the artist at age 24

i think it should come to no surprise to anyone who knows art history, that i've learned alot of what i know about color comes from three artist: jc leyendecker, john singer sargent and rembrandt. the later has to be one of my absolute favorite of the old masters. Such emotion and drama in even something as simple as a self portrait...

this is the artist at 23. Just stunning work. He has one other from 22 but it really isn't as good. the man's name is thrown around alot, and rightly so, as their are very few artists in history who hold such knowledge of technique and weave story and symbolism in a painting. i saw this one when i was in london two years ago and i was wondering if i could ever be that good at such a young age. So i tried my hand at it...

this is the artist at 24. not even close right? cartoony would be a good word, looking at it now. to be fair, i only spent three hours on it. But also, I've never in my life had to mix my own paints. i've learned from both photographs and video reference that spans time and space. i've had a beavy of teachers telling me everything they know from everyone they know. i have photoshop, and an unlimited palette of colors and shades, and it still came out shoty. it makes one feel so lazy sometimes. hopefully this isn't the last i see of this painting.
back to the drawing board, so to speak.

what loosing steam looks like

pffffft....i did the sketch in between projects at work while listening to herman melville's "typee". I brought it home to color but just lost total intrest in doing anything else more than this, but didn't want to let it die in vain.
on that note, books on tape rock. In the past month I've listened to: typee (half way through), dracula, sleepy hallow, the heart of darkness, a modest proposal, the red badge of courage and two harry potters. The hobbit and the dexter books are in the pipeline.
hope everyone's well!

new header!!!

think of it as a gift from me to my poor unloved blog. I couldn't help it, I found this bad ass tutorial and just had to try my hand at it. pretty easy stuff too. try it!
http://thebesttutorials.com/
here's another one, but it really didn't fit. cool looking as it is...

and then once i figured it out, i tried a few different yet simple things

i'll probably have to change it soon since everyone's going to be doing this crap...

and thine god's name be: netflix

i wonder if they get mad at me when i do this?

sci fi girl

did her for the drawing board's drawing jam. i really can't wait for the end of august, when i can cut atleast one thing out of my schedule, cus i'm not use to this running on full time thing...pray to whatever god or lack there of you'd like for me kiddies.
so i don't snap and kill someone with a bottle of soy sauce.

character study

been looking at quite a few of these, and i realized that i reallly need to learn how to stay on character (as you can see here)
an asian character, based loosely off of sanrah oh. the beginnings of one of the characters from my book? maybe! fun? YES!
maybe this blog will be ok after all...

What's "Up" Pixar?

ok, so i may have now seen WALL*E for like, the...fourth...time...I KNOW! i tagged along with some cousins and my uncle treated me, so how could i say no to that adorible little robot?! i haven't seen a movie that many times since toy story two! i spent a whole day once in a movie theater, watching it over and over again. my mom was pretty angry. I could go on and on about how wonderful this movie is. how much of a throw back wall e is to chaplin's "city lights". How beautiful the mood is. How important the message is, yet palatable to even the youngest kids. But really, the movie warrants one, maybe two watches at most, but i have truly gotten obsessive over this, it just hit all the right spots at the right time. i still cry at parts, four watches in, just so you know it's very rewatchable. Andrew Stanton has won me over heart and soul.
but, this was the first time that Pixar didn't give us something to look forward to for next summer. Their new movie is about an old wildreness ranger. The picture above is their first actual official still from the film, which is based on the concept art that came out in January:

that's it?! man! MOAR!!! sigh...but, it's directed by pete doctor (monsters inc, and half of the mind behind wall e). I think it's loosly based upon Don Quixote and really Don Quixote has a bit of a curse to it, no one's ever made a good movie version of it (not to say it's never been made). Terry Gilliam tried, and went waaaaay over budget with it, and had a few disasters follow him on set (but that's just him). But I am so confident that if anyone can do it, it's Pixar, my celluloid knight in shining CG armor.

the summer is quite here

...and i couldn't be happier! so many good movies...

saw kung fu panda twice. wall*e thrice (and it hasn't even been out a week!)
i think i have a major problem.

and as if my schedule wasn't nutsoid enough, i decided to take up an unpaid intership at a commercial animation studio this summer as a concept artist, plus the textbook gig, plus animation school. so RIP blog, hopefully we can revive you in the fall...if not sooner...

a great man has left our midst

i found out last night, while browsing through the caverns of "a'int it cool news" that a literal monster in the effects industry has passed on, the great Stan Winston. for those of you not familiar with the ledgend need only looks to such films as jurassic park, the terminator series, the alien series, the predator series, edward scissorhands, AI, the thing, ironman and many many more films that filled the movies from the seventies to today. this man made more of a mark on me than some relatives in my life. i can still remember, back in the fourth grade, i was paging through a behind the scenes book of jurassic park and looking at awe of his sketches of the dinosaurs that filled both my dreams and nightmares. he brought my childhood fantasies to life. i read something that he said in that book: all throughout his childhood, he would draw, that's all he did, he drew and drew, and that was the key to being a great artist. i looked at that and couldn't imagine having that kind of dedication (i still don't sometimes, lol) and thought that being an artist of that caliber was just to far out of my league. And he truly was a spectacular artist. no one came close to his imagination, even with the "magic" of computers at their sides. he left us at sixty two, to cancer. some would say far too soon, but he acheived more than most do with a hundred years. he was my generation's ray harryhausen, and words can not say how much he will be missed.

i was in the starting processes of this when i heard about it, and changed gears. it was suppose to be a girl looking up at a bird and the sun, but i turned her into a creepy guy (which looks kind of awkward) and tried my hand at the "winston effect" with my token dragon. feeble, yes. but it is my tribute to the man. expect it to be colored.

and that's all i have to say about that...

whispers

so this is how it's going to be folks. the blog thing is slow at best and i'll be so wrapped up with school/work, that any personal work will slow down to a trickle. that makes me sad, and i really hope that isn't the case, but life never works out as it should.
i'm working on a book. finishing up the synopsis, and i am reeeallllly happy where it's going. but this isn't it. this was from a short that i wrote in like february and i'm just getting around the the illustrating part now. it's going at a snail's speed, since this is only the first page. ARG! i need to kick my own ass in gear.
i need to receive alot of money for no reason...without someone dying...
would be nice

ZOMG

gosh...this place has been a ghost town. been working on the maya stuff, as you can see here:

as you can see, 2 and a half weeks in and this is what i have. it's all pretty basic stuff and only looks impressive. it's like legos at this point in the game. it's a headtrip. this class is rather amazing. my teacher is rather awesome. and the tip of this iceberg has been...well, rather...wordless.
we'll just say it's fun!

also, i did a lady.

blah...

fast and dirty

another caricature from the drawing board. very sloppy, i know, but...whachagonnado?

it is over when i say it is

so there you have it folks! a kind thank you to derrick and matt for their suggestions, which i tried my best to take. it still doesn't quite fly with me, but i'm not going to do anything to it for a while.

i did this after finishing up season two. it is such a great show. i love the idea of the villain as the hero. it really is a jem of a show. and michael c hall really breaths a loveable life into a monster.

go out and watch it now!

ooooo dextah!

oh man, this has been fun, and i'm only half way through! as always the drawing is a little wonky, but, i seem to be progressing well with colors. any ideas on color choices for the background? expect this to be done by tomorrow night...not that anyone comes here though.
*cricket*

Kaya

man, i wish i could be this productive all the freakin time! today has been bad and i don't really want to say why. alot of running around, pulling my hair and wanting to hit someone. GAH! sometimes testosterone just doesn't work for me.
anyway, i did this for the drawing board. the sketch is so bad due to my undying need to pull the eyes of a person as far apart as i can since i think it looks "cool", and i just couldn't find the breaks here.
but i was very proud of the coloring. i've been doing good there lately.
here's the reference i used: BLAH!