Somewhere along the lines of my education, the confidence I had in my creative drawing abilities dropped below the standards of enjoyment-- along with that, however, my technical skills and seemed to flourish. I found I was able to replicate images already drawn or photographs general life drawing, but not able to concoct too many of my own originals, which is what most people liked best about my work.
So things have dried up for me professionally. The latest 3D project I was on has mainly come to a close after is debut at DWELL ON DESIGN in Los Angeles. We have met our prearranged cap agreement and now I'm into my bonus assistance during my own time, or what I call a "filler" time. Where to pick up personally before another gig?
Now, these times are GREAT times for many artists out there. Nothing is better than the freedom of artistic expression-- that's what makes us artists versus craftsman! I read in somewhere, possibly PC Gamer for the company's 20th anniversary, that even Blizzard Entertainment allows their artists to openly work on their own material if it falls outside of looming deadlines. They support and encouragement expression because they feel it's important for the artist to "breathe", I guess.
So, me: I'm breathing right now. :)
I'm even taking a breather from my website. I've completed the entire 2D section, inclusive of my traditional animation, now, in which you can see snippets of lightbox-style animation cycles. They range from stop motion through walk, weight cycles, a bouncing ball, pose to pose-- all the exercises that one would learn to to get a sense of timing so as to become an animator:
I'm currently teaching myself Zbrush, a hugely popular digital sculpting program that goes hand-in-hand with 3D modeling. As someone who is a stickler for detail and has always been very fond of modeling, learning Zbrush has been a long time coming. I'm reading "Introducing Zbrush" by Eric Keller and working very intimately in the program while doing so by ingraining the hot keys in my head by robotically repeating them on the daily and navigating deep into the interface as I continue through the chapters. I'm only on Chapter 2, but I want to make sure I take my time in any event, taking notes and writing down questions, and leaving NO rock unturned.
I'm also hoping to tackle more time into maintaining this blog. I read while spending a few free moments in the FedEx Office last week that a blog, to be considered active for social networking, must be updated at least two times a week. My last post was near to a month ago, I believe, so I was immediately on my own ass about it.
I know I will be back drawing in full force quite soon-- Being the artist I am, versus the craftsman I tend to slip into every now and again, I have there specific compositional stories brewing. For now here are two older originals which I consider to be more story driven versus character driven pieces.
This piece is one of my favorites. I wanted to give a sense of empowerment, security, and ease to the main character while keeping monotony, rawness, and mixes of emotions with the dogs below. To add a sense of mystery, I decided to have the cat's back face the viewer. I didn't want the dogs to be too malicious, but rather questionably friendly and domesticated. The Quote on the bottom was a quote that really reached out to me while I was reading ImagineFX, by an artist named Lorland Chen. It is very significant to fleshing out passion in your work. At the bottom of this post, I've added a link, if anyone would like to read up on Lorland or view some of his artwork.
My drawings of impulse usually come from a feeling. I don't really remember exactly what I was going through at the time, but I remember how I felt. This piece captured that feeling of defeat and lonesomeness. When I was a smoker, sometimes I felt like the only thing that wasn't going anywhere and would continue last a lifetime would be my cigarettes. I really wanted to show beauty that still surfaced alongside the corruption and to build a sense of sympathy.
And in Closing....
While I continue to breathe, this week I will post my work as craftsman. I figure that I'd try to keep the page lively so these images will be COPY DRAWINGS alongside their credited originals for comparison. I replicated them not only because I admire the design along with the artists, but also to keep my hand/eye coordination on track, to become more familiar with anatomy and differing design aesthetics, and because I was feeling the pressure of the blank page. I NEEDED to draw something in order to keep myself fresh. So, please be gentle..... and stay tuned.
