s c a t t e r e dThoughts

Moar Insomnia

2011-12-13T01:58:00.000-08:00

Pencil + Eraser + Stump + Red Sharpie =

Progress:

Insomnia ==

2011-12-12T03:04:00.000-08:00

Progress:

I'd like to continue to work on these, and more sketches I have, over my winter break.

Digital Paintings

2011-06-06T15:41:00.000-07:00

Art, Culture, and Technology: Show and Tell

2011-04-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to what I would like to be shown on Thursday:

"Download DARPA's Sub-Hunting Sim, Help Train its ACTUV Automaton"

Really interesting article about some simulation that's happening to conduct real world training.

Art 450 Update

2011-04-12T11:49:00.000-07:00

So here is my blog update for Tuesday... or Thursday, or whenever it is we're doing our group update for Art 450. I came up with a project idea that I'm really excited about (there's nothing like mouth surgery, pain meds, and Minecraft to give you some artistic inspiration >.>). The idea evolved from these sketches I worked on last week:

I received some good feedback from that particular image (people seemed to this it was weird, out there, and mildly humorous which I loved to hear!). So the following is a sort of stream of consciousness note-taking I did while I was thinking about this image (it might not make sense to anyone >.>):

- Everyday objects made grungy or disturbing in a way

- Simple kitchen objects?

- 1950's undead, housewives

- Ads, being beautiful an perfect from beyond the grave

- Ordinary as deadly: objects, people, 50's lifestyle

- Should take a look at home cooking magazines, maybe women's magazines to get some collage material

- 1950's undead kitchen

- Brain ice cream cone

- Recreate 1950's ads, or current home life ads, as undead versions

- "meat"loaf

- Bloodtini

- The housewife retaliates by making her husband part of all the meals/treats/objects, "finally, he can help out in the kitchen!"

- Eyeball wedding ring

- Graphic design + photog for ads

- 3D objects in a small environment

- An extreme portrayal of the 50's and its expectations? Or, utilizing an undead environment as a way to fight those expectations?

I think there's a lot to these random thoughts I was having and I could go in a few directions with it for a long term project. For the purposes of 450, I decided on creating some everyday objects in a 3D space/environment and texturing them to look and feel exactly the opposite of what they are. Although, I'm really hooked on the idea of that brain ice cream cone for some reason, haha, might have to toss that in there as well. Anyways, what I like about this idea is that I can make these 3D objects, and possibly a little bit of an environment (the 50's kitchen) but I can also expand on this with some graphic design, photography, and photo-manipulation at a later date. These objects will also be really simple, and won't take a ridiculous amount of time to model.

The fact that I landed on a bit of a satirical look at both the 1950's and the zombie culture didn't surprise me. I've always been incredibly fascinated by the lifestyle and mindset of the 50's. What's odd, is that I've always thought both utilizing the 50's as a platform for art and the huge pop culture interest in zombies as clichéd idea/concept. But, for some reason, I'm just really excited about combining these two ideas!

I'm really excited to kick start this with some visual research today or tomorrow and then get right into both Maya and Photoshop. Some advice I got from my friend in the industry to keep in mind and help set some goals:

- Keep the size of the environment appropriate, what's the point of spending a bunch of time on some objects that might end up looking too small in a full size kitchen environment?

- If I want to focus on strictly doing the objects, 10 objects would be a good number to shoot for without having an extensive environment to do.

- When I start modeling I need to keep in mind the angle that's important to the object. Will we only be seeing half of the object? Just the front? Or do I want it to be able to be utilized in a full 360 rotation?

- Current goals: Sketches of the scene and gathering reference material.

Ok I think that's all of the updating I have for Art 450 at this point. I've said this a lot already, but I'm really excited to jump into Maya/Photoshop and start this up!

Sketch Dump

2011-04-11T21:54:00.000-07:00

Some of these have the incorrect orientation. :[

Blog post fail!

Art, Culture and Technology: Show and Tell

2011-04-05T14:43:00.000-07:00

Due to the fact that I won't be able to attend class on Thursday, I'm posting a couple virtual reality/simulation related show and tell things here!

Virtusphere:
This is an article engadget wrote last year when the Virtusphere was available to view and play with at GDC 2010.
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/19/virtusphere-virtual-reality-hamster-ball-put-to-the-test/

The Virtusphere website.
http://www.virtusphere.com/

Minecraft + Kinect:
This is a video of people implementing the Kinect to build simulated statues of them within the world of Minecraft. It's animated too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x2mCDkqXki0

ART 450: Project Proposal

2011-04-05T11:31:00.000-07:00

1. A working title for your project.
   Crazy BFA Work

2. A one-sentence description of your project.
      This will be a project of study and completion of as many small pieces of work as possible leading up to my BFA review and beyond.

3. A one-paragraph description of your project.
     This will be a project of study and completion of as many small pieces of work as possible leading up to my BFA review and beyond. During the course of this term I will be producing as much work as possible while trying to truly find my project. Right now this is consisting of five minute duration drawings for long periods of time, just to get a lot of drawing done.

4. A one-page description of your project.
   This will be a project of study and completion of as many small pieces of work as possible leading up to my BFA review and beyond. During the course of this term I will be producing as much work as possible while trying to truly find my project. Right now this is consisting of five minute duration drawings for long periods of time, just to get a lot of drawing done. As I continue with this exercise I also hope to complete some texture art for an environment setting, this will most likely be the sewer setting from last term but may change over the course of this term. I have only been fully dedicated to this five minute drawing process for not even a full week and it has already helped me to come up with some ideas. So, the current plan is to stick to drawing a lot and starting on some texture art for an environment.

5. A description of your products of study—what you're going to actually produce during the course of your project.
   A lot of sketches/drawings and texture art!

6. Visual and/or written research for your project—other people’s work
   I've done quite a bit of visual research for the sewer environment which can be viewed in past blog posts and I'll be doing random visual research throughout the five minute drawing exercises which I will post to here.

7. Treatment visuals for your project—your own work
   My blog posts from last term show some of the sewer environment and I'll be showing some of the five minute sketches I've done so far during class.

8. A written description of specific technical and research issues you will need to address during the course of your project.
   The only technical research I'll need to do this term is getting a quick refresher on UV mapping and such, then it will just be Photoshop as usual.

9. A timeline of your project. When you will be doing all of this good stuff. You must include specific deadlines (for example: "May 17th", not "some time in May."

   Besides just drawing like crazy, I think at least starting texture art related work by Thursday or next week would be a good direction.

Super Update Dump!

2011-02-21T12:01:00.000-08:00

Hello Collaborative Art Team,

First of all I would like to apologize for my absence both in class for critiques and on my blog as well. I would like to fill this post with a self evaluation of my work so far as well as a lot of the work I've completed this term but have yet to post!

So as for the self evaluation, I thought I did much better this term with keeping up on my work. Although I don't have a HUGE amount of work to show, which is something I would like to work on, I definitely got a lot more done this term than I did last term. The only timeline adjustments I've made are that I spent more time on the pre-production 2-D artwork rather than the 3-D work, and I decided to just go for an environmental set of work rather than environment and character design. I actually enjoy working on environment sets more than creating characters, so I think that worked out just fine for me. In addition to this, I have also learned a lot about the new Maya 2011 program, so that's definitely something I'll be taking away from this 450 experience in addition to improving upon my Photoshop drawing skills.

I have also learned a lot about my drawing style and what I'm capable of as an artist in the digital realm. Going through the BFA review and getting feedback from Miles has really helped me to figure out that my art is really about the concept rather than a polished piece of artwork. I, and other people who have seen my work, tend to enjoy the sketches I create rather than my attempts to complete a polished piece of work. I want to get my concept down on paper, or computer screen, and once it's there it is what it is and I don't really need to work with it anymore.

I have definitely learned a lot about both the new Maya program and myself as an artist throughout this term, and because of that, I'm glad to say that I feel my work in this class is a success.

So, with out further delay, here is what I have to show for Lucid:

A compilation of the initial sketch work.

Sewer entrance concept.

Sewer entrance color tests.

Toxic barrel concepts.

Toxic barrel color tests.

Lamp concepts.

"Trigger" concepts.

Entering the sewer concept.

Initial maya test, side view.

Initial maya test, true view.

Final product sample.

Update Dump

2011-01-24T18:54:00.000-08:00

I'm taking my lab hours to do a massive update on both the references I've gathered and any sketches I've been doing. Most of the sketches I'll be posting will be pencil sketches I drew on some class notes and in my sketchbooks.

Real Life References:

Art/Game References:

Undercity Sewers - Blizzard Entertainment

My color palette inspiration.

Dalaran Sewers - Blizzard Entertainment

Biohazard Symbol via CreativeWallpapers.com

Biohazard Barrels via iStockphoto

Biohazard Barrel via bigstock.com

Beginning Sketches:

Disclaimer: These are basically doodles, super rough!

Some sort of title art.

A more abstract depiction of a sewer entrance, I thought it would make sense with the overarching dream setting. This could be fun to run with.

Another abstract design.

Possible instances of the levels.

From left to right: A gap in the pathway, a toxic barrel to overcome, and an area where the player could be forced to jump and fall unaware of what's to follow.

Digital Media Project Proposal: Version 2.0!

2011-01-10T18:43:00.000-08:00

So, after the discussion about my project during class today I have finally made a decision that I'm really excited about! First of all, I wanted to thank everyone who listened to my ramblings about my project during class today and made suggestions. I wouldn't be nearly as excited about this project without everything you guys said, so thank you!

I want to reiterate my final decision here on the blog just to make sure everyone, including me, will be clear on the concept I am pursuing for my project. I decided to, in a way, combine both of my ideas and put the long term project in a series type of format. Each "episode" will be a stand alone game that will delve into the subconscious of the character through lucid dreams. Something I thought would make the series more interesting as a whole would be to have a predetermined order of the "episodes" but to execute them out of order. For example, I think a terrifying childhood fear such as getting sucked into the sewer might be something that would be experienced deeper in the subconscious. So, rather than being Lucid I: Sewer, it might be better placed as Lucid IV depending on how many "episodes" I wish to create. In order to quantify which fears/thoughts/memories go to which "episode", I've been reading a little bit about suppression and repression. Fears, thoughts, and memories that are more suppressed rather than repressed would be first in the series. And, as the player gets deeper into the subconscious, more repressed fears, thoughts, and memories begin to appear which I would assign to the later "episodes". A possible list I just thought of is as follows:

Lucid I: Current adult fear (getting older, financial trouble, etc.)
Lucid II: Childhood fear (Sewer)
Lucid III: Childhood memory/trauma (being picked on by peers, negative family experience, etc.)

I know this is getting a bit too specific for the parameters of this term, but I would really like to continue this project and really flesh out my ideas to include it in both my BFA review and thesis. I'm using this post as a huge brainstorming session of sorts.

So, after all of that rambling, here is my working timeline for this term:

W 1/12: Gather references for sewer environments and begin sketches in Photoshop.
M 1/17: No class!
W 1/19: Continue sketch work while solidifying visual concepts.
M 1/24: Continue working on environment, starting to gather references and ideas for a character design.
W 1/26: Finish gathering references for a character and begin sketching ideas.
M 1/31: Proposed prelim. Critique showing current 2-D work.
W 2/2: Continue to work on all 2-D pieces including environments, characters, or anything else.
M 2/7: Continue working and posting progress.
W 2/9: Begin working in Maya, creating the level designs in 3-D.
M 2/14: Continue working and posting progress.
W 2/16: Begin working on character design in Maya.
M 2/21: Continue working and posting progress.
W 2/23:Continue working and posting progress.
M 2/28: Final Project Presentation/Evaluation - Possible complications with me, I will discuss this with Professor Arellano on Wednesday 1/12!

Digital Media Project Proposal

2011-01-09T23:59:00.000-08:00

Dear Collaborative Team of Artists,

As some of you may remember from Wednesday's class, I have two specific concepts for my project. The project, overall, is going to be as much pre-production work as possible for a video game concept that I come up with. The video game, if it were to be finished, would be in a side-scrolling/platformer format with 3-D aspects. Some points of reference for this are The New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Epic Mickey (specific levels), and Donkey Kong Country Returns. The pre-production work will include both 2-D and 3-D work. The 2-D work will include concept art of environments/levels, character(s), enemies, and possibly user interfaces The 3-D work will include bringing the concept art to life with a few 3-D renderings of characters, enemies, or levels. I will create most of my work using both Photoshop and Maya.

Now onto the more difficult part of this project... selecting a concept. I want this project to be part of the work I show for my BFA mid-program review and my overall thesis for the BFA program so a strong concept is important. Here are the two specific ideas I have for the video game:

1. Sewer
My idea for this concept stemmed from an early childhood fear of being pulled into the drain of a shower or sucked into the whirlpool of a flushing toilet. I think the concept of this game surrounding that basic childhood fear could be relatable to most people, making the connection from the player to the game stronger. Or I could just be alone in having that fear as a child, who knows! The game would encompass one main character, a child, being sucked into the shower drain and spirited away to the sewer underworld and forced to fight her way out. The gameplay would all take place within the sewer, so all the environments/levels would reflect that. I also thought there could be a specific antagonist attempting to prevent her from escaping by constantly changing the sewer environment, this could be an interesting alternative to the classic onslaught of random enemies attacking a character.

2. Lucid
This concept is all based on the ideas behind a lucid dream state that the character would be experiencing. What got me interested in this concept is the lack of control that most people have over their dreams and how someone might wake up and wish they could have changed the outcome of that specific dream. Although some people can achieve entering a lucid dream state, it would be interesting to be able to have that control within the setting of a video game. The game would include a main character, possibly rendered in some sort of neutral fashion so anyone could relate to him/her. The levels could be more creative in this concept, perhaps overcoming huge obstacles that might occur in most dreams rather than combating enemies or a specific antagonist.

I think those descriptions are specific enough, but I can always add more during the class discussion.

Thanks Everyone!

Lindsay

Art 450 Post Mortem and Propaganda Posters

2010-12-11T11:04:00.000-08:00

So I thought I would do a quick blog post about my thoughts on how my first 450 class went. I really feel like Tawnee and I had a great concept to start the project with and I'm actually still really excited about possibly continuing with it during Winter term. On the other hand, in the end I think Tawnee and I both felt that the expectation of three fully finished characters was setting the bar a bit too high. If I could go back and change anything it would be to change the expectation to one or two characters rather than three. Another option we could have pursued, because we are both very interested in 3D work, is to just do everything in 3D for the whole term with just the expectation of learning and seeing what the result were.

Overall I really liked the direction I was going with my Ugly character but in turn sacrificed time I could have spent working on each character equally or working on the Ugly character in 3D. Above everything else though, I did end up learning a lot from the critiques and can't wait to take another 450 class next term!

Onto the Propaganda Posters! These were for my Print Studio class. The assignment was to make a series of post card size anti-narrative pieces based on some sort of apocalyptic event. If you don't know what anti-narrative means, feel free to look it up because I think I would butcher the definition. :-/

For my anti-narrative project I decided to create propaganda posters from different organized groups that could pop up in a post apocalyptic 2013 society.

More Ugly

2010-12-02T15:41:00.000-08:00

New wings!

Silhouette Fun

2010-10-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

Miles talked to Tawnee and I on Tuesday about how drawing silhouette forms of our creatures could help us to get a better idea of how we really want the body shapes to look. I did some silhouettes for all three characters and I also wanted to show some detail work I did on the Ugly character. Even though I might be changing that character around, I still think it was some good practice in drawing cloth and gave me a good sense of how I'd like to approach clothing on that particular character.

Ugly Silhouettes:

I think an aspect that I really like about this character is that, although his body shape is meant to be incredibly thin, I still find myself adding characteristics to him that make him heavy. I think this is an interesting contrast that was initially unintentional.

Ugly Detail:

Grotesque Silhouettes:

Nasty Silhouettes:

Quick Revision!

2010-10-25T18:36:00.000-07:00

Revised Ugly a bit over the weekend.

I changed the size of the wing knob thing (I made it smaller so as to put more emphasis on the wing itself), put the leg in the correct position, changed the shoulders a bit (I wanted them to feel more like they were hanging there and a bit heavy or cumbersome), shrunk his head, and did some super rough shading.

The Evolution Continues

2010-10-21T17:45:00.000-07:00

I have seven versions of this guy. I've had so much fun working on him today!

Leg Test:

Current Version:

Hmmm... need to shrink that head down a bit I think! Other than that and some minor changes, I'm really liking this version and I think I can basically call this shape of the body finalized.

Some visual research I did today:

Mysterios Floating Burrlyx by Dave Melvin

Keith Thompson Tribute Creature by Rodrigo Vera

What interests me about these two creatures are, in Dave Melvin's piece, the shape and anatomy of the leg like extensions; and, in Rodrigo Vera's piece, the color scheme that's happening there. Both are very intriguing creatures and definitely an inspiration for this project!

Calling All SOU Game Devs!

2010-10-19T13:30:00.000-07:00

Although the registration date for new clubs has passed, I would still like to instate some kind of prospective video game developers club here at SOU. It won't be official until new clubs are allowed to register again, but having a place to get together with like minded people and share our thoughts about video game development and the industry in general would be amazing!

So, if you're interested in working in the video game industry, want to discuss how video games are created, and attend SOU then please let me know!

I'd love to set up some sort of first meeting, but getting an idea of who's interested first would be awesome!

You can let me know if you're interested by commenting on this blog post OR emailing me at peckl@students.sou.edu.

Second Meeting and WIP Sketches

2010-10-14T11:14:00.001-07:00

Tawnee and I had our second meeting on Tuesday during which we discussed Mudbox tutorials and played around with that program a bit. After that we continued to discuss our characters and gave each other some suggestions. So, here are my WIP sketches of my characters so far.

Ugly:

Grotesque:

Unfortunately, I spent so much time on the Ugly and Grotesque characters that I haven't gotten a chance to put my Nasty character ideas on paper. I'm going to spend my whole lab shift today on that character so I'll be posting sketches of that later this evening!

First Meeting and Sketches

2010-10-07T17:49:00.000-07:00

So Tawnee and I successfully had our first meeting today, huzzah!

The first thing we wanted to do was get a basic outline going for each character. It was a bit difficult at first because we wanted to have some sort of guideline without getting too specific. What we decided to do was have a really basic body type description and one open ended "rule" that we have to follow for each character. For both Ugly and Grotesque, Tawne and I have a few characters in mind that we'd like to adapt to our guidelines. The Nasty character is where we'll be conceptualizing something completely new. We came up with the following.

1. Ugly
Body Type: A skeletal type of skinny.
Rule: Some sort of bone structure must be visible.

2. Grotesque
Body Type: Big, bulky, muscular.
Rule: Oozing liquid substance, dripping.

3. Nasty
Body Type: A mix of both the skinny and bulky body types. We really want to try to push this character and challenge ourselves here.
Rule: Multiple body parts and/or misplaced anatomy. This works well with the mixture of body types, we could make multiple arms where some are large and muscular while others are small or shriveled.

We then had a little critique/suggestion session for our past characters that we would be incorporating into this project. It was really helpful for me to get Tawnee's input and I'll actually be implementing a few of her ideas into my characters!

After that we did some really fun visual research. We took a look at characters in both World of Warcraft and Allods Online. Tawnee and I will both be seeking inspiration from these characters and more:

After Tawnee left I started to do some sketching for the Ugly and Grotesque characters. I just started to draw over an old sketch and then created a brand new sketch for the Grotesque character.

First sketch of the wing.

Second sketch overlay. I can't decide which one I like. :-/

Click on this one to get a better look!

I think this project is going to be a really fun challenge, and having someone to talk to about feedback and ideas is really great!

ART 450: Project Proposal

2010-10-04T17:26:00.000-07:00

1. Working Title.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty.

2. One-sentence description.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty will be a collaborative project focusing on the pre-production and development of three 3-D character models.

3. One-paragraph description.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty will be a collaborative project focusing on the pre-production and development of three 3-D character models. Each character will separately correspond with the terms ugly, grotesque, or nasty. Because each of these terms “takes it to the next level” in terms of ugliness, so will our designs and concepts for each character.

4. One-page description.

The Ugly, the Grotesque, and the Nasty will be a collaborative project focusing on the pre-production and development of three 3-D character models. Each character will separately correspond with the terms ugly, grotesque, or nasty. Because each of these terms “takes it to the next level” in terms of ugliness, so will our designs and concepts for each character.

This project becomes collaborative through predetermined meetings and mini-critiques in order to reflect on each other’s work and how the other artist approaches these three characters. We will also have each other to further expand our resources and knowledge of our programs of choice.

Our goal will be to have clean and fully completed concept drawings that will be ready to model in a 3-D program. In addition to this, it would be nice to actually start modeling at least one or more of these characters.

5. The product of the project.

Both artists will have at least three fully completed concept drawings that will be ready to model in a 3-D program. With a great amount of luck and skill, both artists will also have started at least one 3-D model.

6. Visual/written research.

World of Warcraft:

Aion Online:

Miscellaneous Artists:

Sweet Grotesque Victor by WadeFurlong

7. Treatment visuals.

Previous drawings of mine that reflect the beginning stages of the style/direction I hope to go in during the course of this project:

8. Technical/research issues that will be addressed.

During the course of our project we will be utilizing Maya, Mudbox, and Photoshop to complete our designated goals. Both artists will be doing independent, as well as collaborative, research in order to learn as much as possible about these programs.

9. Specific timeline.

Oct. 5 - Present Project Proposal
Oct. 7 - Meet and conceptualize characters, rough sketches, and visual research
Oct. 12 - Meet and mini-critique sketches, establish what to produce for the WIP critique, and research Maya/Mudbox tutorials
Oct. 14 - WIP Critique in class, Printed Proposal
Oct. 19 - Meet and continue research of Maya/Mudox, continue concept drawings
Oct. 21 - Meet and mini-critique at least 1 completed character concept
Oct. 26 - Meet and start roughing out 3-D models in Maya/Mudbox
Oct. 28 - WIP Critique
Nov. 1-10 - Checking in and establishing meetings when necessary
Nov. 11 - Meet and mini-critique at least 2 completed character concepts
Nov. 18 - WIP Critique
Nov. 30 - Meet and mini-critique at least 3 completed character concepts
Until Final, check in and establish meetings when necessary
Dec. 6 - Final Critique

Drink n' Draw Madness

2010-05-28T18:01:00.000-07:00

So last night Ace and Kyle convinced me to go to Drink n' Draw even though I was really tired and not feeling too social. It actually turned out to be really fun, as usual, and there were a lot of people there just sketching away.

Here's what I did:

I never get too much drawing done at Drink n' Draw, ironic I know, so I only have the one page out of my sketch book. I was really into that bird/humanoid thing and I focused a lot on the sketch in the lower right corner of the page.

So, I scanned it into Photoshop and here's the result:

I can't really seem to figure out his lower body, but I'm having a lot of fun with this drawing so far.

Random Sketch!

2010-05-19T17:58:00.000-07:00

So, me not having Digital Media classes this term has been a real detriment to my blog posts. I was posting so regularly last term! For anyone who reads this and doesn't know, I got into the BFA program this term! Very exciting! Now I just need to land an internship...

Anyways, here's a sketch I did last night. The Tier 8 Warlock helm in WoW totally infiltrated my mind recently and obviously this is some sort of creepy tribute to it. I really had a lot of fun sketching it and might want to take it further at some point, but right now I'm done looking at it and want other people to.

The Inspiration:

The Sketch:

His/hers/it's arm and hand look really funky... just sayin'! Need to fix that pronto!

Also, I've decided I'm just going to do a huge post at the end of term showcasing the rest of the traditional art I've done for my classes. Let's just hope I make it there alive!

Traditional Art Update

2010-04-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

I'm finishing up my intro art classes this term and taking the Drawing III class as well so I thought I'd post an update with some photos of my stuff so far!

Printmaking I:

FYI, neither of these are the actual prints, just the drawings I'm using for the etchings. I'll post the actual prints once I've done those.

Our first assignment was to listen to noise or music and draw a 3x3 image of what we heard or felt. This was my favorite one that I drew, it's supposed to be the doppler effect of cars driving by.

Our second assignment was to use letters or numbers in any way we wished. I went through a few ideas before landing on this one. I took a famous quote about language and "translated" it into text/SMS speak. I think this would be a really fun concept to make into a series of some kind with a bunch of quotes. Could you imagine a wall lined with 3x3 squares of babble? :P

The quote is, "Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about." - Benjamin Lee Whorf

Drawing III:

We've had one assignment in Drawing thus far, and it was pretty interesting. We all brought in a past piece and did a critique on those, drew thumbnail images for how we would improve that drawing/painting, and then we were instructed to create a non representational image of that work. Here's the original drawing followed by progress photos of the non representational version:

The whole idea behind the original was to give the viewer the feeling of being watched by some unknown creature beyond the paper. In order to create a non representational version of that I decided to not only break down the geometric properties of the original, but the concept as well. So, for the non representational version the basic concept is that there's something ominous behind those jagged lines and it's coming for you. Despite the simplicity of this drawing, I had a LOT of fun making it!

Painting I:

Our first assignment for Painting I was to do three paintings just abstractly experimenting with color blending. There were a few specifications for each painting, but I won't get into that. I also decided to omit the first painting because I don't like it, haha.

And that's it for now! I'll probably keep doing bulk updates for my traditional art, it's just easier.

The Fook?!

2010-04-09T19:04:00.000-07:00

Just finishing up the lab shift. I made the UV Maps for my city planet and then decided to doodle in Photoshop.

Yeah I don't even know, hence the title!

GDC 2010: Day Two

2010-04-02T15:57:00.000-07:00

Yes, I know this is a super-duper-mega delayed blog post about GDC! I was only able to post one blog article during the conference because I always ended up feeling incredibly tired at the end of the day. Then spring break happened and I basically just slept, so now I bring you the delayed blog posts about GDC and the rest of my experiences there. So, here we go!

Day Two:

After the morning meeting with Tim and Ian, I got to hang out in the CA lounge for a little while before my first shift at 10:30 for evaluation input. I thought this would be time well spent in figuring out what sessions I wanted to go to throughout the week. I actually ended up meeting two programming CAs who were former students of the famous DigiPen Institute of Technology. One of them had graduated while the other transfered to another school. It was interesting to hear a bit of the interworkings of that school from the opinions of actual students.

Evaluation input was almost exactly what I thought it would be, pure data entry. I used the tab button a LOT! What was unexpected about the evaluation input was how entertaining it would be. There's a section on each evaluation reserved for attendee comments, which the CAs also had to enter into the database. Some of them were rude beyond all belief while others wished that particular session had gone on for hours, it was just funny to read the comments and share them with the fellow CAs working with me.

Right after evaluation input I checked in for the mysterious Game Connection shift. It was located in the West Hall of Moscone center which was all the way across the street! Walking outside to the West Hall was the first time I had been outside in the middle of the day since Sunday, which I found to be mildly hilarious. Game Connection was not what I expected at all, there was one CA manning the greeting booth while the other three of us stood around the West Hall directing people where to go and making sure they had badges and were allowed in the center. I got to interact with some interesting people while I was working, so I'm definitely not complaining.

What happened after Game Connection definitely made my whole day, and it kicked my confidence up a notch for the rest of the conference. I attended a session entitled MMO Retention: Learning from the First 25 Years lead by Gordon Walton, who has worked at basically every major gaming company and currently works for BioWare, and Scott Hartsman, who worked on both EverQuest and EverQuest II. Both of these pros know a lot about MMOs and especially wha it takes to retain players month to month, not to mention they were both hilarious speakers. So, I'm just going to type out the notes I took during the session.

They started by defining the word retention in terms of MMOs as how many players are returning on a month to month basis and how many months the game has kept those players there.
MMOs are always losing customers, Gordon used a good analogy here with a bucket. He said to imagine you have a bucket with a small hole at the bottom and you're continually pouring water into it; the amount of water you're losing from the hole pales in comparison to the amount that you're continually pouring in. As long as the water, or the players, keep pouring in then the amount of players you're losing doesn't make too much of a dent. The best advice he could give for making that hole as small as possible is to not give players easy opportunities to leave.
I believe Scott made the next point about the basics of how to attract players and keep them in the game. Your content has to be compelling, always available, a persistence of data, ongoing support and service, and gradually be evolving the play environment. This means creating a new and exciting experience for the players.
Psychological Elements of MMOs: Finding the "horizon" of the experience or finding the edges of that experience. The value of "stuff" and other visible acheivements within gameplay. The comfort of the play experience, it must be rewarding. The repetition, or grind, and being rewarded for it. Giving people new reasons to be awesome! When it comes down to it, a lot of people enjoy MMOs when they know they're acheiving something and being recognized for it. Whether it be within their guild, group of friends, or even their entire server depending on what is acheived.
They also spoke about masking the grind and how important that is to rentention of players. The more you cover up the grind with a good quest, excellent loot, or even a good story the more you can get players to repeat a gameplay mechanic without realising they're really doing the same thing over and over again.
Strategies for retention: Record everything that's important like subscription data, etc. Developers taking part in the gameplay to learn what works and what doesn't as players. Learn to do it yourself and learn how to get the answers from the data you have and need. Find out what will increase retention and crank that variable to the max! With small tweaks and not pushing the players too hard, of course.
This is what Scott and Gordon have discovered works: Reward systems such as rare items or even super rare items for long time subscribers. Looking at when people are leaving the game, and why. Rewards at every level. Rare special events, promoting involvment in the community. What makes people feel like they're winning. The ability for players to show off what they have. Make the game that you would want to play.
What they discovered doesn't work: Changing the interface, this takes away the comfort of the player. Taking the sense of challenge too far, if it's too hard people will stop playing at that point. Creating new ways to play the game that radically change it too much.

After the session was over I actually went up to Gordon Walton and talked to him for a little bit, he was a really nice guy. At one point I asked him if he had any tips for aspiring game developers and he just said, "No, not really. Just go for it!" A simple, but inspiring response, haha. I also asked him about technical artists and what he thought about that field, he said they're always needing technical artists at BioWare so that inspired me even further to take a closer look at technical art. I also got his business card, yes!

After that I met up with my CABFF (yeah we called each other that, so what!) Lisa and we hit up the Super Street Fighter IV tournament which was hilarious and really awesome.

And so ended my second day! I'm going to be doing multiple, albeit delayed, blog posts about the rest of my GDC experiences so stay tuned if you're interested in all this junk! :P

GDC 2010 Update: Orientation and First Day!

2010-03-09T23:34:00.000-08:00

So I was definitely going to write a post last night after the Conference Associate orientation, but I got back to the hotel quite late and just sort of fell asleep after grabbing a quick bite to eat! I'm going to break things down in this blog post so I can keep track of what I'm writing and make sure I don't miss anything.

The Drive:

It took us a little over six hours to drive from Medford to our hotel in San Francisco, yes I traveled with my parents and yes I'm hanging out with them this week when I'm not at GDC because they are awesome! Overall, the drive was actually really fun. My parents and I got to catch up and we made a stop at an In n' Out about fifty miles out of SF, if you haven't had a burger at In n' Out go now! One thing that struck me after we started driving further into California was the rolling green hills. I never thought they actually looked like that! They were so green and that in combination with the slopes made driving by them seem like a surreal experience.

The Arrival:

When we made it to SF around four there was a giant rain cloud over it, which was kind of funny because the drive there was mostly sunny. But, I didn't care. I was so excited to even remotely see the skyline of SF through the ominous cloud! Our hotel is near the airport so we got to (kind of) drive through SF and some of those buildings are amazing.

Orientation:

When my Dad and I finally found our way to the correct Moscone Center entrance, I walked in, turned right, and proceeded to step on the escalator. The only thing I could think while taking the steep trip to the lower level of the convention center was, "This place is HUGE!" I was in awe of how high the ceiling went, and I had only seen part of one building! Getting to the orientation room was actually quite easy though, the room numbers are really big. I probably could have found it without wearing my glasses, and that's saying something.

So, I turn in to room 135 and see two giant screens with the GDC logo projected on them and a room full of the magnificent people I was about to meet. Lime green shirts were everywhere! I felt a bit overwhelmed and started to head to the long line of CAs in the center of the room when I was redirected to have my picture taken. I put on a smile and received my two GDC t-shirts after making it through the line. After that we got some dinner and then (dun dun dun!) our official badges and work schedules! I actually think I got every job I wanted to, which is awesome, plus one that I wasn't to sure about at the time referred to only as "Game Connection" on my schedule. After a lovely PowerPoint presentation made by Tim and Ian (the awesome CA Managers), we were sent off into tour groups around the North and South buildings of Moscone Center.

My Jobs:

My first shifts, which were today, would both be working sessions. That means badge checking attendees to make sure they're in the right place, passing out/collecting evaluation sheets, making sure people are sitting in the allowed areas, approximating a head count, prepping the session speaker(s), and tidying up afterwords. Of course, I don't do all of these jobs individually but with the help of my amazing CA peers! One person will typically do the head count or prep the speaker(s) in addition to the rest of the duties, but we're all there to help!

Day two, Wednesday, will comprise of evaluation inputs and Game Connection. Evaluation inputs involve me diligently sitting at a desk with a computer, entering information into a database! Although it doesn't seem to be the most glamourous job to have at GDC, it's definitely important that the staff at GDC and the speakers know what's working for the attendees and what isn't. Game Connection seems to be a bit mysterious, if my knowledge is correct then a fellow CA should be training me when I arrive for my shift tomorrow. The Game Connection is a place at GDC for developers and publishers to meet up and make connections with each other. This job actually sounds like a great opportunity to meet some developers, as long as I don't get in their way or take up their time of course.

On Thursday it's back to working a session followed by a bit more evaluation input in the afternoon.

On Friday, however, I'll be a runner! This means I will be working quite closely with the staff of United Business Media (UBM, they run GDC) to help exhibitors get to their UBM appointments on-time and I'll get to relay messages via radio. Exciting, yes? I'm a bit nervous for that job, but as long as someone gives me some instructions on where to go and when to be there, I'll get it done! After my shift as a runner, I'll be finishing my last shift for the week at another session.

The First Day:

Today marked the true beginning of my CA duties! Before my shifts started all the CAs met at the daily 8:01 AM morning meeting, these meetings are where Tim and Ian cover an changes that have been made and important things that the CAs should know about, like D&D game sign ups! ;) My tour guide and "stuff box" buddy, Lisa, suggested we go to The 10th Annual Game Design Workshop. The workshop is considered a two-day tutorial, but we decided to get as much out of it as possible! The farthest I got into the tutorial before my first shift was playing a game that involved the word "sissy" with Lisa and some attendees, I wish I could have stayed around to edit the game! My first shift, as I said a bit earlier, was working at a session during the Social & Online Games Summit entitled What Virtual Worlds Can Learn from Social Games. This shift turned out to be a bit hectic because the previous session and the session I was supposed to be working at were basically back to back. The result of this was a lot of attendees zooming in and out of the lecture room, it made it a little more difficult to check badges but we managed and the two CAs working with me were vets so they were pretty calm and incredibly helpful! The fact that there wasn't a session after the one I was working made it a lot easier to clean up and straighten chairs so the room would be ready to go after lunch! Unfortunately, though, I wasn't able to hear much of what the speaker was saying during that particular session but what I saw on the PowerPoint seemed pretty interesting.

My second shift was when I started to feel more comfortable. Lisa accompanied me to originally just help me find the room I was supposed to be in, but then decided to help out for a bit before the workshop started up again! I actually ended up having to ask a few people to leave because they had the incorrect badge, but every attendee was very polite and understanding. This session was part of the iPhone Games Summit and was called New Dogs, New Tricks: Breeding Social Networking and Virtual Pets. Because the doors were closed for this session, I was able to hear what the speakers were saying! This session covered some of the pitfalls and tips to creating an iPhone game and, in this case, one centralized around virtual pets. Now, I'm going to be honest, I'm not too interested in iPhone games or application development but some of the general knowledge the speakers had to share was quite interesting. For example, the developers would create the game a certain way and with certain mechanics thinking that's what the consumer would want. But, after releasing the iPhone game, they found quite a few flaws in the game itself which were actually brought to their attention by mildly irritated consumers on the iTunes App Sore. I guess it was just interesting to hear about game development from an iPhone App developer's point of view, rather than from the views of a console or PC game developer.

So, after the successful second shift, I hung out in the CA lounge for a bit before heading over to the Social & Online Games Summit again for the Succeeding With Licensed Brands in MMOs & Virtual Worlds question panel. I didn't know what to expect from this panel at first, but it was really informative and an incredibly educational experience! For anyone who isn't sure what licensed brands are in reference to MMOs, it's franchises like Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, etc. On the panel was Bob Ferrari (Sanrio, Hello Kitty Online), James Jones (Hasbro), Fredrica Drotos (Middle-Earth Enterprises), and Mary Bihr (LucasArts, Star Wars: Galaxies/The Old Republic). The panel was incredibly knowledgeable of not only their target audiences and the differences between a hardcore and casual gamer within those target audiences, but also the lore. I actually approached Mary Bihr and asked her how they keep lore in check when carving out a spot in the Star Wars timeline for an MMO. She went on to say that there are a lot of checks and balances that attempts to keep the lore represented in the game parallel to the canon of the Star Wars universe. First, they basically have to decide what part of the timeline they can feasibly put an MMO which is determined by George Lucas and the "higher ups" saying, "Yes, you can go here, here, and here, but you cannot touch there, there, and there on the timeline." It was just a really interesting panel and I think I'll write separate post with the notes I took, they have the specific questions asked written down on them.

And, after the panel and I checked out the mini expo upstairs with playable versions of Bioshock2 and Battlefield: Bad Company 2 on both Xbox and desktop computers. I also checked out the GDC store which has a TON of amazing art books, they were all out to view too! There just aren't any prices printed on them which makes me wonder if the prices are jacked up even higher than average.

Anyways, I need to head to sleep so I can wake up bright and early tomorrow! I have some pictures I've taken but haven't been able to take them off of my camera yet. If you want to see some official photos from GDC thus far, check out the GDC Flickr account! All the photo credits go to Vincent Diamante.

If you read this whole post, then congratulations!

The Business Cards

2010-03-06T18:48:00.000-08:00

So my venture into the land of GDC 2010 begins with the printing of my business cards that I'll be handing out to people at the conference; given that they'll want one. :P

I read some excellent blog posts at Darius Kazemi's blog about the games industry. One of those posts was about business cards and making yourself memorable, so I decided to give it a shot and make my business card mildly humorous. :P

A Fresh Start

2010-03-04T18:02:00.000-08:00

So Miles stepped in today and helped me realize that I had too many edge loops too early in the model.

I think I knew this in the back of my mind, but I was just too freaked out to start over.

After Miles worked on a base model for a while, I started my own and this is what happened:

I already like it so much more than the complicated pile of edge loops I was working in for the past week. At first I felt like an epic failure from wasting all that time, but I'm glad Miles had me start over!

Alright, now I'm off to the Schneider Museum to see the gallery opening! And to get a little extra credit in Art History. >.>

Bones!

2010-03-03T17:45:00.000-08:00

No, not the television show! Haaa I know one person who will like that joke.

Worked on making the bone mutations look like, well, bone mutations. :P

I can't stop sketching these btw, it's some sort of addiction.

Torso

2010-03-02T18:00:00.000-08:00

I worked on adding the torso today, ended up trashing one of 'em so I didn't get a chance to start fleshing it out much. I also fleshing out the leg a bit more but mostly spent time on the torso.

We'll how far I get by Thursday!

Also, my druid hit 80 last night! Yay Numero Dos!

This awesome image is not mine but Triggerman's from dA!

Today...

2010-03-01T17:38:00.000-08:00

I drew an eye:

And my character after the shock of his (uhhh..) transformation (?):

I doodled a lot of other stuff too, but these were my favorites.

I've got this background story going for my character that I'm having a lot of fun with, developing that was probably the most productive part of my day. :P

Leg

2010-02-28T21:47:00.000-08:00

I started the leg today during the extra lab shift I picked up.

Gross!

This is incredibly challenging, but I really love it. Even if I'm doing everything wrong right now and I have to start over I've still had fun today just diving right into the organic modeling. I completely forgot that Miles left the blue book here and I probably could have started this better had I been looking at it.

Anyways, I get super close to the monitor when I'm really into something so my brain's a bit fried right now. O.o

Off to plan out my Photography final! Whoooooosh!

Playing With Proportion

2010-02-26T16:00:00.001-08:00

I've been trying to draw the side view for my character for a little while now and I decided I should try playing with more extreme proportions before I start settling into his design permanently. This is what I got from using the warp tool for a few minutes, didn't add anything drawing wise.

Meh, idk.

Edit: Refined him a bit more.

Getting There

2010-02-25T17:58:00.000-08:00

So this guy's body started coming together today, still needs some adjustments, and the head is a placeholder until I can think of something better. The first image will be used on the image plane and the second one was a ten second gesture sketch I did while I was trying to figure out what his proportions/body type would be. I also drew an organic squid-like arm instead of the blade, but I like the idea of organic mixed with inorganic better.

References: The Thing from Fantastic Four, Bigfoot art, and Cody's Fatman model!

I'm becoming attached to him :P any name ideas?

P.S. I can't draw feet O.o

Obsessive Weekly: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn

2010-02-25T14:21:00.000-08:00

I've actually been obsessing over Rembrandt's etchings and drawings for a while now, but only just decided to post something about him. Now, I'm sure everyone has heard of Rembrandt and his awesome power with a paint brush, but the first things I saw from Rembrandt were his etchings/drawings. We went over a few of Rembrandt's paintings today in my Art History class which is what inspired me to do this post.

Here are my favorite etchings, drawings, and paintings of his:

This last image seriously blows my mind, I wish I could post the slide that Greer showed us, the colors were much more vibrant. Apparently, this painting is what made him interested in Art History, and I can see why!

Photography Assignment 3

2010-02-24T13:24:00.000-08:00

Environment? Done? Wha?!

2010-02-23T16:43:00.000-08:00

Here are the final renders of the interrogation room. Oh man, lighting is so much fun! I just had to say that, haha. So the whole "concept" surrounding this project was supposed to be a contrast between the light of freedom and the dank surroundings of the interrogation room itself. So, the stairway is lighted with yellow (a sunlight effect, I guess) and I wanted a little bit of light from the broken bulb and decided to make that a red-ish color. I still want to make the Oval Office portion of this at some point, I knew I'd only be getting one room done for the actual assignment.

Stairwell UV Map:

Ceiling UV Map:

Oh and, I didn't mention this in the last post, for some reason I really liked the idea of making the blood stains Roschach inkblots. I thought it might add to the psychological terror that might go on here, if anyone would notice, haha. I also kind of made an inkblot on the stairwell, you can see it on the UV map.

Anyways, that's all for now, I'm still in class but I think I might devote the rest of my time to creating an image plane rather than do anything in Maya.

The Room Continues

2010-02-23T00:54:00.000-08:00

So I'm basically done with all the textures except for the stairwell (note the pink :P). I'm going to adjust the others more tomorrow in class and add the lighting; hopefully Miles will forgive me for showing him the finished project so late. :(

Class Sketch

2010-02-22T17:51:00.001-08:00

I've sketched this dude before, I'm thinking about using him for my 3D model. It might be too complicated, but who knows, I'm still deciding.

:-/

Super Duper Pre-Good Concept Art

2010-02-22T14:43:00.000-08:00

Here a couple more (BAD!) sketches I did for my environment. The purple junk is supposed to be some sort of corruption that's spreading across the planet and the second one is just an experiment with how a small river/stream area might look. The other one is just some sketching I did of how the corruption could travel, I was trying to make it look like a hand or something. :-/

Obsessive Weekly: Battlestar Galactica

2010-02-20T04:23:00.001-08:00

It's 4:30 AM, I just finished playing a lot of WoW, and now I'm writing a blog post about my love for Battlestar Galactica. I truly live in the realm of geeks, nerds, and gamers. And, I am happy to carry these titles. :P Anyways, on with the Obsessive Weekly-ness!!

My boyfriend and I have recently become completely entangled in the web of awesome that is Battlestar Galactica. I'm talking about the re-imagined series, mind you, not the original series from the late '70s. Great acting, and even better writing, have kept us watching for three seasons now. Unfortunately, the show was canceled after it's fourth season so we don't have much left to watch.

Anywho, whenever I start to really enjoy a TV show or movie, I almost always find myself scouring Google pages to find some concept art for the show/movie. I actually wasn't expecting to find any concept art for Battlestar Galactica, but there it was! On this website I've never heard of.

These are some concept pieces for space ships for the fourth season:

A Cylon Comm. Array:

These pictures were actually among a large gallery of concept art from different sci-fi shows and movies. Check out the full article here.

Oh, and just in case anyone who reads this likes Battlestar, check this awesomesauce out:

I would've voted for him! :P

Interrogation Room Progress

2010-02-19T18:13:00.000-08:00

Alright, so since I saved over/lost quite a few of my files it's taking me a bit longer to finish the environment assignment for 3D modeling. :[

The progress shots are just of the table, light bulb, and folding chair. I'm still going to adjust the textures for all three of them quite a bit.

Yeah I decided to break the light bulb because interrogation rooms are intimidating, and there's nothing more intimidating than a broken... light bulb... O.o

Anywho, thanks to Cody for helping me out so much yesterday! Pretty sure the UV map for my folding chair would have exploded without the help. :P

Aw crap I forgot to write my Obsessive Weekly post at the beginning of my lab shift! I'll do it later, it's about Battlestar Galactica!! *nerdgasm*

Obsessive Weekly: Shinerai on dA

2010-02-13T15:24:00.000-08:00

So I definitely forgot to do an Obsessive Weekly post last week, but that's ok because I found a really super cool artist this week!

He is Shinerai of deviantART, I stumbled upon his gallery when I was looking for some dragon reference images. What I enjoy most about his work is his amazing use of color with his creatures. I found myself staring at one of the character reference sheets he made for at least thirty minutes, they're so beautiful and well thought out.

Here are two reference sheets he made for original characters and a digital drawing:

I do not own these images, they belong to Shinerai!

Six Hours Later

2010-02-12T20:42:00.000-08:00

So today I made all of the UV Maps for the interrogation room. I'm kinda freaked out that it took me six hours, is it supposed to take that long? :-/ Then again this is only my third time making UV Maps, but meh, at least I got it done right?

I'm a bit worried about the maps I made though, I'm not sure if I mapped them out correctly.

But anyways I'm going to post them, even though they're blank, just so I can tell myself that I actually did something today. :P

Table:

Chair:

Hanging Light:

Staircase:

Stairwell:

Room:

More Construction

2010-02-11T16:56:00.000-08:00

I started constructing the rest of the room today, I don't know about those stairs. *thinks*

Fail

2010-02-10T18:07:00.000-08:00

So I definitely failed today during concept art. Tried to tighten up my environment drawings but that didn't work out too well. :-/

Only thing I got out of today was a couple of dragon sketches for the elemental dragon series I'd like to do at some point.

Water: This guy's supposed to have waterfalls flowing from his mouth, should probably change his eye color though.

Air: This one's supposed to be sleak and able to fly through the air efficiently.

This is one o' those days where I just feel like I have no future in this field. :[

Photography Assignment 2 Continued

2010-02-09T23:45:00.000-08:00

I needed one more photo for my photography assignment, these were my two favorites from the mini-photoshoot with Other Nate.

The Modeling Continues

2010-02-09T17:37:00.000-08:00

I put the chair together and made a table and a light bulb!

Oooooo! Ahhhhh!!

Isn't it scary? You don't want to be interrogated in this floating room! Nuh-uh! Wow I think I need some sleep or something.

Anywho, progress:

I started playing with the materials in the Hypershade editor (I think that's what it's called) and I was trying to make the light bulb a bit reflective. I mostly did it to start getting familiar with materials and I'm sure I'll be changing it later.

Mr. Mech Update

2010-02-07T22:04:00.000-08:00

Worked on him a bit today.

Cylonesque

2010-02-03T17:57:00.000-08:00

So instead of working on my environment for class (bad Lindsay!) I decided to bring in a sketch that I've had in my sketchbook for a while and play with it in Photoshop. Still currently a WIP, just like all the other digital paintings I have. -_-

Here are the progress shots:

So the last one is the image without the original sketch in the background. I can't decide whether or not to have his upper arm glow, I kind of like it because I think it breaks up the black and white. I think I'm just worried about overdoing the light/glow/thing. :P

Behold My Folding Chair of DOOM!

2010-02-02T18:38:00.000-08:00

I couldn't think of a better title. :-/

Started modeling the interrogation chair, stand in it's almighty presence and weep!!!

The back fell off I guess...oops.

And pay no attention to the floating object. >.>

Well Here Goes Nothin'!

2010-02-01T01:24:00.000-08:00

I just sent in my applications for a few of Blizzard's 2010 summer internships, I am already expecting many rejection emails. >.< But, what I keep telling myself is, "At least you applied Lindsay!" I'm trying to have confidence, but I mean c'mon it's Blizzard for goodness sake!!

What's a bit ironic about the whole thing is that I didn't really apply for any art internships, I applied for the technical artist internship and that's it, but I couldn't really finish any drawings or concept pieces before the deadline. Submitting a WIP is just a big no no :P and all of my old crap is just plain unacceptable, haha. There is always next year though!

What's kinda cool is that I applied for the game tester position and got to write up a game analysis on my current favorite game, Mass Effect 2! I've analyzed games before, in my head, but never in a strict format. It was SO fun! I wish all my essays for art history could be about game analyses. :P I'm not quite sure what format, or how long, Blizzard wanted the analysis to be but mine turned out to be about 2 1/2 pages in the end.

Now I'm in internship application mode!! I'm excited to apply for the other companies that are on my "list" for internships I want this summer. I even have them prioritized according to how badly I want them and how close the deadline is. Next up is Riot Games, I would LOVE to intern there! League of Legends was a great beta to participate in and they just seem like a great group of people.

Anywhobers, I'm off to sleep and go through a few weeks of panic before I receive info (or lack there of) from Blizzard.

Obsessive Weekly: Tezcatlipoca/Robin George

2010-01-29T16:36:00.000-08:00

I'm at my digital lab shift right now, and I was just browsing the internet for some inspiring work and I just happen to stumble upon Robin George's work, "Tezcatlipoca." This was a completely solo project with the exception of the lava effects being done by Chris Wombold who is another great artist.

A blurb from Robin's page about the animation:

"Tezcatlipoca is a three minute short animation inspired by the music from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. In the tradition of Walt Disney’s Fantasia, it combines the elements of classical music and imaginative animation to retell the Aztec myth of Tezcatlipoca, the deity who descends from heaven in the form of a jaguar."

It's an absolutely fantastic and inspiring piece! I think I'm going to go watch it again...

You can navigate to "Tezcatlipoca" through Robin or Chris' websites. Robin also has the animatic available to view on his pre-visualization page which I HIGHLY recommend viewing as well.

Developments

2010-01-28T17:54:00.000-08:00

Alright, this is what I did in class today. I kind of mapped out my two 3D rooms in Photoshop and picked out some textures I could manipulate and put into the interrogation room. Then, I tried to do a quick sketch of the interrogation room and start to get my color palette squared away.

Pre-Production Junction

2010-01-28T15:08:00.000-08:00

So here's my concept for my 3D environment:

1. The basic concept for my environment/setting is a bleak and dark interrogation room secretly attached to the oval office in the White House. It'll most likely be set in the present or near future, so the oval office will appear as it does now. Since the interrogation room will be the main setting, I'll be focusing on that part first. I want the room to have concrete walls and floors with a single chair in the center of the room, the idea is that the room is in between victims and the viewer is catching a glance; possibly stumbling in. The smell...would probably be of sweat, rust, and blood (I know, kinda gross). The colors will probably be dark grays and reds. The emotions in the interrogation room will be that of terror, fright, and hopelessness. The oval office, however, will have the complete opposite feel. I will utilize the bright yellow/gold and blue colors to make the room feel bright and free. The emotions in this room will reflect freedom and a link to the outside world, a plae the person in the interrogation room would hope to be. I'm hoping these two environments will contrast each other well.

2. Visual Research:

Interrogation Room:

Oval Office:

Not Much to Show

2010-01-27T18:08:00.000-08:00

I was flipping back and forth between the two pictures I've been working on, didn't get much done on either of them and I don't really like what I did. :( Just one o' those days I guess.

What's-her-face has a red sweatshirt now, I have no experience drawing clothing and I think it shows, haha:

Started to test some different types of trees on the right side, meh:

I need to go stare at some amazing art and get inspired!

Goodbye scatterbrainArts!

2010-01-27T00:57:00.000-08:00

So, I've decided to cancel my domain name and subscription for my portfolio website. I never really updated it after I finished it and I don't think it's worth paying for. The website will remain up until my subscription ends, but it will just have a link to this blog. :P

Instead, I have decided to make use of the free portfolio websites that deviantArt provides. You can take a look at mine here. I don't have much up and, who knows, I might not even really use this as a professional online portfolio.

Working on It

2010-01-25T17:46:00.000-08:00

Working on an alternate shot of the same scene as the previous Photoshop image I posted. I did some work on that one today too, but nothing worth posting.

I never even approached drawing landscapes until last term in my free time, it's definitely a challenge but I'm having fun. :)

Now off to write my Art History essay...yikes.

Photography Assignment 2

2010-01-24T22:11:00.003-08:00

My second assignment for my photography class, I think we were supposed to emphasize on framing and telling a narrative through the way we framed the photograph. I wasn't 100% sure if those were the actual assignment instructions, but I went with it anyways. :P

Environment Progress

2010-01-22T17:43:00.000-08:00

Well, here's what I've been working on for a couple of hours. Not too sure if I like it so far or not. :-/

This scene is supposed to be when the main character is ported to the alternate Earth.

Obsessive Weekly: Atlantis

2010-01-22T16:25:00.000-08:00

Alright, so this post has to do with my environment for concept art as well. I actually keep getting confused because I need to start conceptualizing ideas for my 3D environment in addition to the environment for concept art. :P

The animated film "Atlantis: The Lost Empire" has had a large impact on my passion for art, I'm obsessed with the character design and colors the creators used in the film. I'm mesmerized every time I watch it. In particular, I love the designs of the faces and hands of the characters, I don't really know why, but I love it.

This has to do with my environment because Nate and I started talking about the main setting that our character will be in for Project Null, which is the environment I've chosen to do for my assignment. We decided on a jungle-ish setting, just as long as it's really green because it has to be the opposite of the polluted metropolis that the main character originates from. It takes place in the not-so-near future so I might play around with creating some weird plants or something, haha.

So I just started sketching in Photoshop with some blue/green colors and I'll be posting some progress around 6 when my lab shift is done.

In the mean time, here are some shots from "Atlantis," tropical settings, and jungle settings:

My First Maya UV Map

2010-01-21T18:12:00.001-08:00

So Miles went over how to create UV maps and texture an object using Maya and Photoshop. It was quite fun!

I give you the often sought after, but seldom found, novel "The Chancellor's Wedding Gown" written by Blinn Lambert.

Oooooo:

Ahhhhhhh:

The UV map:

Thorhala Sketch Update

2010-01-20T15:07:00.001-08:00

Second Attempt at Modeling

2010-01-19T23:55:00.000-08:00

I'm making an axe!

I've been working on this since around 7:30 - 8:00 tonight after I got back from my 3D modeling class. I couldn't help but work on something after what I learned in class today. I know the blocks look dumb, but I wanted to outline the actual axe part and laying out cubes was the only way I knew how to do it.

I did a sketch of this axe over the summer during my Physics lecture (oops >.>) but I also took some inspiration from World of Warcraft. I downloaded the WoW Model Viewer after getting home tonight and... so epic! I love it!

Anywho, so the very very last image is of a design I drew super quickly that I thought I could put on that odd shaped part of the axe (I know, so descriptive :P).

This is a WIP!

A Bit of Graphic Design

2010-01-19T00:32:00.001-08:00

My friend Leisha has asked me to do some flyers in the past for events that are being hosted on campus.

This time she asked me to create a logo and flyer for this event.

Just thought I'd post it for fun. :)

The four symbols in the logo are supposed to represent diversity, future, tools, and education:

The flyer:

3D Modeling Assignment Complete!

2010-01-17T22:50:00.001-08:00

Alright! So I think this is what I'll be showing on Tuesday for the critique on our first assignment in 3D modeling. I would love to follow Cody's suggestion of adding a light source, but I've never worked with lighting in Maya before. When I learn I'll definitely add one to this scene and see how the city looks!

The default perspective I've been using:

This shot is to show the simple details I added to the skyscraper:

I liked the shot I used from the last post, so I did a variation of that:

Haha, Maya gave me an option to render the scene using "Maya Vector" and I thought it looked cool:

Since this isn't technically due until Tuesday, I still have time to make some changes if anyone has any suggestions!

Obsessive Weekly: Mass Effect

2010-01-17T21:11:00.000-08:00

So in about the middle of the week I realized that Mass Effect 2 releases on the 26th of this month! I also realized that I hadn't played Mass Effect since my Xbox360's hard drive decided to erase itself last year.

So, naturally, I started a new game and found myself obsessing over the attention to detail that the creators payed to not only the vast universe that your character is able to travel through; but also the biology and even cultural aspects of the races the characters encounter throughout the story.

For example, the disciplined race called the Turian hail from a planet with a metal-poor core. Due to this type of core present inside the planet, there is a weak magnetic field allowing more solar radiation into the atmosphere. And, this is the cool part, in order to deal with this atmosphere the lifeforms on the Turian home world evolved metallic exoskeletons to protect themselves from the solar radiation. It just blows my mind that the creators put so much research into these other races, and gave them believable evolutionary details in their biology.

Wow, so many words! Here's some concept art for the first game that I really enjoy.

Turian:

The thousand year living and well respected Asari:

The synthetic beings called the Geth:

Mo' City

2010-01-15T17:49:00.000-08:00

Spent my 3 hour lab shift adding more small buildings to the planet. I think I'll only need to add a few more and then do some simple detail work on the skyscraper and then I'll be done with the project.

This is the angle the planet is sort of meant to be viewed from when looking at the whole thing:

I thought a view from the top o' the skyscraper might be fun:

3D City Update

2010-01-14T17:28:00.000-08:00

So I've been slowly adding more to the city/planet and I took quite a few perspective shots in order to give the city more scale. I also extended the height of the large skyscraper.

Wow a city on a planet!

Let's go visit it!

OoooOooo Ahhhh!

Oh man let's go inside a building!

What the what?! These buildings have no doors!

It's time for the weekend...

Dragon II: Return of the Dragon!

2010-01-13T17:26:00.001-08:00

It's time for more dragon!

Made some progress today with the face:

Detail:

So today I:

- Made the fire larger and pushed it back farther so it doesn't look like it's forming at the front of his mouth, haha.
- Added some color highlights around the mouth, not sure how they look. Some critique on that would be nice.
- And I just tried to add shading overall to the lower jaw and face.

I can't believe this is all I get done in three hours >.<

Photography Assignment: Lighting

2010-01-12T22:31:00.000-08:00

First photography assignment with an emphasis on lighting:

City Progress

2010-01-12T17:46:00.000-08:00

Slight progress on the city planet, I've just added more small buildings.

Street view YEAH!

Once I get all the small buildings in place, I want to add some detail work to the largest building. You know, to make it look all powerful and mighty!

Keepin' It Goin'!

2010-01-11T17:27:00.001-08:00

Ever so slightly progressing:

Another detail shot:

I know the additions I've made seem to be minor, so I've decided to make a list of what I did with the dragon/demon/whatever today:

- Added some firey effects around the eye and nostrils
- Started to add color to the horns, well just the one horn for now. I might change the color later, I'm not sure if it's working for me
- Added some light effects around the inside of it's mouth in attempt to give it a bit more depth, not so sure how that's working out right now.

And that's it! In my free time I'll be working on Thorhala for my actual assignment instead of obsessing over this dude even more than I already have.

I'm a bit disappointed in myself for straying from the assignment. >.<

Mo' Dragon

2010-01-09T03:25:00.000-08:00

Progress:

Bit of a detail shot:

Mini Sketch Dump

2010-01-08T00:06:00.000-08:00

What I've been working on this evening:

Inspired to do this while my roommates played Darksiders, epic game by the way.

Progress Report

2010-01-07T18:26:00.000-08:00

Here's the little bit of progress I've been making in my concept art and 3D modeling classes:

So for my character design based on me, I've decided to try to make a small series of characters that represent extreme (and possibly stereotypical) parts of my personality. This first character is the part of my personality that's hidden quite well from the world, the girly side. I know she's quite stereotypical... and obviously frightened of something. I really don't like her face, but this is all WIP so I have time to attempt to fix it.

This is Thorhala the Beast! She's the very...VERY angry side of my personality. More explanation will be available at a later date, when the true extent of her rage is depicted properly in this picture.

This is an insect that isn't a character I'm making for the assignment, nor part of my personality in any way. I just thought I'd post it!

This is the city I'm creating for 3D modeling, based on worlds in Kingdom Hearts, planets from Mario Galaxy, and Star Wars' Coruscant.

Obsessive Weekly for Concept Art: Star Trek

2010-01-06T21:50:00.000-08:00

So, for a couple of my classes I'll be posting some things that I've been interested in or "obsessing" about twice a week (one post for my concept art class and another for 3D modeling). In retrospect, I guess these posts should be called "Obsessive Bi-Weekly" but that would make the titles really long and who likes super long titles? Not I!

Alright, for my first two posts I decided to make it easy on myself and just post about the guilty pleasures I revealed during our little get-to-know-you session for our first day of classes.

So, I give you... Star Trek! Or, more specifically, I've been interested in the evolution of the Enterprise from The Original Series and the recently released film.

Here's the original Enterprise in all it's glory:

I'm not entirely sure if this image is original concept art for the Enterprise or not, but it's a pretty good representation of the ship.

What I've always loved about the original Enterprise is it's simplicity. As you can see from the concept image, it's just a few simple shapes put together in a logical way so as to represent some sort of object that could move through space. In addition to this, you can tell that the concept artists wanted the ship to seem somewhat aesthetically pleasing with the diagonal neck (giving it a feeling of movement and sleekness) and slightly stylized main body.

But, I don't think this 1966 design would live up to today's expectations of an attractive design.

The new, 2009 design:

Now, keeping the original design of the Enterprise in mind, I think the concept artists for the 2009 film did an excellent job of not only enhancing the positive and simple aspects of the original Enterprise but also tweaking a few features to make it a bit more pleasing to the eye. For example, both the warp engines and the main body of the ship have been given more curvature to give the ship an updated, and sleek, science-fiction feel. Also, the way the saucer, neck, and warp engines are attached appear to be more seamless rather than just stuck on the ship.

After geeking out a bit about the two ships, and looking at so many concept images, I find that analyzing these two designs could really help me as an artist to determine what's currently aesthetically pleasing to the public in terms of machine design. Well, in the sci-fi world at least!

Here's a comparison picture of the finalized designs of the two ships:

Mini Sketch Dump

2009-12-12T02:16:00.000-08:00

So instead of doing all of my packing, I did this for a bit:

I also added some detail to my Husk sketch from earlier, but it's not worth a repost at this point.

Yay it's Winter Break!!

10 Hours Later...

2009-12-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

So for my final lab in WebDev I decided to model a Re-Design of sA after this site.

I fell in love with the design the moment I saw it on Mercedes McAndrews' website, and I started to love it even more as a tweaked the design here and there.

So, I may end up going with this design and give the current sA a complete make-over! I'm just not sure if I would feel comfortable putting my design up because it's so similar to the McAndrews site.

But anywho, here is the link to my student page with the unfinished version of sA. Most of this is just testing and thus things will be broken and creepy looking, like the digital page having traditional drawings. >.>

s c a t t e r b r a i nFarts

Sketch Dump!

2009-12-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

So here are three fairly quick (and RANDOM) sketches I did late last night while taking breaks from animating.

When I'm sketching I usually just scribble some stuff on the document until it looks like something, and I go from there. So none of these, or any future sketches, are meant to represent or be certain things or characters.

Husk and Enemy Concepts

2009-12-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

So I'm at the tail end of my lab shift for today and I thought I'd post some concept sketches that I've been working on for Project Null.

Husk:

This guy is supposed to be the main character's companion in Project Null.

Possible Enemy:

Now, obviously, these are both still in progress and I'm not even entirely sure if the Husk sketch goes with our original concept for him. I have two other sketches of him, but this is my favorite so far.

Final Project Update

2009-11-19T15:52:00.000-08:00

So here are some progress pictures of my final project for digital animation studio. I tried to make the character shapes as simple as possible to make the animation process easier.

Background/Setting:

Guitar:

Character 1:

Extreme poses for Character 2:

Late Night Post

2009-11-13T03:57:00.000-08:00

I suppose the title should technically read "Early Morning Post" but who gives a damn about technicalities at this hour, eh? I certainly don't...

Anyway, I thought I would finally post my Flash walk cycle which has actually been done for a while!

Here it is in all of it's glory, beware, fabulous character concept ahead:

...Not!

My final project is currently "under development" and, if I make progress tomorrow, I'll be posting something exciting. Like the background! OooOooh! AhhHHhh!

Project Null

2009-11-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

So Nate and I are going to collaborate on a capstone project for our senior year. Currently being referred to as Project Null, it's going to be a platformer video game and we started to concept ideas this past summer.

I posted a link to the website I've been working on for Project Null in the section to the right. We'll be dumping concept art, updates, and hopefully a full description of our idea and the story line as the website and our work develops!

In case your browser fails miserably or you just don't know your right from your left, click this!

Oh, and because I'm using it for my web development class there will be strange things like "Lab 4 is over here!" and newsletter sign ups that don't really work. So don't be fooled!

Finally Caught Up!

2009-10-22T15:35:00.001-07:00

So I finally caught up on all of my animation assignments! They're all hand drawn frame by frame in Flash except for the abstract, that was animated using tweening. Oh! And the cookie jar in the character jump says, "Not Your Cookies."

Character Jump:

Bounce 2:

Bounce 1:

Abstract:

And So it Begins...

2009-10-01T17:16:00.000-07:00

So I realize I haven't posted anything of interest since... well for a long time. I'm really not too good about posting, unless I'm in school! And classes have started now, yay!

Here's my first Flash animation for Digital Animation Studio.

Be sure to avert your gaze if you have a heart condition or enjoy good animation!

Testing 1, 2, 3

2009-05-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Linking my blog to Facebook now so the family and see animating updates if they wish :)

Oh and I wont have to tell Nate the URL anymore ;)

This is a test post to see if it works >.>

Art Major...

2009-05-03T00:48:00.001-07:00

To be or not to be? That most certainly is the question that's been plaguing my mind for a while now. I just spent over an hour staring at the BFA requirements and I have no idea what to do.

I just don't know if I'm good enough :-/ I've always been so insecure about my abilities as an artist.

But enough of my blabbering and blubbering, I guess I just needed a mini outlet for my frustration.

Short Animation Ideas

2009-04-30T20:12:00.000-07:00

So I started working with Flash in order to beef up my 2D animation skills and I want to do some short animations on my own. I couldn't come up with anything earlier this week but today I've been able to get a couple of ideas going.

Numero Uno!
This one gets an automatic silly rating because it involves squirrels, haha. I just want to do a simple animation with two squirrels attempting to gather the last acorn left on a tree and the antics that ensue.

Dos!
While I was hanging out with Nate, Other Nate, Chuck, and Kyle last night they gave me an idea for an animation just by engaging in an average conversation. Well...not so average, but average for them. Let's just say it involves a man, his beard, and a bird. Reminding you of a Family Guy episode? Yeah, this will be fun. ;)

Well, that's it for now. I'm mostly posting this so I don't forget about them later. Hopefully I'll get some storyboards up eventually when I find the spare time to make 'em.

Oh, and here's my slightly improved animation of Lt. Dan Dancing:

Lt. Dan...dancing?

2009-04-24T17:39:00.000-07:00

I was so happy to finally start animating with Lt. Dan! He has legs and feet! Maybe I'm getting a little too excited, but anywho here's the animation:

One thing I don't like is the way the foot rotates in right before he starts bouncing left and right. But I couldn't think of a better way to do it. So any input on that would be great! I'm also thinking about making him flip instead of just doing a regular jump.

Completed "Ball Story" Animation

2009-04-17T12:54:00.000-07:00

Hey Everyone,

I just finished my first animation with the rigged ball for 3D Animation, this was incredibly fun to animate. Using the rig is a lot easier than having to re-size the entire object! And far less frustrating haha.

Anyways here it is, I think I can smooth out the animation a bit more but let me know what you think. Oh, and try to ignore the rigging around the ball, I'm not sure if there's a way to hide it or not and I didn't want to play with Maya's settings too much and mess everything up.

Lab Aiding and Animating!

2009-04-10T12:30:00.000-07:00

So I'm lab aiding it up right now on this...lovely Friday and I was going to post my new animations from class, but I forgot how to export it as a QuickTime video >.< whoops! And now that I take another look at it, the animation could look a lot better anyways so I'll try to fix that up and post it soon.

Anywho, I'm working on some graphic design stuff for my 3D game programming class (for the menu screens and such) so I might post that if I think it looks ok haha, and it'll be up on my main website as well!

Alright I'm off to the world of Photoshop!! *whoooosh*

Bouncing Ball: Maya

2009-04-04T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here's my first animation from 3D Animation Studio, just a simple bouncing ball.

Blender Projects

2009-04-02T15:45:00.000-07:00

So since I'll be posting the work I'll be doing in Maya I thought I'd show some of my work in Blender from last term.

Jumping Pawn:

Walk Cycle:

Final Project:

Bobpants Spongesquare!

2009-04-01T22:04:00.000-07:00

Ok I couldn't think of a real title for today's blog, so I made it Spongebob Squarepants' fake name for when he was being chased by that dude who was going to kick his butt...

Yeah, I'm a Spongebob fan...can you tell?

Anywho, I got into 3D Animation (yay!) and I'll be using this blog for it a lot this term, or so my predictions tell me. All of my classes are going pretty well so far, I'll just have a lot of homework over the weekends...

At least most of it will be drawing! :)

Dang I really wish I knew how to edit the layout of the blog better, oh well! I'll figure it out someday I'm sure.

And I realize this post was kinda pointless...but I guess it doesn't matter much to the possibly one other person who reads this O.o

Spring '09: The Beginning

2009-03-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Yay I made it through the first day of classes for Spring Term!

Ok, so it wasn't too difficult considering I ended up liking all of my classes, but there aren't any breaks between my classes or work so I considered it a mild accomplishment for the first day. :P

I'm really excited for my Drawing class, I want to strengthen my drawing skills a lot! And I want to actually post some new traditional work on my website, so that will be beneficial as well.

Still haven't heard about whether or not I'll be able to get into the 3D animation class, but I'm just going to show up tomorrow for the first day and see what happens!

I really need to go clean my room now...lol

On A Rainy Monday

2009-03-23T16:22:00.000-07:00

So far spring break is turning out to be pretty relaxing, which is what I was hoping for in the first place!

Yesterday I used a couple of my gift cards to BestBuy in order to purchase a slew of Kevin Smith films. I got Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma. I find Kevin Smith's work to be incredibly entertaining and there's always some insightful dialogue as well.

I also went to Borders and got the first volume of "Flight", a compilation of short comics created by various artists all devoted to the theme of flying. What I loved the most about it was the varying styles of the artists and how they interpreted the theme through their comics. They're all super unique and the skill of each artist is incredible!

In addition to this I picked up Tim Burton's "The Melancholy Death of Oyster Boy: And Other Stories" which is a great little book of poems. Each poem is both mildly depressing and hilarious at the same time. Each poem also includes a sketch by Tim Burton.

Well I'm off to watch Dogma and possibly eat a sandwich... :P

Sweet Deal!

2009-03-21T00:01:00.000-07:00

Alright, customizing = done! I added a twitter widget too, just in case anyone would be interested in that...

I'm a little worried I'm over-using my color palette between this, my website, and twitter...but on the other hand it keeps everything consistent. But, if anyone has any input, let me know!

Wow two posts in one night and I haven't even told anyone about this yet -_-

First Post!

2009-03-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have really started to get into the blogging and micro-blogging community lately. First a twitter account and now a full fledged blog!

Okay, I've had blogs in the past but they never usually worked out. Hopefully this one will be different!

I guess this will be the more personalized version of my website, scatterbrainArts, for friends and family who want to know more than just a simple website update. I'll post some of my website updates here, but if you want a real look at my artistic work then please head over to sA!

That's it for now! I'm going to start customizing! ;)