I'm watching you..... :o

Environment

Haven't done any environment concepting in Photoshop for at least a year now, so I thought it was time I jumped back in. Was very much like getting into a pool. Frustrating at first but once you get used to it again it was very happy feelings...

Anyways, looking at various people for inspiration and to learn from and pretty much just making it up as I go along. We'll see how far I take this... (next one will be more thought out with thumbs)

Also doin the whole Conceptart.org thing again. Tis' good for the encouragement.

Travis the monkey is dead...

....and what? :P

No love in deez 'hard times'....

Determined

Just a small update. Been focusing a lot on anatomy studies as of late and will continue to do so as I feel that this is where I need to improve drastically first, before I start tackling other things. I want to have a much more intuitive understanding of the figure.

Good Morning!! ;) x

Appx. 2hrs max.

"The only time 'success' comes before 'work' is in the dictionary."
Really wanted to go to bed last night after work, but decided to get something done. It's usually not that difficult to know what we should be doing and it's not really a matter of forcing yourself to do it. It's more about coming up with a good enough excuse to want to do it. Lying down in a big comfy bed when you're tired seems to have immediate payoffs, whereas a blank canvas or sheet of paper can look uncertain or even scary. But often, we're just getting ahead of ourselves.

I'm definitely one who has had to struggle with fear and laziness. As students, I think some of us, like myself, get caught up in this sort of 'end goal' or vision of success that we want to see for ourselves. It's of course smart to have goals, but sometimes I find myself dwelling on it.
Thinking to yourself things like "ugh, look at my stuff, I have such a long way to go" or "It'll take me years to get that good! My work is so crappy right now" ....and I could go on and on. You get the idea. Thoughts like that can hinder you from even starting something.

Endurance is key, but thinking of all this 'becoming an artist' stuff as a race implies that your trying to get somewhere, or that there is a final result. There is no final result or point. You can keep learning until the day your 100 years old. The process that your going through at the present moment while you work on each new piece is what is important. The past and future don't even exist. Learning to savor each moment and not thinking about all your fear of the future, whether it's:
"Will this piece be any good?"
or
"How old will I be before I become a professional?", I believe these thoughts will only slow you down in the end. Instead, if we were more mindful of the present and turned these into:
"How can I make this better?"
or
"If I do another illustration right now, I'll get better right now." ...well then we'd be keeping that snowball effect going and we would keep getting better and learning more (and faster).

Anyways, this is what I'm going to try and keep mindful of in 2009.

Happy New Year to everyone!

12 - 20 -08

I have a blog?

Self portrait in oils I did over Thanksgiving weekend. I have a LONG way to go but I'm really encouraged by how far I've come already from my portrait attempts at the Academy. What John English was trying to show me is finally starting to make some sense.
Anyways, yeah. It's been a while. Things have been a little tough lately, but like most struggles, if you manage to come out of them on top (and w/a clean pair of underwear) you'll usually end up better for it in the end. That's what I plan on doing. Already, things that once seemed bad have turned out to be blessings in disguise. Along with all that, I'll be getting back to regular postings. Another portrait is in the works. It may very well be of you! :O
...no, not really.

Dangermouse

Yeah, I know I've taken forever to post something new. Been dealing with a few things, one of them being me trying to find a day job while having no car (aarggh!!). The above image is the last thing I completed while at the Illustration Academy. We were to do a portrait of a music artist according to a random letter that we were given. I got the letter 'D', so I did an illustration of Dangermouse (one of the guys from Gnarls Barkley). The pieced together records that he's playing was the main concept as he is well known for his 'mash-ups' of different artists such as taking The Beatles 'White Album' and mixing it with Jay-Zs 'Black Album' to make the famous Grey Album, which went on to be the most illegally downloaded album of all time, which has now made me write one of the worst run-on sentences of all time. Anyways, there's definitely more that could be done to this illustration to make it better, but I'm pretty happy with how much I've improved in such a short time. I can't imagine ever having the initiative of taking something this far when I was still a student at VCU.


This is a quick oil painting that George Pratt did for a demo during the Academy. I was lucky enough to end up winning this piece at the art give-away on the last day of the Academy. The photo of course doesn't do it justice. It was really amazing to see this guy just play with the paint.
I went on a five day trip to Chicago the first week that I got back from Florida so not much has gotten done yet. The above picture sums it up pretty well. I plan on unpacking all the art stuff this weekend. Hopefully I won't go mad living at home for the next few months. I can't wait till I get back to good old Richmond.

Enough about me for a second tho. I've been meaning to post something about this for a while now: A couple of weeks ago, I was deeply saddened to learn that comic book artist/creator Michael Turner had recently passed away. Quite a few years back, I was lucky enough to get to meet Michael at Wizard World Philly, and it's true when they say how nice of a guy he was. I remember enjoying his early work on Witchblade, right around the time when I was discovering stuff outside of Marvel. Here's more info.

:*(
R.I.P.

WIPs

This is an in-progress under drawing for this weeks assignment. Going to start adding color washes into it (and I may very well destroy it if I'm not careful). I was having too much fun rendering it was hard to stop. Hopefully some people will recognize who modeled as the cop when I took the reference, heh... :


Color study for last weeks assignment that I actually liked as much if not better than the final:

Illustration Academy; 4 weeks in

First of all, everyone seen the new James Jean stuff? Yeeah.... O_0 <- ? And that's all I can really say about that, lol.

The Academy is frikin amazing, of course. Definitely one of the wisest decisions I ever made. As far as learning goes, it has already been like 2 years of VCU compacted into 4 weeks, probably more (not to rag on vcu). It's also been pretty intimidating at times since there are a TON of talented students here. Florida humidity really sucks!
Here's Barron Storey talking to students after a demonstration. He's the best there is at what he does. And what he does is absolutely insane. As informative as he is entertaining:
Jon Foster painting Tesla during pink shirt wednesday. Definitely one of my heroes and also just a really good guy:

Mark English demo with instructors Doug Chayka, John English and Brent Watkinson in the background. We've been learning so much from these guys that it occasionally makes your head hurt:
Gary Kelley doing a monotype (and it looks like Brent is throwing up in a trash can):

First assignment. Everyone was limited to flat shapes and color with no rendering. This was so we would focus on assembling an image with the focus on the 'design' of the piece, as to not try and cover a shitty composition with nice drawing and or other 'tricks' (not that that would work anyway). It's simple, but it was actually pretty difficult. We're given the assignment on monday and its due the following monday morning where it is critiqued by the new guest artist and faculty. After all the process work, most of us don't start on the final until friday or saturday. Done in acrylic and about 95% done:
Pratt gave an impromptu painting demo today and it was awesome. Sargent study I was doing this week during lecture week:

The assignments start up again tomorrow with Chris Payne. Ta ta for now.

"if THIS was SPARTA!!!"

If this was Sparta, I would cast this crying baby at work into the Spartan pit of death.

Alas, I may have only two shifts left(hooray!), but hearing-loss lasts forever. :(

Update: *I'm done. :O

Some exam stuff, or at least what I feel like showing. The first two are from the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Used gouache, acrylic, oils and some digital. Had fun experimenting:


Concept sketch about the Boston priest who was recently in court for stalking Conan O'Brien. Didn't quite nail the likeness. The final had his hair much more exaggerated but overall it didn't really turn out well.

Photos from Senior Studio taught by Sterling Hundley. The class was about marketing yourself and how to actually put together your own 'unique' portfolio. Lots of good stuff was learned and even if I'm not ready to make that jump yet, it will all come in handy later. Some of my older work is featured in them:
And then this, just because it's cool:

Comic Relief

Exams are kicking my ass. Here's something to help me lighten up. Enjoy:
This guy is sick and twisted but also very clever. You can see the rest of his stuff here: http://smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=739#comic

Goals

Was gonna wait to post this, but what the heck:
These are the goals for myself as I enter this post-college and Illustration Academy era in a couple months. It is mostly a place of training and learning while I hone my craft and get to a more professional skill level while friends and family are yelling at me to do something with my life because I have this magical 'college degree', "oooOooh". It shouldn't be too hard to get a lot done while I'm living in Chicago since I don't really know anyone there. Anyh'way, I want to enter a more specific field of illustration. In order for all this to work, I will have to give 200% and really put my heart and soul into it. I will accomplish the following goals somewhere in the time frame of Aug 01 2008 - July 01 2009:


1. Stable living/working conditions.
(I will need a job that pays the bills and also leaves me the time and energy to come home to something I love. No kitchen jobs where all I want to do when I come home is have a beer and take a nap. Something with benefits is ideal.)

2. Enter next year's Spectrum and get in.
( I know what you're all probably thinking. I definitely realize the odds of getting in aren't all that great at the moment and that everything is OK if I don't get in. But for now, I'm going to keep those thoughts at the very back of my mind just so that I will work my butt off as if my life depends on it. Would it really benefit me to think about it any other way? Would it help me at all to think that there is no way that I could do it? I think thats an easy one. Even if I don't get in, which is likely right now, its mainly just a goal that will motivate me to spend hours on hours of time improving. Either way, its win/win.)

3. Promote the hell out of myself on the forums. (ALL of them)

4. Get work published in ImagineFX.
(while submitting to any other publication that could potentially show off my work)

5. Website

6. Hit the Cons and submit portfolio.
(get out to the conventions and submit to all the studios and publishers I want to work for.)

7. Achieve the physique of Jason Stathom.
(stop laughing. I know where you live.)

8. No more 'run-on' sentences.

I could get more specific with each of these but I think that will do for now.


and begin...

Jeremy Vickery

I'm currently watching a Gnomon dvd called Practical Light and Color by Jeremy Vickery. Pretty good overview of lighting and color. This guy works and PIXAR and was charge of the lighting for The Incredibles, Cars, and Ratatouille. These are two quick sketches you watch him do on the dvd. The guy just pulls them out of his ass like it's nothing. Insane.
I was amazed and inspired as much as it scared me to death. Somehow I have to eventually get to this level at some point in my life. :O Better keep my nose down and start practicing it all now, cuz you know I'm not gonna learn it in school.
(because Biology is apparently more important...)

Goku has to go off and train with King Kai for awhile... :*(

Tis' the season to eat pollen, fa la la la la. My eyes are stinging. Damn yellow napalm.
I promise to post everything that I've been doing sometime soon. Coordinating my schedule and getting things done in the most efficient order is proving difficult.

And now, the big news:
I just found out today that, after I return from the Illustration Academy in July, I will not be returning to Richmond. The cards have been revealed and it looks like I'm heading west to the windy city of Chicago. My talented girlfriend was offered a job with a modern dance company up there and since I'm not held down by anything to stay in any particular place, I've decided to move up there myself. This is definitely a good thing but still very bittersweet since most people who have lived in Richmond for some time know how easy it is to get attached to it. It's gonna be difficult to leave friends and all the places that I love but I hope to return someday. Heck, it could've been Des Moines, Iowa. Hah. :)