End of spring semester stuff

Been on summer break for nearly a month now and I finally got around to updating this site haha.

This past semester was one of the most enjoyable I've ever had and also one of the ones I feel I've grown the most in artistically. Over all I feel like I'm more self-aware as to what my strengths, weaknesses and style is but I've also learned not to take any of these things personally and to try and learn to be more confident with my work. Most of this growth game out of JP Balmet's visual design class which I was super fortunate enough to take.

ANYWAYS out fourth and last vis dev project of this past semester was to illustrate 3 story moments from the Brothers Grimm story The Crystal Ball. I don’t have too much to say about this project itself [the source material… has a lot to be desired to say the least haha] other than this was probably the project I found my footing as far as my illustration style goes. For this project we were pretty much given free reign in regards to style and technique and I guess I sorta discovered my Thing is really just colored lines, hard flat colors, hard shadows, and soft gradient accents. I mean, I guess I already knew that for a while but now it’s like- that’s /me/, that’s my thing and I’m gonna run with it and see where it takes me.

In a nutshell, the story of The Crystal Ball is about the youngest of 3 brothers who escapes from his mother's wrath after she goes crazy and turns the two older sons into animals. Eventually he ends up trying to break a curse of a princess by slaying a bull and trying to obtain the egg of a fire bird that bursts out of the bull's dead body. In the end, with the help of his animal brothers, he gets the egg which holds a crystal ball and uses it to take away the powers of the sorcerer who cast the curse on the princess and they all live happily ever after! Whew.

Here are the finished illustrations in the order of the narrative:

Aaaand here's the progress work-

Throughout the semester we also did weekly traditional media pieces based on a single-word prompt or concept.

And this one wasn't part of school work but I'll put it next to the other ones- a portrait of my dog Thumper as a mother's day gift-

And FINALLY I'm able to show my work for the figure sculpting class this semester! This class was one of the most zen art classes I've taken because it was very easy to just hours pass by while you were working. It was almost like a 3-hour meditation class it was pretty nice haha. It did take me a while to warm up to the class because while I've always been interested in sculpting, actually doing it at the scale the class required came with a pretty big learning curb that consisted of just struggling to get the medium to do what I wanted it to do. BUT once I got the hang of it, I actually gained a LOT out of this class, especially gaining a more solid grasp of human anatomy and facial anatomy.

Our first big project was a reclining figure-

the aftermath

 The second project was a 1:1 scale self-portrait-

Photo refs-

Our third project was a sitting figure with a narrative element of our choosing. I turned her chair into a giant snake because why not?-

The final project was a standing figure, this time in plasticine rather than water-based clay. It was soooo much easier to work with but too bad it's not permanent-

nothing like destroying a piece you put dozens of hours in...

More vis dev school work!

This is my attempt at keeping this blog updated more regularly haha.

Anyways, we just finished our third vis dev project of the semester and this one is by far my fav so far.

The prompt this time was to design a driver-gunner team of same-species anthropomorphic California-based animals and their lifted off-road trucks for a hypothetical racing video game. That sounds like a mouthful but just think Mario Kart Double Dash… sort of.

It was suuuper hard to decide on a final pair to render out but I eventually settled with Chops and Chuletta- the hardcore wild boar power couple [not sure if they’re married or bf/gf] and their ridiculous horned/tusked battle racing truck. I dunno if I actually told anyone but they were totally inspired by Cherno Alpha’s pilot team from Pacific Rim haha.

I had TONS of enthusiasm going into the project because I loved the subject matter so much [animals are my jam ok] and even though it was a ton of work I think I managed to keep that enthusiasm up the whole way through! The biggest challenge I had was struggling with my inherent indecisiveness because I really liked a lot of the iterations I came up with and I had to ask for second opinions pretty much at every stage. BUT I’M GLAD I DID with other people’s help I think I was able to pick a team that was both appealing and fun to work on.

Here's the final character sheet and their truck:

Aaaand here's the progress work:

Visual design school work

I've been taking a visdev class this semester and it has been suuuper fun so far! I feel like I'm really I'm really learning a lot about my own personal style and what I'm capable of doing. We've finished 2 of the 4 projects we're doing this semester already.

The first project was especially fun- we had to design an environment and character based on the original legend of El Dorado which was based on the initiation ceremony one of the rulers of the Muisca people called the Zipa. The Zipa would be painted in gold dust and dive into lake Guatavita [near present-day Bogota, Colombia], and then toss gold into the lake as an offering to their gods. One of the stories about the Zipa involved a serpent god of the lake and I just took the idea and ran.

Basically my Zipa is a bad guy who wants to make a deal with the serpent god for power in exchange for gold [I’m thinking my serpent is kinda like Smaug haha]. The fine print is that the Zipa is basically possessed by the god and turns into a monster. Yay!

These two were the final pieces:

  

Aaand the following is the progress:

The second project was to design exterior, interior, and owner(s) of a flower shop set in 1980s New York City.

This project, while interesting, kinda had me in agony because it was so environment-focused and environments are definitely a weak-point for me- ESPECIALLY interiors. But I think I came out of it for the better! I now have more of an idea of how i should approach environments in general and how do design them according to my style. I also learned that putting a few hours into creating lit block mesh renders in Maya, while tedious, is SUPER helpful in making the final product look more solid.
and of course i had the most fun with the character designs haha. my story with them [and by extension the flower shop] is that the old woman [I think I named her Isabelle] runs the shop with two of her sons, Mikey [the rounder one] and Anthony [hella arms]. The twist is that the mother is actually the matriarch of an Italian/Sicilian mafia and the store is a front to launder their money. So when the brothers aren’t helpin their ma, they’re out breaking some hands and maybe some faces [tho Mikey honestly prefers to tend the flower shop]. And don’t think that Ma doesn’t keep a loaded shotgun under the cashier counter so no funny business!!


These first three are the final pieces:

These next ones are progress: