Busy or Absent Minded? You be the judge!

"I've been in captivity for three months. There are two things I want to do. One, I want an American cheeseburger, and the other... " -Iron Man

Overdue update on that commission that I finished two weeks ago! It's done!

Check it out on my DA account.

I blame the "discussions" on "a forum" that I visit for distracting me. I've actually been drawing a lot more recently thanks to joining a Daily Sketch guild on said forums. Here's yesterday's piece for the topic "portrait":


This is one of the few I was inspired to put time into and try something different with. No lines! OMG! I really like how the face turned out, although the ear still bothers me. The rest of my sketches are on my DA account in the scraps section. I may just start posting them here though.

Or I might start posting stuff for this: Illustration Friday.

What else? Oh, I finally figured out how to make Maya export OBJs and FBXs again. Apparently it will sometimes turn off that feature in the plug-ins section at random. Either that or Loki (that's my PC's name) is screwing with my head.

I'm working on a redesign of an old project of mine, Tales from the Broken Stone. I had a friend/awesome alumni who works at Dreamworks give me a little critique, and now I'm trying to make some of the corrections. One being that he couldn't tell what the helmet was supposed to be made of. Here's a shot of what I've got so far. (BTW extra critique is always welcome!)


Textured with Mudbox 2010 for once! I may need to up my actual poly count for this scene, though, since the normal mapping gets a little lost in the low poly version. Now I just need to make touch ups in Photoshop and tweak the reflectivity of everything. Then it's on to the rest of the scene.

And now I have to touch up 34 pictures of a cat for my roommate. T____T I miss Timon so much!

-Anne

Deadline Bump

"Madame e Monsieur, bonsoir. Those who forge their own destiny. Those who balk at their own destiny. Time visits all men equally and imposes on them a choice for the future. When the final letter entrusted to the young man is read, what future will that bring about for us?"

I'd say I have definitely been watching too much Count of Monte Cristo: Gankutsuou, but I just finished it and no longer have to worry about being sucked in. I would say this piece restores my faith in anime's potential. I would, but it's just a retelling of a French classic. It just goes to show you, some of the classics are pretty bad-ass!

Anyway, I have another WIP version of the penguin-zombie piece.


He wanted to be sure I attempted the plaid early on, and I wanted to get the color blocking done. The shading and detail work, along with some blending and adjustment are next.... and eventually I'll have to figure out what to do with the different white tones. T_T

That being said, I finally have a solid deadline: Valentine's Day. Good thing I don't have other plans, because this might just eat all my time. Om nom nom nom!

-Anne

Final Presentation Finally

It took us a long time to get this huge file down to a reasonable size, but thanks to Larry, we finally have the final presentation to show off. The lighting was pretty dark during our presentation, and some of the words are hard to read, but it's the content that counts, right?

Pt. 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqQ77yblQHU
Pt. 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7E9sBfbQJU
Pt. 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5B2UikOvYjU
Pt. 4: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdPGNl8oARg

My portion of the presentation was the statistics and experiment design. It was a lot harder to make understandable than I thought.

-Anne

The very next day...

"On the first day, God said, 'Let there be light' and there was duck. God was slightly confused, but decided it was good."

I guess, I sorta forgot to mention yesterday that I went to Ohayocon last week, even though the title of the post suggested it. Twas a lot of fun, but next time I definitely need to have a costume worked out. And after that I barely made it back before the snow storm hit. So lucky!


Another speed paint for practice... of someone.... who I happen to have pictures of. -shifty eyes- Green hair is pretty sweet.


Updated WIP of the commission for my friend. I'm still not sure how I feel about the background or the aurora, but we'll see what he says. Penguins!

-Anne

Of Cons and Snow Storms

Yeah, I know. Another span of no updates. I'm working on stuff, I swear, though much of it is pencil/pen and paper. And I have this nasty habit of not thinking of scanning it until after everyone in the house has gone to bed. T___T

However, I started following this blog and I've decided that I definitely don't draw enough. This guy creates amazing "speed paints" by the hour while I'm sitting around wasting my day, getting distracted by Facebook, DA, TV, etc. Well, that is, I need to find a balance that includes more drawing, while also maintaining my exercise and cooking time.


That.... is totally not me.
>.> <.< >.>
Totally.

I'll have an update on that penguin sketch thing soon--I totally promise. I finished the digital line art already, but I'm really want to have more done before I post.

Back to "Work"

This is why I will never work from home.

One month after saying I was going to start posting weekly I've finally returned with art to post. Sure, I could blame spending 3 weeks at home/on vacation, but that really wouldn't be true. I'm just terrible at focusing on work outside of a workspace. Thankfully I was finally able to kick my own butt and get cooking on some projects, but I never want to do this again.


First of all, this is a drawing of another person's work of art! I found this picture on DeviantArt, and was inspired to practice drawing with texture. Makeup fascinates me, especially textured makeup, and I would really like to draw some more interesting faces covered in... stuff. Maybe I should have a mini-Halloween celebration and get "dolled" up to draw some self portraits.


A friend of mine, after seeing my first comic page, decided he would like me to make a present for a friend of his. After some discussion and some doodling on my part, this first draft came to life. Oh, and this just in via text message: he likes it!

I never thought drawing on a request basis would be difficult, but did I ever underestimate the pressure level. You want to make people happy, but inspiration is a fickle jerk that comes and goes as it pleases.

Time to make some adjustments and figure out some details! Ta!

-Anne

Presentation Complete

Play the 2D beta version of 3Deception Studios' project game and let us know what you think! The downloadable version is available here.



It's been a busy week. I slept 14 hours Friday night in addition to taking it easy all weekend, and I'm still battling going back to bed right now. All of us at 3Deception Studios had our final presentation this past Friday, which we plan to post on our website ASAP and would love some critique on. We will also post the game trailer that premiered at the presentation, which deserves more views since Andrew put a lot of effort into making it.

In other news, I was pretty much finished with it before, but I finally got my first comic to a point I am happy with. Check it out!


Now all it needs is a storyline, a title, some supporting characters, a website to post it on, and years of improvement to make it worth reading. Ha... ha.......... Hooboy. Well, okay I have a few ideas about the story already sketched out. Does that squirt remind anyone of a fluffy, adorable kitten?


The good news is, what I hoped would happen did: when I get spare time or my mind wanders I draw ideas for this comic. Although... I should prolly start working on those sketches for that grad program.

Yeah, you heard me. I know I said I wasn't going to do it, but then I also said I would never to web/advertising art and I've already applied for some of those jobs. It turns out some grad programs don't sound half bad, especially those in video game art and illustration. In fact, some of these programs look really cool. Expensive, but cool.

I think that's about it. Still working on that post-graduation job/internship/project, so any suggestions would be appreciated.

Anne