now, to the artwork.

First, this was something of a change for me. It looks generic, but I worked on making the cage-thing with just the basic tools. I could explain, but I'm the only one who would understand what I would say. :P

The next was a favor project for a friend of mine. She's something of a HUGE Xiaolin Showdown fan. That's some animated series on TV. I've never seen it. But she sent me an image of these coins, and they looked like they'd be fun to make. Thus, here they are!

And finally, another request from my friend. In a fit of late-night foolery, she suggested I make a corndog. So I did! Enjoy this one....look tasty, I think.

And to round it off, a stamp. This was from an online discussion with my girlfriend as she was describing a class she had at school. It involved a lot of >> and <<, so I just had to make a stamp that highlighted the little smilies. Enjoy.

Cathedral Lights

2008-08-03T08:22:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post about the only thing I've made since the LAST post. This took me forever and it made my computer cry alot. I want to use it in something else, some REAL scene, but my computer simply can't handle it for some inexplicable reason. Just need an upgrade.

Click for larger image. It's dark, I know.

More work

2008-07-21T19:36:00.001-07:00

Alright, here we go again. Some real modeling and some stamps. Lets get to it!

First, the modeling work:

Here we have just a little side project I took up to make something weird, but interesting. I think I accomplished that!

Those of you who have played Bungie's old Myth game will recognize this. This is called The Tain. In the game, this is used as a weapon to trap your foes inside of it. The player is trapped in it and has to find their way out.

Now for the Stamps:

Sorry everyone. Inside joke! But I still think the penguins are cute. One for me and one for her, obviously.

I listened to Weird Al's Your Horoscope for Today song, and had to make some stamps for it! Didn't do them all. Did one for myself and one for Blue.

Enjoy!

I'd play....swords!

2008-07-19T07:48:00.000-07:00

Some new stuff here. First off, I'd like to display a work in progress. This sword model I have here isn't complete yet. I'm getting some help from a friend with some little designs and detailing for it, so this is just what we have so far.

And then this pair of stamps

I made these for my friend and I. We're both Sweeney Todd fans, obviously. She'd play Lovett, I Todd.

TOO MANY STAMPS!

2008-07-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Oh, and one actual modeling bit.

First, let's touch on the actual modeling. It was meant to be another Marathon translation, but I personally don't like it much. It just didn't turn out. If I choose to redo it, it will be from scratch.

Now, for the myriad of stamps I've been making lately. I'll give little explanations for each, so be sure to scroll for the entire post.

On DA, they have a comment feature (much like the one here on blogspot) where anyone with a DA account can leave a comment. I can hide any comments on my page that I feel NEED to be hidden. This stamp addresses this, of course.

This was a favor for my good friend Blue. She has a friend on DA who gets a lot of flak from viewers who claim that the Anime she draws isn't art. (Bologna)

A pair of stamps created in response to a discussion I had with a friend. Since many people on DA use stamps in their journals and whatnot within the site, it was only appropriate to make one for each gender.

One of my friends, Jeshi, is so absolutely adorable and also absolutely insane. To most anything, she will respond, "Don't worry, I'm a doctor." This stamp is for her.

I made this one because.....they do....and I don't.

This is my latest work, and sprouted from another stamp on DA which read "I support beating you with a stick". This popped into my head rather quickly after reading that.

Stamps and Drones and Trees, oh my!

2008-07-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Here are a few things I made recently. None are that ground-breaking, but they are all slightly entertaining.

First, my recent Growth Test animation. It's just a quick little thing where a tree grows. The tree is kinda interesting, but doesn't really look like a tree. Still, I find it fun.

Next is another piece featuring my drone model. What's unique about this piece is that the wall behind it is directly from the Marathon Aleph One Texture Enhancement pack. (Say THAT five times fast). It works very well in the Cinema4D universe, and may see some extra use in other projects.

Finally, a little background info. On DeviantArt, there's an entire section devoted to Stamps. They're just little animated or stationary gif's that people use to convey messages, express appreciation for other's works, etc. I looked, and there were very few stamps devoted to the cute Kiwi! animation, so I decided to make one of my own.

You can view the original animation here: Kiwi!

Marathon Infinity: Drone

2008-06-19T18:54:00.000-07:00

I feel like I'm beginning to get a hold on this modeling business. The secret is having the polygons fit to the form of the object rather than making a grid like pattern across it. None of you understand what I just said, but that's okay.

This is my rendition of the Drone character from the old Marathon Infinity game by Bungie. This was simultaneously one of the most annoying and helpful characters in the game, as you would fight with and against swarms of them.

Anyway, enjoy. As always, click to enlarge.

A banner like image showing all sides of the Drone

A closer look at the front.

Clockwork

2008-06-11T19:57:00.000-07:00

Another post! I sat down and really wanted to make something, but I wasn't sure what I was going to make. Whenever that happens, I just start throwing stuff together to see if something cool comes out of it. After a little bit, I had something that was interesting, but wasn't actually anyTHING.

But it occurred to me that it would make a cool clock. So I just made the rest of the clock, mounted it on a wall, and added Global Illumination.

As always, click to enlarge, and download it if you like. It makes a decent wallpaper.

Dancing Bear

2008-06-11T16:17:00.000-07:00

I looked through all my posts and I realized I had never posted my Dancing Bear animation. I don't know who has seen this, but if you haven't seen it, enjoy, and if you have, watch it again. It's pretty good for a laugh.

This was what I worked on for my Senior Project 2007. It took me more than 16 hours and some correspondence with my mentor, an art supervisor for a local game-designing company here in CO. This was the first time I had modeled anything organic and animate it as well. The animations themselves are very......bad. Even so, it's entertaining, and always remember that it was made by an amateur.

enjoy. :)

Sais

2008-06-03T05:13:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine requested that I model her a pair of Sai weapons a long time ago. It's only been recently that I've actually gotten around to it. It was fairly simple to model, and though it's definitely not perfect, the results are acceptably realistic.

Heres the first image:

After I posted this, I went through my friend's DeviantArt gallery and realized that she had actually requested Sais that were DOUBLE-EDGED. So, I had to jump back on C4D and fix it.

And here's the second image:

Comic: Page 6

2008-05-31T12:03:00.001-07:00

Finally, something new to post about. I remembered my comic and realized I hadn't made any new pages for a while, so here you go.

Enjoy. :)

Other Pages:
[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

New Page Addition

2008-05-18T09:09:00.001-07:00

I added a chat feature to my blog. You should see it hanging on the bottom right corner of your screen. As far as I've been able to tell, it works. It's linked directly to my IM client program, so if I'm sitting at the computer, logged into my account, you'll be able to chat with me through my blog. Nifty, no?

However, you'll have to identify yourself if you choose to chat with me. Chat contacts that come through that feature show up with names like (webuser20139) or some other weird thing.

However, it looks like I can add aliases to people as I find out who they are. No guarantees if this will work ALL the time, but we'll give it a shot. :)

This feature was gotten through hab.la, and it's a free service that works with a few different programs, though I don't know for sure if there is any good windows support.

Enjoy this new feature. :)

For Melanie

2008-05-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

I was going to text you to wish you a happy birthday, but I kinda figured that I should TRY to stay on your good side.

So, I whipped this simple birthday card up for you. I hope you enjoy and have a great birth anniversary. :)

(Click for larger image)

I feel accomplished

2008-04-21T22:05:00.001-07:00

I actually kinda like how this one came out. I figured I had better start practicing my modeling skills, so I tried my hand again at modeling a face.

enjoy. :)

Update: Because you might have been curious and because I got a specific question asked of me, here are the reference images for my head. I found this on a photo-reference site. I plan on trying and animating the head to sing a Fatboy slim song, so I thought this one was appropriate. :)