One more week to go

I'm on my second to last week here at TAD for foundations 1. I have to say its been a journey and I have only just cracked at the first part. 

The final version to my sketchbook project about impact. I did two different versions because I wanted to try different compositions, value structure, story. Originally I was going to push this further into maybe a comic but I think I will flop while I'm still ahead. Critique had a comment about unoriginality where humans try to use a resource created by an alien for their gain. I was looking more into the psychology of humans how they will abuse, be distrust worthy, and steal any friendly companionship making them the monsters. But eh whatever, I'll come up with something else.

Diggers looking for some bones to munch on.

Scientist hopes to use the crystal the diggers make and possibly

reverse death.

Details.

Tried a different approach, I want to get better with ink.

Photography had to do with depicting my studio. This was a tough one because I didn't want to just take a picture, I wanted to think about this a little bit. So I put the cup in there to kind of show the need to have it as if its a tool. I swear I cant get the energy needed sometimes to work without it. The second idea came from showing interesting lighting. I experimented and found a nice result. The picture looks like a warm glowing sun however its a 60 exposure at night. The light is from the streets outside.

I need to get back on track

Time for a bit of an overload. I think coming back from break has made me a little sluggish. Its also a bit of a hassle sometimes. Never the less, I have lots to show. On a side note though, I think starting this week I will do reviews of books/animation/objects I have that might be useful. Not to mention restart up my tumblr. While I think of those ideas, take a look at all the stuff i have in this post.

The first on the list is the photography assignment of missing. I had a lot to show but I think this is one of my favorite. Its funny, most of my staged photos looked not as good as just a random sign I found. Sometimes its hard to realize that trying really hard does not always mean good results.

You can't just stage this. Maybe thats why its successful.

Keep an eye out for everything. I must carry my camera everywhere.

The sketchbook assignment was to find something that was impacted. I have to tell you its hard when I seen so much over the summer and not much now. But what I did findwas ComEd's construction going on. There was a patch of ground dug up. The next part was imagining what did it. I found that a back hoe probably created the problem, but I could go into the realm of fantasy. So my story is an alien that searchs for bones to be absorbed so they can become more individualized and attract a mate.

I tried to improve upon the process from the last creature assignment. These were late sadly, so I can only go on by a personal critique.

Thumbnails to start out. 

This time I tried more iterations with details.

The first rendered iteration, good but not great.

I took the basic concepts from the image above and rework the silhouette.

This had a lot of cool rhythm.

Second rendered iteration. I'm getting there.

Over the weekend, I did some figure drawing past the assignment. I feel like doing this is definitely helping at my observational skills at least via a picture. I would definitely like to mix this with observational skills from real life. However while my measurements and details are getting better, I start to lose the basic light/shadow groupings. This is probably what i'm going to focus on for the rest of the semester. Its been brought up in critique for almost the past month. I'm trying but I think I need to just really focus on only that.

2 hours total using nu-pastel.

Figures and further than that

A good milestone was set forth with this recent set of figure drawings. While I didn't do the assignment quite how the teacher had planned, I still got some nice results. What I really should have done was focus on the lines and proportions. I will definitely do some of that later this weekend. However, I did these in ten minutes. There are a lot of things wrong if you put them up side by side with the reference but they still look better than ever. Confidence has been one of my key things to improve and with that came speed.

This time I tried to push focal point and render certain areas that only needed it. I don't think I achieved it. Maybe with more time, but for now I need to really just be all over the place. I also think color palette has a lot to do with the focal (obviously, but for figure drawings with such little time its really hard to plan so all I can do is experiment).

10 minute drawing with nu pastel and toned paper

The assignment had to do with foreshortening.

2 minute drawings, charcoal and newsprint.

15 minute drawing.

My finished creature design. I worked from the ground up like I said before. I had to first imagine the place that the creature resided which was tunnels and caves in a mountain high up in the sky. This type of creature digs and lives off certain rocks. The stuff it can't digest is put into a second stomach which is metal ore. This stomach melts the metal and they later use this ability to forge their city. The altitude they live up in is very high so little prey or predators. These creatures only have to worry about are the behemoths that float and try to snack on them. 

I've been coming up with names like a jackhammer dragon. These are not dragons, but earth explorers fantasize over things like this. Maybe in their tongue they are called Aih'skee, aih meaning one who breaks and skee meaning one who builds. Their civilization believes in a strong foundation and value the beginning to many problems.

Another multimedia attempt. 

Getting back into that sketchbook

Finished midterm week at TAD. To be honest, I am very happy with the choice I made going to this school. I say this a lot but people don't realize how annoying normal art colleges can be. I could rant about this, but I'll save that for another time. For now, I'm just happy to see my skills developing with teachers who are all very willing to push me. I hope to get even more quality work done this half (I plan to push myself much harder.)

Redone version of my sketchbook assignment, I used india ink washes and a black water soluble colored pencil. This technique was inspired by James Gurney, who does quite a bit of sketchbooking adventures that he shares online. I definitely like the results and hope to do more of this soon.

Old tea pot I got for like $5 at a yard sale.

I spent a good portion of my weekend working on my creature concept again. I went from the ground up by photographing new refrence to inspire me for a new location. This time I did not think of the place as what I photographed but instead an alien world. I'll post the finished sketches later. For now, here is some stuff I have on my computer.

Small ink silouettes, tried to push various ideas of a mountain cave digger.

My favorite silhouette given detail.