Spring Break Ambitions

Over the break I have a few artistic goals I want to accomplish but first I am taking a week off to go visit family in Houston Texas. I want to get more exposure to matte painting. I have a few thumbnails sketched out right now all that is next is to develop them more in photoshop. I Also want to practice more in Mudbox which is a 3d sculpting program that works the same way as ZBrush. Right now I have been working on sculpting a bull. After I sculpt it I will paint it in photoshop and possibly add it to my matte painting. I want get more exposure to the workflow that many professionals use.   

Its not completed yet. As you can see I need to fix the hooves and straighten out the horns. I think that the paint and bump mapping should add more skin details. I am still a little awkward with the program. Mostly because I am sill unsure how the tools behave in certain situations. I still get a lot of unpredictable results which has made this model take forever to create. Next semester I will be taking a 3D modeling and rigging class and so I think that if I get more exposure and coordination with mudbox I will be able to add more detail and aesthetically pleasing results to my models.

Building an army

When I was younger my brother and I drew stick wars on notebook paper. The goal was to get the most stick figures on there. There was always a team underground and a team up top digging down to find the secret base. I never thought this would be something I would use in the future. I ended up taking this idea and applying it to a 3D assignment for school. I will show you the process I went through to accomplish this.
First the original sketches:

Then the sculpting began. First I made a wooden box.Then I made tubes on tinfoil for support. I then rolled out sculpy clay and layered it on the foil.

Next I made an army of stick men one side being red the other black. I then cut many half inch pieces of wire and bent them to make guns. I glued the guns on the stick men with super glue.

The next step was painting the ground that the stick men will be on and the sky.

The final step was adding the men themselves along with other theatrical props to add to the dramatic scene like ladders, dynamite, and barbed wire.

So in the end is a 3d version of my past ambitions.

But it doesn't end there. I have recently used my 3d software class to create more on this idea of red vs black in war. The video can be found here http://youtu.be/V2KOJu-teSs This video is only a logo intro. But maybe someday it will develop into something more.

After Effects

Lately I have been playing around in Adobe after effects. I love this program. It has so much potential as a great tool in the multimedia world. Right now I have only been using it for random text intro stuff but I want to explore more and use it for other projects. I was in a film program at the University of Utah which I loved but the only thing they really focused on was directing with minimal editing. Disappointed, I left and decided to learn on my own. It wasn't until recently that I started to use after effects. I think now that we are becoming more integrated with technology in our daily lives, learning digital art will be a great medium for new and innovating art. With the use of 3D technology for television and gaming it makes me wonder how the art world will change.This post is something I did quickly to help out my sister. If it hypnotizes you it is not my fault.

My Favorite Art Websites.

I want to share my favorite art websites and explain why I think they are valuable.

The first one is http://www.sketchtheatre.com/
This one is a great website that features artists that know how to draw really well. I enjoy watching people create art and this website allows you to do that. I think by watching how these artist create great drawings I can learn new techniques to incorporate in my own work.

The second one is http://www.thegnomonworkshop.com/
This is created by the same guy that created sketchtheatre. This site is great for learning from professional artist in the entertainment and computer graphics world. It has endless amounts of information that I find very useful.

The third one comes from a magazine publisher called Image Publishing. They have multiple sites that are very informative.They provide current tutorials tips and tricks from 3D work to photoshop. Their main focus is digital work. With each month they offer free content like brushes, movie clips from artist sharing and teaching various skills. Sometimes I actually buy the physical magazine so I can enjoy holding it in my hand and reading the articles anywhere I want. Each site allows you to make a profile and add your work to share to others. It is another great place to get noticed for free. Here is the list of sites they offer:
http://www.digitalartistdaily.com
http://www.3dartistonline.com
http://www.paintermagazine.co.uk
http://www.photoshopcreative.co.uk
http://www.advancedphotoshop.co.uk
And there are more. Some are photography websites as well.

The forth one is called http://idrawgirls.blogspot.com
I like the many tutorials this guy provides. He is based in Seattle and has provided many tutorials on anatomy drawing in a way I have never seen which I find helpful since I am not good at drawing people.

The fifth is all about tutorials. I am kind of a tutorial junkie. Ive been doing tutorials for years. It has sort of become a hobby of mine. I think it is great to learn from others to see how they create amazing things. Plus it is a great way to learn programs. Here is a list of favorite tutorial websites:
http://psd.tutsplus.com/
http://teamphotoshop.com
http://www.tutorialized.com
http://www.tutorialized.com
http://www.computerarts.co.uk
http://www.digitaltutors.com
http://www.noupe.com
http://www.videocopilot.net
http://lesterbanks.com
There are many more but these are the ones that I frequent the most.

The sixth is about art sites that I look for inspirations. Some of them are so strange I cant help but enjoy. Here is the list:
http://www.danmilligan.com
http://www.imaginaryfs.com
http://www.hillmancurtis.com
http://claudiamckinstry.com 
    This lady is actually from Bainbridge Island. I think her watercolors are amazing.
http://www.3dluvr.com/jonkajtys
http://www.signatureillustration.org
http://www.artbydavidpaul.com



    This one is my uncles website. His work has been around me my whole life and I have always looked at as a source of inspiration.


Ill stop there. These sites have been great resources in my journey as an artist. They have both inspired me and entertained me. I hope that all who look here can find them useful as well.

Band Poster Rant

I am not into punk bands at all. In my Illustration class we had a project to make a band poster. I am not into design work but I do enjoy the Illustration part. This assignment has made me look at other posters out there. I mostly skimmed through google and sometimes actual poster websites. I don't really listen to any specific band so I thought I would make one for a band that was on the assignment sheet. I looked at all of them and couldn't decide what to do so I chose the first one on the list. It is a Punk Band. I don't know anything about punk. So this has been an eye opener and it has been kind of difficult to make the image appear "punk." I tried to create an unlikely scene that makes the characters cartoony like the crocodile. I wanted the poster to look different from other punk looks only because the ones I saw were not very attractive. I don't know anything about the band and so I made up in my mind that they were a hardcore dark yet goofy group. From the photo I saw on facebook I tried to mimic their appearance in the characters. This was a fun assignment I used Photoshop to paint the illustration to get more digital practice. I mostly wanted practice with the Wacom coordination. I am still a little awkward with it. It is hard to make straight lines. I think they should make the surface and nib react less smoothly. The slickness creates a disconnect from how in real life a pen or pencil feels on a textured paper. Sometimes I put a piece of paper down on the tablet to help create a textured feel. This image is the final illustration of the band poster. 

Text Shatter Demo

Dynamic text shatter tutorial in Maya 2011

Open Maya 2011

Create a Polygon Plane and press R scale it larger. 

In the menu tool bar go to Create – Text options box—copy image options. Be sure to select Poly—Triangles—Count. I set the count to 150 but you can set it to whatever works best for the type of font you are using. Press Apply.

Your text will be separated into two parts. First is the outline of the text. Second is the inside triangulated polygon surface. Open the Outliner found in Window on the menu tool bar. Then select the top text. Press Delete.

Select the next layer of text in the Outliner and press W to move the text to the center of the stage. 

With the text still selected go to the menu tool bar and select Edit—Ungroup. 

Go into the Dynamics menu tool bar and select Effects—Create Shatter Options Box. With the Text still selected press apply with the options in the image.

1.    Shard Count=5

2.    Extrude Shards=0

3.    Speed Value=11

4.    Post Operation=Shapes

5.    Triangulate Surface

6.    Link to shards

7.    Verbose mode

This image shows how the text is now broken up into many separate pieces.

 

With the Text selected from the Outliner go to the Polygon menu tool bar and select Edit Mesh—Extrude. 

From the right hand layer editor type in .5 in the Local Translate Z options box.

If you pull up one shard you can see that each shard is one solid piece 

With the ground plane selected go back in Dynamics menu tool bar select Soft/Rigid Bodies—Create Passive Rigid Body. 

In the Outliner select the shards in the first letter “T” and go to the menu tool bar select Soft/Rigid Bodies—Create Active Rigid Body Options box. I set the Bounciness to .3 and the Damping to .1. But you can play with it to get the desired affect you are looking for. Click Apply. Continue this with each letter individually. 

In the Outliner select all the Shards and go to menu tool bar. Select Fields—Gravity. 

Select the Ground Plane and press W to move it down. 

At the bottom in the animation settings click Animation Preferences icon at the bottom right hand corner. Be sure that Playback Speed is set to Play every frame.

Set the End time and End Playback time to 100 or however long you want your animation to last. 

Preview to make sure it works.

When previewing if you select a shard go the Attributes Editor option box on the right and select the Rigid Solver tab. In the Rigid Solver States you have the option to save the animation in the RAM by selecting Cache Data. If you want to reset the data just click Delete Cache.

After you have viewed the animation and you go back to the first frame you may get a warning message. This generally can be fixed by changing the Rigid Body Attributes of the affected shards. 

Add some lights and color then render. Congrats.