The Zirngiblog

Star Wars: The Old Republic (A tourist's photos)

2012-01-08T23:37:00.011-05:00

Hi,

I know I usually post my own art on my blog, but time for something a little different. I've been very inspired lately by my journeys through SWTOR, the new MMORPG by Bioware. I've taken a lot of time and effort to take these shots (even died a couple of times, haha).

I'm still relatively low leveled, and I haven't seen but a small fraction of this world. But I already have a ton of inspiring stuff. Can't wait to see what's ahead.

What's cool about this game is, while close to WoW on many levels, it's very cinematic and story-driven. I feel much more invested in my character for this reason.

But because this IS an art blog, I'm going to stick with talking about the setting and art of the game, not its other attributes. First, I think they did an EXCELLENT job on the mood and color. Both the closeups and environments have a cinematic intensity to them, with lots of warm and cool color play. (Sci-fi games are great for color, since they can take liberties in adding all kinds of unusually hued lights everywhere.) A minor color-related crit is that some of the environments could control the use of black a little better, such as on Hutta and Taris. There are areas in the middleground and background that just get too dark in my opinion. You'll see what I mean later on.

While proportions are slightly exaggerated, they are not as much so as WoW. I think that's fine - the color and the hugeness of the environments makes it "larger than life" on their own. In fact, despite WoW's giant-sequoias-on-steroids, I still get a better sense of grand scale in SWTOR. Character-wise, there's some wonky anatomy (mainly the armpits being kind of high) but the high-poly is a joy to look at in the cinematic dialog scenes and more than make up for it.

The geometry also looks good. I can tell normal maps were used pretty heavily to simulate detail on walls and ceilings especially. Greeble use in this game is huge, and rightly so! I've spent most of my time in hardsurface environments though, and of course it's easier to get better graphics in geometric places like Coruscant. I think some of the trees leave something to be desired in comparison to the city, but they're still better than in most MMO's (think WoW again).

I think the edges in SWTOR could use a little work, like some anti-aliasing, as the pixels are pretty easy to see in high contrast areas. I'm sure it's a tech issue though, because smoothing out those edges takes a ton of processing power (from my limited experience with 3D software at least). However, there's a nice light filter around edges, especially near the background, which still helps push them back. This is used to great effect in the closeups, as you'll see in the screenshots of my character.

Overall though, I find the graphics very inspiring and playing this game reinforces my interest in someday working for MMO's. I just have a big attachment to the principle of these games, in which environments are more like actual worlds than backdrops for linear play. Maybe I'm too impressed? I haven't played the latest Xbox games and hyperrealistic stuff so maybe my standards are too low. However, regardless of realism, I think illustrators will find these equally inspiring.

So, consider these photography from a traveler.

(I'll divide these screens by zone, and not necessarily in chronological order. Let's start with Coruscant, 'cuz it's awesome.)

CORUSCANT: SURFACE

What a great view - took this when I first got here.

Love these statues - sort of art deco ish (more on that soon)

More of the Senate Plaza - didn't get a view of the giant red carpeted walkway , sorry

Taxi bay

My smuggler jumps on stage and joins the dancing show.

OK, so Bioware totally ripped off the Art Deco and streamline modern of the late 1920's and early 1930's. And I LOVE THEM FOR IT. That style works so well with Scifi. The only thing I hate about it is that I was gonna design stuff like that for my own world and if I do I'mnotcopyingIswear.

What a grand room. Definitely says "Senate" to me!

The ceilings and arches - makes me think of the Met.

Even more art deco!

This is the trading center (auction house, bank, modification stations) - note the "stocks" up there. It's kind of abandoned now since people are out leveling. But I'm sure it'll end up looking like Orgrimar eventually.
Anyway I think it's interesting that they used green, despite green being absent from most of this city altogether. But I think it's safe to say that green is now the universal color of money, so it makes sense, even if subconsciously.

I absolutely love how they handled the metal material in these robot closeups. I actually think they "painted on" the reflections in some places. Also, of note, one of the ways they're separating the old republic from the Star Wars we know is through droid designs. I think it worked well.

Another one - I've always loved star wars droid faces and this doesn't dissapoint.

Just my smuggler and his crewman talking with a droid. I love how they handled its elbows and knees.

Closeup of my character (without pilot hat - was low leveled here) and his crew member behind him. He's a Mirilian Captain. (Mirilians are usually known for being spiritual and strong with the force, but this one hates the force.) His alignment is pretty much neutral, not really light or dark side, but that doesn't stop him from being a pompous jerk. His specialization is Scoundrel (sneaky) as opposed to the gunslinger. OK, enough about him, this post is supposed to be about the art...

This is an example of the cinematic lighting and realistic talking animations and expressions they have. They recorded hundreds of thousands of voices from pro actors to make this stuff happened. More than all of the Bioware games PUT TOGETHER. Impressive.

Me "driving" the shuttle taxi (maybe someday we can control them :D)

Awyeah. Of course this is the low-poly version of my character's model and not meant to be viewed up close, so the hands don't look as good as they do in the cinematic scenes.

Deeper in the Coruscant layers. I love how they used the cool colors to contrast the warms of the surface.

This makes me think of Times Square I think. Love it.

Just more art deco - notice the upper right - it appears to be a chandelier made of engine parts. Sweet.

Our characters vary their poses during the dialog cut scenes.

I finally tracked down my ship, which was stolen back in level 1! Time to leave Coruscant's surface...

...and off into the sunset.

CORUSCANT: SURFACE

The Works is the underbelly of Coruscant, closer to the planet's actual surface, and responsible for keeping everything above working. (I couldn't help but to draw parallels to Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" here.)

It's deliciously steampunk with just the right amount of advanced tech. I loved this place!

Elevators leading down to the Works.

I Love, love, LOVE the use of color here. That subtle red bounce shadow underneath that foreground pipe... mmmm....

This is another one I'm very fond of. Great counterchange.

Whoopsy... time to slowly back out of this room...

You can definitely tell they took a very modular approach to building these environments. And you know, I'm sure the same technique would be used if these were built in reality. I mean think about it, you're super far down, are you really gonna bring huge building equipment down there? No, you'll stack smaller pieces.

A fight breaking out here

Love this composition and the subtlety of the value.

Some of the tenders of the Works.

Classic.

Another subtle (but great) one.

CORUSCANT: JUSTICAR TERRITORY

The Justicars are a group of ex-military vigilantes, who drove out the Black Sun gang, but then became a gang of their own, terrorizing the squatters. There's a sinister tone to these environments, but the use of colored lights and trees add a nice touch of niceness and order... which makes it even creepier. I do think those indoor trees were a smart move on the part of the designers. That and the propaganda posters.

This is just the entrance. Big place. I think the designs of those diagonal struts are very intentional. They look like they're "leaning over" the viewer; looming.

Me in stealth. (Yeah, I'm one of THOSE classes >:-]) Anyway, I love how they added the red in here. Just helps the place look more interesting and less sterile.

Another cool and imposing shot. No matter what scene or angle I take, I seem to always have a warm and a cool light in it. Good to note! (And how much do you wanna bet the two posters (especially the one on the upper right) are based on a couple developers at Bioware?)

Players have a personal holocam and can take "incoming calls" on it for certain missions. Neat.

Another creepy shot.

I just liked the lighting and color use in this shot. (Also my character has this expression often in exchanges. He's kind of a jerk.)

CORUSCANT: Black Sun Territory

The Black Sun is one of the biggest gangs in Coruscant, making life even harder for the refugees from the city's earlier destruction. Unfortunately I didn't take enough screenshots here but here's what I have.

What's really cool about this place is that, at first it's like a cave, then BOOM you at part exposed to the surface part! A very cool area. (And yes, you can jump off, and yes, you will die. Trust me.)

I preferred the Justicar territory, but I like these lights.

Just a better view from the exposed area.

This is what alighting from a taxi looks like. It kind of "disappears" but in a cool way.

CORUSCANT: Black Sun Territory
Let's take a break and look at my other character. She's a bounty hunter (Empire Side, my smuggler's Republic). Please note that these were all taken at a super-low level. Bounty Hunger gear gets AWESOME later.

My character is one of the warlike Rattataki, and, despite her appearance and alignment to the Empire, is nicer than my smuggler and more light-side leaning.

In a Cantina.

Yeah this story totally wasn't based on Native Americans and Pilgrims, and this guy's design totally wasn't inspired by the natives... NOT.

Wow I don't think a noob ever looked this dangerous.

Another cool shot of the Cantina. Bioware really outdid themselves with these.

Here's a shot of Hutta. Polluted, degenerate, slimy - a perfect Hutt world.

I like the steam rising out of the water.

I think this was a close place to Nem'ro's.

My character confronts Nem'ro the Hutt. Is it just me or did they make Hutts bigger in this game?

Another good swamp scene. But this is an area where I think they could've toned down the black just a bit.

Another shot of my character, different light.

I think this is a cool shot.

ORD MANTELL: Surface and Spaceport

I should've taken more here, but I didn't take so many when I just started out. Also I wasn't hiding my UI and I think all that stuff spoils good screenshots.

Captain Stenrik's starting planet, Ord Mantell, torn in a war between Republic Troopers and the local Separatists.

Within a Separatist base

OK now we're in Ord Mantell's orbital spaceport. Here I am in one of the coolest elevators ever.

Spaceport - great "lived in" feel

Here's a multilevel cantina.

One of my favorite cantina shots.

Hehe, awesome - I love those species of hornplaying aliens. And these Cantinas have some great jazz.

THE ESSLES

This was a "flashpoint" (Instance/dungeon in other MMO terms). It was story-driven and really cool. I don't tend to take screenshots during combat because the UI is really slow to hide and come back on and I don't have time when fighting. But I got some cool ship core shots anyway.

On the bridge when me and another team member learn of an attack on it. The guy on the left is my jedi partner's companion. Lucky jedi. All I get is a lame human for now...

How scifi can you get? Dramatic green and red lighting around a reactor core. Such high contrast!

Ah, the core...

That's a looong drop...

Engineering bridge

NOW MY OWN SHIP

Yep, after 15 levels of chasing this scumbag who stole my ship I finally got it back (hidden compartments, oversized engines, and all). Only a couple screenshots so far.

Me at the the central area and communicator, with a newly met crewmate.

OK, what... the heck... is this head in a glass doing on my ship? Seriously. Is this a reference to something I'm forgetting?

Just me on the navigation bridge. Yeah.

Hmm, what could this random thing on my wall POSSIBLY be a reference to? Hmmmm...

TARIS: So far
This is where I currently am. Taris is a super interesting place. See, it was also a megacity planet at one point, sort of the Coruscant of the outter rim, but it was decimated by the Empire 300 years (whatever a "year" means in Star Wars, lol) ago. It's sort of a distant post-apocalyptic scene, which I personally think it more interesting than a newly post-apocalyptic scene. It also has zombie creatures that used to be sentient. The Republic is trying to rebuild it but the zombies are impeding progress. So a lone little smuggler will just go in and do what whole troops couldn't do now. That's how great I am, haha...

Anyway, artistically, I think the contrast is too high in this scene sometimes. It made it difficult to get well-composed screenshots. I guess they were trying to make it claustrophobic or something but still the space got flattened. Also there are some weird bugs with the tree foliage. Still a neat place though.

Shuttle bay on Taris. I was stopped here for looking suspicious. GTFO customs officers!

This is what I meant when I referred to using light blur (or like, light seeping over the edges) to soften characters in the cinematics.

This is Taris in a nutshell - huge daunting ruins, Republic trying to rebuild.

As I said before, the Old Republic is made unique from the New with tech design, mainly. Slightly more angular, slightly more "clunky" - I love this little guy.

Just throwing a bomb into a pipe. Weird animation here but it looks cool as an abstract picture.

I like this composition.

I love when light comes through grates or blinds in games. Cool mech too.

Many of the areas of this planet were less "open" (instead overhung by huge "floors") but those were so dark it was hard to get a good composition.

Awww, one droid repairing another, how cute!

Gotta free a crew trapped in a ship wreck. No biggie.

Just me looking awesome.

They're making a break for it while I take out the baddies...

Like this guy...

Here the infected are being treated.

Me on a speeder taxi. This is one of those scenes where there's so much dark that it's hard to make out. Maybe I'm just afraid of counterchange though. I mean it's not really bad looking so...

So wow, if you made it all this way I'm impressed. I hope you found it inspiring or at least cool. I'm going to take a bit of a break from SWTOR to get back to art stuff but I will post more as I go. If you agree or disagree with what I think about the game art and overall setting, feel free to comment!

Viktor Fullmachine

2012-01-03T19:41:00.007-05:00

This is about a character design for League of Legends. http://na.leagueoflegends.com/

I've decided to post some of the development work for both his concept and the illustration, to give people an idea of different options to show.

THE CONCEPT:

Viktor is a villain type character. This is a version of him (called a reskin, which is not a new texture but a whole new mesh based on the same rig). Fullmachine is the "evolved" version of Viktor, in which he has finally replaced his entire body with machinery.

Here is some text from the brief:

After years of perfecting his augmentations, Viktor has succeeded in fusing his soul with an efficient magical humanoid machine. He is made entirely of various metals, and no organic materials. Magic is bursting from within him, and his design is a lot more refined, while retaining the fantasy grungy feel.
Armour: Refined, yet grungy. All metal. Keep it fantasy.
Body: Made entirely of metal, with magic emanating from holes, gaps and generators (No Jacket).
Cape: Segmented metal armour, like roman scale mail.
Colour: All dark and desaturated, except for bright green magic.

So the challenge is to make it a scifi-theme, but with more of a fantasy aesthetic. So... steampunk! :D

Here are some of the first color studies for him. It was supposed to be dark and desaturated with green magic coming from within, but the client decided that wasn't the direction they wanted. Instead they wanted brighter colors and to get rid of the internal glow.

Here are the next batch: brighter options, no glow. They picked C.

Here's color option C as the final concept!

Here he is in 3D! (Please note that I did not model/texture/rig him. This was done at Brilliant Colors.) Anyway, the colors ended up being changed later on.

Finally, here's an HD video someone made of the character! It's a hoot to see him animated after staring at a static drawing for hours.

THE ILLUSTRATION:

So, the next order of business was the splash. Splash art is used to promote new characters and their skin variations on Riot's website. It's also a big part of their store. They're important because the game makes its money on these microtransactions. The left side has to be low contrast and somewhat negative space since that's where the character's info box goes.

Anyway, here's the client's brief:

This skin shows the future of Victor, where he has replaced all of his humanity with machinery. He is "complete". He should be portrayed standing grand and majestically, Lord of the machines! In the background is something almost like a throne room made of hextechnological machinery. The technology in the background should follow a similar style to what you see in his costume design, kinda chunky and heavy and not too sleek or hightech.

So again, the challenge is to create a setting that is both science fiction and fantasy at the same time.

Here's the first round of thumbnails sent to the client. We don't send 6 anymore, just 2 good ones. I tried to make him look proud, or like "Bring it on!" type of attitude. And, since he's villainous, we gotta go with the evil laugh (like in C).

They chose Thumb B.

Here are a couple studies after I got the rough approved (it basically looked like a black and white version of the top one). I was learning towards A, but Randis Albion (our art director) suggested B. That ended up being what Riot picked.

So I ran with rendering up B.

Here's my result, and what I submitted to them.

After they got my layered PSD, they ended up changing the colors to match the newly-changed colors on the model. I like the vibrancy and better contrast of lights and darks on their version, but wish I would've known about the new colors in advance. I think the colors ended up clashing with the piece as a whole (kind of every color of the rainbow in there).

So anyway, there you have it.

Bonus

Bonus: Here's a rough of Viktor Prototype, another skin variation. He's a whooole different story! (The first stage of Viktor's mechanical evolution). But I won't post since I didn't finish off that one. But at least this gives an idea of what a black and white rough looks like (the step after the thumb and before the color variations).

Lots has happened...

2011-12-29T18:09:00.002-05:00

...since the last post.
I'm still a student at TAD. Recently, the first entertainment 2D semester ended. 2 more to go!

I started a paid internship with Massive Black Shanghai (later renamed to Brilliant Colors LLC). I Just found out that ImagineFX magazine actually did publish a brief interview with me about it. One of the reasons I haven't posted any updates is because most of the work I've been doing has been NDA. All the work I've done for them so far has been for Riot Software (League of Legends). I've been doing splash illustration work for them, as well as character design (new characters and reskins). There are now several people alongside me, most other TAD students. We've had to learn to work as a group, passing different character designs and illustrations around. Also learning about working with clients and getting used to making a lot of changes... it's been a tremendous learning experience.

I'm on break from that now, and my latest endeavor is to develop my own world as a mobile adventure game, 3D navigation style through 2D images, like the old game Riven, and release a book at the same time (marketing strategy). Anyway, it's still in the planning stages. I want to have a sketch-style working prototype within the next couple of weeks, and have already gotten a good start with the pitchdoc. I'll be taking a break from art while I learn some scripting and work on some writing as well.

Also I'm catching up on TAD work I fell behind on when doing the Riot stuff, and will be posting that soon too.

In non-art news, I've just started playing Star Wars the Old Republic. So far, so awesome.

Anyway, I hope all my online friends are doing well and have their own set of exciting developments.

~Kirsten

^This is the first splash illustration I worked on for MB Shanghai (Brilliant Colors), for League of Legends (Riot).

http://na.leagueoflegends.com/

The original purpose of this illustration was to promote the re-designed Gangplank character and replace the old splash art.

I worked in it in a collaboration with Jon Neimeister (http://andantonius.deviantart.com/) and Alex Konstad (http://akonstad.deviantart.com/) under a tight deadline. Trying to be efficient with 3 people on 1 piece without "too many cooks in the kitchen" is challenging but can also be really rewarding. We all had a hand in it during all stages of the process. When you take out the lack of sleep and a few annoying client changes, it was a "blast" ^hahaha^

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

Another splash, later done for League of legends' "Snowdown" event. This is the Christmas themed skin obviously. I didn't design the reskin
It was tricky because Maokai is a complicated, sort of "messy looking" character. Also, they wanted him in a cozy christmas living room, but since LoL is a fantasy game, I had to make it look recognizable but still not modern. Log cabin seemed to work as a bridge between modern and fantasy. It had to look cozy, but also dark and creepy. I dunno, maybe it's too dark.
Anyway, if you notice the painting on the wall to the left, it's actually Riot's 2011 Christmas login screen
I did this one on my own, though I got feedback from the group, including our art director, Randis Albion.
Anyway, Riot ended up making changes to this before it actually went on the website. This is what it ended up looking like: http://riot-web-static.s3.amazonaws.com/media/snowdown_showdown/skins/Maokai_Snowdown.jpg

I prefer the original better so that's what I posted

Anyway... there's a good bit more Riot stuff where that came from!

Recent figure painting work

2011-10-05T06:12:00.005-04:00

Unfortunately, I can't share everything I'm doing at TAD. (Two of the major projects we've worked on, plus my recent internship with Massive Black Shanghai.) But I do have a great figure painging class with Jon Foster, so here's some of the stuff I've done for it so far.

First project - study of a Jon Foster sculpture. Had fun chiseling brushmarks with this.

Watercolor. Decided to add my own environment and scenario to make it more of an illustration than just a weekly homework study.

Another weekly figure assignment, and another time I decided to have fun adding a background. I discovered how to mimic some of Painter's effects in Photoshop with this one. And made it sort of an art deco theme - why not?

Based on the photography of Peter Hapak. Love his series. (I added the fish though hehe) This was a combination of mostly acrylic (base), some colored pencil, and some light oil as a finish. I'm glad I tried it!

This was done almost all in acrylic, with some oil. We used the Zorn palette (ivory black, alazirin crimson, yellow ocre, titanium white, burnt sienna, and NO blue!) My own composition but I tried to capture the spirit of Zorn's work.

Here's my acrylic master copy of Nicolai Fechin. I didn't stress over exact strokes/proportions as I did in capturing the feel, texture, and brush style. I think I learned a lot from this!

Process, featuring my monster palette knife - like, favorite tool evar!

Original painting.

30 min limited value watercolor.

60 min limited value watercolor.

Bougereau crop master copy in oil pastel. This was super-challenging because I only had black, white, and a blender - no gray oil pastels! Lots of finger smudging! I may go in and fix some areas digitally, like making it more subtle.

TAD Summer Workshop 2011 (Catching Up, pt. 5)

2011-09-10T04:16:00.006-04:00

Another thing I did this past summer was the TAD workshop! Busybusy... Anyway, it was a great experience, and brought back memories of the 2009 Illustration Academy.

It was also great to be able to meet some of my classmates (and teachers!) from the previous spring's semester in person. Though it seems like everyone in my group went to last December's workshop instead...

I didn't really go out and experience Kansas City, due to having no transportation and being busy with the workshop. But that's OK.

Anyway, the main project we had that first week was to design a new character class for Team Fortress 2. Much of it was about paying attention to silhouette, making the character unique from the others in shape, but fitting in with them well. Just like the IMC, we had so many demos and lectures going on, plus figure drawing, so it was hard to get a whole lot done. But honestly, it's more about learning than producing.

Here's what I ended up with (orthos were done later though):

I had to leave halfway through the workshop, so there were two other projects I missed, but I'll take what I can get!

Here's a totally unrelated Environment of the Week entry I worked on while there too. Definitely stuff that could be fixed on this though.

So... here are some photos!

Flooding on the way to KC. Don't remember where this is but I LOVE it.

Anita Kunz paints Michele Bachmann. Originally done for a news magazine, but you can see it here: http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/08/michele-bachmann-iowa-frontrunner

Jon Foster does a head painting demo in Painter and Photoshop. Lots of great stuff here.

Demo party: 3 for on1 (George Pratt, John English, Vanessa Lemen)

Ted Kinsella watermedia demo.

Andy Brinkman being... Andy. Haha

We really have a ton of room, the whole 6th floor of a fairly big building. Great space!

Figure Drawing

Mark English and Colin Boyer going at at.

John English, figure painting

Vanessa Lemen giving an imaginative head painting demo. Love the way that red bounce light pops it!

Ron Lemen giving an excellent rush lesson of human anatomy. He drew out a crapload of boards like this, super-fast.

George Pratt painting his entropy character in a demo.

Talking w/ class

Marshall giving an anatomy demo.

I love this face! Artists...

Me working on my character.

Boy, Kansas City looks a whole lot like it could fit right into the Team Fortress 2 world.

View from the (unsafe) fire escape outside my window. I love this ivy place. Supposedly a waterfall goes down that building when it rains, which is why it's so grown in the first place...

Jason Manley critting our TF2 characters. Was great to finally meet him!

Marshall Vandruff and Terry Brown just talking with us casually. I think we were discussing introversion/extroversion here.

Our building used these cool old industrial elevators. Here's Brent Watkinson coming up!

Terry Brown giving and American illustration history lecture.

Right before our zombie character design lecture.

Hahaha, I knew this would become a common sight...

Artists...

Awesome building ouside my hotel. Dieselpunky goodness.

At a rest area on the way back. Who knew state governments could actually have a sense of humor?

The Illustration Masterclass! (Catching Up, pt. 4)

2011-09-10T02:27:00.004-04:00

(OK, so I'm a little late to the party on this one, since this happened all the way back in mid-June... but here goes!)

I went to my first Illustration Masterclass (IMC) this summer, and I certainly hope it isn't my last. It was amazing. I got to meet and hang with some of the greatest people in the fantasy industry today. Let's just say that my Spectrum autograph collection has grown...

To save myself some work, James Gurney has an article here.

The artists included:
Ian McCaig, Donato Giancola, Greg Manchess, Dan Dos Santos, Adam Rex, Julie Bell, Boris Vallejo, Rebecca Guay, Scott Fischer, Irene Gallo (AD of Tor), Scott Allie (Comics writer, editior of Hellboy/Buffy and others). Guest lecturers included Peter De Seve, Mo Willems, and James Gurney. I want to shout out a big Thank-you to Rebecca Guay for putting it together.

One of the best things about it was the social aspect of it. There people from all walks and stages of life (some great pros among the students, people who have had careers like matte painter, concept artist, Nickelodeon animator, children's book illustrator/author), toy illustrator, architect, and many others). It was great to all have our meals in the same place and talk to new people every day.

And at the end of it all, I still managed to do a painting. (Well, not finish it, but get a good start!)
Here be it:

16" x24", Oil

The class photo. Lots more people here. Guess where I am? Yep, hanging from the tree!

Shot of faculty, courtesy James Gurney.

Interior of conference room. We probably had nearly 20 lectures here in the course of a week!

Setting up in the upstairs (traditional) studio

Critique with Adam REx, Irene Gallo, Boris Vallejo, and Dan Dos Santos

This is priceless - Donato Giancola and Greg Manchess fighting over who's the best artist. Either that, or giving a demo of taking good ref by roleplaying a slave and master... or something. I'll let you take your pick.

Peter de Seve!

Donato starts a drawing for a middle earth painting.

James Gurney, guest lecturer, makes his rounds through the upstairs studio.

An excerpt from his lecture on composition, discussing the use of eye tracking technology

While looking for a teacher on the lower floor, I discover Ian McCaig giving an impromptu demo by sketching a student. Boy can he ever draw!

Underpainting. I think there's a beauty to how this is already!

Anticipating another lelcture.

Greg Manchess working on a book cover painting.

Ian McCaig giving a demo on concepting creatures based on what's around you.

Donato Giancola's bio lecture

Me and Ian! He's an amazing guy, such an awesome attitude and full of energy and creativity. I aspire to be like him in personality as well as art.

Left: art director's sketch, right: finished painting. lol

Instructors in wrap-up roundtable discussion, pt. 1

People's work set up for open studio, upstairs

Here's a WIP of my own painting!

Phew!

Catching Up, pt. 3

2011-09-09T20:48:00.002-04:00

OK, here's the final part of my foundation's semester work. Some will look like repeats but it has been tweaked and updated.

Refined this one a bit.

Refined that cast drawing. Could certainly be a never-ending process!

Here's a better layout of my Portal turret design.

And here's some newer, rougher stuff from foundations. The following 4 are quick composition studies from works I love, mostly traditional painting/illustration but also some modern commercial stuff.

Here are a few I made up for a couple given emotions. It's more challenging than it seems after awhile, especially for hope/joy as opposed to fear.

Here's an example of a couple of the digital color studies I did. It was also an excuse to get more acquainted with Painter.

Here's an example of compositional re-engineering. I'll admit this isn't a good piece, but it was fun and challenging in its own way and I think I got something out of it.

Here are a couple examples of the many "figure turnarounds" Marshall gave us. The objective was to do it daily. I'll admit I fell short of that...

Quick jumping gesture studies in class

Click to watch the animation I made by compiling a figure spinning exercise.

Started modeling this when I was new to 3DS Max. I had a hard time with the topology but, 3D modeling is a good way to study form when you're forced to geometrify.

My attempt to model a swiss army knife, and make its file texture with just mesh. You can see the weirdness that followed...

WIP of Bonnie & Clyde before they were gunned down.

First page sketch of a comic I'm working on, based on the vibe of Little Nemo. It has to do with my world actually being made of polygons, and pulling up a little thread ends up tearing up the whole fabric of spacetime.

Whew! So as you can see, I was busy during last semester. And this was on top of my freelance stuff, which I can't show here yet.

Catching Up, pt. 2

2011-06-20T19:58:00.004-04:00

Next, I jumped into TAD foundations semester 2 in February of this year. Overall, I think it's a great program! Visit this link for more info: http://www.theartdepartment.org/

Here's some of the stuff I did (not all of it though!):

Cast Drawing progress

Color/composition class

Some comp studies for color/composition 2

More comp studies

My own comps for fear/foreboding

Here's some stuff I did in Figure Drawing 2:

Idealized male/female project

Fun with child anatomy, something I find difficult to get "right"

I decided to make up my own species instead for this.

We did a lot of studies where we spun the figure in our head.

PAINTING 1

Study from life I did at Panera Bread

... same thing, but at night

This one is a lighting scenario from imagination. Sort of an "apocalyptic sunset" where that main light is out.

Corvette I did from life in a cold garage

Same version, at night

Here's my version from imagination. I learned a lot studying the lighting on car photography (which I found is actually incredibly inaccurate with all the compositing and post-processing). Actually, mine's pretty inaccurate because I made it a lot more reflective than it would be in real life.

Here's an aircraft I painted from life in a local air museum.

...and this is lighting from imagination. Great exercise!

Here's something for painting class/last man standing. It was done as a collab with Colin Boyer (www.colinboyer.blogspot.com). We had a LOT of ideas and weeks of process work to finally arrive at this composition and concept but it was a lot of fun.

HONORS STUDIO:

Honors studio is a great program - it's a class where we get real art directors or artists as guest teachers to give us real world type assignments and critique them.

For Art Director of Popular Mechanics - an article about space tourism

For Anita Kunz (mock New Yorker cover)

For the art director of EveryIPublishing, a company that makes sequential art stories for the iPhone

For Gary Kelley, a Calendar that expressed a duet (mine was May, I decided to do an interior design that wove man and nature). Still not done yet!

A sample of the many sketches I did for Valve, in a redesign of a Portal turret

Here's a WIP of my final rendering for a mobile version. I lost my more final version when my power went out but I plan to go back and make it better sometime.

For Jeremy Cranford, art director at Blizzard - a mock card illustration!

3D Class:

The first object I made, in modo

I made this in 3DS Max, which was new and uncomfortable at the time, but now more comfortable than modo was.

Catching Up, pt. 1

2011-06-20T19:24:00.001-04:00

I can't believe it, but it's been about a year and a half since I've updated this blog with artwork. I even have a post about my stupid reasons for not doing so.

Now, because blogs are supposed to be current, I don't want to waste a bunch of posts putting up what I WOULD have if I'd been updating in a timely fashion. But to take you from where I left off to December 2010, here's some of the stuff:
http://www.mechaorthopteroid.deviantart.com/gallery/

I graduated CCAD in 2010 and went on to do some freelance, which is still under NDA so I won't post that until it's out.

My Cafe Sketch Blog

2010-09-17T08:36:00.003-04:00

http://www.zirngisketch.blogspot.com/

This is the blog I'm keeping for the "Cafe Sketch" class in CCAD's animation department. The name is a little misleading, as we have yet to sketch in any cafe, hehe... So far we've done the CCAD quad, North Market, the Grant hospital (my choice), and the BalletMet.

I'll probably dump some of those images directly onto this blog, eventually.

I did it again!

2010-08-07T22:04:00.000-04:00

Yeah...

I kind of forgot about my blog. Actually, it became one of those vicious cycles.

I was going to do a mega-post of everything from second semester, before I realized that I didn't really like much of anything I did second semester -- too rushed! A few were OK I guess, but the plan was to post them after improving them. I did a couple new little things, but didn't want to post them until I'd put the earlier stuff up. And the longer I waited, the more I felt like I had to post better stuff to justify all the lost time.

Then my 15 credit hours of LA summer school started, I had to help my family move, and some other big stuff came up... and I barely had time to work on anything art-related. During that time I DID make a blog for a business class I was taking, where I watched the games industry. It took a good bit of work, so check it out here:
http://www.kzexploringbusinessmarketwatch.blogspot.com/

Now I'm considering skipping the heap of 2nd semester stuff altogether and just moving on... but it doesn't sit well with my slightly OCD mind.

I know blogs are supposed to be fun and casual... why do I always have to get myself into these gridlocks?

As I have mentioned (maybe not here), I am working on a book project. I still haven't made up my mind as to how much to post of this onto my blog. There's something to be said for keeping one's ideas to themselves... I would love to post some teasers, though I may make a separate blog.

Another thing I HAVE been updating is my formspring account: http://www.formspring.me/KirstenZirngibl
If you ask me a question, I'll try to answer it within a week.

So... before my school year starts I'll try to post all the not-so-great 2nd semester stuff, or just move on. Either way It'll take a little courage.

Have a good rest of summer,
~Kirsten

Kirstenzirngibl.com is LIVE! Check it out!

2010-01-17T16:02:00.003-05:00

>>> www.kirstenzirngibl.com <<<

In this past 5 days or so I worked pretty hard at designing this site and getting the content together. I had never really done an actual, functional website before, short of the rinky-dink projects in early High School. I wanted to "do it right the first time" so that I wouldn't be tempted to go back during this semester (or a year or two from now) to develop/overhaul it again. I originally had this super-complicated idea, and almost went with flash (which I haven't even tried yet), but I'm glad I used a more conservative layout and HTML. I think it's faster and just easier to get to the work. (Google likes it better anyway, and I hear art directors actually want to be able to download images so they can keep your work in a folder for future reference.)

I still need to fix some stuff in my bio and add some better titles/descriptions to the pieces, but for the most part I'm going to call it done for now, though I hope to update it with new work regularly.

Anyway, my site also represents the visual "brand" I plan to use in marketing myself. I wanted something kind of quirky, with structural forms in an organic layout. I wanted something that could somehow communicate versatility and detail-oriented, complexity-driven style. I wanted to enhance that message by making it look both new/futuristic and historical (kind of steampunkish?) at the same time, hence the color, texture and choosing serif font). I hope I at least somewhat succeeded at this. (By the way, I just realized not so long ago that this kind of reminds me of conceptart.org. If you thought that too, just know it wasn't intentional, and when you compare them side-by-side they look pretty different.)

(And major thanks to my dad for helping with the code. While I did some HTML/javascript/CSS back in High School and have a basic understanding of it, it probably would've taken me a week to look up and relearn how to do what my dad hammered out in half a day! He also had some valuable web design advice that I'm glad I listened to.)

Anyhow, I'd love to hear your comments/critiques about it. If there's anything easily fixable that you think would be better fixed, I'm open to going back in before I start getting busy.

Finally, make sure to check out the "links" section. I've got some well-known artists, but also some less well-known ones as well listed there, as well as some cool resources. And also, if you know me at CCAD and have a personal site of your own, I've probably linked to you. (And they're not in a particular order, just as they popped into my head.)

Spectrum 17's Call for Entries Poster

2010-01-04T03:20:00.001-05:00

I first found this through Irene Gallo's Blog.

I haven't seen this many puns in one place for a long while now. If you're a digital or traditional illustrator, I challenge you not to chuckle on at least one of these!

It also reminds me to enter a couple of things this year-- who knows what'll happen?

EOW #130: The Water of Life at the World's End

2010-01-02T22:43:00.001-05:00

This was done for the latest Environment of the Week. VOTE HERE: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=177432

(I'm still tweaking it, too.)

I realized I hadn't really done much surreal/fantasy work. Never really felt like I could identify with it so much, but I did really enjoy making this piece. It was a challenge, though. I ended up solving a couple of my problems using 3D. For example, I initially sculpted the actual water in modo 302, then applying a water material (refraction index 1.33, just like in real water) in order to figure out the distortion of the figures underneath. But I really backed myself into a corner compositionally.

In fact, it's got some problems what probably can't be solved unless I overall the whole thing, so it's probably a good idea to move on. But big thanks to the awesome folks at the critique center at conceptart.org for helping me out with a myriad of issues. Juggling a complex image is so hard to do objectively!

The 3D really makes terrible reference compared to a good photo. Thanks to my brother for letting me take this ref of him. I'm lucky to have him at hand while I'm home for break!

EOW 129: War Zone

2009-12-27T06:12:00.002-05:00

Here's something I did for another Environment of the Week over at CA. The topic was "War Zone".
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=176987
(As you can see, there were a lot of awesome entries!)

Yes, I know the perspective is off. I wanted to try out doing a composition without worrying about it this time, as I've been told that when I obey it too closely, my things are stiff looking. And for something like a war zone, shouldn't everything be a little cockeyed to suggest distress?
Anyway, the foreground tower implies a lower horizon line than the back (though I had been hoping the viewer would interpret the background as being on a lower plane, as I'd intended. Guess I failed at that, as several critiquers pointed out; next time I'll have to find a happy medium.

Anyway, here's a backstory/explanation I came up for it:
My concept is not a war on an city, but instead a near-future economic war in which factories and chemical refineries are attacked. Sort of a war to sabotage the resources of the opposing side instead of directly going after civilians themselves.

Perhaps this could be an environmental war, where extremist environmentalists with a cleaner but more expensive technology resort to terroristic means by taking down major refineries in order to raise the price of their less eco-friendly competition so that their own methods are also cheaper by comparison.

So in this scene, the opposing side/eco warriors have set up rocket launchers on the upper scaffolds (that's what that gun thing is in the relative foreground) and are aiming at storage tanks.

Some earlier stuff I missed putting up

2009-12-14T19:51:00.002-05:00

Wow, I didn't realize how long I'd gone without putting up anything, so I just remembered to put up the second Provantage cover I illustrated, which was actually finished at the end of October. I only did the illustration, the graphic design was done by Mark Filipiac, the art director.

You can also see the site banner that went with it, here: http://www.provantage.com/

Now, while I was doing this cover, my styles and concepts class had a "game concept" project, so I decided do make a game theme that would go along with my Provantage cover, so I came up with a concept centered around a "high tech" christmas. I looked at old central and northern European architecture and how to make it futuristic. It was really fun. I'll post the story description later on, probably.

I enjoyed thinking about the designs so much that I might want to make this the theme of my project for illustrative drawing next semester.

Here are some of the initial designs for the game, which would be a PvP type of thing similar to TF2. A couple were done on the Wacom Cintiq, most of the others were just rough sketchbook scans:

Storyboard for the cutscenes.

Here's Santa in his full get-up. He made a deal with Uncle Sam that results in the Christmas faction having a LOT of fireworks-based weapons.

Santa could definitely use some refining.

New Figure Speedpaints from Life!

2009-12-14T07:47:00.003-05:00

Here's some more. I think they're all one-sessions (around 2 hrs.) or less.

I like these more narrative ones.

I came in late for this one and kinda rushed it. Now the proportions are all wonky... :-(

This setup had really nice natural lighting.

An experiment with getting good directional texture in Photoshop.

I wish we'd had more time for this.

Decided to try this entirely in Painter. It certainly took longer, but I do kind of like the more "impressionistic" look.

Again, yay for narrative poses!

Study with a draped figure + graffiti/rust texture = homeless guy illustration!

Our last thing in Figure Drawing class this semester. Class was cut short at the end for critiques.
I really didn't do a good job capturing his likeness in this one, but I do like how the actual rendering came out.

My approach in Painter, a little looser than in Photoshop.

Some stuff from my new brown sketchbook!

2009-12-14T07:40:00.001-05:00

I got my first toned paper sketchbook a couple of weeks ago. I'm really liking it. Since I've started to get used to drawing with colored pencil for advanced structural, I find it also works nicely on this brown paper.

Eden 2.0: Development - 52 Boards!

2009-12-14T07:19:00.006-05:00

This is a project I worked on for Mr. Tardino's "Illustrative Drawing" class. The original idea started out for an MMO game, though I would actually like to adapt it for a children's book.

This was the first time I really went after quantity over quality. Most of the digital scenes in here aren't really well-developed. I made this project more about finding many different possibilities and variations of stuff before committing to a big render... Ah, if only I had more time...

I also did a lot of the structural drawings for an open-ended assignment in advanced structural class. (I did plenty of work for each class. For example, we only needed 20 boards for Illustrative Drawing, but I did 52.)

And finally, it may seem paranoid, but since I have future plans for some of this stuff, I just want to say that all of the below is (c) Kirsten Zirngibl, Dec. 2009. Not sure if typing that does anything for me, or if anyone besides me thinks any idea here would be worth taking, or if anyone even looks at my blog for that matter, but it's just that I've got detailed descriptions of stuff up here for the world to see and it makes me feel a little vulnerable... I guess the risk is worth it for self-promotion...

Landscape Painting Stuff

2009-12-14T07:02:00.000-05:00

Landscape painting homework-- we had to do two of the same view under different lighting/mood conditions. I fell in love with this view/composition from the third floor in the Crane Center, but we aren't allowed to paint in that building. So I brought my laptop and did two underpaintings from life, then printed them out on watercolor paper and painted over. By using a lot of matte medium, I was able to make it work relatively seamlessly.

This is the night version of the same scene; a modified version as it got darker.

This was done from life from a class window, that building on the left is the faith mission church. I think it was a little over a session. It's a pretty small painting, done in a watercolor sketchbook.

Also done from my class window-- this is barely through the underpainting because I had a little less than half a class. Corner of Grant and High I believe.

Ahhh... yet another underpainting. This was over at Highbanks park, I believe. Kind of a long drive from downtown Columbus, which kind of took away from the painting time... :-( I was planning on two sessions to finish this one, but was unable to make it the second time to take it past this stage.

Part of a series for a self-determined project in my landscape painting class. This and the two below are an experimental approach to rendering the scenes first in 3D to establish an under-image, printing them out on watercolor paper, and acrylicing over to finalize.

Hopefully I can finish over break.

My least developed one so far. Not sure what "recognizable element" I should put in this to establish the sense of scale.

This one started off with a glitch in the 3D program's "rainy" atmosphere. A variation on the 1st scene, where I decided to play with the relationship between positive and negative shapes.

An unfinished digital painting from life down in a woods area at (I believe) highbanks park. I really should've spent less time getting the branches right and knocked in that foliage to at least make an impression of the woods first. Ah, live and learn...

Miscellaneous illustration stuff

2009-12-14T05:21:00.005-05:00

...to various degrees of finish.

An illustration of "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"... without Lucy. I did this for Professional Practice class. It was kind of tricky, in that I was trying to show the manufactured quality of the things in the song (cellophane flowers, looking-glass ties, rocking-horse people, taxis and trains, etc...) without losing the nebulous and flowing quality associated with all things psychedelic.

I ended up (stupidly) pulling the whole thing together in one night, because of a bad lapse in judgement, namely, the original plan to do the entire scene in 3D. I actually built up the cellophane flowers in these really complicated bits of decimated architectural geometry, but realized the day before that it simply was NOT working out the way I had planned it to.

So I was forced to just pull what I could together in Photoshop. I don't think it worked out necessarily badly, but I think I could've pushed it a lot further.

I should've known the limits of my tools before diving in...

An illustration where I squeezed a crap-ton (>20) of youtube poop inside jokes into a single panel. If you know what it's referring to you're probably going to enjoy it a lot more than the average sane viewer. I had been hoping to render it out photorealistically, but ran out of time. I may decide to do it over break if I feel like it.

Another WIP, of a "volcano man (god?)" who, in his rage, is spurtint out lava that is simultaneously cementing him in the ground. I was going to have a nondescript villiage in the foreground.

It was an idea I had towards the end of my freshman year. I shot reference and started it but ended up petering out, so I decided to resurrect it for an open-ended styles and concepts project.

There are a lot of problems with this, still, one being that of where to take the eye. The mouth area and lower pool area are kind of competiting. I had been hoping to make sort of a "visual dialog" between the areas, to make the viewer bounce back and forth, but I think the whole illustration just looks kind of stagnant and hard to read at this stage.

Just a goofy in-class assignment for professional practices class. I think we had around an hour and a half (though less in reality) to get the assignment, conceptualize, execute, and (in my case) print.

A rough value study for a future personal illustration that blends the fantastical with memories of my childhood, specifically all the weird stuff I did/put in trees.

Retrofuturism

2009-10-25T12:35:00.003-04:00

I really dig this stuff!

http://weburbanist.com/2009/05/11/future-past-173-radical-retrofuturistic-directions-in-design-technology/

Couple more figures and a landscape

2009-10-13T17:49:00.001-04:00

First two are some more life figures. I used Painter for much of the first one.

The third is a 4th floor window view of Columbus, in acrylic. We were supposed to go on location but since it was rainy we stayed inside and painted for a period.

Some acrylic life landscape stuff

2009-10-10T01:34:00.002-04:00

A couple more to come, but here's some I had in my computer right now.

The bridge one was about 2-3 hours, gray city was about 2 hours, the water one was about 4-ish.

The bride was this awesome, antique train bridge over the oletangy river in Columbus. The second is a view of Columbus from the window of my 4th floor painting class. The third is the view of a creek at Whetstone park of roses, also at Columbus.

They're all pretty small.

Lotsa figure paintings!

2009-10-10T01:31:00.001-04:00

More quick digital life paintings, coming right up!

I tried to post them in chronological order.

Most of these were one-session poses, which means about 2-2.5 hours. Some were done in class, and some I did voluntarily in the "open figure" sessions my school offers for free.

I saved an average of five steps for each one I did, but still have to put most of them together. It takes more time than I'd like though, so unless someone asks me to I probably won't...

Anyway, I feel like I'm finally getting a little better at understanding how light plays on human flesh, though I think I have a ways to go still before I can really portray it accurately without any reference at all...

Anyway, I've been trying to get away from layering, and instead working on selecting accurate color the first time.

Some illustration stuff

2009-10-10T01:23:00.000-04:00

Though not all-inclusive, here are a couple things I did for illustration classes. More on the way.

First one: here's the "final version" of that cover.

2nd one: An illustration for a hypothetical card game about superstitions. This one was: If you leave a house through a different door than the one you came in through, it's bad luck.

3rd and 4th ones: A couple of spot illustrations based on different types of "annoying facebook users". It was an exercise in how quickly we could work: they had to be read, concepted, and done before the end of class.
3rd one is "the vowel lover"
4th one is "the verbal acrobat"

Some structural stuff

2009-10-10T01:20:00.001-04:00

More structural drawing.
Again, this is not all-inclusive.

First you see a couple of exercises,
then a design for a night hiking lamp,
then some brainstorming for gas mask redesigns,
then some ideas/drawings for redesigning the hand-powered juicer,
then some ideas for totally redesigning a can opener (had some fun with this one!)

Some concept stuff

2009-10-10T01:16:00.000-04:00

Just some miscellaneous sketches and stuff, for now two storylines I'm working on... I'll explain them both later when I put up more polished stuff...

Oh, and the first thing has nothing to do with them. It's just an experimental sketch.

Storyboards for promotional video pitch

2009-10-10T01:12:00.000-04:00

First time I've ever done a storyboard before.

My school needs a promotional video, and is having the students do it in what's called the "pipeline project". The project is a voluntary thing where CCAD students come together to come up with an idea, and execute a video.

It's supposedly good "real world" experience.

I made a storyboard that shows an allegory of a student's experience at CCAD in sort of an "action-adventure" style.

I didn't use any ref for any of the storyboard, because I was afraid having it would tempt me to detail the crap out of it, and I was trying to draw it out pretty quickly. So yeah, there are some anatomy problems but it's just supposed to get the idea across.

Two WIP's: Book cover and alla prima cityscape

2009-09-12T21:07:00.004-04:00

Missed a post yesterday! grrr...

Anyway, here's my rough draft comp of my book cover, a development of the thumbnails I put up a few posts back. The first is a rough color comp with some re-working, the second is the original layout, no color. Any opinions as to which works best would be appreciated.

The last thing is something that was done from the 4th floor window of the fine art's building, for my landscape class. It's been fun so far-- don't consider it done yet. It's pretty small, I don't know the exact measurements but I'd say 7" x 10", perhaps a little smaller. No preliminary drawing-- just went right in and painted. It's taken about 4.5 hours so far...

More structural stuff

2009-09-11T01:14:00.001-04:00

(Sorry a couple of these exercises are a little dry... blame the obligatory feeling about posting them on my obsessive-compulsive tendencies.!)

The first image was drawn for fun during class, during a time where our teacher let us run free. It's supposed to be a hybrid of a catamaran (boat with two hulls) and a submarine, in which the submarine (part in the center) can be lowered into the water with the top part remaining afloat to pull it back up. Maybe for marine biologist experiments?

I may pursue this design further in terms of speed though, because this layout would probably mean less drag on the water overall. And it would probably HAVE to go fast because the surface area is too small to hold up that weight if it was going slow.

I didn't develop much in the way of technical details, and from an engineering standpoint it probably wouldn't hold up too well, but I was going for style and concept, so no biggie. Done in colored pencil and colored in Photoshop.

Anyway, the 2nd is some 2-minute bottles. Our teacher timed us to draw pop/water bottles around the room, and made it into a competition for us to see who could make the most design-ey bottle in that amount of time.

The one with the star ended up winning. I was pretty surprised!

The last two are just some homework, more turning shapes in space, this time with freehand ellipses. While it is all freehand, I used rough geometrical guides in the first, and none in the 2nd. Faster with none, that's for sure...

More figure speedpainting, and a crappy palette knife landscape!

2009-09-09T21:19:00.000-04:00

Mmkay... here's an update!

Some more figure painting and step-by-step of one of them, this time without captions because they would probably be pretty similar to the one I already posted above.

The first image was an interesting experience, because it was an attempt to get good color despite low lighting (it probably looks even darker on my monitor since my monitor is darker than average), as well as a combination of natural and artificial light.

Followed by some gestures and a shorter drawing.

I also uploaded another crappy "all palette knife" painting, this one done directly on location (river in Downtown Columbus) instead of from a small value study.
I think I spent more time riding there, unpacking, setting up my new portable easel, then packing up to get out of the rain, wait for the rain to stop, move back to my spot, and then clean up and unpack, then ride back, than I did painting... Seems like it anyway. Probably an hour and a half of honest-to-goodness painting, less if you count mixing all the colors.

Palette knife landscape study

2009-09-08T18:19:00.002-04:00

Well,

When I made this blog, I decided to include the failures along with the successes. While I don't think this totally fails, I'm not really happy with it, either.

It's an acrylic painting applied entirely with a palette knife, based off of a small graphite sketch I did on location at a park in Columbus. An exercise for my landscape painting class.

(The technique is so far from my comfort zone that it has a different area code!)

But it's actually quite fun, and I want to learn how to get better at it. Perhaps not to paint entirely with the knife, but to use it as a way to make a more dynamic painting.

Labor Day Picnic Speedpaint

2009-09-08T00:00:00.000-04:00

Here's something I did at my late grandmother's cottage on a man-made lake. It was during a family gathering. This was the view of the lake from the picnic table in the back yard.

Kept having relatives telling me to move my laptop...

I knew I wouldn't have much time to do color, so I kept it black and white. It was a pretty quick one. I'd say 25 mins. Part of it is my imagination. I started it earlier, then finished it when it was almost dark, so, being without well-lit reference, I BS'd in some of the trees on the right to make it look a little more grand and epic.

Actually, come to think of it, it doesn't really look much like a lake. More like a field. Perhaps I should finish it and add some reflections... nah.

Belated zoo drawings

2009-09-06T13:23:00.000-04:00

Here are some more zoo drawings. They're from this past Monday actually.

Gray prismacolor marker on watercolor paper. This worked out pretty well when I tried it, because I was able to lay the marker on the top of the paper tooth, creating nice rock/tree texture.

The second pic was a study of the rocks at the penguin exhibit. They were real, and interesting. I thought I'd try learning a couple things about the light on them.

The second is an indoor exhibit of real mangrove trees. They're awesome! Like, almost as awesome as banyan trees. This is kind of a strange vignette sketch, but I did run out of time.

Advanced Structural Drawing Basics

2009-09-05T21:07:00.000-04:00

Hmm, title is kinda oxymoronic, haha...

Mmkay, here's my first official homework assignment for advanced structural. Two things about this class:
1. No rulers allowed
2. No erasing allowed. (We're only allowed to use colored pencils.)

First, we had to draw a ton of lines and circles-- fill 10 big pages (18" x 24") with lines, 10 with circles/ellipses. The first images is an example of the line exercise. Good for warming up.

And then rotate two shapes into 9 different views, according to a blueprint showing the top, front, and right views of the shapes. It got a little tricky when you're just looking at a front and side view and having to figure out the back view, while rotating the entire thing 180 degrees on one axis, and 90 degrees on the other, and trying to keep it in proportion! (Luckily, correct proportions aren't crucial to this assignment.)

It was kind of fun actually, if you treat it like a puzzle. It was like some of those spacial problems on the IQ tests.

I just dumped 9 posts right now!

2009-09-04T14:24:00.001-04:00

(Well, 10 if you count this one.)

Ok, for all 13 of you who got your watch box flooded, I'm sorry.

My goal is to keep my blog current with my conceptart.org sketchbook, and I was just catching it up. (They're now both synced.)

If everything goes according to plan, you can probably expect about 1 post per day.

Book cover project thumbs

2009-09-04T14:21:00.002-04:00

Here are some thumbnails I did for a book cover project.

The book is called "Hellstrom's Hive" by Frank Herbert. It was written in 1973. It's about a "hive" of technologically advanced humans living as social insects in immense chambers deep underground.

Luckily, Herbert wasn't very descriptive of the architecture so I've got some freedom in that department. I wanted to use lots of 60 degree angles that will have the whole "hexagonal shape" look. I think it's convenient that that's the shape in common with bee colonies and 70's futuristic architecture.

Anyway, the final cover is going to be a combination of a couple of these thumbs, but mainly the top right one.

Figure Life Painting Tutorial #2

2009-09-04T14:20:00.002-04:00

Here's a tutorial about my approach and process, which will likely change with every time I do this. I'm pretty new to it myself, so I hope I don't come off as being too experienced based on my wording.

(Because Blogger appears to have condensed the image beyond readability, here's an outside hosted one:
http://img268.imageshack.us/img268/5337/tutorialformatflat.jpg)

Figure life painting: Final and gestures

2009-09-04T14:19:00.000-04:00

Mmkay, here's a figure painting I did on Sept. 3rd. My figure drawing teacher (Mr. Kortlander, if you're a CCAD student) is pretty open about medium of choice. I'm glad I skipped into one of the upper level figure classes for this reason-- the teacher already assumes you know kind of what direction you're headed and lets you run with that.

Anyway, this is the longest I ever spent on a digital life painting (except for one I did plein air). About 2 hrs.

It was also definitely the trickiest, due to the fact that it was lighted entirely naturally, resulting in more subtle effects, greater effects of bounce light, etc...

Marker doodle

2009-09-04T14:16:00.000-04:00

Just found this under some papers.

First thing I did since I got my grey markers. Just testing 'em out. Linework is kinda stinky, and it's not an original concept (Toyota PM concept car) on my part, but I was really just doing it to use the markers.

Figure life Painting Tutorial # 1

2009-09-04T14:15:00.000-04:00

Aw, what the heck. I'll post a step-by-step progress.

I usually like to build up tone slowly, but lately I've been trying to take a more alla prima approach and try to get accurate colors in at 100 opacity. So this isn't usually how I work.

(By the way, this was a 40 minute pose, so you have an idea of the time frame.)

Step 1: Try to nail the silhouette. Generally if you do this, everything else will fall into place nicely.
Step 2: Block in the areas where the light hits directly. It'll help to fill in everything later.
Step 3: At varying opacity, add color.
Step 4: Deal with subsurface scattering and bounce light by adding saturated color at low opacity.

Digital figure speedpaints (Continued)

2009-09-04T14:13:00.000-04:00

Ok, here are a couple I'm more happy with. They were a little longer poses.

I didn't focus as much on the anatomy as I did on the play of light and color, though I think I have a lot of room to improve in both.

Quick digital figure gestures/speedpaints

2009-09-04T14:12:00.000-04:00

Design markers + figure drawing = fun!

2009-09-04T14:09:00.000-04:00

For my advanced structural class, I just put down a pretty penny on a set of 12 prismacolor warm gray design markers, and some graphics 360 paper. It's the stuff that industrial, fashion, and interior designers use.

I decided to give it a try for fine art.

I was pleasantly surprised by how nicely one could blend without the aid of paper texture. It was buttery smooth paper, but by constantly changing markers, I was able to lay up gradation.

The first two images are of 5 minute quickies. They aren't very good-- still trying to get a handle of the markers.
The last image was about 2 hours, give or take. Pretty happy with it. Too bad marker can't erase though-- couple anatomy issues...

Self Portrait

2009-09-04T14:06:00.000-04:00

Here's something I started last year for introduction to watercolor in my illustration class. We only had a class period and week to finish it for homework (I didn't really finish to my liking.)

So I finished it in the summer.

I'd say caricature is definitely not my comfort zone. Looking back, I probably could've tweaked the features I exaggerated.

Anyway, what I do like about it is it counters a lot of the serious, moody, and downright emo self-portraits I've seen done by a LOT of people. I want to show my enthusiasm for stuff, like right in the middle of my commonly exclaimed phrase... "THAT'S AWESOME!"

8.5" x 11", watercolor, color correction in Photoshop. Didn't record how long it took.

A Tutorial of sorts

2009-08-30T11:23:00.000-04:00

here's a landscape speedpaint I worked on a bit yesterday and the day before. It's inspired by the colors of Thomas Cole, one of the Hudson River School painters of American landscapes. (By inspired, I just mean looked at-- I didn't colorpick.) I also based it loosely on one of his paintings.

Still not done yet, but thought I'd post my progress in tutorial form. Hope you find it useful.

Anyway, composition still bothers me... I think it's a bit too choppy with too many similarly-sized shapes breaking up the space... Live and learn I guess.

Pro job: Provantage buyer's guide cover

2009-08-27T15:22:00.000-04:00

Here's a cover I illustrated for the Provantage Corporation, who sell all kinds of computer products (hardware, software, lots of accessories like cables, external data storage, etc...) to businesses and personal consumers.

The catalog is sent out bi-monthly to about 250,000 subscribers across the US.

This was an enjoyable job, especially because I got a lot of creative freedom (and also some good advice) from the art director. I hear it's hard to get a lot of wiggle room and decision power in the more "commercial" jobs like advertising illustration. He's the one who did the text and layout of this cover, so I can't take credit about that.

The prompt was initially about autumn, but it was then changed to "prepare for Windows 7" because the debut of the new OS will fall inside the September/October period, so they thought it would be good to acknowledge that and make it the theme.

My initial ideas for this had included a N. C. Wyeth-esque illustration of a sailor dressed up as a businessman looking out on a distant island with a spyglass. I could then put the "7" in the sky or something, or it would be integrated into the landscape of the island, perhaps a 7-shaped mountain... I was also thinking of adapting my "circuit-city" illustrationto include a 7-sunrise.

An issue arising as a result of dealing with the sun was to make sure this looked like a sunrise (beginning) and NOT a sunset. What separates sunrises from sunsets? Recalling graphic design, I realized that any "morning" products predominantly use graphic rays in their logos and such. Those "sunburst" lines seemed to be the primary thing separating the two, so I went with it.

As for color and overall look, the art director wanted it to be punchy. We needed to grab people's eyes when they opened their mailboxes. I initially wanted to go for a romanticized and realistically-rendered illustration, but thought that this graphic style would be better suited to the overall vibe of this image, trying to punch up the "heroic".

Oh, and I also did a website banner, as part of the 2-month theme. It won't be out until the buyer's guide ships, which will be in a couple of weeks. Mark hasn't added the text yet.

Anyway, it was a good experience. Hopefully I'll be able to work for them in the future.

The Second Revival

2009-08-27T14:44:00.001-04:00

Wow... last update was March 9th?

I realized that when googling my name, this blog kept showing up at top, and I doubt the presence of a failed sketch-a-day challenge consisting of a few crappy sketches that are several months old is a good first impression!

My excuse this time is that the longer one waits, the more awkward it feels to break the ice with a new post. A self-feeding cycle at it's best!

I haven't been absent from blogger though. I've posted many of the things I did this summer on a group of CCAD illustration students called "Oondu". (www.oondu.blogspot.com).

I've also recently started a "sketchbook" at Conceptart.org. Here's the thread: http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=166239

I figure I have no excuse not to update my blog if I'm already updating my sketchbook. After all, 90% of the work is scanning and resizing images, right?

Sketch-a-day Challenge: #'s 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, & 12

2009-03-09T00:53:00.012-04:00

Ok, so I'm still trying to do a sketch a day but it took me a week to actually post them all. While I know daily updates are preferable, it can be a pain to warm up the scanner and get the little sketch in and adjusted, which doesn't feel worth it sometimes.

So like I said, I'll try to update more frequently than I just did but it may not literally be "daily".

Ok, here goes:

Something from Art Explorer Post-- did this awhile ago, but tweaked it.

On Saturady: New costume-- Roman! We had really limited time for each pose. I'd estimate no more than 5 minutes, maybe less. Felt like that anyway.

Another one-- trying to get faster at rendering with pen.

Trying to practice anatomy. I love the "industrial design" approach, i. e. breaking it down into geometrical shapes. How much I remember from doing these studies is questionable though. I try drawing these things by memory after I've copied a diagram, but I feel like I've already forgotten most of what I "learned". So frustrating!

This is one of the variations of an idea I had awhile back for a kind of device worn as a "boot" that is a kind of active "smart stilt" resembling an insect that allows a user to navigate very difficult terrains such as piles of small boulders, building rubble, or even dense forests. I resurrected the idea when working on the cave exploration thing, because these types of boots could also be great for wading through water. The basic idea is that the individual "feet" on the 6 legs per boot latch onto a surface within a 280 degree angle-ish cone. If the surface is several feet below (like a crevice) or above (like a peak) the legs bend in two different ways (active at joint, passive at lower ligament) to compensate for the height difference, allowing the user to "walk" more quickly and easily instead of climbing. It, of course, would still be impractical, so it would probably be considered an outdoor sport in the sphere of mountain biking and skiing.

(No, those are not her real eyes/mouth! They are projections. I'm not that bad at anatomy!) Anyways, this probably violates a bunch of fashion design rules, but I wanted to go for something really out there. It's an outfit, presumably for nobility, in a culture that values complete and utter expression of everyone's absolutely true and unconcealed emotions. The whole outfit can be likened to a mood ring on steroids. The "eyes" are a projection within the visor (think CRT monitor) that reflect what the wearer's emotions *should* be in real time, based on sensors in the brain. The shoulders are made of a fabric intwined with little lights, making it sort of a flexible screen that shows various colored waves that people in this culture are trained to be able to read, to tell if the wearer is agitated, calm, anxious, happy, etc... The individual enclosed leg dresses (a split dress or double-legged pants?) interpret the data displayed in waves in the shoulders, and turn it into a fashionable display similar to music visualization softoware in iTunes and Windows Media Player, etc... Only it's brain waves instead of sound ones.

So conversing with this person would mean seeing everything she's thinking, her awakeness level, her emotion, perhaps even whether she's lying. Large, simplified, projected eyes, eyebrows, and mouth tell you what her expression would be in an exaggerated way (I think of those Japanese robots with "personality". But before you think you have the upper hand in this conversation, imagine if you were rigged up like this as well! How would conversing be different?

How does the angle look? I was trying to do a "top and looking down" type of view, which is why the legs look a little short, but something still looks wonky to me...

I've decided to try to improve my digital painting skills, specifically the speed aspect. Of course, I forgot to record how long this took... -_- But it's pretty low res, wasn't too long. I used a reference photo of a cave (lit for tourists, I presume) somewhere in the Netherlands. I also tried mimicking the color closely. Yeah, I know, they really were that bright!

Sketch-a-day Challenge: Day 6

2009-03-02T22:54:00.002-05:00

This is "steampunk" pen design for a stationary type set we're designing for my illustration methods class. The little gear in the clear part sticks out of half the pen shaft slightly, allowing the writer to retract the ball-point pen nib into the pen. The ball-point part hides underneath the pseudo-ink dip tip, which is actually made out of a dulled rubbery plastic to keep it from poking holes in backpacks (or people!). The end part is actually an electric vibrating eraser that's designed to erase pen (I've heard of these-- supposedly they're pretty nifty!).

I also have some sketches for a steampunk backpack, binder, notebook, planner, and other stuff but I did them traditionally and don't feel like scanning 'em in.

Anyway... probably should wean myself away from posting school assignment sketches and WIPs, as the point of creating this blog was to encourage myself to grow with personal stuff... :-\

Sketch-a-day Challenge: Day 5

2009-03-01T23:48:00.002-05:00

Hi,

Here's a WIP of an illustration I did (am doing?) for my illustration methods class. It was way too choppy when I brought it in last week, so I'm trying to deepen the colors and unify the different objects so that it doesn't look like teeny chopped-up separated little shapes.

It features researchers exploring a cave with geothermal springs and strange plant life that undergoes chemosynthesis instead of photosynthesis. I'll probably explain more about what's going on in it when I'm done.

Bad quality pic by the way-- my scanner's not working so I had to take a digital photo.

:-(

Sketch-a-day Challenge: Day 4

2009-02-28T23:16:00.006-05:00

Here's a pen drawing I did of that "Art Explore Post" thing. I did the drawing a little while ago, but watercolored it today. It's going to be for my sketchbook for illustration methods class, where we need a couple of interiors with 3 or more figures in them.

It shows Mr. Tardino, who I did do mostly from viewing a photo he let me take of him on my digital camera's display screen, since he was going around the room a lot. The rest was done from life with micron pen on watercolor paper.

EDIT: Wowzers, does this image ever match the colors of my blog nicely!

Sketch-a-day Challenge: Day 3

2009-02-27T21:05:00.004-05:00

Hello again!

I have to leave right now. I'm currently working on a "new" sketch that was supposed to be today, but I'll probably not get back home 'till after midnight, therefore "officially" failing to post something every day, so in order to hold up to my word, I'll post a further WIP of the Moran Study.

I might post my other sketch at like 2:00 AM or so... maybe it could still count as "today's" 'cuz I usually go to bed pretty late.

Sketch-a-day Challenge: Day 2

2009-02-26T23:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a WIP of a watercolor study of the landscape painter Thomas Moran. I'm trying to capture colors more than detail.

Sketch-a-day Challenge: Day 1

2009-02-25T23:16:00.000-05:00

Hey, sorry for the late start, but here it is.

Now, I plan to try to update this everyday, but it may not always be sketches. It might be WIP's. We'll just have to see...

This sketch came to me after I revisited Harold and the Purple Crayon. Charming story. I asked myself... what if Harold had never found his way home, and had stayed for 20 years in his world/dimension where he could create physical things by drawing them with his crayon? What would it be like to grow up since the age of 3 or 4, isolated but able to actually create something from nothing?

I'm cooking up a very interesting story based on this premise, wrought with psychological drama and parallels to Genesis.

I almost don't want to talk too much about it 'cuz I don't want to give away my best ideas... >_> But you can probably expect more Harold sketches in the future.

This was done in micron pen on paper with a slight tooth. I like that sorta "classical pen and ink" approach.

Sketch-a-day

2009-02-21T01:57:00.000-05:00

Someone from CCAD (my school) told me about this sketch-a-day thing, and I thought I'd participate.

Someone named Thom Glick started it. (http://www.thomglick.blogspot.com/)

I've been discontent with sketching lately. I know it's good for me and I could use a boost to my drawing skills, especially from my head.
But it hasn't been personally rewarding, and I feel like none of my doodles do the original idea justice, and that it's just not worth the time, and therefore haven't really been sketching at all.

So I decided I might be more motivated if I did this sketch a day thing, perhaps to aid in my self-discipline. Hopefully I'll find some inspiration along the way.

I plan to update this blog tomorrow with something.

I plan to try reviving this dead infant of a blog.

2009-02-20T17:09:00.000-05:00

Hi,

Yeah, I realize I made this blog this summer and haven't done a doggone thing with it.

I've been putting some of my more recent artwork on my DeviantArt instead, and been using its "journal" feature as a blog of sorts. (It's definitely not a good place to receive critiques, but a decent way to organize one's artwork.)

Anyway, it's "www.mechaorthopteroid.deviantart.com". (Yes, I wish I could change my username.)

Haha, who am I talking to anyway? 26 people have seen my profile since 6 months!

First Post

2008-07-16T17:51:00.002-04:00

Hi to any of the few who'll likely read this.

I made me a blog to post my art and also cool stuff I come across (I'm kind of a "science-but-everything-else-that's-interesting-too-to-varying-degrees-of-relevance" buff, so I might post stuff about that too. I might also post/link to the work of artists I admire); mainly to share stuff with people I know in real life.

Oh, and you can rest assured I'm not going to ramble on about my personal life, unless it's something extraordinary. Strangers who hang onto the details of other strangers' mundane lives creep me out a little.