Medusa sketchin'

                            

Medusa Tikitiki

dude bros

CTNX 2014!

Yo dudes! CTNX is Nov 21st-23rd this year. I'll be over at table T85 in Hall A with some neat paper crafts, sketchbooks, and prints. Come find me and ask questions if ya got em! 

I'm a little excited about raccoons right now

Wolves 3

Refining character, trying to push the read clearer to focus on the eyes and cheek zone. 

Chose to go with a ruffian personality.

If I've been refining with a character facing one direction too long I will often flip the way I'm drawing it during the process. This helps shake off cobwebs in the brain and let you focus on what is important. It is really easy to get stuck in paths you've taken previously. Also, I tend to start from skinny light lines and if I've been doing that awhile will switch up to negative shapes, again to shake off cobwebs. 

In the last image I lost my little hairdo that I was having fun with, but you can still feel it in the shape of the negative space.

I'm done with this exercise for now, but if I were to continue I'd probably take that last image and do some proportion tweaking on it. Making the neck area longer, and balancing the shape of the fur ruff under the chin with the outer fur.

Extra things: The final wolf head is not my favorite. It lacks the noodly little things that I geek out about. This also means it is much cleaner though, and people who aren't me will probably like it a lot more because they get what it's about. It reads and itsn't as bizarre, isn't as niche. *cough* Isn't as fun.

I don't usually put this much thought into my drawings. My general state is brainstorming and making dick jokes, not refining. Left to my own devices I just doodle randomly and never take the characters further. If I did character design for a living I probably would be putting lots more time after the fact. My day job as a character modeler means I am at the tail end of character refinement all the time, so doodling is lots more fun than the feeling of taking work home with me. That said I really really should practice more at refining my own ideas and get mo' betta' at painting. It would expand my mind as an artist and step back from being as much a skilled craftsperson. One of the big challenges in life is too many interests. Building things is as awesome as designing them, but if you have to do it all it is waaaaaay way too much work. It's rad to work in groups and get lots done in the same amount of time that I could to make a single thing.

Wolves 2

More exploration and initial refinement. 

So the choices I've made so far on pushing the character have become a bit baboonish. One of the things I find appealing about designing known subjects is, how far can you push it until it becomes something else. In this instance, what makes a wolf a wolf and not a baboon? Without the body that information is more important, because the body would tell us a lot. 

In the lower image I take my first pass at the appeal phase. While the character is way too complex and busy, it is becoming likeable. Especially when using busy constructions I fall back on known cartoon shorthand for eye and mouth language. It does what I want, I find these particular sets very appealing, and is a quick clear read. 

From here choices I could make become more diverse. Do I continue to simplify the line language? Do I force the eye instead using value and color so I can keep the noisyness of the lines? What is important and where do I set priority? If this was for a real project I'd probably tackle eye read first, which means making a firm eye choice and probably making them much larger on the face. 

As I am designing, all of these notes come into play, but in my own head, it's sort of a silly doo doo doot this makes me happy this makes me frustrated set of feelings rather than verbal thoughts. I will say mostly frustrated. I'm kind of an angry drafter, but the characters make me happier as they come into being. 

wolves

When I design an animal character I like to study photos, then drawing by drawing play with character, warping it. The final step is usually focusing on the more extreme experiments away from the studies and bringing back what I might call universal appeal. The fight is creating a legible appealing character, while maintaining that interesting concept you discovered while experimenting.

The drawings here are the first few steps into turning information into abstraction. They don't go to huge extremes yet, but lead me there.

'Nother Sun Dragon

all the colors

A little sculpting tonight

Gave the zsketch tool a shot and made a critter head. My usual jam is dynamesh, but I enjoyed this different process. A bit looser in the beginning of the sculpt I think. 

lion

PAX is almost here! You guyssss! I am excited to show things!

We will be demoing Gigantic and doing some cool panels about our processes. 

I will be at the LAN stations Saturday and Sunday after 1:30 helping peeps play and answering burning questions. Come say hi!

Monday a bunch of us artists will be doing live drawing at the Sheraton! I will be there trying to keep it together on the fly, chatting and drawing. 

List O' Panels!

Gigantic PAX Schedule

Convention Center Location

Sheraton Location next to the Convention Center

This is where we get our panels on!

demo model

Sculpted this as a demo at the 3D Printing Expo today.

Gone splashin'

Sun Dragon Dos

Walkers

Dragernnnn

Sun Dragon Reboot!

Snails

Snail

Lazy Lion

Chicken

Here is a chicken because I haven't posted enough this evening

Guild Wars 2 Character Select Options

Here are a bunch, but not all, of the character select options I created while on Guild Wars 2. Shown are faces, hairs, skin patterns, and horns. I wish I could still make these. I could make Charr parts all day, and yeah, their underwear is my fault. I kind of like em, but I made the ugliest Sylvari faces. Maybe their part of the dream didn't have enough shade or something...

Gigantic bits and pieces

Peeps were asking what I did in the trailer, so here is my end of the breakdown.

I did a bunch of texture work on Knossos. I am quite happy with the face.

The griffin is mah baby. I got to design, model, and texture this one! Tubby bird.

I modeled and textured Tyto. I still feel really lucky!

I modeled and textured Voden and the bird friends. Also feel lucky!

I modeled, textured, and designed this mysterious mystery!

Pretty much everything I model I feel lucky to get. Turns out I like doing this modelin' biz.

I'm gonna call this one done

Did some refinement. Kind of blended the two from before plus some. 

Second pass

I think I like what just happened here. Will take another look tomorrow. 

Color... I don't know what I am doing...

WIP of my contribution to the CODA project. 

Reds I have them. 

Go Gigantic!

We announced our game today! It's called Gigantic and is all about sweet fighting and action and giant monsters! We are not in Alpha yet, but you can sign up for it on our site!

I've been doing character modeling and some character design which you can see in the trailer and in the screenshots. I'll pull specific things up that I contributed to soon!

Here is the trailer!

Here is some game play too!

Instagram!

About a year ago I joined the cult of the smart phone. This means convenience for posting using instagram. I just hooked up my Tumblr page to instagram, so if you are hungry for more frequent updates there are loads of sketches through those sites. The tumblr page will have mostly just art posts. Instagram is going to be more of a slice of life, with art, food, baby pics, etc. I like blogger and will keep posting to it, it is just harder to scan things in and do work on the pc when I get home due to family life. 

dog thing

Yal got questions?

Anybody out there got any burning questions about whatevs I can post about here? I am bad at the internet and discussing work or art unprompted, but willing to talk about lots of stuff. I do lots of Zbrush and Maya and pretend to draw stuff in my free time. 

Quick monster

Got some new brushes for Photoshop. I think I don't hate drawing in it 100% any more! 

I'm using a mix of Kyle's and Shiyoon's brushes. I will probably pick up the brush set from Aaron Blaise at some point as well. Really like the look of them. 

Tools don't make the artist, but they sure can make the experience more fun!

I do apologize for my my tilt shift and filter addiction. Instagram has ruined me. Heeeeeeyyyyy lensflare, how you doin' old friend? Wanna party?

more messing around

messing around

quick humans

horse sketchin'

Doing a live chat tonight at 8:25!

https://plus.google.com/u/0/events/crkianv0he410djuh61so676mso

Join in and ask me questions about, well, anything. :D

Mr. Fox paper craft kit available online!

Get yours here!

quick sketch using BlackInk, it's a neat software!