Moar Reddit alien

Of course, immediately after posting this to Youtube I realize he still has sliding feet. G'dangit!

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The Reddit Alien!

I made the Reddit alien from www.reddit.com in Blender. It's got VERY cartoony rigging, and also is rendered using the Cycles engine. Enjoy!
 
http://www.blendswap.com/3D-models/characters/the-reddit-alien/

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Here's a video regarding how to make cool space-like backgrounds, ala the one I used in my marketing video for The Dying Dimension. Enjoy, and go fund my project!


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Just a recent drawing

I've got a finished sketchbook I need to scan...but...bleh. Drawing is fun, an hour of back pain standing over a scanner isn't. 

In the mean time, my new sketchbook's off to a good start. Here's Cap'n Dax, the pirate lord!

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A few days ago, I won a contest on the Stranger for $16 from Stranger contributor Derek Erdman. I just got the check, and this lovely work! It has ascended to the hallowed domain of my walls.

I drew a caricature of Derek as thanks for his generous offer.

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Seabug, June 4th!

Seabug turned out great! And this Seabug marks a first in that we recorded it (I expect badly) and will be posting it soon. Prepare for awkward, completely un-edited goodness, coming soon!

 After initially panicking about attendance, we ended up with a great crowd with some great lessons. 

Special thanks to Blender Cyclist Lee Posey...

And Blender's rigging master Nathan Vegdahl...

for their continued knowledge-dropping at Seabug. Even when put on the spot, they always manage to pull a random tutorial out of their hats. 

I'll post the link once it's up on the internut. Stay tuned, dear reader!


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Man in the Moon

Quick lil 15 minute speed paint. I ought to be better about doing this as a daily habit before bed.

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Blender links!

Had a great time at Linuxfest Northwest, chatting about Blender and open source goodness! I mentioned a ton of links during my presentation, and I think this should cover the basics of Blender.

My blog: www.ogbog.blogspot.com

my portfolio: www.behance.net/ogbog

my twitter: @ogbog

Fresh, daily Blender builds: www.grahicall.org

Blender forums: www.blenderartists.org

Free CC blend files: www.blendswap.com

Makehuman project (screw Poser!): www.makehuman.org

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20 min. sketch

Just messing around before bed....I am fascinated with how the value process in a sketchbook (quick hatching/shading) can go faster and look better than the value process in photoshop (filling in value regions ala airbrush.) In other words, I want photoshop to feel more pencil like.

Seabug tomorrow! Come visit!

And my new game Knights Vs. Aliens is out! Go buy it! http://bit.ly/GetKvA



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Seabug, April 9th!

In case you forgot, my off-monthly Blender shindig is still going strong! The next Seabug (Seattle Blender User Group) is April 9th, and we'll be doing lots of fun stuff. Learn more and RSVP at the Seabug eventbrite page!

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My article in BlenderArt Magazine

Check it out! I wrote up an article for BlenderArt Magazine on how to make tile-tastic naturalist 2D sprite environments.  So nice to see your name in print :D

http://blenderart.org/2011/04/01/blenderart-mag-issue-32-now-available/

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Ivan Aivazovsky speed study

I continue to approach speed painting with a completely noncommittal experimental outlook. This time I made up a new set of parameters:

•30 minute time limit

•Study of someone far greater than myself (in this case, Ivan Aivazovsky, whose ocean landscapes blow Turner out da water)

•Do mine at half the size of the original to keep it thumbnail-y

•NO COLORPICKING from the original. Had to eyeball everything.

Not perfect, alas, but acceptable for 30 minutes.

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Blender splash screen contest!

Here's my 6 AM renders :D I'm a bit sleepy, to say the least.

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Utterly misleading caricature progress

I have, in fact, NOT worked on this in about a month. But tonight I thought, "say, wasn't I going to finish that Dan Savage pic?" and opened the file. I apparently forgot that I did a complete start on a color pass :P

This in no way counts as a speed paint any more. Not only because I haven't opened it in a month, but also because I have no recollection of how much time is invested in it now. Somewhere between 3 and 6 hours is my best guess.

Anyway, on another note, I'm going to try and retire B&W starting images. The Tick drawing I did was done in straight color. This was B&W, then brought into color. The unfortunate truth is that I have so little trust for coloring via a layer mode transfer or fancy doodads like that, that I end up just painting in Normal mode, e.g. repainting the entire thing on top of itself. That wasted time is probably why I haven't looked at this in a month.

AlsoSpiresHDisoutforiPadandiPhone4sgobuyitandrateit! http://bit.ly/GetSpiresHD


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Spires HD now available!

Hey guys! Spires HD just went live, with optimized graphics for iPads and retina iPhones. Also added a ton more Survival maps, Extreme difficulty, and the new Siege mode.

Check it out! http://bit.ly/GetSpiresHD

Here's a trailer I put together for it, edited/composited in Blender:




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Playing with compositing more...

Not lovin' the pink horizon right now. Mostly just cranked it up to 11 while making sure it worked. Methinks I'll be shooting for an atmosphere akin to some of my favorite painters, ala Salomon Corrodi and Jean Leon Gerome.

Also hunted down more loose keyframe doublings, which was resulting in pop-locking, and also the foot sliding is fixed. Next up, animating him walking onto the platform thingie for a turntable.


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My top 5 favorite illustration resources

A huge change between artists of my generation and older generations is the democratization of learning resources. Since time immemorial art has been a "pay to play" industry, where a significant chunk of change was needed simply to access learning resources, good teachers and educated peer feedback.

But we've got the internet baby! Forums are filled with helpful critique. Video tutorials still lack the true feedback of a face-to-face teacher, but still get you pretty far. People make tutorials to drive traffic to their personal websites. And if you're truly, desperately hungry for art, piracy provides a first rate black market education.

Now all people need is skill knowing where to look! So although I follow a gazillion fantastic blogs, forums and news sites, on various topics, here's my top 5 for illustration.

5. conceptart.org--it's finally finished!
There's a lot of great stuff on CA, but this particular forum thread is where people post finished pieces. I visit this fantastic place daily to see cutting-edge illustration in a variety of styles, in a finished format. We judge ourselves in comparison to what we're looking at, so the healthiest thing to do is be looking at the very best.

4. Art Knowledge News
Another resource that's technically not educational, AKN wins on sheer quantity. Posting press releases from galleries worldwide, they average upwards of 10 posts a day. In my opinion, no other site will leave you with an utter breadth of exposure to styles, history, culture, and namedrops.

3. Golden Age Comic Book Stories
This blog's name is a misnomer--Few of its posts are actual comic book panels. However, it is a phenomenal resource for old comic and magazine covers, and (bizarrely) illustrations from the Brandywine school, American illustration, classical painting and other goodies. I have found these guys to be consistently the best and most refreshing resource for a number of my favorite old-time artists: NC Wyeth, Howard Pyle, Frank Frazetta, Maxfield Parrish, Frank Schoonover, and many others. You might know that you like Howard Pyle, but this site will shock you with just how much content the dude put out.

2. The Gurney Journey
There's a new business model these days. You make a blog, you put content out regularly, and after a year you assemble that content and sell it as a book. James Gurney's blog uses that formula, and he deserves a gold medal for how to do it right. Gurney is the illustrator from Dinotopia, and uses his blog to showcase his production techniques, plus provide lovable anecdotes about himself and the artists that inspire him. The knowledge he drops on you is so good, you can't help but buy his books afterward, even if you already learned 80% of the info by reading his blog--it's just a way to tell him thanks.

1. The books of Andrew Loomis
Andrew Loomis was an American illustrator from the golden age of illustration. Working with peers such as Norman Rockwell, Haddon Sundblom and Gil Elvgren, he arguably outstripped these better-known contemporaries in artistic impact. How, you ask? By writing a series of art education books that still arguably have no equal. Many of the greatest illustrators alive today (Alex Ross and James Gurney, for example) credit him as a primary educational influence, and if you read his books you can see why.

His books are no longer in print. While this is tragic, they've been allowed to expire into the public domain, and thus are now freely available online in PDF form. My dad had Creative Illustration when he was a kid, and when he dug it out of storage and lent it to me, I was blown away. Later on, the internet informed me that the rabbit hole went even deeper--5 other awesome books to peruse. Not only that, but my dad's musty tome regularly goes for over $200 used on eBay!

Any other good resources out there? Lemme know!



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Dan Savage speedpaint WIP

About 2 and a half hours in on this one. Much of the best caricature IMHO is based on celebrities and politicians, and I wanted to do something relating to the upright citizens of our fair Seattle. So who better to start with than Dan Savage?

Here's the steps in reverse thus far. All photoshop.

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Fashion illustrations

I find that at libraries and bookstores, I spend less time in the Art sections these days, and more time in odd reference topics, such as fashion, antiques, architecture, etc. I don't need a tenth "how to draw human anatomy" book, I need books on the flavor of human existence.

Here's some studies of illustrations in Cally Blackman's 100 Years of Fashion Illustration. I tried to name the dudes I was drawing from, but where my notation failed doublecheck the book. Good read! Also, random art theory note: People often have trouble wrapping their heads around Andy Warhol, and his ideas about multiples, mass production and pop art. Knowing he got his start in fashion illustration, it makes a lot more sense. Fashion deals a lot more with repeating textiles, and one "art piece" of a dress is designed for it to be worn by lots of people. In essence, he was applying the motives of fashion to visual art, where you normally make a singular unique painting, and that's where its value comes from.

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Not-so-speedy Tick speed paint

You may remember this little exercise I dida while ago. I started purtying up my favorite head from then, and it's stretched beyond the restrictions of a speed painting. So here's my pic of The Tick.

Now I like it enough that, sigh, I'm going to burn even more time getting it really polished. Justice never sleeps!

Also, a quick interesting side note, I think it's fascinating how learning the technology behind something makes you a better artist, because then you draw the stuff you understand on a technical 3D level. I remember distinctly when I learned about Ambient Occlusion, and afterward tried like crazy to draw it in everywhere.

Similarly, nowadays I know a lot more about subsurface scattering. As a result, I tried to bring it out in this. All I did was brush in extra saturation on the transition from light into core shadow. It's easiest to spot on his cheeks. I'll have to play with that more.

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