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.

Headhunter Sculpture

First sculpture test that I've finished in clay. After a great class I've taken. Still lots to learn and lots to polish. I need to work on my patience the most.

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.

Turtle soup Hut

A concept I had in mind while going through the book of Skillful Huntsman and other art center books.
This is a piece made to experiment with faster workflows and this time using a rough 3d block out to speed up my process.
I'm used to draw and paint everything from zero and this time it had it's advantages and disadvantages, really.

The concept of happy vibes still follow me everywhere, but this time I tried to introduce a bit of a darker mystery through the giant turtle shell, questioning that the life in these places is not always a picnic (upper side and the main focus) but when you look around and find yourself looking to bottom, you'll feel it may not be a big deal, to deal with giant monsters, and that they seemed to get away fine.
I was inspired by Dragon Ball a little, whenever a giant dinosaur chased the main character, the character would always end up having it as dinner later, which was quite funny, because he was a kid.


GuardarGuardar

Weatherdeep Kid Klan - A Post Apocalyptic tale

To continue the series of illustrations, I've gone a step ahead in storytelling and wrote a story that would complement the concept art I am currently working on.
I'll keep this brief and just post it below, welcome to my page, I hope you enjoy. :)

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --

Ambient

Three thousand years from today's date, after a age of strong climate change on Earth, the planet and it’s continents had started to move around, to destroy themselves and little by little, to reshape.

Now with new continents, in the once peaceful continent of Midian, it was born the peaceful nation of Weatherdeep, where it’s explorers who had been blessed to come by this land, filled with gold and zinc, had established themselves around two hundred years ago. It was not a long time to wait until the wealth and prosperous mood of it’s first capital to spread from the main city walls to outside, and new villages and ports all around Weatherdeep started to be built.

It was not long until the youngest of the explorers of the ancient tribe of founders, Jacob Kentucky, the mascot and dearest of the sailing crew, to earn the status of president of the main city capital, he took the land to glory, as trusty guardian until the next seven years…

To the north of Weatherdeep there is the independent city of Zion, to west lies the nation of Thile, and however the relations between them were always civilized, it was not long until some of the cities of Thile start to become jealous of the symbiotic relations between the capital and Zion, and if it was not enough, there were rumors of a deep vain wish of the nearby continent from the south, Hillrock, about the wealth and success of Weatherdeep.

The lack of information on the villages to the east, which was rich in technology in the pre-Midian era, started to show a lack of climate conditions to grow food within their land, forcing the scientists of each continent to develop their own technology and own resources, paving the path to the nuclear-organic war of the seven legions.

Old Tree house

A group of adventurers of the now deserted and ruined area of the old city of Sunnyside, took over a vehicle that was partly destroyed, from the pre-Midian era, a school bus to which they use has hangar, a bus that was not used for centuries and was once stolen by looters from an old museum of antiquities, and as such, was left behind later to be acquired by the boys clan.

There has been some time since the four brothers of no blood bound, have been searching for supplies to extend their survival in the wasteland, at least for as long as a couple more merchants passes by, which can take months to happen and it’s not really certain to ever happen to being with…

Of the four survivors, all are boys, of young age between ten and thirteen years old, one may meet: Headz, the team's sniper, ence the name; Benny, the closest brother to Headz; Moody, the clan shaman, who assumes to have some sort of psychic and healing ability, as doctor and then, Caesar, the self-proclaimed group leader, the one who has armors that are so heavy that he can almost not move from where he stands, all of them made from scraps, tires and other do-it-yourself garbage that may or may not help stop a bullet.

Six hours have gone by, Benny and Caesar find themselves heading to the village to the north, for a supply run.

Headz doesn’t stop from running his eyes on his telescope every now and then, which by itself was already an habit he picked up from being a sentinel to the group defenses…

Headz is always helped by the impertinent shaman, in hopes to finally see his brothers come back home, it doesn’t matter at this point if they return with empty or full pockets, all it matters to them is that they do return home.

When the moment comes that they give up on the watching for a while and rest their gaze from the surroundings to think about climbing down the house, they notice a glimpse, a light, that comes closer, probably a lens or reflective focus of some kind, something that blinds them for a few seconds.

They turn again and find a girl, almost a woman by now, but older than the ages of Moody and Headz combined together. She speaks:

<<Do you guys have radio antennas? I can pay… it’s kind of... urgent.>> She pauses, tries to force a smile and hide the fact she was nervous.

Even if they are little, they are not stupid, at all, the brothers don’t like to negotiate with adults, and certainly not with someone who they never seen around, but what matters is that the girl came with a modified bike, and that can be useful as a token of trade, antennas, batteries and junk they don’t need for a ride or even firepower help to take to the town towards north, it wouldn’t take more than fifteen minutes to get there, at least with that bike, and they would avoid the sand mutants, they wouldn’t catch the bike and would be scared off by it’s noise alone, they hate it.

She sighs and her facial expression changes to another level of deep anxiety. <<So, will you help me? I have this radio and I do not think it’s a broken antenna, I haven’t heard from two of my companions from my group ever since they infiltrated to the town up at north…>>

However they have always learned to do not trust the older people from an early age, and let alone someone with attributes from the opposite sex, as it is normal for boys of their age to distrust, the fact remains that she can be useful and her fear is visible… she is not that much older than them.

And after all, what is going on at the town at north? The supply run was almost a shot in the dark anyway, it is thought to not hold much in food or other useful items, since the last radioactive storm hit it. Whatever it is, Headz and Moody fill up with fury, end up agreeing and set up to meet and follow up north at around noon.

<<We will go.>> Headz says while he nods with his sniper rifle towards the girl, from up above the bus, casually pointing. <<But no funny business.>>

Whatever it is, they really get angry but above everything, they want to teach a lesson to whom or what it is that is causing all the ruckus.