Tuesday, December 28, 2010

The most useful site I've ever seen for the artist

I personally have not signed up for this site, but I can vouch for its use.

http://www.conceptart.org/

If you doubt, I will direct you here

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=41
(Critiques by excellent artists the world over...mostly)

here
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=152626
(The best art books that anyone can find use for)

here
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=42
(Comprehensive, massive, FREE tutorial section)

here
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=12
(Jobs.)

and here
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=15
(Things I learned through experience that could've been learned for free)

I found these sections extremely informative. This site has a lot of depth. If nothing else, check the stickies from the sketchbook and art school section (ESPECIALLY THE E-BOOKS). If you're a braver soul, go ahead and register and get critiqued into perfection.


just gonna throw this up here for reference

Drawing from the imagination by Glenn Vilppu

Draw-Over for Sketch

This is a really badass design! I love the cyborg monster idea you have going here, and I think I know what's really hurting the 3-dimensionality of the piece, and it's NOT a lack of color and shading.

All of my teachers say, "If a drawing isnt solid to start with, no amount of rendering will save it." So throwing color and rendering on top wont fix your problems!

I think the need to draw through and around is your biggest problem in terms of dimensionality.



If I recall, you tend to draw just contours, right? You dont really use any under-structure? There is a lot of value to drawing an under-structure. If you draw solid shapes first then your line work can wrap around those solid volumes. That's what's missing from your piece and what is flattening it out. Lines are just lines; they don't define volumes.

Let's look at the eyeballs. Right now, you just have lines. I can tell what you're going for, but the lines dont actually describe the volume of the eye because they are not wrapping around a volume. I drew some eyeballs next to your to show what I mean, and to show how drawing around a volume can make them really solid.

Now let's look at the point where the arms connect to the eye tentacles. What you've drawn does not describe anything with volume because we dont see the arm wrapping around and behind the tentacles; the arms is on the same plane as the tentacles and it's certainly never behind it.

I've drawing some ellipses with a lip, defining the arm hole that those tentacles are sliding into. That lip indicates to the viewer "this arm is both in front and behind the tentacles, because they are sliding INTO it."

Same thing with the connection point between the chest armor and the midsection. The armor is on top of the mid section, but it certainly does not wrap around it. Maybe it's not supposed to, but the drawing would be a lot more solid and it would have a lot more depth and dimension if it did.

Again, I drew an ellipse with a lip to define the hole that the midsection fits into.

There are a few areas where you did a great job using overlaps to show exactly that. The shoulder armor definitely feels like it rests on top of the arms. That's because we see the lines wrapping around the arm; the lines are both in front and move behind it. The tentacle segments on the right side of the drawing have good, descriptive overlap.

To top it off, a nice fine detail that will push your perspective is the use of line weight. You have an eye-tentacle coming toward camera, so I thickened up the lines on it. See how it pops a little more? This is kind of like atmospheric perspective, but for lines. The closer the object, the thicker the line should be (relative to the lines behind it). Do this throughout the drawing and it will look really badass.

I hope this makes sense and is helpful. These are all ideas that I never heard at LMU. I personally struggle with these ideas now, and I'm CONSTANTLY called out at CDA when my work lacks them.

What do you think guys? Anybody disagree or have anything to add?

-JJ

Monday, December 27, 2010

Honorary Member Clause



I asked Matt if I could start posting here. One part to keep in contact with everybody and also to keep my skills sharp.

I present you with the "Migornic"! So named because I slipped on saying organic while thinking of "mechanic". Critique however you please.

I will do a more colored, rendered and cleaned version next time, as it lacks dimensionality in my opinion.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Sketchy Sunday 8 Colored


I wish I had time to draw some new stuff out, but it's the holidays and I only have enough time to post the colored version of that old WIP. So in the words of Engh "Stay postin".

old doodlies


it's sunday and i'm 2000 miles from my scanner, so you get some artifacts.

stay postin'.


Saturday, December 25, 2010

He knows if you've been bad or good...



...so you'd better be good, punk.

Merry Christmas!

-JJ

Friday, December 24, 2010

i missed cuz i suck

So after proclaiming that sketchy sunday must never die, i missed a couple. i know, im lame, but ive been super busy, work work work work work. but yeah i know, everyone is.

anyway this is sailor moon. i did her on a bag that im gonna shove some jewelry into and give to my sister. (shhhhhh, its for christmas). like all little girls in the nineties, myself included, she loved sailor moon.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Trailer!

Hey guys!

Because I haven't plastered this over the internet enough... here's my thesis trailer!

Enjoy!

The Many Great Adventures Trailer from Lis Savic on Vimeo.



Any feedback would be more than welcome, since I'm trying to make this film the absolute best that it can be!

-Lis

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Sketchy Sunday 9


Wanted to do something different slightly, but old habits kept kicking in. I guess that's todays them doing stuff different. Maybe I'll finish this one day and fix her weird eyes.

Immunity, an iPhone game!

Hey everybody, Keith Henry here. My brother, a friend and I just got finished making an iPhone game! I did pretty much all the visual art except a few buttons. We submitted it to Apple today. It will have to go through the usual approval process before it will be available for sale. It'll cost $1.99.

Immunity is a game about the body's immune systems inside your small intestines. It's bright happy-ish graphics, so there's nothing particularly gross, even though it's in the intestines.


We have a demo up on our website so feel free to check it out! Lonely Dodo site

To play it you will need to install something called "Unity Web Player." It should provide you with a link to download the player if you try to play the demo.

The Demo includes the first 10 levels and for now it includes the survival mode which has several game play elements in it that are explained in the full story mode.

Sketchy Sunday and another idea...

Hey guys, here's the first page from my new sketchbook.



I'm really trying to push my graphic-style work. Feedback would be great! I think I've got a handle on simplifying the designs, but I'm not quite sure how to push it more...

Also, I had this idea. I know there are a few aspiring storyboard artists out in blog-land, and we all need portfolio samples. I was thinking we could have something each week where we'd pick a theme then do a 1-2 min board on that theme. It'd get us some good, short samples with a wide variety.

This week I'm going to try for a graphic style board with kids. I'll post an animatic next Sunday!

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

In Mountains

I shot some stuff over the thanksgiving weekend for an upcoming music video.
The bulk of the story will be told with animated heiroglyphic-like blood paintings, moving across the surface of snowy boulders and trees and the ground. Here's an example of a blood on snow texture that will be mapped to the animation and then layered over a background plate (boulder with branches in front of it)...


The rest will just be pretty scenery and me wandering around with a vague sense of purpose.



Keep up the great posting!

I got inspired 8D

Photoshop has the coolest brushes, btw.

Took me about an hour to do. I still want to fix it later, such as make the canvas larger to give the guy a little breathing room and then I want to add a little figure in it. :)

And yes, I know. Get back to work. No need to say it in the comments. :/

btw... apparently the colors match the blog's colors. xD

SKETCHY SUNDAY MUST NEVER DIE!!!!!!!

I think the title says it all. NEVER DIE. EVER. sorry i missed one though

did anyone else see tangled? holy shit i love that movie.

Sunday, December 12, 2010

Sketchy Sunday 8

Well it started off as a sketch and now it's a work in progress, so hold off on the critiques. I think we can retire Sketchy Sunday now. We got updates from different artist. What do you guys say yay or nay?

Photographs

Hey animation friends!

I've posted this around the internets already, but I just want to let you all know that our (Brendan and Kiki's) thesis film is screening for the first time this coming Wednesday, Dec 15, in Mayer Theater (in the Comm Arts building) at the Fall Animation screening. We'd love to have you all there, since a lot of you were part of it in one way or another.

There will also be some really awesome films by the sophomore class!

Anyway, hope to see you guys there! :D




Saturday, December 11, 2010

Thursday, December 9, 2010

JJ's Tanks



Hey guys,
Here's some more work from my VisCom class. The first two pages are drawings from a really cool tank museum, while the second two pages are of my re-design.






The first two pages here are from Planes of Fame, a bitchin airplane museum out in Chino. I'm hitting it up again over winter break, if anyone's interested in tagging along. The second two are my redesign.






Let me know what you think!

-JJ

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Sauroposeidon was a really big dinosaur.

Sauroposeidon proteles in Territorial Display

This is one of the dino illustrations I did over the summer. I finally got around to getting it up on my website. If you click on it you will be taken to where you can see it bigger and read about the ideas and science behind it!

What's this?? Speculative but entirely plausible inflatable display structures?!? Wow! NEat!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Jayboard Designs

Well, I needed something to put up on this blog, so I decided to share a couple character sheets I'm using for my final Jay board.




Fresh-meat...errr..art!

Newcomer to the LMU animators
and avoiding homework as I post this, of course
Sadly I am posting fan-art but they are some of the few pieces I am proud of

OK! Uploading these images was not as fun as I expected, but hopefully I'll be allowed to stay long enough to learn the basics.
I hope to do something in this style in future projects I may have
also, <3 Neil Gaiman
even if the Sandman sometimes makes me sick to my stomach....

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Lynn

Brendan and I have been working on a new story, probably for a comic we want to draw together. This is Lynn, one of the main characters.

I also wish I had her helmet!

Saturday, December 4, 2010

More Thesis Work

Here is some more stuff from my thesis film.

Just did a test render of a hallway scene so here is that (the motionless norman is just a stand in. The final film will be shot with a live action actor for my main character)

youtube clip

Here are some character model sheets!

(robot is in the final stages of being rigged. Just trying to work out a few complicated problems. And the soldier is on stand by for being textured and have detail added in Zbrush)





Here are jsut a few screenshots of other sets im working on


Apartment: I need to finish tearing some more wallpaper, and modeling and texturing for a few more pieces of furniture


City Street: I need to finish modeling and texturing buildings to line the street, and the current BG is just a temp bg, something I found off google.


Feel free to leave any comments!!
As always you can also check out my own blog im keeping here