Man, sometimes character design could be cumbersome. You knew almost exactly how your character should look and feel but you still can’t get a picture of it. I’m talking about Iris Noa, one of the leading characters from Rainbow Dreams project. I’ve came up with her idea somewhere in 2007 and spent hella a lot on rendering her variations. The recent one (facial closeup) was an enormous rendering process with me painting every pore in her skin and every hair until it looks good in my eyes.
I’ve posted in online to see the reaction and the results were so-so. Some 3D guys liked the texture but the whole character doesn’t fired up the emotions I need. For the character designer it means that (s)he wasn’t successful in translation of characteristics or design is really weak. It feels, well, not suck but more like you have to find a key that unlocks a flow. Each character concentrates and represents some energy so you feel sympathy or anger or crush or something else to him/her. If you don’t bother at all it means that there is no flow between you and character.
Even if you’ve years and years of experience under your belt you can’t avoid obstacles. Some younger artists may look at your work and think, dude this guy is awesome! but you don’t feel so. You constantly see new challenges and trying to deal with them. It’s not a big deal anymore to draw some superhero chick you’ve been dreaming 10 years ago (it’s all about chest and legs guys!), but your mind is working on puzzles like how to express this and that character trait and so on. This is where most of tutorilas fail because they focused on external side (how to draw) and not internal (what to draw). So you’ve to rely on your own, personal experience and try to express that character you’re looking for.
Oh my, I’ve to go back to my desk and start again!
Last month I’ve lost my workhorse – Wacom Intuos 2 tablet I’ve been using for 4 or 5 years. I’ve got it from a good old friend of mine and it was quite used back then. Wacom doing great tablets, even my first Intuos A6 I bought 10 years ago is still alive! It’s so small just like a postcard and I can’t imagine how to draw with it but it’s still works. Althought they lasted for that long I’ve discovered some problems with Intuos 2 Grip Pen which sometimes is getting out of sync and produce wavy lines while you draw straight ones.
There are solutions like replacing the Grip Pen or buying a new tablet however you can just adjust the screw located under the double-click pen button.
I bet a lot of artists thought on questions like “How much should I charge for my art?” or “How to get the job I want?” or “What can I do if I want freelance to find me?” and stuff like that. There are tons of books written on the subject as well as piles of text posted on various online resources. The only problem is you don’t have much time to process every book and forum messages to find these bits of wisdom.
So it’s great to see Jason Manley, ConceptArt.Org and MassiveBlack founder, kicking off a new training course covering that topic. The event is going live this weekend and you don’t need to travel anywhere because it’s online at Live Education forums on ConceptArt.Org.
You’ll be asked for tuition fee ($95) to get an access to the course and live broadcast. From what I’ve heard you’ll also be able to access these materials within next 30 days. For more information, please, refer to Jason’s post on CA forums.
Recently I’ve been browsing some asian resources and discovered a blog by Lei Sheng. Everything is written in chinese, even the title says 华丽的裸奔 but you don’t need to know language if you’re looking at pictures.
There are lots and lots of artists in Asia and what sparks my attention in Lei Sheng’s works are stories (or if you’re familiar with spiritual techniques, it’s vibrations) he put into his works as well as vivid and bright vision. I really like that kind of stuff. It makes you feel good and energize you.
Besides the fairy tales there are some great characters illustrations with oriental design elements and some are depicted in a classic Chinese style.
While browsing blog pages (just click the numbers at the bottom of the page) you can also find some work in progress steps, photos and all that stuff.
Mitumasa Yoshizawa’s website REFLECT got a total revamp. If you aren’t familiar with Mitumasa, well go and check his works now! He’s one of the coolest japanese sculptors creating amazing girls in cooperation with Shunya Yamashita (another great japanese artist).
The site is in japanese but you won’t be lost since everything is clean and simple. Oh and these dolls are truly beautiful (and expensive!) creations.
I suppose within 10 maybe 15 years later they will got CPU or cyberbrains and all that electronic/MEMS stuff inside just like Chobits.
Digital Art Masters vol.4 is a new book of a series compiled by the guys at 3D Total and published by Focal Press. The book is all about creativity expessed in variety of media from 3D high tech imagery up to loose sketchy paintings. Each book featuring a selection of artists from all over the world and the new installment is no exception.
There are 50 artists published in 4th volume showcasing over 900 images in five sections: Sci-Fi, Scene, Fantasy, Character and Cartoon. Andree Wallin, Marc Brunet, Marek Okon, James Paick, Srefan Morrell, Viktor Titov, Alex Kashpersky and many others are sharing their experience while creating stunning imagery. Even if you’re a professional artist you can’t get tired of exploring other people’s approaches in drawing, painting and 3D modeling. Some artists speak of general approaches while others dive into detailed explanations so the book would benefit both pro and aspiring artists. There are also portfolio samples so you can enjoy the talent and creativity even more.
This book wouldn’t teach you how to paint but definetely feed you with various methods and techniques and maybe even slap your growing edgy ego creatively speaking (at least it happens to me). I think it’s good feeling since it’s pushing you to reach new heights.
I’m happy I was a part of this massive project, it was really great to work with 3D Total guys though my contribution is fairly modest with a making of article on ‘Beach mecha’ painting.
More info on Digital Art Masters 4 would appear soon on 3D Total website, so stay tuned!
Just saw an announcement of the upcoming video from MassiveDVD featuring Donato Giancola’s painting ‘The Mechanic’. No more details available except estimate release date set to late July / August 2009.
I’ve got a chance to talk a little to Donato during the AVATAR 2D/3D Art Competition (we conviced him as a judge) and man, I’ve got the highest respect for this artist. What impressed me the most is that after so many industry awards and world wide success he’s still acceptable with a friendly attitude towards the people. Donato is probably the busiest man on the planet but he always replied to our emails within few hours. Amazing!
If you’re somehow aren’t familiar with his works then go and check his website www.donatoart.com There tons of cool stuff and info on his techniques.
There are also some nice threads rolling on conceptart.org.
Randis Albion from HD Fortress has posted an amazing vampire-themed piece for the Newborn contest. Beware of the mature content though!
Jason Chan’s Pre-workshop dump! is quite old but it’s still pure eye-candy stuff.
Andrew Jones quickly pop his head with a KUSKA painting and upcoming events announcement. Don’t miss his light painting stuff, it’s a truly new form of visual art.
razer is a crazy guy from Russia posted a massive art dump with tons of sci-fi stuff. Go check if you’re looking for the fresh input!
CGEvent is coming closer! If you aren’t familiar with CGEvent it’s a largest computer graphics conference held in Moscow, Russia. On the official website you can find more info on the upcoming event as well as a 2-days schedule (July 11-12). I’m volunteering offsite a little this year, so the 2D art section is quite small comparing to previous events.
Conceptart.org has kicked off a brand new contest called Newborn. The description and rules are quite open, but your main task is “Bring something into the World” or “To Life”.
Visit the contest forums to see all the great details and info!
Create your artwork and submit your final entry in jpeg form at 1000 pixels wide to contest@conceptart.org (include your full name, conceptart.org username, address, and phone number in the email with the entry attached).
Final submissions are due no later than July 31 2009 (central standard time).
Ow man, I just throw eye on my stuff at deviantart gallery and there are just girls, girls and even more girls… Fully clothed, half dressed, nude, in bikini… for someone it may looks totally silly and boring.
Anyway did you ever thought about getting into the Blizzard Entertainment? Joystic team has sneaked through Blizzard’s campus in Irvine, CA and shoot tons of photos! I’ve seen few reports after Blizzard moved to the new campus but Joystic did quite a coverage.
The first thing you’ll see outside is a massive Orc Wolfrider 12-foot-tall statue done by the fabulous guys at WETA Workshop, New Zealand. Around the statue is an eight point compass, which highlights the company’s development mantras:
I should name it as ‘How to paint an attractive asian female in less than 4 hours’ but it sounds lame. So here we go… making of Natsu.
Digital painting is always fun because you don’t know how things would turn out. If you’ve some experience, chances you are already developed you own painting pipeline or working style. So first of all, I’m addressing this material to the artists looking for the fresh input and some creative thoughts.
Each painting starting with an idea or feeling. I worked on the barbarian image (that Diablo III guy) and stumbled onto the drawing from deviantart (usually I turn my network connection off while working). It was half-nude girl painted by French artist ~darax.
I liked the idea and decided to sketch quickly my approach. The results were quite surprising even for myself so I skip the barbarian aside and switched to the sketch. The next 2 or 3 hours were a total blast with me painting like mad.
The final result, as you see above is quite unusual for me. I often tend to polish things up to the very last bit and even higher but this painting is somewhere between finished illustration and etude.
The title says ‘Natsu’ which means summer in Japanese (the kanji is 夏). I think it suits the image quite well.
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