05/11-13/2012

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit, my past 2 days have been literally entirely consumed by Breaking Bad. I will go on a rant about this show in my next post because I have a lot to say, just such a good show.
I did however manage to participate in the Friday midnight challenge hosted by some friends of mine with the prompt "Barbarian PinUp". It was an hour long and I totally froze and mine sucked. I have therefore decided to make it a finished piece and work through it. Here's a WIP

Edit May 12: I worked on it a little today:

Edit May 13: Alright, I'm calling it a day early cos I'm gonna go chill with homies but I worked on it a bit today. Dicked around with some color too, definitely not what the final will look like haha...

Edit May 17: finished! (for now) I might go back and add a bg/color eventually.

make sure to full view! 

May 09

portrait of my buddy Jackson

study from a photo in a book about Norway. I was mostly interested in the red halo that appeared on the horizon...

May 08 Self Portrait

self portrait from life, with shitty artificial lighting from pretty much my computer screen, though thats no excuse, I shoulda set it up better! anyways ~2 hours

05/06-07/12

Rose!

...based on an awesome pinup by Gil Elvgren

Still Life

I love my classmates because they keep me very motivated. We did this still life based on a photo Adele took. I dunno if working from a photo defeats the point of a still life but the photo actually had lovely colors, especially the shadows, where I spent the majority of my time. Seriously, such lovely blues! The photo looked like a painting. On the real this was extremely hard, partially because I had two espresso shots and my hands were shaking. Anyway, this is all I could muster in 5-6 hours

Without further ado, yada yada

My Top 20 Images (05/04/2012)

Left to Right, Top to Bottom:

Alex Beck, Ashley Wood, Vasili Zorin, Jeremy Enecio, Andrew Theophilopoulos, Milan Nenezic

Chris Rahn, Francesco Giroldini, Taylor Clutter, Kev Walker, Nicolas Delort

Vitaliy Shushko, Frank Stockom, Nicolas Delort

Tom Scholes, Paul Lacolley, Eric Fortune, Joao Ruas, Phil Hale, Massimo Carnevale

Jeez, these took a long time to get together. Anyway, this is a very current but also very changeable compilation of some of my favorite images anywhere. They are based purely on taste, not my attempt to say what is the best, but rather what I like the best.

What I've discovered while doing this is the strong influence I've had from my illustration friends and the artists they've showed me. This is definitely not what my top 20 would have looked like a year ago, when figurative work and color did not figure highly in my interests. I'm sure this will change countless times by next year, but I can see some of these sticking. 

While some may say that it's shortsighted to include work by my classmates, I counter by saying that knowing those people has created a stronger connection to their work for me since I can relate with their process. Plus, a good image is a good image.

Everybody's Doing It

Well, everyone is trying to keep busy so I've no excuse to be lazy. My first lil study of the summer (30 min), based on a cool photo I found in one of my parents' books on Austalia. This hunter straight owned a turkey, but in my painting it looks like a bald eagle so it's even more epic.

Also in the book I found a photo of a dingo that Therese Nielsen straight up copied for the magic card "Wild Dogs". Was it Einstein that said that the best artists were those that were the best at hiding their sources? ;P

I did this quick one of Wrath but I'm getting bored of rendering it so here it is, half done (literally)

some end of the year stuff

3D Design Final: 

Balthazaar, Mischievous Prince of Dreams

Drawing II Final: Trojan Horse

I'm calling it done because honestly there's too much wrong with it and I need to move on/sleep.

Figure II Final: Animal Character

I'm a professional at colored pencil obviously (read: sarcasm)

Traditional Animation: Character Walk

When its midnight and your animation is due tomorrow...not bad for 3 hours of work?

I'll loop this later ^

Turtle Love

this is what goes down at Jungle Gardens...

 Betz said the drawings were too far apart to be a sequence so I did this one too, the PG version...

d'aww

Influence Map

ZOOM IN!

So I had a little down time today and I thought I'd take a crack at making one of these, as I have seen many artists do. It is very heavily weighted towards my past influences, a look into my roots. 

I realized that most of my exposure to art as a kid was French comics: Asterix & Obelisk, Lucky Luke, Tintin, Blake & Mortimer, the Smurfs, Gaston Lagaffe, and while I loved the stories, their styles never bled into my artwork. As it turns out, these artists which I grew to dismiss as infantile during my manga-filled teenage years are actually masters of drawing, showcasing unparalleled linework, stylization and clarity of expression (especially Asterix).

I would also like to give a shoutout to Frank Frazetta, Mike Mignola, and Moebius, whom I was emulating and admiring without knowing they existed (again, no exposure to these artists until recently). Had I known of them earlier, they would undoubtedly be on this map. Seeing their work would have greatly helped me a few years ago when I was obsessed with ripped warriors, strong graphic light and shadow shapes, and obnoxious levels of detail. Others who barely missed the cut include Phil Hale, Barth, Ashley Wood, Jamie Hewlett, Wayne Reynolds, Jim Murray, and Luke Mancini. I'm sure I'm leaving out a bunch too...

I also draw a fine line between Inspiration and Influence, as my breadth of inspirations is much much wider (in fact it is a common problem I have that I am interested in almost everything I see). I feel like these best represent artists who have transformed the art I make significantly.

Woo, sorry about the long post. Who are some of your inspirations/influences? :)

Bandito the Raccoon

My epic effort this semester.

Traditional Animation 1

Animal Jump

Special Thanks to Yoav for story help, Charlie for motivation, Adele for original inspiration, Ivan for his critical eye, Dominic for letting me do this, MJ for not breaking up with me when I was going to the labs till 4 every night, and so many more people who kept me going throughout this project.

I'll try to post an in-depth "making of" (background painting, studies, animation tests, etc) this summer, 

but for now, enjoy, and tell me what you think :)

(also, I misspelled Raccoon in the title screen and I'm not changing it <3)