Gypsy punk!

I haven't made new work relevant to subcultures in a while, I liked when I first started fiddling with that topic, it felt right, it felt fun.

The Tooth Fairy

This is not my most proud export. But it is considered (by me) a beautiful ugly child, whom I love. The final image is not one of my favorites, however the process that led me to it was enjoyable and I think I have achieved some growth with it, I turned something around that was not looking like something I'd make, to something looking like a work under my signature.

It's good to have a grip on that, which was a major critic during my college time, where I liked to explore endlessly.  I may or may not go ahead and do an environment with this one, I just don't like it enough to keep going with it.

I have other ideas that I'm more keen of. Nonetheless it served as a case study, measuring brainstorming techniques and testing assignments and notes from a creature design course.  But then again, if you like your process and work, repeat yourself, if you don't, repeat yourself.

Halloween character design!

Since I have a mentored class coming up soon, I decided to hold on unmentored training that I'm taking online. 

As such, I'm practicing more ZBrush stuff from my last class in the meantime.

On this I allowed myself the privilege to wander aimlessly, but I had a purpose and story on my mind from the start. I'm mostly exploring adjacencies. There's a lot of question marks on this, somedays I hated it, some days I loved it. Mostly because it's a joke of a pikachu dressed robber, heavily inspired by some news I read about heisters who take funny masks to do their job, like spongebob's, mickey mouse, etc... as well as Die Antwoord's short film. I ended up censoring the pikachu features and adding a shout to halloween season.

I'm not sure if this is good enough to go to portfolio in the end, but I try to remind myself to forget about good, and have growth instead, which is not necessarily good, just an exploration of unlit recesses that may or may not yield to the research and work. But I rather have real growth than really good work, when I'm experimenting with personal work anyway.

Reloading

Hey all. I hope I don’t bore anyone to death with my extensive ‘development notes’, they just help me to nail what went good and bad.

As planned, I’ve been trying to finish my course at Learnsquared, here’s another piece, routing towards a more cinematic approach and a less product-like 360 turn around shot, like the other one I posted. It’s tricky to pull off this 1 point perspective, because it’s something I do not like to have in a composition, unless the storytelling is some sort of foreign concept to the viewer. I think I’ve settled to present a shot like this and shrug it off, because I’m imagining a pursuit of the mech to someone, and then have her pause in time to reload and use her wits for the next move... or that’s the way I like to think, to get away with the 1 point perspective and mold it into a fitting theme! It’s also tricky because the image can get flat pretty quickly.

I experimented a lot with curves adjustments in photoshop, which I never liked to use much, as they quickly get out of hand. I’m more of a guy to use levels instead... but you know, homework is about experimentation, breaking barriers, and I think I was surprised at the end with the result, since I was skeptical that curves would work to balance values just as good as levels. I got out of my comfort zone, and that alone is great, regardless the quality of the end result.

Subcultures / Cyberpunk medic design

Hey ya'll. I really meant to post this online early, like, waaaay early, but life has been chaotic. I switched studios in the start of August and it was very complicated to adapt to a new pipeline, at least in the first few weeks, but I got the ball rolling, and I hope that nothing can stop it now!

I didn't stop thinking and using the techniques I learned at Learnsquared and employ them in my client work as well, it worked flawlessly,  even though I didn't finish this homework, (no time!) I found an immense value in employing these techniques for prototyping concept art, I don't know how many concepts I've done so far using Alex Figini's techniques, but it was a blast. Both the art director and me are happy with the results, so I'll keep on using them for a while, build on top, hybrid the process, and until I research on something else.

About the concept, I'll produce a few more later, I hope! Not sure when, but I'm excited to finish this course and pick a new one! I had so much trouble with setting the environment settings right, it was insane, but after countless renders of smaller concepts for work, I got the hang of material graph and other keyshot settings, came back to this homework and re-rendered everything.. so many render nights gone to the trash can! Practice makes perfect, I guess!

Overall I'm experiencing a bit of introducing subcultures and other life experiences I had to my work. Dreadlocks was a mark in my teenage years, so here's to those.

There are still issues with it, issues that I wouldn't have done if I was going to start over again or went back in time, but I love my experiments, as I would an ugly child. The wrong answer is the right answer in a different context, and I feel this in this work.

Sculpting prototypes!

Here are some WIPs!
I'm sadly not able to commit to these as much as I'd like, (time-wise) because I've gotten a job as concept artist in May, my time is limited when it comes to personal work. :(

Nonetheless, I am pushing it as far as I can and not having that as an excuse not to keep shooting at it.I'm learning a ton off the record, I had to learn how to model hair with fibermesh, cards, Xgen, so much stuff, that I doubt that I will use in a regular base, but knowledge is power, right?

For now, here is a rough sculpt, I was going to show the rest of the body, but it's not as showable as the bust, there is a lot of details that I need to pinch together from the neck down, a lot of frankensteining to do before I show it all... I just wish a day had more than 24 hours... And I think I must have started over like 3 or 4 times on this sculpt all the while cursing Zbrush and everything that is digital...Anyway, after this chick is done, I'm hoping to do a couple of faster ones, with what I learned so far and turn them into a case study, as with this one I'm focusing more of design language, while the next I intend to explore other things, like storytelling, and really go home with the storytelling, as I feel that a image that tells a great story will always overshadow one that is synthetical well made, with all design theories there.
We'll see.

I feel there is a long way to go until this is done, but sharing WIPs is crucial for me, it helps me get a sense of what I'm doing, who I am exposing myself to.