study of a lady

Starting some studies on silk and other cloth materials.

the oldest bot

Was thinking about creating a bot that had lived through a lot. The last....he has seen all his peers pass away and lives alone. He himself is about to fall apart. His clothes are of those days where his age ensured he was regarded in high esteem. Something of a cross between a member of clergy and a robot.

I'm not sure

what this is. I was working on material rendering. But I kind of strangely like it. LOL. I was reading Gurney's book this weekend (the one on Imaginative Realism) where he said to forget about the details of painting for a while and let yourself just paint. I think it really helps in figuring out afterwards what you instinctively 'get' and what you don't.

A robot walks into a bar

Okay...no corny jokes. LOL. But I swear...robots hang out at Acapulco at night! I started this one last week, but with break and all that, didn't get around to 'completing' it today. (complete is always HAZY because you could probably keep going and going....)

some gun breakouts

So...this Thanksgiving was not exactly lazy, but I didn't have the luxury of the 24 inch screen I have at work (yes, they let me paint at work :)) So here are some renders I did after I got frustrated with drawing 3/4 breakout views for my Prop design class. These are for the guns, and they were done in Modo without any lighting or anything. Of course, they're really rough.

been working on

this dude. I feel like a lot of concept is actually more like acrylic than oil painting, and I used to like oil painting more (more impressionistic, more about capturing the essence than showing clean lines). So trying to work on putting in a lot clearer reads, etc.

painting with armour

Yeah..it's a task to paint both characters and backgrounds..but I'll get there :) One of the profs in a Digital Illustration class was telling his students that Charlie Wen didn't really paint backgrounds before. He was okay. And then in a few months he was busting out the characters AND the backgrounds. Mindblowing. Maybe if I keep at it I can be 1/10 as good one day lol.

study of a guy...

bad painting day

So..sometimes we all have 'bad painting days'. Bob Kato told me it's important to not be too hard on yourself, and to keep pushing, because if you keep at it, you WILL improve. Today I was not at my best, but hey, you only live once. You HAVE to keep on pushing! Yeahhh!!! :)

quick sketch-study

I was experimenting with quick brush strokes to give indication of materials. I called him Mr. Helmet-Soccer because his headpiece reminds me of the American football helmets, and since I don't call football "Soccer", I tend to associate "soccer" with American football (yes, I know that sounds wrong-sided).

helmet dude

changed around some of the materials he was actually wearing. I would like to be more efficient with brush stroke. That is, some illustrators/ artists can use less brush strokes and still make the material look believable in rendering. Much 'better' than drawing every strand of hair or fur, etc.

more studies

Here is an armour guy using my favourite new brush!

penguin study with texture brush

With this texture brush (that I made), was able to make it look a little oil painterly, which is kind of a good starting point for me because when I was younger (speaking as though I'm a senior citizen, but) I LOVED painting in gouache and oil paints, particularly landscapes from my home country. I was thinking about what Kekai Kotaki said in class, which was that he uses one brush because he knows the capability of that brush. It's kind of a safety blanket, if you will, as you can get LOST with thousands of brushes and effects and all the capabilities of photo montage, etc in Photoshop.

On top of that, I was reading in James Gurney's book, "Colour and Light" (a MUST for everyone interested in light, colour, painting, etc) that painters before our time had a really limited palette. If they could create such life-like colours with so few pigments, do we really need all these brushes? Why not just master a few tools instead of being just okay in many? I think that the hard edged rounded brush (that I either got from Steve Jung or Jamie Jones; I was drawing a turkey in my professor's Storyboarding class so he realized I loved painting more than Storyboarding, and as a parting gift at the end of his class he gave me Jamie's brushes) and the texture brush I made recently are my two most used at the moment. I would LOVE to see someone do an entire painting with a leaf brush! Making it look like other things..metal, cloth, wood, etc...that would be interesting...

it's Winter time

This one actually doesn't have a story...I was just practising painting from memory and rendering materials but here goes. Two robots on a date. They travel to Antwerp (low skyline, right?) and one poses for a photo. Okay, that was a load of crock. Geez, my composition skills are rusty..lol.

armour study:take three

Here is a goofy guy trying to look all cool in his armour :)

armour study: take two

Here is another study of armour with a brush I made...

ninja dude: a study

do you ever get tired of painting robot dudes?

Um..no. This was actually to practise the texture for armour thing I've been working on since taking Kekai Kotaki's workshop at CDA last weekend.

study of another helmet guy

dude in a helmet

Study of a guy in a helmet

a zeebra!

Spent most of today drawing some boxes and things for my Vehicle/Props design class, so in between did a study of this guy.

using what I learned today for a spaceship

bald eagle; a study

I don't know quite why but I do find it impossible to paint this without simultaneously singing "Colours of the Wind". Hehehe.

vehicle design part two

working on some guns. Here are a few. I have no idea how to use markers...but I'm sure by the end of class I shall learn. lol.

study cloth

A quick one. Didn't have time to fill in details..

teleporting/escape systems

was watching one of my favourite sci-fi comedies, "Spaceballs", and was thinking about an escape device that could preferably be part of a bigger ship/module but also be as an escape device of its own. This one holds one grown person and one child (main section for grown up, child in front). The 'eyes' are windows and they share a compartment for breathing. I was thinking that since most things man-made do echo or resemble parts of the human body that it would have a human-physiognomy-type build.

metalstudy:Mortar and Pestle

spaceship over fields

study of strawberries

oomph

....and then it careens and explodes....and I get to make a new one! Hehehe.

study of some peaches

Mr. Meow

I'm not sure why I chose the title, but anyways...this is a spaceship where the shooter aims from the gaping mouth of the spaceship.

tomato: a study

gun silhouettes

From my Prop Gun first assignment. Was thinking a trio of flame thrower, machine gun and shot gun (think canister in back, ventilation grill of some sort, readout or digital gauge to see how many bullets/ fuel left, fan perhaps, how is it held, how is it controlled, etc) Really excited about this class!