Art of Araya - SKETCHBLOG

BIG SWORDS

2011-12-03T19:13:00.000-08:00

Just doodlin around

I drew a face

2011-11-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

CTN EXPO WAS AWESOME.

Despite the horror that was signing up for it, the actual convention was fantastic! Got to meet a ton of amazing artists and discover that they were REAL PEOPLE, which was a bizarre and surreal experience for me. I'm hoping to attend next year along with SDCC this time. Here's a face.

2011-10-30T10:46:00.000-07:00

One of my coworkers modeled my Batman concept!

Original Concept:

AWESOME MODEL:

http://www.zbrushcentral.com/showthread.php?905306&p=905306&viewfull=1#post905306

Some Dun Def wallpapers

2011-10-19T12:19:00.000-07:00

I did a few wallpapers to promote the release of our game recently, hope you guys like!

Just a random doodle

2011-08-27T21:01:00.001-07:00

Some old Marvel work

2011-08-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

I hate updating this thing so sporadically but I rarely find myself with time to do any personal artwork anymore. On the bright side, we at Trendy Ent. finally have a release date for Dungeon Defenders (Console and PC), which has made everybody at the office 237 times less stressed out than before. Please allow me to shamelessly plug it:

http://www.joystiq.com/2011/08/23/dungeon-defenders-squire-gets-his-hands-dirty-in-new-trailer/

Regarding artwork I can post...here are some pieces I did around the beginning of this year for the Marvel Super Hero Squad trading card game. I look back on some of these and feel that obligatory twinge of "Oh-My-God-Look-At-All-These-Mistakes"-itis, but it was a great learning experience and I nerded the hell out when I got to paint Thor and Sabretooth for a proffesional gig.

If these seem awkwardly composed, it's because I had to take into consideration how the image would look with all the final text and labels and stats and whatnot on the cards.

*EDIT* Blogger seems to be randomly resizing the first two to be SUPER HUGE for some reason, I'm not sure how to fix this.

The other game I've been working on

2011-07-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

This tech demo has been leaked so I guess I can post this now, although I'm not allowed to say much about this game. What I will say is THAT IS NOT AT ALL THE FINAL UI OR CONTROL SET. In fact nothing in this video is finalized, it's JUST a tech demo.

I'm going to find out if I'm allowed to post any of the concept art I've done for it.

In the meantime though...there's this

Just some sci fi fantasy elf chick I doodled after work today. Pretty much stayed within my comfort zone across the board on this one.

MONKEYS AND ROBOTS

2011-05-31T20:07:00.000-07:00

So there's this awesome web comic that some buddies of mine have created YOU GOTTA GO READ IT

http://www.bananasandbinary.com/system/

Environment Practice

2011-05-13T09:45:00.000-07:00

Just something I doodled after work the other day. I haven't done any art outside of work since I started here, and I'm looking to change that.

Yarrrrrr

2011-04-13T22:43:00.000-07:00

Bedtime doodle

My awesomely talented friends are making a webcomic

2011-04-11T22:14:00.001-07:00

My awesomely talented friends are making a webcomic. It's going to be amazing:

www.bananasandbinary.com

Lady

2011-04-07T15:59:00.000-07:00

While I was taking a break at work today, I saw this lady outside. She was yelling at everyone, asking them to put their mouths on her ass and suck the shit out. It was pretty disgusting but I was really upset that I didn't have my sketchbook with me! I did my best to memorize her features and I drew her later. She was smoking an incense stick!

Pixar's hiring

2011-04-06T08:20:00.000-07:00

Pixar's hiring a sketch artist. Apply!

http://tbe.taleo.net/NA9/ats/careers/requisition.jsp?org=PIXAR&cws=1&rid=366

Applying to Pixar has become like a ritual for me. I swear, one day when I'm like 73 I'll get an acceptance letter.

Work Cool Downs

2011-04-05T16:05:00.000-07:00

Instead of doing warm ups at work, I tend to do cool-down sketches at the end of the day. Just mindless doodlings for fun which all seem to be random heads.

Doodling

2011-03-20T22:03:00.001-07:00

Doodle before bed

I GOTS JOB

2011-03-19T19:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry I've been pretty quiet lately, I've spent the last few days moving from the Washington DC area to Gainesville Florida to work as a concept artist for Trendy Entertainment, and it's been a pretty awesome experience so far. Gainesville is basically a college town, so it's been easy adjusting to the new life. I really like the job and the people I work with, and I'm pretty much in love with the new apt. All in all it's been hectic though, but hopefully I'll have some arts to post. Hope all's well for you guys.

Doodles

2011-02-17T16:27:00.001-08:00

Just messin around late last night. Decided to try painting without a tight line drawing

Spiders

2011-02-16T10:24:00.001-08:00

This was from a 1 hour sketch-jam session the other night. The topic was Superman

Masculinity and Comic Con

2011-02-05T14:33:00.000-08:00

I remember when this was supposed to be what a nerd looked like. This is what Comic Con was supposed to be full of.

But that's not what I found there. Oh no. I realized that any hope I had of clinging to my scraps of self-esteem was delusional. Never has my masculinity been more threatened than it was at Comic Con. It went something like this:

So then I'd be like...

and they'd be like...

Man it sucked. They took time to point out specific things I needed to work on, were full of encouragement, were generous with their time, and they were all unreasonably talented. I'm very much none of those things. I assumed that after Comic Con I'd want to go home and really hit the drawing board full of inspiration, but really all I wanted to do afterward was go home and work out.

Courtship

2011-01-15T21:55:00.001-08:00

Saw this scene on the way home today on the metro, and it made me laugh. It's January.

In school I never animated much outside of my classes, mainly because I was never any good at it. It really is a ton of fun though and I often wish I had the discipline (balls) to actually go through with making a short film. Anyway this is one of those days where I felt like messing around with animating, and it was mostly because my friend Enrique posted up some of his old animation and I got inspired.

Batman and

2011-01-14T15:27:00.000-08:00

I haven't had much time to do any arting for myself lately, so I aimlessly doodled in photoshop for a couple of hours and this picture of Robin came out. I used the hard edged brush with 0 opacity for most of it, just to try something newish.

It's 2011

2011-01-04T12:42:00.001-08:00

Here's a doodle

LOTR studies

2010-12-18T21:32:00.001-08:00

Lately I realized I'm getting complacent and so I've been trying to get back into doing studies.

Libros de Arte

2010-11-24T16:48:00.001-08:00

I got the Art of Tangled and the Art of Megamind this week, and both of these books are awesome! The Art of Tangled is worth the money for Glen Keane's sketches ALONE, never mind all the incredibly beautiful renderings and interesting insight into the design process. If you've got the money, these are both more than worth the price!

I'm looking at the art of Darksiders next but I'm curious if any of you have checked that one out? Thoughts?

I'm 25 years old today

2010-11-17T11:46:00.000-08:00

...which is cool and all, but check these out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSEnzs8AocY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlXRengzZoc

Incredible, evocative storytelling in only a minute (second one is directed by David Fincher):

If only more commercials were done like those. Thanks Camilo for showing me the second one!

GIGACON!

2010-11-10T11:16:00.000-08:00

If you're in the D.C area on the weekend of January 14th, you should really stop by to check out this convention.

What is it? Here's an excerpt from the website : Gigacon is an educational based, multimedia convention sponsored by The Art Institute of Washington (Aiw). We incorporate many of the majors at the AiW, such as; Media arts and Animation, Game Art, Graphic Design, Audio Production, Fashion, and many more. And we try our best to bring in professionals from each of those fields. Students, as well as faculty members, and outside visitors gain knowledge, tips, and tricks from the professionals at Gigacon.

Some of the folks that will be attending:

Humberto Ramos

Joe Benitez

Brian Stelfreeze

...and MORE. This is the second time around for the con, which means it's still starting out, it's smaller, and it's WAY more intimate. You'll have more time to get really thorough critiques from these masters of art, and there's time to actually hold conversations with these guys, which you unfortunately don't really get at the massive conventions like SDCC, where there are a thousand distractions every 7 seconds. There's more info on the website, including a more comprehensive list of the guests that'll be attending.

WEBSITE - http://www.gigacon.aiwdepts.com

A cool blog about phones and gadgets and stuff

2010-10-06T22:42:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine started this blog where he talks about a lot of things that I can't afford because I'm poor. If you're less poor than me, this might interest you.

http://www.techminnow.com/

If you like it, make sure you leave comments mentioning my name. That way he'll buy me beers which will let me forget that I'm poor

Justice League CG Movie Concepts

2010-09-28T20:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, just for fun I started doing concepts for a faux Justice League CG movie. I've always been a huge fan of Bruce Timm and the DC Timmverse he helped create, and I thought it would be cool to basically design the JLA movie that I would direct if given the chance. I didn't do any huge drastic changes because I didn't want to betray the characters in terms of who they are and what they're about. I just wanted to build on what's already been established and tweak things the way I saw them. I was going to wait until I had more artwork before I posted this, but with all the freelance I've got, I don't think I'll be able to work on this again for a while.

Clark and Bruce face shots: This pic is kinda what started the whole thing. I always thought Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent were a great opportunity to play with contrast. They both have similar features in a broad sense (Caucasian, black hair, relatively good looking) but I don't think they need to be drawn to look the same! These characters couldn't be more different, and so I tried to play that up with the shape language used in their design. I made Bruce primarily out of triangular shapes to associate him with danger, and I made Clark mostly out of chunky block shapes to emphasize a sense of protectiveness (which I think is what Superman is all about). I rounded the corners off on Superman's "blocks" to make sure the shapes were still comfortable and friendly.

I also made Bruce slightly more pale than Clark because I feel like it emphasizes the lack of warmth and is another way to appropriately add contrast to the characters.

Superman: Superman is a wholesome, good-natured guy with antiquated notions of heroism, and that's what I like about him. He represents a more honest hero, and SO many people don't like him because he's too corny, or not badass enough, and I think that's ridiculous. I hardly touched his costume at all because I wanted him to look corny and I wanted his image to reflect the dated quality of his beliefs. I really don't like when people try to make him like, this dark, violent, angry guy just for the sake of making him cooler.

Anyway I tried to make him primarily out of chunky square shapes, and I went as far as taking away the angles on his boots to make them a little more chunky and plain. I think he should be a big character to emphasize the fact that he's all about IMMENSE power and protectiveness. I know a lot of people say that he shouldn't be big because nothing would give him a workout, but I disagree because

1) Every time I see him lift something, he looks like he's straining real hard. Whether it's a car, a piece of rubble, a building, it all seems to be difficult for him.

2) The design reflecting the spirit of the character is more important to me than whether or not he'd be big in real life. He's powerful and he's protective, that's what I want my design to emphasize.

Green Lantern: I thought it would be cool if his outfit was more of a manifestation of the ring's power as opposed to just cloth. I think that's the angle the live action movie is taking too, so I thought I'd do my version of that idea. I thought it would be cool if the green parts were constantly shifting, and seemed like you were looking inside some kind of unstable, nebulous energy reaction. I went with the spots because I was paying homage to that swiss cheese effect that Jack Kirby used to do whenever he drew energy.

Wonder Woman: I went with angry, warrior, man hating Wonder Woman. I feel like if you're raised your entire life immersed in bigotry, you're not just going to change your beliefs after a single adventure. It's not gonna be like "oh these guys fought with me to save the world, men aren't so bad." Nobody just drops prejudiced opinions like that, they skew and distort things to keep supporting and maintaining their discrimination. I feel like her acceptance of men would be a very slow, gradual thing and it would never be 100%. I was mostly inspired by Darwyn Cooke's design with some tweaks here and there where I thought it made more sense or would add some appeal.

Batman: I wanted Batman to be composed of triangular shapes to emphasize how dangerous he is. I also didn't want to draw him big and bulky because in my version he's primarily an acrobat, not a bodybuilder. He's constantly doing flips and jumping off rooftops, so he'd be extremely lean. I also gave him the more armored costume because

1) It looks cool

2) Having an outfit that looks more like protective gear while everyone else is wearing more "costume-y" outfits visually reinforces the fact that he's human and mortal. It reminds us that he NEEDS this to protect him and that's a trait that I (and I think most people) like about batman.

I also made Batman's skin even more pale here than in the Bruce Wayne pic to further emphasize the lack of warmth in Batman, and it also helped to add more contrast against the darkness of his suit. I like the idea of his face being that one little speck of pale, cold, humanity peeking out from this huge enveloping shroud of darkness.

Scenes: These were (relatively) quickly done pieces to give an idea of mood, lighting, and color. I'm not 100% happy with all of them, but for the most part I like how they turned out. More than the other stuff, I wish I had time to do more of these. I feel bad that Green Lantern (black guy) is the only character who doesn't have one, but I was going to do another set of 3 with Hawkgirl, Green Lantern, and Flash. Maybe I still will.

Spaced

2010-09-01T19:59:00.001-07:00

Being a huge fan of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg's work on Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, I decided to check out Spaced. Spaced is a sitcom about twenty-something year olds written by and starring Simon Pegg and Jessica Hynes, and directed by Edgar Wright. It's got a shitload of movie/geek references (Simon Pegg's character is an aspiring comic book artist) and it's 14 episodes of fucking awesome.

You can really tell that it's made by a group of friends who are writing a lot of themselves in the characters, and that makes it hard not to care about them. The ending of the last episode totally got me emotional as hell. It's not that the ending is depressing or anything, but the finality of it just kinda leaves you feeling sad and makes you as a viewer wish you could hang out with these guys just a little longer(and musical montages at the end of good shows will ALWAYS work on me). Every artist and child of pop culture should go buy this show right now.

Warm up

2010-09-01T11:33:00.001-07:00

My warm up today

AFI Top 100

2010-08-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

Over the past year or two, I've been made painfully aware of just how many movies I should have seen, but haven't. This is pretty ridiculous for someone with the aspirations that I've got, so to rectify this and to expand my cinematic IQ, I've decided to go through the AFI Top 100. Here are the movies I've watched so far

- Citizen Kane
- The Godfather
- Schindler's List
- Star Wars
- Chinatown
- Apocalypse Now
- The Godfather Part 2
- North by Northwest
- A Clockwork Orange
- Taxi Driver
- Raiders of the Lost Ark (saw this one for the first time in its entirety today)
- The Silence of the Lambs
- Pulp Fiction

I also saw Yojimbo Sanjuro, and the Seven Samurai which I feel should be mentioned as part of a list that all storytellers should see. A few of those movies I had seen before, but the majority of them are all new to me. I think it's interesting that the film I enjoyed the LEAST out of that list was Raiders of the Lost Ark, which I'm sure must be blasphemous to a lot of people.

I think I'm going to have to go back and watch a lot of these movies a second time to try to take them apart and do my best to analyze them.

Influence Maps

2010-08-27T08:56:00.000-07:00

I thought this was an interesting and useful exercise. Here's a little info on my choices:

1. DICE TSUTSUMI - Brilliant painter currently working at Pixar. I love his lighting schemes and have been totally ripping them off lately.

2. GLEN KEANE - The weight, fluidity, appeal, and gesture in each of his drawings is insane.

3. BRAD BIRD - The Incredibles is my favorite of his movies, and in general I think he's my favorite director in animation right now.

4. GAINAX - Specifically FLCL, Gunbuster2, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Awesomely dynamic stuff.

5. BRUCE TIMM - He might have come up with the perfect simplification for animated super heroes.

6. GOBELINS, l'école de l'image - All the shorts coming out of that school have been absolutely ridiculously amazing.

7. HAYAO MIYAZAKI - I know it's blasphemous to say this, but Miyazaki's movies really had to grow on me because I was NOT a fan at first. My initial impression was that his movies went off on long, slow, unrelated tangents and that his endings were too "deus ex machina" as a friend of mine put it. I still feel that way about some of his movies, but the charm, whimsy, and complexity of his characters have won me over.

8. CHRISTOPHER NOLAN - Brilliant writer/director. There's not much that needs to be said really, I'm sure everyone has seen Dark Knight and Inception. I REEEEALLY like The Prestige though, and it may be my favorite of his movies despite that ending.

9. EDGAR WRIGHT - BRILLIANT writer/director. His sense of comedy and story are just absolutely amazing and I love that even though his movies are comedies, they have a surprising amount of heart and depth to them. He creates parodies without being condescending or pretentious, and he has these constant "loops" in his movies where dialogue from the beginning is repeated at the end under completely different circumstances. Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead are each so densely packed with hilarious scenes and really clever little lines that it always amazes me. I've seen both movies so many times I could probably talk along with the characters on screen.

10. FINAL FANTASY VII - This game DEFINED my middle school years and has had a huge hand in influencing my aesthetic sensibilities. I never really let go of the giant weapons/high tech/swords and sorcery stuff that this game introduced me to.

DOODLES

2010-08-25T22:19:00.000-07:00

Randomness done today in Photoshop with a Wacom Bamboo Fun. I gotta get me one of them fancy cintiqs one day.

Because Hobos are Awesome

2010-08-21T19:23:00.000-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows how much I love drawin hobos.

Turnaround

2010-08-15T20:14:00.000-07:00

The main character of the new set of boards I'm working on.

Ghibli's "Tales of Earthsea"

2010-08-14T10:18:00.001-07:00

I should start by saying that I went into this movie after hearing all the negative reviews about it, so my expectations were pretty low. I immediately assumed that people were unfairly comparing Goro Miyazaki's debut film to his father's masterpieces, and I found this extremely unfair considering how much experience in animation Hayao Miyazaki had before he directed his first full length feature film. I chivalrously defended the underdog in my mind, and I turned on the movie having made up my mind that I was going to enjoy this story.

About halfway through the movie, I realized that Hayao Miyazaki was absolutely right in criticizing his son when he claimed that Goro didn't have the experience necessary to direct a feature film.

It shows. it REALLY shows. All the mistakes made were incredibly basic storytelling mistakes for which I think there was no excuse. I've often heard this movie described as feeling superficial, and I think that's a really accurate description.

Throughout the story, stuff just kinda happens, which is because there is very little motivation (if any) for the characters' actions. They just do stuff and go places for no real reason for the entire first half of the movie. They're just walking, talking plot propellers that deliver really stilted dialogue, even when taking the cultural differences into consideration.

Another ENORMOUS problem is that the protagonist is so dispassionately reactive to everything, it's really hard to give a damn about him. Things will happen to him, characters will do stuff, you really won't care about any of them and halfway through you still won't know what the hell the movie's even about.

Visually it's fantastic, with Ghibli's gorgeously painted backgrounds. I even like the throwback character designs. They look more like the older, Nausicaa style of design and less like the more recent Spirited Away/Ponyo stuff (which I still like). The animation is great compared to most other studios out there, but kinda weak when compared to other Ghibli animation. The main reason I say that is because there's very little in the animation that demonstrates the characters' personalities. The expressions and movements are kinda generic and it feels like you could swap one character's animation and put it on another and it wouldn't make much difference. What I always admired about Ghibli movies is Miyazaki's hyper attention to detail in the character animation, insisting that characters move based on how they're feeling and what their personalities are. This is kinda rare in anime and it's something this film unfortunately lacks, which isn't surprising given Goro's insistence on staying out of the family business.

There are some cool action sequences which will do their best to hold your attention, but otherwise the movie's a little disappointing. If Goro Miyazaki ends up writing/directing another movie, I hope father and son won't be at eachother's throats as much during production and Goro will actually work with his father and take his advice.

*EDIT* I also want to add that the English Dub casting was really good, and Timothy Dalton did an awesome job, especially given the limitations of the script.

Gotta keep the devil way down in the hole

2010-08-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

I've been getting a bit bored with rendering all the time, so I'm kinda deviating from that for a while and trying something a little different. This is another doodle I got carried away with. I've had the Boondocks and the Wire in my head for a week or two now, so I guess this is me getting both out of my system. Tried to capture the feel of the Wire while I was on a high from Seung Kim's incredible work.

Comic Con was awesome!

2010-07-31T21:10:00.000-07:00

Comic Con was insane. There were lots of awesome people, lots of money spent, lots of generous artists giving me more advice than I know what to do with.

I very quickly discovered that Stuart NG's booth is a magical place where bank accounts go to die. They had so many amazing art books that I'd never even heard of, and I'm obsessed with art books. I want to say thanks to Octavio Rodriguez and Louie Del Carmen especially for tearing my work apart and putting up with hundreds of my questions throughout the entire con!

But ANYWAY, I should talk about the pikchur. The image above was kind of a style test for a possible future project. I'm thinking of pursuing this aesthetic for my thesis/student film if I really do end up going to SCAD for my Master's in September. This may be way too ambitious to pull off on my own, but I think I'll just ignore that issue and learn my lesson the hard way.

To the people leaving comments in what I think is chinese but I don't wanna say it definitely is chinese because I don't wanna sound racist

2010-07-19T17:37:00.000-07:00

Cut it out

Inception!

2010-07-19T14:01:00.001-07:00

I really enjoyed the movie. I REALLY enjoyed it. I could take all day writing about the things I liked, but it would be hard to do that without giving anything away. Instead I'm just going to point out my one gripe, and that's the lack of character development and lack of chemistry between the characters.
I think that DiCaprio's character was fleshed out well enough, but I really wish Ellen Page's character was made a little more three dimensional, and same with Levitt's. I don't want to elaborate (for obvious reasons), but that's the biggest complaint I've got with it. The story got a LITTLE mechanical and I think it could have used a little more emotion and heart.
There may be a few plot-holes here and there, but the overall quality of the movie was so good that it's more than forgivable. When I walked out of the theater, people weren't analyzing it as a movie, they were talking about their OWN dreams and speculating on events that happened within the movie as if the characters were real people. During the end of the movie, people were literally leaning forward in their seats and I really loved seeing that level of immersion in the audience.
I'm really excited for Batman 3.

Ess Dee See See!

2010-07-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

San Diego Comic Con is just 7 days away and I'm ridiculously excited. Last year was my first time going and it was such a massive sensory overload that I ended up missing a lot of tables and events because of my uncontrollable artgasms. If you're going and you know of any cool after parties, drink n draw sessions, sketchjams, whatever, let me know. I already plan to hit up Dan Panosian's event on Thursday night.

Also, a few things you should check out at the con:

Sunday 11:00-12:30 Comic-Con How-To Session: Bryan Tillman— Animator and art instructor (Department chair of media arts and animation, game art and design, visual game programming, visual effects, and motion graphics at the Art Institute of Washington, DC) Bryan Tillman will cover character designs for animation and what makes them different from comics. Bryan is the owner and CEO of the Kaiser Studio Productions, a production studio for comics, toys, animation, and games. Room 18

AND in Artist Alley you should go to EE16 to meet Bryan Tillman and Enrique Rivera. Both of them will have two other awesome artists at their tables, one of whom will be debuting artwork for www.beautifulmonstercomic.com. The other will have an AMAZING comic called "The Solution" which has incredible artwork and an even more incredible story.

Mention my name and you get a free smile.

Sketchbookery part dew

2010-07-11T20:41:00.000-07:00

It means part two. In Spanish.

I got a full time freelance job with Emerald City Games, which has been a blast to work on, though I'm not allowed to say anything about it. Since it's gonna be a while before I can show anything, here's some junk outta the sketchbook. I really need to improve at drawing volumes and forms. And gesture. And depicting the figure more expressively. And incorporate more exaggeration and appeal.

I need more life drawing.

me

2010-07-02T10:56:00.000-07:00

Just boredly messin about in Photoshop. Now I feel like that guy from Seven Samurai, I've constantly been rubbing my head ever since I started shaving it.

My beautiful face is ruined....

2010-06-28T21:58:00.000-07:00

Quick speed-painting of Vega. This is one of my favorite scenes from my absolute favorite interpretation of Street Fighter. I changed a few things around though.

Took about two hours. I cheated on the proportions like crazy, that mask would be enormous.

More portfolio work

2010-06-28T12:03:00.001-07:00

Finished another painting. I'm doing my best to focus on telling a story and maintaining dynamism.

Some sketches

2010-06-27T21:52:00.001-07:00

Pages out of my sketchbook, nothin fancy.

Just another comic test

2010-06-18T00:08:00.001-07:00

New work!

2010-06-16T18:45:00.001-07:00

I was very much influenced by anime when I was younger, and I don't think I want to completely lose my taste for that aesthetic, which is what's been happening as I immerse myself deeper and deeper into the gorgeous world of american feature animation. Guys like Dice Tsutsumi and Paul Felix and Glen Keane have been having such strong impact on my work lately, I think this painting was me shifting towards some of my earlier obsessions. I like what came out of it but there's still a lot meshing of influences to come.

Buy my tablet PC!

2010-06-02T09:16:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get to San Diego Comic Con, so I've put my tablet PC up on ebay. If you're in the market for one, I would love you very much if you decided to purchase mine. Below is a link to the the bidding page:

BID ON THIS AWESOME TREE-SAVER

The New Doktah

2010-05-29T13:33:00.001-07:00

I like Matt Smith as the new Doctor Who, but I'm really not a fan of the new intro music.

Also, above is an animation background I did recently as part of an art test for Spark-Flow

Epic Music

2010-05-26T16:55:00.001-07:00

Anyone who knows me knows how obsessed I am with soundtracks. When it comes to music, the more theatrical the better for me. When I listen to that kinda stuff, I tend to get really inspired and my brain goes crazy thinking about movies, movie-making, shots, stories, images, and it feels like I'm on a creative high. I think the treatment of a soundtrack (or lack thereof) can EASILY make or break a movie and it's something that's overlooked by a lot of us visual types. I mean how much impact would that "married life" montage from Up have if that song wasn't there? How much identity did the soundtrack give to the original Star Wars? Anyway below are links to a few of my favorites, check them out.

Moving Mountains by Two Steps from Hell - It's pretty much as epic as it sounds, it's been used in a few shitty trailers -
LINK

Freedom Fighters by Two Steps from Hell - used in one of the Star Trek trailer song -
LINK

Hollywood and Vines by Michael Giacchino - It's the song they used in Lost when people walked around. This is the song they WALK AROUND to. (I recommend you fast forward to 1:00.) The version I'm linking to is one where someone combined the different versions of the song used in the show-
LINK

Baidir Trailer - And awesome trailer made in france as part of a pitch for a new animation project. It's pretty amazing -
LINK

Barbarian Horde by Hans Zimmer - It's from Gladiator. The whole reason I listen to this song starts at around 5:35 -
LINK

Character Studies

2010-05-18T11:34:00.000-07:00

These are some loose sketches of the protagonist starring in my next set of storyboards.

messin around

2010-05-05T15:17:00.000-07:00

trying to focus and failing utterly.

Roger Ebert's rant

2010-04-26T21:30:00.001-07:00

Let me start by saying that I don't agree with what Roger Ebert said about video games not being art. First of all, the debate over what makes art "art" is a long, endless assault of opinions and the lack of unity on that point makes the entire argument moot. Having said that, I personally define art as the act of creation with intent. Within that, there is obviously good art and bad art. I think good art is measured by how successful the artist was in communicating what the intent WAS, and then achieving it.

Now let's talk about what Ebert MEANS to say, which I think can be summarized by one of his own quotes;

" 'No one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great poets, filmmakers, novelists and poets.' To which I could have added painters, composers, and so on, but my point is clear."

Now on this point, I ALMOST agree, but not quite and my disagreement is three-fold

1) There's this wonderful romanticized notion that older=better, and it's just not true. Well at least it's not automatically true. This notion exists EVERYWHERE though, and it's an idea that has woven itself in the minds of appreciators of movies, video games, t.v. shows, books, comics, animation etc. Now I think a lot of the time, people say this because older material sets the precedence for techniques and ideas that will influence the later generations. They do this because they're the first, and they have the opportunity to set the standard for how the medium will be used from then on. Progression is usually slow and gradual after the initial birth of a new medium. Limitation also usually forces creativity and it also usually forces things (like movies) to center their techniques and methods on the basic essential principles of their craft. Video games are no exception to this.

2) Not all video games are meant to be storytelling, a lot are meant to be more about the interactivity and experience of actually PLAYING the game (tetris? katamari?). This is a principle of video game creation and it's something Roger Ebert doesn't seem to understand. It looks to me like he's comparing video games to movies as though games are a slight alternative, and like I said, this isn't always the case. I personally enjoy the cinematic, story-oriented games more, but I know that's not what all games are about.

3) There ARE some games that compare, even on the narrative side. Half Life is a big, fat juicy example of amazing storytelling, amazing immersion, amazing character development, amazing EVERYTHING. There are very few other examples but I don't even need to go beyond this one.

I think Roger Ebert may be right when he says "no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form." but it's only probably because nobody will want to give the medium the respect it deserves until it's old enough to automatically deserve it.

If you're looking for inspiration..

2010-04-15T16:04:00.001-07:00

It's amazing.

John Nevarez's blog

Studies and a doodle

2010-04-09T15:06:00.000-07:00

A Game of Thrones Cast!

2010-04-07T21:09:00.000-07:00

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0944947/

I'm excited. My only issue so far is that too many of the characters are "pretty." In the books, there are specific characters who are attractive and it's used as a story element. If everyone's good looking, that story element gets lost.

Fixes

2010-04-06T19:07:00.000-07:00

His legs were really irritating me so I had to fix them. The shape didn't work well for the design and the centerline/construction was all way off.

yes

2010-04-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

Last night I was in a rendering mood, so I painted this. As usual, this started from a random character doodle and slowly morphed into this, so there wasn't any planning involved and I did my best to improvise. I finished it today with polish and touchups, but I think this is the fastest I've ever painted something. Kinda looks like Danny DeVito's character from twins.

Also, I'm thinking of ideas for a new sequence to storyboard, I'm not thrilled with how my last set turned out.

Captain Simian, and the Spaaaaaaaaace Monkeys

2010-04-02T21:25:00.001-07:00

My post isn't really related to Captain Simian, or any kind of space primate. It's just that I've had the intro song stuck in my head for the last 3 hours and I have NO idea why, I haven't seen that show since I was like 12. But I DID go to the zoo today and I did some gesture drawings of a monkey, that's probably what planted the seed.

Anyway, I went to see How to Train Your Dragon today and thought it was a very good movie. Unfortunately, my friends and I were taken out of the illusion by a messed up audio track and a loud, ignorant dude shouting on the phone and yelling to his kids as he came in and out of the movie. Needless to say, we all want to watch the movie again, properly.

Still though, I admired all the visuals and I enjoyed the story a lot, though it didn't tread too far from what you'd expect of it. There were a few lines that jumped out at me as corny and/or ill-delivered, but I was more than willing to overlook that. The designs were gorgeous and some of the compositions really inspired me to do some art. All of the flying sequences were amazing and overall, it was just a beautiful movie to watch. I definitely want that "Art of" book. I still need to get the Art of Up, and the Art of Kung Fu Panda too.

Also, on a completely seperate note, I'm reading the 4th book from the "A Song of Fire and Ice" series by George R.R. Martin (two Rs?!), and I don't understand what's wrong with this man. Though I'm enjoying the books, I'm really irritated by the fact that he seems to arbitrarily kill off characters that I've spent 3 books getting to know, and their deaths do VERY little to move the story forward. He keeps tacking on new characters and getting rid of old ones, and the whole time I'm left wondering why he had me invest in them for so long if he was just going to toss them out for no apparent reason (shock value?). I'm very excited about the HBO series being developed based on the books.

doodles

2010-03-31T22:05:00.001-07:00

Amination

2010-03-30T20:07:00.000-07:00

rough from Daniel Araya on Vimeo.

I often need to take a break when I work on one thing for too long, otherwise I get really cranky. In between storyboards I've been messin around with this off and on over the last two or three days. I probably won't get a chance to work on it again until next week or so though, but I plan on finishing it.

Still more

2010-03-28T21:31:00.001-07:00

Still hoppin around stylisically. I made a lot of progress on my storyboards though.

'nother experiment

2010-03-26T14:06:00.001-07:00

Messed around with something a bit more dramatic.

More webcomic experimentations

2010-03-24T19:00:00.001-07:00

Still making small aesthetic decisions about the webcomic as I build my storyboard portfolio. My personal favorite out of this group is the third one but I seem to be the only one who feels that way. Most likely, I'll end up going with something that resembles the last image. These little mockups are really fun to do.

warm up

2010-03-15T14:32:00.000-07:00

Doodles. Decided to warm up by exploring the differences in the way people sit depending on their mood.

Webcomickery

2010-03-07T23:21:00.001-08:00

This is a test panel for a webcomic I'd like to do. The comic would include the following:

- robots
- monsters
- ridiculously oversized weapons
- ninja
- samurai
- energy beams of some kind
- hovercycles
- some kind of futuristic order of badass monks
- a structured mathematical system by which power can be measured
- a heroic kid
- power suits

..and more badassery that I can't come up with right now.

None of that is a joke. I'm including everything I thought was cool when I was 13, most of which are guilty pleasures that I still enjoy today. I'll do my best to make a cohesive story out of it.

I would have included floating islands, but James Cameron has made me nauseous at the thought.

Movie Studies and Megacon

2010-03-03T22:13:00.000-08:00

These are a little old, but I've been trying to build my sense of cinema lately by doing studies from paused movies. Lately though, I've just been doing quick thumbnail studies in my sketchbook as opposed to these painted studies. Just trying to block in the composition and understand what the director was going for. Although I couldn't help but render the Citizen Kane studies because the lighting is just so f*cking amazing. As I did the CK studies, the lightbulb really came on.

So....Megacon. Crazy comic book convention in Orlando Florida taking place in about two weeks. WHO'S GOING?!?!

Well unfortunately, I'm not. BUT a bunch of my buddies are, including:

, , ,, and more. So if you're going, make sure you stop by one of the Kaiser Studio tables and say what's up. If you mention my name, you'll get a free handshake.

Also, they'll be debuting the RPG card and dice game, Dark Legacy. The Megacon homepage has more info:

http://www.megaconvention.com/

Storyboard practice

2010-02-24T15:30:00.001-08:00

I recently had the opportunity to check out Derek Thompson's Gnomon DVD on storyboarding, and thought that his working method with layer comps was really interesting. I wanted to do a test run of his method before committing to it for my storyboard reel, and this is the result. Unlike digital painting, digital drawing on a wacom tablet is still awkward and clunky to me. Maybe I'll try it with my tablet PC as soon as I get some protective screens for it.

Speed was my main focus here, so it's definitely a little sloppy. I think I read on Rad Sechrist's blog that he did 100 boards in a day. If that's about standard in the feature animation biz, then holy shit.

*EDIT* accidentally wrote Dermot Power instead of Derek Thompson, sorry about that.

'arry Pottah

2010-02-20T22:43:00.000-08:00

I know it's cool to say "I don't like Harry Potter" now, but I really did enjoy the books. What I did NOT like was the portrayal of Voldemort in the films. I always considered him to be really regal, and I thought that his sense of royalty was borne out of an intense vanity. He wants to be feared because he wants to be important, which is a very childlike quality and a big part of why I like the character. There's a scene in one of the books where Dumbledore keeps calling Voldemort by his real name Tom, and "Tom" has a small tantrum and insists he be called by his new name. It humanized the shit out of the character and told us everything we needed to know about who he was and why he turned out the way he did. I appreciated that, and tried to illustrate that self-importance here in this off-the-cuff doodle.

Also, a group of animation industry veterans have banded together to create this amazing educational, FREE blog. go learn something:

http://www.theartcenter.blogspot.com/

Thinking about thumbnails

2010-02-17T17:53:00.001-08:00

I've been noticing a problem in how I approach the beginning stages of a design or an illustration. For a long time I've blindly meandered my way through designs and compositions, my mind always hazy or blank when it came to pre-visualizing something. Often it wasn't until halfway through a design (after I'd done my obligatory thumbnails and started the final rendering) that I decided whether or not I liked what I was working on. After a few years of working this way, I finally realized what my problem was. Those obligatory thumbnails.

The thing I learned from training videos, articles online, and all through art school, was that I was supposed to produce a generous amount of thumbnails before moving on to the final product. I did as I was told and I was almost always frustrated at the result. I just couldn't comprehend the fact that some artists use thumbnails to think. They form their ideas through these tiny drawings and keep going until they hit something that they like, making decisions and refining ideas as they go. What I noticed about myself is, I DON'T THINK WHEN I DRAW.

I'm just not one of those people who can develop an idea as I'm drawing. When I draw it's only to execute an idea I already had in mind. If I want to stop and evaluate a drawing, or decide what direction I should be going, then I have to STOP and evaluate it. So if I'm coming up with a character design, or figuring out how I'm going to compose a dramatic scene, then I have to take some time to day dream, and THINK, and imagine. It usually helps if I jot down a few notes about what I'm trying to accomplish. Am I going for a goofy character? A stoic character? A submissive weakling? Is the scene I'm drawing dramatic? Is it grand and imposing? Is it a moment of revelation? Once my goal is clear and defined, I close my eyes, or put on some music, and let my mind run around for a while. Or I go take a walk. Or for you smokers, this would be a good time to have a cig. Or take a shower. This is when the ideas flow. And THEN, after all that, it's time to thumbnail the ideas. At this point I usually have a clear goal in mind and it doesn't take very long to figure out the best way to execute it. The result is only a few thumbnails just to iron out a few kinks. I've found that this approach works best for me. A ton of thumbnails is next to useless for me, (except maybe to generate random shapes which is sometimes a useful exercise). It just goes to show that different approaches work for different people. This is an easy thing to remember, and something that we often forget.

doodles

2010-02-07T10:29:00.000-08:00

Random photoshop doodling from last night. Didn't have anything in mind, I just let my hand start scribbling

Life Drawing and Blade

2010-01-31T17:41:00.000-08:00

I rarely post my life drawing online because I'm not very confident about it, but I should get over that and do more of it. So here's some life drawing

Story Fanatic!

2010-01-18T15:06:00.001-08:00

This website is a wonderful resource for storytellers everywhere. I'll probably be spending the next few hours just reading the articles on here.

http://storyfanatic.com/

Pirate Video

2010-01-12T14:49:00.000-08:00

Recorded myself painting that pirate dude. I don't usually have just one way of doing things, but I think this is slowly becoming my "official" process.

Untitled from Daniel Araya on Vimeo.

stuff

2010-01-08T18:33:00.000-08:00

Paintings n stuff from the last few days. First day of gigacon was dizope

GIGA CONNNN

2010-01-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

My buddy Enrique did a good job of summing it up, so I'm going to copy and paste what he put...

First off, let me start by saying, Happy New years! hope everyone had a great Holiday break, Its allways good to spend time with the fam, and break away from the routine, so CHEERS for that.

Alright, SO...I wanted to share something really cool with you guys. Back in the day when I was in college...a year ago, our Academic director Bryan Tillman, used to do a forum in the school, and bring like 10 proffessionals to the school. It was great, we talked to them,we learned a lot, and it encoraged us to do better. So this year is happening again...but its gonna be HUGE. The school is having a major event called GIGACON! With a lot of awesome talent. The best part is, YOU ARE ALL INVITED. It will cost $10 for both days of the event. It is free for current Art Institute students and for alumni, since its being held by the Art Institute of Washington.

Each one of them is also doing a demo:

Friday, January 8th

10 Maasa Kuwana-Muelhaupt
Cutting corners with out cutting quality in animation.

11 Sam Ellis
Pitching your creative properties using sequential art.

12 Brian Muelhaupt
Layout art in animation.

1 Sue Jang
Introduction to Zbrush 3.1

2 Jesse Cowan
3d character animation

3 Bakia Parker
Hard surface modeling

4 David Colman
Shape exploration in charater design

Saturday, January 9th

10 Ajit Memon
Tips and Tricks of lighting in 3d.

11 David Silva
Avanced anthropromorphic character design.

12 Joe Weatherly
Animal life drawing

1 Rony Edde
Building soft particle systems

2 Hilda Torres
Unwrapping Characters and inanimate objects.

3 Garette Johnson
Illustrating clothed figures in watercolor

4 Panel Discussion
All invited professionals

Here is more info...

The date is going to be January 8th and 9th from 10-5 at the National Building Museum, 401 F Street NW Washington, DC 20001.

If anyone has any questions you can ask the man himsef

Bryan Tillman
Department Chair of
Media Arts and Animation
Game Art and Design
Visual Game Programming
Visual Effects and Motion Graphics

Art Institute of Washington
a branch of The Art Institute of Atlanta, GA

As you can see, theres a little bit of everything to appeal to any artist here. So if you live in the DC area come check it out! I'll be at a table doodling if you want to visit..just look for the guy with the red beanie hat.

CHEERS!!!

It's christmas

2009-12-25T12:39:00.000-08:00

I painted this for my mom yesterday. She thought it was pretty funny, then she critiqued the shit out of it.
I hope everyone is enjoying their holiday, I'm grateful that I got to spend mine here at home. Aside from spending time with my family, it's been a blessing not eating PB and J and frozen pizza every day. I'm also starting to crawl out of the art funk I've been having for the past few weeks, which means I've gotta really buckle down and decide what new pieces I'm going to create for my portfolio.
Also, I've started thinking about getting my Master's. I've begun the application process to both Cal Arts and SCAD, but I'm only in the early stages. I'm not AT ALL sure that it's what I want to do, but I feel like I need to start making moves. I've been adrift since graduation, and I can't just keep blindly applying to video game and animation houses hoping to get picked up, while sitting at home drawing all day. Furthering my education might be the best thing for me right now, who knows? Anyway nothing's concrete, so we'll see where things go.

Disney

2009-12-08T16:51:00.000-08:00

Well I got rejected for the Disney Talent Development program, which was mildly discouraging. They took the time to tell me what they liked and what they thought my portfolio was lacking, which was really cool of them considering how many applicants they've probably been bombarded with. Gotta work on that stuff and then try again.

Hamster Bot MODELED

2009-12-04T23:48:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine, former classmate, and unfairly talented modeler named Bakia Parker is modeling the hamster head bot guy that I painted. Go look at it RIGHT NOW.

EYEGASM

ALSO, I just finished both Ender's game quartets (which is what? an octet? I just made that up but it sounds right) and enjoyed them for the most part. I thought there was going to be more of a bridge between the two sets, but I suppose not. For example, is the virus that Volescu made supposed to be the beginnings of the descolada? Do they ever address the fucking alien planet at the end of children of the mind? Are they unwittingly returning to earth, mistaken in their belief that the descoladores are aliens? Is Bean's genetically engineered condition the origin of the Chinese people of Path in Xenocide? Wtf Orson. Give me closure man.

Man that banner is terrible, I don't look anything like that.

Pipes n shiyet

2009-11-30T14:54:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to a sketchcrawl in Baltimore hosted by Sean Murray, which was a lot of fun. About 7 of us showed up, and there was lots of people/environment sketching done. I drew a horse and an insanely complicated gothic church (pieces of it anyway), which I can't show you guys because I don't have a scanner. It was fun times, super cold sketching and sketchbook sharing in a cozy coffee shop. I look forward to the next one. I drank a big ass, fancy-named coffee beverage which cost about as much as a mcdonald's meal.

I've been working on concepts to build my portfolio lately, which will be shown in another blog pretty soon. And totally unrelated, but I gotta start prep to move out of the apartment in the coming month/s. I'll pack the day before I gotta be outta here.

2009-11-22T19:26:00.000-08:00

I did the Jedi dude for the Bi Weekly jam over at CGHub. I decided to put it together with the old sith painting for my portfolio's sake.

I'm such an inconsiderate idiot.

2009-11-18T19:32:00.001-08:00

A BIG ENORMOUS THANK YOU TO IAN MCCONVILLE.

Thanks to him and the fine folks of 3 Panel Soul, someone other than my roommates come to visit my blog. Thanks for the shout-out Ian, and I apologize for being such an idiot that I waited almost a month after the fact to properly show my gratitude.

3 Panel Soul - http://www.threepanelsoul.com

Good lord

2009-11-16T23:44:00.000-08:00

I'm 24 now.

Doodlez

2009-11-13T21:12:00.000-08:00

Been in a pretty bad art funk the last two days or so, not sure why. Actually I've been in a pretty bad funk in general over the last couple of days. Moping around the apartment, sleeping a whole lot, getting pissed at people for no reason...clearly I need some cranberry juice.

Anyway, I wanted to force myself to be productive at least a little bit today, so I blog-surfed and doodled in sketchbook pro.

I need to work on poses.

Ness

2009-11-10T13:06:00.000-08:00

I doodled Ness last night.

Stuffs

2009-11-01T21:30:00.001-08:00

Not much to report. Still job huntin', still unemployed.

TABLET PC FOR SALE

2009-10-19T14:00:00.000-07:00

Well I hate to do it, but I've got to sell my beautiful beautiful art baby. I'm extremely broke, and student loan assassins will be knocking on my door in about a month and a half, demanding my first born child. Unfortunately, I've got to sell the only luxury item I've got......so here are the specs, and a photo of the product in it's current state. If you're interested, send me an e-mail at DanielMAraya@gmail.com with "Tablet PC" as the subject.

Items: Fujitsu Stylistic St5112 Tablet PC, Environment Protection Carrying Case, Charger.

Tablet PC Specs: Intel Core Duo, 1.20GHz, 2GB RAM, 36GB Free Hard Drive Space.

Deviant Art

2009-10-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

A lot of people seem to hate it, but I don't understand how you hate an online community. It's so huge, that the experience you have with it completely depends on what you make of it. Like any other online community, it's full of nice people, mean people, intelligent people, stupid people, talented people, ambitious people, self-promoting people, amicable people etc. You'll find whatever you're looking for there, it's not really the devil.

Because I know you're wondering. here's mine:

www.DanielAraya.deviantart.com

"..If you're not into the whole brevity thing..."

2009-10-15T23:08:00.000-07:00

My roommate (Neil) is responsible for this. I live with the two goofiest animators on the planet, sometimes it rubs off.

Tomfoolery

2009-10-11T00:08:00.000-07:00

I drawed some stuff. Nothing to rant about today.

Bacon

2009-09-15T21:19:00.000-07:00

Here is some new shit. Well, the Obi Wan is a revamp but the sketches are new. Been messin with my tablet PC a lot lately, which is convenient since I can't seem to sell it and since I'm on this huge storyboarding kick.

My roommate showed me this blog: Click this. Pencil tests from some of the badassest animators since the Renaissance.

Also, my sister is in town this week, and that's cool because I see her once every year or so. I'll probably not be updating much as a result.

HAHAHAHA

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

Another post of sketches, and a Silver Surfer pic I did before I went to SDCC. I wish I spent more time refining the Surfer pic, and I really wish I exaggerated and cartoonified his proportions a bit more, but I wasn't going all stylized back then.

Also, I put him on the tip of his board to pay homage to a popular surfing style of the 60's which my roommate suggested.

warning: BEWBIES

2009-09-03T16:38:00.001-07:00

This is just a scan of random pages out of my sketchbook. Not much to say about it really....it's a big pic.

experimentations

2009-08-30T16:15:00.000-07:00

Playing with messier, looser strokes.

WOLVUHREEN

2009-08-23T19:29:00.000-07:00

Been nailing down my look, and settling on the direction I want to take my work. Instead of working on the stuff I SHOULD be working on, this afternoon/evening was spent on this.

I'll do my best to explain what I did in each step, but I kinda just saved at random times so it doesn't make for the most in depth look into my process. Honestly, I barely even have a process, I just slap my tablet with the stylus until something comes out.

Uno) Rough sketch done in Autodesk Sketchbook pro on my tablet PC. I had no idea what I was going to doodle, so I defaulted to my standard "dude standing around" and gradually morphed him into Wolverine.

Ni) Flats. Pretty self explanatory. I tend to pick super ridiculously saturated reds for my base flesh tone, because I usually calm it down as I progress. Or not. I don't even know to be honest. i REALLY like the piece at this stage, in some ways more so than how it finally turned out.

Tres) Using a standard airbrush on a new layer, I glaze in some hue shifts. Some are arbitrary, some are super exaggerated (the face). I like to keep adding shifts in hue to keep things varied, as opposed to having big blocks of the same color.

4) On a multiply layer I paint in the basic shadow patterns.

Go) I paint some orange junk to indicate a strong natural light source.

Six) I strengthen the hell out of that light source, ad I paint in a bit of sub surface scattering. I crank the SSS all the way up for his ears, because I always do that. I think I also paint a bit of ambient occlusion under his chin and in some of the other more recessed parts of his figure. I also start painting a subtle light source on his arm to flesh it out a bit

7) I don't even think there's a difference. What a stupid step.

Hachi) Smoothed his shirt and started defining his jeans.

9) Paint his hand and hair, continue refining things here and there. It's a little hard to narrow down what I did because after step 4, I'm spastic as hell with my approach.

Sixteen) I add minor touch-ups that nobody will notice, and add the claw scratch thingies cuz they're KOOOOOL. Annnnnnd I'm done. No wait, one more thing. Ok now I'm done.

Bed Time doodle

2009-08-19T00:11:00.001-07:00

quick speedie of Darkseid before going to sleep.

Clever Blog Title

2009-08-18T14:06:00.001-07:00

I keep forgetting I have a blog, but I promise I'll start updating more often for all two of you that follow this. I graduated a couple of months ago, and have remained gloriously unemployed since. As time passes, it gets more and more frustrating because the seeds of doubt keep growing. Doubts about whether or not I have what it takes to make it in any one of the entertainment industries that I want to be in. Lucky for me, my stubborn-ness outweighs my fear because I still keep drawing and applying to different places. I don't have much else to rant about, but there are a couple links that I thought I'd post up that have a wealth of information about concepting and painting.

Color/Light/Painting stuff - http://www.itchstudios.com/psg/art_tut.htm

Design Stuff - http://www.autodestruct.com/thumbwar.htm

I have to go surf my friends' blogs now. Here's some art.

Sticking to what I'm bad at

2009-02-22T16:02:00.001-08:00

Over the last 7 or 8 weeks I've had an unusually large number of people tell me how much I suck at characters and how much better my background work is. Most of these people suggested that I work on my characters less and focus on my backgrounds more. This advice was both logical and well intentioned. I mean if I'm going to send portfolios out to companies in the hopes of getting hired, then I better send them some beautiful depictions of the things that I'm best at right? So I decided to go ahead and do the exact opposite. While I DO see the logic in strengthening my oh so "well-developed background muscles", I would be doing my happiness a disservice by neglecting to strengthen my ability to design characters. I prefer to tackle my weaknesses and bring them as close as possible to my existing strengths before going back to the things I'm better at. Over the last month and a half or so, I've been consistently sketching characters in my sketchbook and hitting up the life drawing sessions as much as possible in hopes of strengthening my weaknesses, which I think is my responsiblity as an artist. Above are the fruits of my labors. While I'm not even CLOSE to the level I would like to be at in terms of arting awesome characters, I think I've made some significant improvements.

Boooorrrrrredddd at worrrrrkkkk

2008-12-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

Incredibly bored at work and a little frustrated that I wasted like 4 days painting an environment from a retarded point of view. Above is the 10 minute lighting study that resulted from my boredom, and the retarded P.O.V environment that caused my irritation. I'm sure you'll figure out which is which. And I'm sure someone will post a comment asking if the lighting study was the environment and vice versa, just to be a smart ass.