Whero is Red

Relax...

As much as I enjoy painting, it can get rather draining. Creating professionally dictates that the vision is always(or in most cases) someone else's. So every now and again I try and do something for a bit of fun. something without consequence... and generally very sketchy. Heh one day I'll post some finished work on this blog, but not today! so here are a few from the last few weeks relaxation sketches. Enjoy!

-Dane

CDW Sketches

Closing 2012 with a few sketches done while attending two CDW events. One in Sydney and another in Wellington. Both workshops were brilliant! From the skillful tutors though to the other insightful people attending. Just awesome!

And my first zbrush full figure sculpt.

-Dane

It's An Update! ...of old stuff...

what better time to post stuff than a year after you've done it! wooo!

here are some N.C Wyeth studies/rips from last year.

these are a few entries for the weekly challenges over at Ozcomics. good fun and the themes are usually something outside of my norm.

Mixing it up with a sketch that isn't too old. The sandman.

The Hunt

This is a work in progress I started last year. I keep opening and repainting it every now and again... but I think I'm officially adding it to the abandoned pile.

Advanced Lighting with Sam Nielson

Well i completely failed in documenting my learning experience with Sam Nielson's lighting class. In fact i failed so miserably, I wasn't able to make a single post! wooo time sure flies! So I'm sorry for anyone who was interested. It's a great course! and I'd highly recommend it to anyone who might want to further their artistic education. Sam's ability to break down how light works and transform this into a layering process for a digital medium is just outstanding! The fun I have painting now and the freedom to experiment in comparison to before.. well worth the money!

Anyway, heres a selection of some of my assignments. To keep the learning centered around "light" Sam would send us line drawings to render. So on the left are the line drawings by Sam. On the right my completed assignment. Depending on how much i wanted to push myself versus time available to me I found it normally took me around 6 hours to complete each task. Though I'd really like to go back and revisit a lot of these.

The class starts nice and basic, with form lighting, basic bounce light etc and then with each class builds on the one before. ie how colours react with each other, chrome effects, reflective surfaces, water, subsurface scattering, fur, skin and glass. How much you learn just seems to be based on how much you want to put in. Overall I think this is the best piece of artistic education I've had. Big thanks to Sam Nielson for such an inspiring and insightful course!

Check out the course here, or some of Sam Nielson's tasty art here.

-Toko

Games Lab Apps

So work has just released their first few Games for IOS and Android! They're pretty fun groovy games, and only for 99 cents, not to mention made by some pretty talented folks so check em out here.

study study study

So after almost 2years in the gaming industry I've decided I've had enough of faking my lighting conditions, never really knowing if my approach is correct and wasting far too much time fiddling till something happens. My solution is going back to school.. never thought i would but... this school just looks too tempting. The last few weeks I've been listening to the interviews with leading industry artists on schoolism.com and I've been finding myself very inspired. One of which was with Sam Nielson whom also teaches the online lighting class. So after considering time factors, being blown away by Sam's work and finding good reviews I've decided to take a leap and enroll in the October class. Very much looking forward to it! When the time comes ill post my assignments, findings and thought process here in the hope that;

a) I will learn more by expressing my processes in writing .

b) Others interested may also gain from my ramblings... who knows it could happen??

In the theme of study here are a few Environment studies from this weekend. all from photo reference without the colour picker(made it tough but greatly improved both the learning curve and surprisingly the enjoyment factor! Don't think ill ever need the colour picker again!).

Cheers,

-Toko