Sniper's a landmark

At least for me this character is.

This model is so far been a fun mess. It was fun creating the hi resolution model but it is still a hell of a fight to create a lower polygon model and UV map the thing. Although I can say this. You get better every time you try and do it.

My first two models were learning experiences. The first was to see if I could even accomplish getting a model into the game. The second was to come up with a workflow. As I have found out with this model it looks like my workflow is going to constantly evolve.

Macquettes and light sources

So today my wonderful parents bought me a second pose-able lamp (the second after the one I got for christmas). I can say that I would not know a thing without good references from life. Their are so many new things you learn and with adjustable props you find new interesting light comps like the one I created below. besides being a refrence its also great practice creating forms when you shape the clay. This process can be a bit tedious if you don't love it. My experience with this is that making these objects is like solving a puzzle that I have seen the complete image on the cover. Sometimes things get moved around other times you get them perfect.

Also I can't stress how amazing two lights sources are!

Drawing is important and stuff

So this first still life was a complete failure. Which is totally fine because it taught me that I cannot simply start with shapes and create something fantastic and accurate. I need to do a sketch of what I am looking at before I can start putting in tones and color. Still life stuff is tough to sit down to do because you know its going to be hard because your trying to understand things through trial and error and its going to be horrible. After I had created the first still life I felt so bad about it I didn't want to start another. Yesterday I found Irv Rudleys YouTube channel and the advice and steps he shows about his own technique struck a chord with me, so this morning I began the sketch below the awful still life and decided that there is seriously no other way around the fact that good painting takes hard effort from start to finish. If I am completely honest with myself I have not put my 100% effort into literally anything I've done in the past.

So today is a new day and their is always time to do more painting and go about it with a plan of attack.

Blitzcrank redesign

This is the file I submitted to the contest. I'm worried about my monitor, I think it might be showing my files way to bright in photoshop and the result is that my work becomes way to dark when I get ready to show it.

EDIT: If you travel to this link http://m-div.deviantart.com/#/d5sytuv and download the file you can check out the PDF file that is a lot higher quality.

Time to polish!

Alright its time to tighten this guy up. I was shocked that some of the darker values came out basicly black when I created save for web files for this piece. I definitely gotta lighten some areas up and tighten some edges.

Frank Frazetta and Jim Murray

Jim Murray is one of my favorite artists. I had no idea how much Frank Frazetta had influenced him. The first thing I thought of when I saw the relationship between their artwork was that I could not believe how much Jim got away with putting Frazetta in his work without being called a clone. This is a really great example of defining how far you can take someone else's work as an influence and incorporate it into your own work. I think that's a question a lot of people have. How much is to much before I cross the line and just become a cheap imitation of my favorite artist? Personally I am going to use this as my benchmark.

Of course that doesn't mean I am condoning trying to rip other peoples work. Whatever you see about the work of another person that really appeals to you why not try and figure it out for yourself? Do some studies and learn that new trick whatever it is, and make it your own. Everyone doesn't have the same vision as you so if you learn to adapt and apply new things to your art you will grow.

current still life and master studies begin tmorrow

So Today I gave myself a couple hours to do a more complex still life and it took me forever to nail any kind of likeness. I just can't seem to pick colors that are close to what I see when I first begin. So this will continue and I will also begin doing studies of the Hudson river school artists. I chose Albert Bierstadt because of the way he uses atmospheric perspective and his awesome mountain ranges.