Daily Art # 18

Day 47:

Today I painted more textures on my Gecko 3D model in Mudbox.

Then I tweaked a few things in Photoshop.

The next step for him is creating his specular maps and putting it all together on a material in Modo. Then I get to render again...

 

Daily Art # 16

I have begun the digital painted version of Mother Nature.

Day 45:

The first stage of the wind turbine on which Mother Nature is frolicking.

 

Day 44:

The sketch depicting the general layout of the digital image.

Daily Art # 15

Days 37 - 43:

I've had a lot going on in the past week, but I managed to make a tiny bit of progress each day on my Mother Nature design. Unfortunately I failed to document her each day as I've done in this past, but whatever is in the folowing image that wasn't present on last week's post is the cumulative total of this week's progress:

This image of her is now complete. Next up is a full-color view of her in a posed position.

Daily Art #13

Day 33:

Just some quick concept sketching today:

I'm planning a piece of digital artwork depicting a character design for a sculpture and 3D model of a Mother Nature figure. I'm trying to improve upon the design and execution of a sculpture that I completed many years ago. The basic concept for the character's design will be the same, but I hope that the character will benefit from my additional years of study by attaining a new sophistication and depth this time around. I've had many new ideas for her costume elements over the years, and I plan to improve upon the generic pose of the original by giving her a sliver of environment to interact with so that she will portray a bit of a narrative as well as an interesting design in her new incarnation.

I also did another random little concept sketch:

I have no immediate plans to transform this concept into a full artwork. It was just something that popped into my head after my sister saw the Red Riding Hood sketch and suggested that I create a whole series of Fairy Tale twists. This image doesn't really speak to me the way that Red Riding Hood did. I like it, but it just doesn't seem quite as poetic as a tiny Red leading the huge wolf along by a leash made of her cloak...

Daily Art #12

Catching Up: Part 2.

 

Day 32:

Today I have spent a lot of time fixing photos.

I've been cropping, tweaking perspective, adjusting color balances, levels, and saturation, painting out random tiny artifacts, and much, much more. And after all of that, I did this:

This is an early stage of a painting. It was originally intended to be an acrylic painting, but after adding a quick layer of color to the cloak I'm considering switching it to a digital painting... We'll see how it goes I guess.

 

Day 31:

Yesterday I drew the sketch that was the beginning of the Red Riding Hood image:

By the end of the evening it looked like this:

 

Day 30:

I drew some thumbnail storyboard sketches. 

The heart image series is separate from the other images. I wasn't really going for full-on storyboarding here: I just wanted to get a few images that I hope to properly storyboard later out of my head for now before I bury them with other ideas and forget what they looked like. There are still more images related to this story that I need to get down, but this is all that I've gotten to for now. The first two images are crossed out because I simply wasn't pleased with how they turned out.

 

Day 29:

This day I just spent time drawing grids on paper to have a place to work on my storyboard thumbnail sketches.

 

Day 28:

Some work in my Cut-Up Sketchbook:

 

Day 27:

More Cut-Up Sketchbook:

 

Day 26:

Even more Cut-Up Sketchbook:

 

Day 25:

The day that began this particular series of Cut-Up Sketchbook doodling:

 

Day 24:

Switching gears now to painting:

It's not much to look at - just the early stages of a painted project. I bought the wooden tree with the black outlines on it, but I'm going to paint it my own way. It'll still be owls and hearts in a tree, but it should end up fairly different from the original design.

 

Day 23:

This was quite a long day of art as I painted mailboxes for my niece and nephew for Valentine's Day.

They're quite simple, but I figured that I didn't need to make them masterpieces since they're playthings for a three and five year old...

Day 22: 

This day was the the day that I painted the base coats of color on the above mailboxes.

Day 21:
And this is the day that I completed the base coat of paint for the owl tree:
Whew! That was a lot in one post. Hopefully I'll keep this updated more regularly in the future. (I was doing so well for awhile there...) :)

Daily Art #11

I've been a bit distracted lately making progress on other projects followed by an out-of-town visit, so I'm going to catch up on posting my recent Daily Art projects in two blog installments today. The second post will be made much later in the day after I finish making the cell phone pictures that I've been taking lately to document my artwork quickly presentable. For now, I'll just be posting progress from days 17-20 until I get the rest of my images spruced up to my liking. (As always, I'll present the works from most recent to least. I do this because that is the same order in which my blog posts are presented and I would prefer to keep the images in some semblance of chronological order if one were to scroll through the posts - even if it is reverse chronology...)

Day 20:

The finished painted mirror that I posted my start on a few weeks ago (minus the finishing clear coat):

 

Day 19:

More work in my "Cut-Up Sketchbook" - this time with paint.

 

Day 18:

The in-between stage of the finished painted mirror that I completed on Day 20:

 

Day 17:

A blue ballpoint pen ink drawing of the character named "Felix" that I designed early in 2003. It's just a quick sketch that I did one day while I was bored. I'm not particularly happy with the position of the back leg and its foot.

Daily Art #10

I've continued work on my cut-up sketchbook for the past two days, but I've been working on different pages (somewhat...).

Day 16:

Today I worked on the page two pages past the page that I've been working on for the past few days. The facing page next to the one with the palm tree doodles has a semi-transparent vellum in the middle of it. Thus, when the page is turned the palm tree cave doodle shows through. I plan to leave the actual doodle black and white, but I colored the vellum with ink to "color" the drawing on the other page:

The image of the picture is a little blurred because the pages won't sit flat together, but you get the gist. This is just a start. I'm going to be refining this page a lot more after I get the other side of this page done. This beginning layer of color is really just a guideline for what I'm going to put on the page later.

Day 15:

Yesterday I did a little refinement to one of the pages that I've worked on (and previously thought finished) before. The very first page of the book has a semi-transparent piece of paper in it. I like the style and color of the paper, as well as its placement in the page, but, unfortunately, I wrote on the cover of the book awhile back and missed the fact that the writing went right across that piece of paper and showed through to the decorated inside of the book. I've been meaning to fix it for awhile, so yesterday I finally got a start on it:

I fixed the mishap by blacking out the back of the entire semi-transparent rectangle; that covered up the writing. But then, the black showing through looked bad against the other papers and designs on the page, so I made it blend in a bit more by painting glitter nail polish over most of the square. Now I need to refine it a bit more with paint, but I haven't really had opportunity to paint lately, so it may be awhile until I continue with this particular piece of the book.

Daily Art # 8

Day 13:

More drawing:

I think that I should share where this project started, so here's the beginning of the Cut-Up Sketchbook:

And here's where it's going:

And here's where it was yesterday for Daily Art:

Day 12:

Daily Art # 4

Day 8:

Today was a good day.

Today I got compliments on one of my models from two artists that I highly respect.

A little over a year ago I decided to model a character designed by someone else to prove to potential employers that I could follow other people's designs as well as my own. I chose to model Szeth-Son-Son-Vallano, a character in Brandon Sanderson's novel "The Way of Kings". (By the way, if you enjoy fantasy literature, read some of Sanderson's stuff; it's fantastic. I'd start with the "Mistborn" trilogy...) I completed the model and described it on my website and YouTube as a model "based on a character design by Isaac Stewart in Brandon Sanderson's novel "The Way of Kings"." Apparently, I was mistaken in my credits. The character was actually drawn by Ben McSweeney, one of the other two artists who, like Isaac Stewart, contributed work to Sanderson's novel.

I was corrected today (and complimented on the model) by Isaac Stewart himself in a YouTube message. Then Ben McSweeney commented on my turntable video, clarifying what Isaac Stewart had done and what he had done himself, and then he, too, complimented me on the model.

He did, however, suggest one change: When Ben McSweeney drew the character he gave him a buckled belt, yet Sanderson's text describes him as having a rope belt. He suggested that I could correct that discrepancy to make the character model more accurate, and suggested that I toy with the design a bit rather than just swapping the current belt out for a simple rope tied in a knot at the waist. So, that is what I have done for today's Daily Art: I came up with a couple of options for a fancy new rope belt to swap with the current belt that is on my character model.

The next step is to choose which one I like best and model it. Though, in truth, I think that the modeling will wait a few days; I expect to be painting the rest of that mirror for my Daily Art tomorrow.

Daily Art #3

Day 7:

Today I did a quick digital sketch as a concept for a painting that I have been commissioned to do.

 

Daily Art #2 - Mishaps

Day 6:

Today's Daily Art kind of failed.

I was very busy with other things during the day so I thought that I'd do something simple in the evening, like a fancy manicure. Then I decided that the design wasn't really creative enough and it didn't require any real technical artistic skills, so I decided that it didn't qualify as "daily art".

Thus, I decided to paint. I wanted to revise the color of the frame of the mirror that I was painting on Day 5, but for some reason I was having difficulty trying to hold the mirror without grabbing wet paint today, and the whole time I just felt clumsy. The juggling act ended in a bit of a disaster when I spilled brush cleaner that is probably pretty chemically akin to a paint thinner all over my own lap and the floor.

I actually got pretty lucky with where it spilled, because the jar of cleaner landed upside down in a paper bag which did actually soak up the majority of the spill. A good amount of fluid was able to leak through the bag onto the carpet and that had to be cleaned up of course, but, considering how full the jar was, I can't complain; especially since the bag the jar landed in was sitting directly up against my computer tower, which managed to come out of the incident with only two drops on the top to wipe up. And did I mention that the jar was sitting on the desk right next to my laptop before it fell? That escaped without even a drop hitting it. I must say that I got very lucky. That could have been a very expensive mishap, but instead I was able to get through it by just drying off a couple of things that got splashed, soaking some liquid up from the carpet, and changing my clothes (as they soaked up quite a bit of the spill as well).

The downside, however, is that I wasn't really in the mood to keep painting after that, so this is all that I did today:

I didn't even finish the frame of the mirror, which I'm currently planning on covering in dark silver tones after I finish laying out the cool-toned under-painting which will show through the silver in places.

Oh, and I ruined my manicure:

I guess some days some things just aren't meant to be...

Freedom Post #2: Daily Art # 1

Now that I am out of school and done with my thesis I need a new topic for this blog.

I have decided to do some kind of artistic/creative exercise every day. It can be as simple as a doodle or as complicated as a full painting. It can be a whole, finished piece or it can be just one step of a multi-day project. It can be a mundane task that practices technical artistic skills (like color correcting images) or a much more creative process (like designing a new character). I just want to keep practicing and do something every day to keep my creative skills sharp while I search for my first real artistic employment.

I'm viewing this as an exercise for myself, so I won't be posting every piece of daily art; some pieces may be too personal for posting on the internet and some too mundane to be worth sharing. I also won't be posting daily. But I'm going to try for weekly. I'll post up to seven "daily art" pieces at a time. Not all of it will be my best work. Some of it will be just for fun, and some of it will be projects specifically aimed at enhancing my demo reel or portfolio, such as texturing my untextured thesis models.

I think that that about sums up the concept. Now to get down to it.

These are the pieces of "daily art" that I have completed so far this week:

Today: Base coat of paint on a mirror that I am painting as a gift for my mother's birthday. I painted her a mirror in cool tones as a Christmas gift, and she requested a warmer piece to complement it. I will be finishing the imagery on it tomorrow.

Yesterday: Digital Paint Doodle created in Adobe Photoshop

Sunday: Color corrections of photos documenting portfolio-quality work from my AAU anatomy class that somehow never made it on this site before. I manipulated about ten different images; the rest may be viewed in the "Anatomy" section of my "Portfolio" page.

Saturday: Charcoal self portait that I choose not to share.

Friday: Wooden plaque decorated with a quote from an unknown source that I found on the internet and accents in acrylic paint. This was a birthday gift for my stepmother.

I think that that selection gives a fair indication of how varied these posts are going to be. This week has included two acrylic painted projects so far, which is rare for me. I expect drawings and doodles in a variety of media to be pretty frequent in the future, and once I get all of my job profiles updated on various websites over the next week or so I'm going to go back to working on my "Fearless" thesis project models, so by then much of my progress will be digital work. I'm looking forward to it.