Teal House

Here's a thing I finished up today.
Took longer than I would've liked, but I'm happy with how it turned out. I went around on a sunny day a few  months ago and took pictures of some houses on my street that caught my eye. Planning to do a few more of these soon.

finished house

some progress shots

In other news, I just finished a summer class and have a bit of time off before the next one. I'm heading down to Redmond tomorrow to visit Mike and I'll have some downtime while he's at Microsoft, so I'm hoping to do some more of these if possible.

Character for Wind Waker

For our final assignment in Professional Applications, we got to work with art director Michael Stribling on a character design related project. We had to create a character(s) or class or creature for an existing videogame, using established design language to create something unique yet cohesive.

I chose the 2003 game The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, memorable for its cel-shaded style, bright colors, and expressive characters. My character is a scavenger and a fighter, collecting bits of armor from fallen foes. She is supposed to be slightly older than Link, also on a journey to rescue the kidnapped girls imprisoned in the Forsaken Fortress. I wanted her to be cute, but slightly menacing, so I gave her an oversized helmet and spear.

end result

character in screenshot

original sketch

first pass

second pass

still life painting

Feeling kinda in a slump today so I pecked away at this painting so I wouldn't feel completely unproductive.
We're wrapping up the semester shortly and there's still quite a bit to be done. Final Professional Applications project was assigned- a character design to fit into an existing game world. I wish we'd been told sooner, but I also wish many other things. We have a final portfolio presentation in Jaime's class on Tuesday so I need to find a place to print up my stuff- really hoping I don't end up at Kinkos...

On another note, I've been keeping myself busy with schoolwork and researching game design and related topics. I have a few pieces to upload at some point.

BASIL

Last semester in Game Illustration, I created a character, Basil the red panda. Basil ended up as the star of the final project, a side scrolling flash game built in an incredibly frustrating and broken engine. Despite the struggles, I had alot of fun with it, and the end result wasn't too bad, all things considered. 

mockup screenshot with partial UI and character sketch in environment

full color character concept 

finished sprite sheet of Basil

 

attempt at a finished illustration, in progress

input and editing from +Seth Rutledge. Thanks, Seth!

decided on a landscape composition in the end

Hey look, more steampunk

In my Game Illustration class, we're doing a class-wide reskinning of the card game Dominion with a post-apocalyptic steampunk spin. The card I chose/was assigned to was The Mafia/Mob (A group of citizens trying to exert influence through violence). I thought they'd be pretty tough with a big robot buddy, so I gave them one. Hopefully they come off as aggressive and intimidating as intended. This is one of the rare times where I have more than one figure in a composition so I should probably do more like this. Pretty happy with how it turned out. This is the 'tight sketch', final piece due on Thursday. 

Lots of things

Been very busy! I got into the illustration major at school which ended up being good and bad. Good because my degree will be worth a bit more to me and I get a better chance of getting into the classes I want, but bad because it delays my graduation. Oh well. 

I also got into the game design class I wanted. I thought we would be working in the genre of game art, but we're actually making games. Project 1 is a board game which I'll write more about later. Project 2 is a  card game, and the final project is a Flash sidescroller. I'm pretty excited about all this, though some of my classmates are disappointed in the class. I'm happy because I actually have something to focus on. I want to work on my board game beyond the bounds of the class and hopefully use it for my grad project. 

I started working on the characters yesterday. I hammered out some silhouettes and now rendering them out.

The Snob

The Collector 

Silhouettes - not labeled - The Gamer

D10 practice painting

foundation book entry

My contribution for a collaborative project my friend organized. We’re putting together an 8 page full color book based around the key locations incoming ECUAD students need to know.   Even if they don’t enjoy the activity, they’ve got a sweet little book filled with creative, original illustrations. 

The location I chose was the print card machine and here we have a new student, nervously trying to figure it out. 

birthday doodle

traffic cat

Everyone hates traffic but everyone loves cats.

shaved ice

Available in Red and Blue.

dogs

sleeping puddles

octodude

I don't have a name for him so Octodude it is. I doodled this guy at Sunny Shah's art show and felt like painting him.

canyon

I have appropriately named this file holyfuck.psd.
Working from imagination- no ref whatsoever, so I'm pretty happy with this.

Update woohoo

I am really happy with this progress. Plan on making a gif for this one like I did for the teapot still life.

Legend of Korra plate extensions

Seth assigned me to do plate extensions of some Korra screenshots. Originals within box.

still life

Still life in Photoshop. Worked a while on this until a barista cleared the table.

My dad's girlfriend's dog Bindi has a tumor and he asked me to paint a picture of her with her dog.

Still working on this.

Speedpainting Collabs

Yesterday I participated in a collaborative speedpainting activity with a few friends. We started off with this image and had to do something with it, either inspired by in some way or painted over or whatever, for 20 minutes, flatten it, and save it to DropBox. Next person does something more to the file, flattens and saves it, and so on. The theme was underworld. 

Original

Cody's base

Molly's base

My base

Seth's base

Sunny's base

Here’s an art


This is a Pallas’s cat or a manul, a really stout wildcat from Central Asia. They have very stocky bodies and broad faces with short, compressed noses. Their long fur and short legs make them look very fat.ref

More Ether!
Photoshop

The fruit of my labor. Concept and design work for my friend Vicky's short film/ online interactive project she's pitching on Tuesday. This is the front.

And the back of the card.