Ecorche Halfway Mark

We've hit 8 out of 16 classes, and the skeleton is mostly blocked in... since this pic was taken we've started carving out the ribcage and adding torso muscles.  Lots more to do!

After a brief hiatus I've also been back into side projects in zbrush lightly, but can't post the material here this time around.

New Ecorche Class - Work in Progress

Started a full-body clay ecorche class on Monday nights; we're now at 4 nights in out of 16.  Nice to get away from screens a bit!

45 Minute Spitsculpt - "Troll Workout"

Had fun with this one, but the buzzer rang before I could pose & touch up in a few places... Next time!

45 Minute Spitsculpts

After a busy week, picking back up speed sculpting exercises. 45 minutes each plus a little render time... "Nerd" and "Disney Princess".  Starting to look into ways to get better renders out of ZB.

Two 45 minute Speed Sculpts

Playing around with more 45-minute speed sessions at Daily Spitsculpt this week... "Giant Foot Creature" and "Extinct Species". In this time frame you have to learn to live with limitations, but you also learn a lot about workflow... 

45-60 Speed Sculpt: Frankenstein's Monster

Probably went a few minutes over 45 since I had a few interruptions and lost track of my timer... so let's say definitely under 60 minutes:

2013 & Realms Unreel Recap

In a world torn between the sirens of congressional reality shows and celebrity twitter soapboxes, thought it would be in the blog's spirit to post a brief recap of side project stuff in 2013. It was a tremendous year of my personal life (getting married, remodeling our first home, wrapping character work on The Good Dinosaur.... for now, enjoying some fantastic times traveling and among great friends), among which I actually managed to do more in side projects than ever before.

2013 was the first year where I was able to actively start protecting time to take on hobbies and side projects, and hey, it feels good! Hope to build on it more. There was a good bit of ZBrushing - I've even been able to do some of that forbidden magic at work - and a fair amount of drawing. Ended the year with a resonating thought accented by a talk I attended by pencil-sorcerer Glen Keane: It's extremely easy to get caught up in the academic or perfectionistic in creative spaces.  However, real joy and reward in art comes from simply being playful and enjoying the process, much like a kid playing Make Believe.

Easier said than done, sure, but it sets up a sort of resolution: To think more primitively, to return to the roots of What drives interests, and to simply enjoy the process itself in 2014.

That said, making the Realms Unreel hardcover with author Audrey Auden was a treat, and certainly 2013's side project highlight. We had a limited time to get the job done in a gap between home repairs/move-in and the wedding, but having never really illustrated a project like this before, I learned a TON along the way and I'm so thankful to the Kickstarter backers who let us do it! My part in the project was finished early in 2013, but I never actually posted the final key images to the blog... so here they are!

Enjoy your 2014!

It's Alive!!!

The Makerbot Replicator 2 I've been playing with is working far better now! Here's a creepy 100mm long / 100mc 3D print of a zbrush speed sculpt I did a few weeks back... Reminds me of my experience in FDM printing up to this point... but finally, it's also extremely promising! I'm going to have to get a better material that's less translucent so the details read better, but it's kinda cool to see the print structure underneath, so I'm leaving the rafting on.

Char Design Class finished!

Recently completed an online design class; here's the final assignment (revisiting the first):

and here's the evolution of my own character (so far - I still have a story in progress!):

Scoops!

Early design concept that I've recently been working on for a character design class.  He's a teenage baller of sorts in a story I drafted up a while back (and someday will revisit!).

Lunch Crunchin' - Hockey Player & Monster

60-90 minutes per speed sculpt.  Trying to keep loose in zbrush during drawing class...

Rise & Sketch...

Been doing a lot of early morning sketching lately, and just started an online character design class to experiment in that direction and inform better 3D design. Here's a sketch for the first assignment (design an older, British entrepreneur in a smoking jacket & monacle), and a bunch of morning doodles. Should be doing a lot of drawing over the next 3 months, so I'll consider this post a sort of "starting line" benchmark...

Got some good critique notes, primarily to be more attentive to 3d structure/form. Fortunately, I believe I have the background to think that way!

And doodles:

Lunch Crunch: Retro Cartoon 3D Sketch (~90m)

Go-Go-Gadget Speed Sculpt! After a rocky start (dude's face was so cheated in 2D) pulled a rough together over lunch. Rendered and added quick slight head tilt after the buzzer.

Lunch Crunch is back!

Speed sculpting in 60-90 minutes... today's theme was "Undead", starting from a generic human base mesh.

Busy Summer!

This has been a tremendous summer, headlined by my wedding! Here are a couple of cards I made relating to the day. In both cases I've started to employ an ipad for sketching - The first was done entirely on Sketchbook for ipad (challenge was to do it on trains and planes during our honeymoon, taking inspiration from the trip), and the second started off there as a rough, but went to the full Mac Sketchbook Pro for the final image.  Looking forward to the day where my tablet stylus is a bit finer than a breakfast sausage, but it's been fun!

Interlude ~ Wood & Metal Class Results

Realms Unreel production has been wrapped for a few weeks. I'll post some final images soon, but while we're waiting for the books to print, here's my first piece of furniture, a Maple/Walnut and Metal piece I recently created for a class at the Crucible in Oakland. It was an awesome experience to learn to weld and do basic woodworking, and I'm hoping to go back for more when life's a little more calm...

... and yes, it's REALLY HEAVY.

Realms Unreel #2 WIP

I'm in "Polish/Plussing" mode on all twelve full-page illustrations, trying to bring them up to par and make any last corrections/improvements that I can.  Time is very limited, so I'm having to settle a lot instead of noodle... But that's kind of refreshing, actually.  I'm happy with the experience I've gained, and getting ready to move on to the next challenge.

Realms Unreel #1

Need to balance this out a bit more, but putting it down for now...

Realms #11 Starts a Busy Weekend...

Got this one up last night. May add a simple background, will see... I've also made an Ava model as of this afternoon, dropping her into another illustration now!

Realms Unreel #23 WIP

One down, three to go for final key illustrations. May still want to make a few touch-ups here, but they're getting easier!