Inking in Flash

I decided to slow it down this time and try to concentrate more on the line, rather than being so gestural. I also tried wet hair, while I was at it.

SCIENCE!

A science guy doing science things! Doesn't look like he's doing anything all that science-y...

Drink and Draw

Went to my first Drink and Draw tonight, and met my ex-coworker from Zynga Jimmy Tovar there. I had some good drawings, and ended up winning the free tab - unfortunately I hadn't bought anything. All this, in front of a friendly, gorgeous British girl I was chatting up who loves QI and Sherlock... and wouldn't hang out with me afterwards. Well, 4 out of 5 ain't bad.

Shadow animation scene 1 progress

Doesn't look like much progress, but that's because I animated this twice, and just caught up to where I was before. Hopefully it's noticeably more on model than the first time through.

Self Quickie

I don't have a red nose... but I like red noses.

Amazing Girl

Quick sketch, blatant and shameless ripoff of a Skullgirls sketch. Also going to steal John Su's practice of drawing first and inventing a story after as an exercise in creativity.

Her story is when she was young, both of her parents were shot in front of her. Raised by her butler, that inner turmoil has manifested itself as the embodiment of vengeance: Amazing Girl. The twist is she's shit at it, and in reality she's just mentally unstable. She was killed in action attempting to stop her first robbery.



Seeing as within a simple doodle I've only gone and ripped off Skullgirls, John Su, and Batman, I think I can say with some confidence that this exercise in creativity was an utter failure.

RIP, Amazing Girl.

Femshep vs Harbinger

Yeah, I know it doesn't look like your Shepard. Deal with it.

The Reward

Bachelor film project from The Animation Workshop, Viborg, Denmark.

And a perfectly executed high five:

Life drawing

It's going to be the last time I'm going to be able to do the Monday life drawing session at AVAA for a while since I have Japanese class those days, so I figured I should go. Nevermind all the times I could have gone quite easily and didn't.

Out of all the sketches I did, I walked away with a measly three not horrible ones. And one of them wasn't even of the model. Not proud of myself here.

I'm also finding myself increasingly annoyed by my ASUS Slate. I didn't think pressure sensitivity mattered that much to me, but that lower bound - the one between not reading and its first sensitivity level - is really important. Really can't get any subtle shading with it. Can't wait for THE artist slate to come out, whatever and whenever that may be. Or do the sensible thing and learn to draw with a pencil.

Art as a Kid

Just got finished watching a TED Talk titled Jarrett J. Krosoczka: How a boy became an artist.

I remember in what must have been elementary school writing and illustrating a book about dinosaurs. That and a creative writing class in middle school were the most fun I had at school. I even saved that exact same fortune cookie fortune that he had for some time before it became too uncool to keep it in my wallet anymore. I may even have a recording of me reciting that dinosaur book on cassette somewhere. If only I had a cassette player, I could embarrass myself by listening to it right now.

One thing I really liked in the video was when he came across Drawing Comics the Marvel Way, and his teacher told him to throw it away. This is no excuse not to keep progressing my own style and find ways to push it so I enjoy it even more, but it's an immediate weight off my shoulders, thinking like that. Art becomes less a dead responsibility and becomes fun again. The only problem being making sure I can make a living, only being able to work in my own style. It's been embarrassing, as an artist taking on freelance work, having to tell people my limitations as a digital painter. But to be honest, it's not what interests me.

One of my favorite mediums right now, which I'm still intimidated to try, is the webcomic. But another one that I've always thought I might like is children's books. In fact, I wonder if my current animation short (which has taken so long, it has stunted my work and motivation on it or on other projects) wouldn't work as an illustrated children's book as well. I think I may have to seriously consider this if I want to push myself to be more creative and prolific. I'm hesitant, considering the good animation that's gone into it, and the fact that I know I could do more good work on it in that medium. But unless I make projects smaller, I may never finish one.

Christmas 2012

Top left:	Blade of the Immortal
Middle left:	knocked off some debt
Bottom left:	The reason for the delay in posting: the gift to Margret, the soon-to-be-mother of my younger brother Ravi's child, who has been known to refer to unborn children as parasites. Her present was some baby provisions, so a reference to Aliens was in order.
Top right:	Neil Degrasse Tyson book, referencing his "We've got a badass over here" meme.
Middle right:	This one may take a bit of explaining since no one seemed to get it. My father is a Republican who listens to NPR, so I got him some NPR stuff. As a Republican, he of course feels to need to display his national pride with a giant flag, carry a shotgun at all times, and wear the Republican logo on his shirt. As an NPR listener, he wears Democratic headphones that shoot hippie symbols out of them. Also, as party lines seem to be divided between saying "Merry Christmas" and "Happy Holidays", I felt the discordant combination of the two was appropriate.
Bottom right:	iPhone camera remote

Mass Effect 3 Ending DLC

I've yet to make a non-art post here, but I figure video games are an influence, so why not?
This has to do with Mass Effect 3's ending, so be warned:

***SPOILERS***

As you may know, many people were unhappy with Mass Effect 3's ending. I have to agree, though I'm not as much angry at the ending I got (though it was a bit lame) as I am disappointed that it wasn't the Indoctrination Theory, which is an epically awesome idea. It pushes the boundaries of the medium in a way that only video games can. It actually indoctrinates the player. The hints that I've since seen in conspiracy theory videos are also awesomely subtle, and peppered throughout.

And I'm still holding out for it. I spend the rest of my life being rational and critical of unwarranted faith, I'm allowed.

In order to remedy the situation, Bioware released the Ending DLC which fixed many plotholes in the ending that people were complaining about. Most people either were happy with this or thought it didn't help anything. In one regard, I think it's actually now worse.

Specifically, the addition that explains how your squadmates got back onto the Normandy. In all the games, Shepard has had the luxury of being careful about her (yes, her) teammates' safety. In fact, much of the game is her taking time off from saving the galaxy to settle their personal matters. Yet in the scene where they're running towards the beam, in the original ending before the Extended Cut, Shepard stopped for nothing as troops disintegrated before her eyes. NO one slowed down. It was telling of the desperation they all had to save the galaxy, made that much more potent since it was so out of character. Everyone understood that this was bigger than any one of the friends they were watching die in front of them.

In the Extended Cut, they take that away. Shepard stops halfway through to get her injured squadmates to the ship. The entire galaxy hangs in the balance and Shepard stops to protect two squadmates, who will die with the rest of the galaxy anyway if they fail. It no longer feels that humanity is desperately clawing its way to survive.

Oh, well. Put up or shut up. Back to work.

Hitch

For reasons that are none of your business, I can't yet post my annual Christmas sketches. In the meantime, I figured I should post something, even if these are still incomplete.

Last year, in an act of petty atheistic rebellion, I decided to watch Antichrist on Christmas Eve. After that somewhat self-inflicted wound, I decided this year to try again, this time to honor my favorite atheist, Christopher Hitchens. I tried last year when he died, but didn't like the sketch. As I am now unemployed, I've decided to take the time to challenge my ever-present weakness in art: painting/rendering. Unfortunately my caricatures aren't that strong either, and he could probably do with a bit more exaggeration of his features, but oh well. Here's what I have so far for the Hitch:

One day I'll be able to hide that outline layer...

I also have been meaning to do an illustration of Nausicaa. I've gotten as far as settling on a thumbnail sketch:

Chibi Makoto

After getting a chibi commission done by karioks, I decided to give it a shot

Avatar

I needed a break from my animated short so I put some time into the avatar for a very nebulous game idea I had shelved. I redid a lot of the art and added new programming features.
Click the image to try it out.

Blue

Lyssa

A friend of mine posed for a few gestures.  There'd be more, but I wasn't sure how physically demanding posing was, so I let her off easy :p

Shadow Animation - SC1 Roughs

nothing like buying a new cintiq to guilt you into using it. finally did more work on my animated short. animated roughs for the boy and his dog in the first scene.

And a reminder of what the characters are supposed to look like:

Xmas 2011

As always, an accompanying picture for each present this year.
Top left: Link on Epona statue
Top right: Gift card (she's shrugging because she didn't know what to get)
Middle left: Rocksmith
Middle right: Karaoke machine
Bottom left: Orthopedic sandals

Flowy hair

One thing I've been wanting to get better at is drawing hair. I saw a deviantArt artist treating it more like an effect, separating it into ribbons of dark (under) and light and thought I'd try that. Couldn't be bothered to finish, of course :D

Steampunk

More chicks! Yeah... I don't know how to draw guns.

Looking Up

Sketching with no ideas...

Rokkun

Some fanart, for a character I'm not even familiar with. Upon finding You Yoshinari's homage to Osamu Tezuka (http://youtu.be/kfMxXQqz_38), my love for Tezuka's style was rekindled enough to actually make me do some art, and for a character I'm not even familiar with (Roppu-kun)!

I'm not sure how I feel about the choice to abandon outlines, but it turned out okay.

Feeling uninspired

Not feeling very inspired. The sketches of the kids on the top right are supposed to be for a possible comic idea, but I'm gonna have to spend more time brainstorming more interesting ideas for it before I'm gonna be very excited about it. I seem to have settled for a style that's been influenced by an anime/manga I've been watching/reading called Usagi Drop and Ryan Armand's webcomic, Modern Fried Snake.

Comic Jam

I was sitting around one day, disappointed that again I couldn't find any online comic jams to cut my teeth on (as, being that I'd never drawn a comic page before, I was intimidated by the prospect of creating an entire comic - and, congruently, an idea - all by myself), when it hit me: I could start one! After patting myself on the back for being proactive for the first time ever, I started a jam with a handful of Powerhouse Animation artists with the stipulation that each artist could only see the page directly before theirs (a rule that, if I ever start another jam, I will definitely not be reinstating). After a fair amount of dropouts, the comic ended a few pages in, still in the prologue stages. Much appreciation to those who stuck with it, and much pain and suffering to those who didn't!

Here's the page I did - the first page of the comic.

Naked Lunch sketches

I went to a Naked Lunch drawing session today, modeled by Ms. Jamie Teer, who plays the assistant to the bad guy in the upcoming Drive Angry movie.  More relevantly, though, she was a great model.

'Tis the season to be freezing

As a Flash animator at Zynga, I'm finding I can only hide from my weaknesses in painting and illustration for so long, especially with the rest of my team being avid (and amazing) photoshop users. This was meant to be a color/painting study, but it still seems simple and flat.   Probably has something to do with the thick, sketchy line work: a style I can't bring myself to give up.  Am I doomed to be a cartoonist forever?
Sketchbook Pro, Photoshop CS4

Christmas compilation

All the Christmas labels I did for the past few years.

Some kind of blowfish airship? ...I guess?

A drawing I dug up from a while ago. Some kind of blowfish airship, getting fired upon? Sorta looking a little rendered!

They Can See

A quick sketch, didn't know what to do for a background, which sucks, since a more emotionally charged drawing kind of needs the atmosphere...

round 2

Another go at the same character - this one's closer to the right age... see if you can tell what character designs I've ripped off :D

character design

A character design for a sci fi idea I came up with - unfortunately she turned out older than I imagined the character to be.

I have the power of Grayskull!!

I tried a little harder with the colors this time - they look muddy, but I'm happy I took some risks with it; the only way to grow.

naked lunch

went to naked lunch, the first time I've drawn in... apparently a year?

spring 09

A couple of drawings for "Luck of the Draw", an exercise we're doing at work where a coworker is chosen at random for the week, and everyone draws him/her.
Here's Jessie:

And Adam:



And some new doodles.

a few caricatures

the three on the left are from a page of photos of russian cops with crazy faces that are perfect for people like me who are just starting out in trying to get the hang of caricaturing and designs. The bottom right is Morgan Freeman, and there's a couple of doodles from the movie Coraline I watched recently. Sorry for the low turnout, these past months have been heavier in programming... and slacking...

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

Fanart for Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog. If you haven't seen it, watch it.
I can't say either of these recent portraitures look like the actual people I'm drawing (this Neil Patrick Harris looks more like an evil Cid from Final Fantasy 7) but.... what-the-hell-ever.
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

heads

A bunch of faces. The drawing on the top left is based on author and outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens, whose debates I've been listening to recently.

chicks, dude

I went on a Makoto kick... but got lazy
That's Makoto from Street Fighter: Third Strike - the black one is in mid-double smash :D

As for the girl on the right... I was thinking of putting clothes on her, but then I thought... why the hell would I do that?