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...

Personal work fall/winter 2013

Just some personal/original work from the past several months~

first "finished" thing I ever drew on my Surface Pro 2!

 

quick study of a Starbucks in the Phoenix, AZ airport.

medicine man and young Native girl.

deer dancer

2 buffalo dancers for my dad for Christmas

Fall 2013 school work

Last semester I took a digital illustration class as well as an advanced 3D modeling class.

My 3D modeling class was actually my last Maya class ever at SJSU! I'm sooo glad to be done haha. I did come out of the class with some neat stuff though-

The last 2 were part of the final project of the class where I had to model an original character for the purpose of 3D printing it. Needless to say this was the most fun I'd have modeling anything haha. Here's the result-

And here's some of the concept work I made specifically for this model based on drawings I've posted previously-

Obviously I strayed a bit from the concept work to compensate for creating the character for a different medium but it was a good learning experience!

My other studio class was an intro to digital illustration. I'm by default really not confident at all with my painting and color skills but I think I came out of this class for the better.

We started out with simple black and white assignments like rendering a kitchen object then aging it like 30 years and copying from photographs.

it's like a Slap Chop

Then we went on to work on a series of illustrations based on the writings of Gary Soto who wrote stories based on growing up in a Mexican-American agriculture community in Fresno, CA. The first set of illustrations was to design either a kitchen or garage based on a set of writings. I picked the garage and I think I ended up biting off more than I could chew-

 

 

The final project was also based on Soto's works but this time we had to design a treehouse.