Fartbook BBQ

Uhhh

2012-01-28T16:39:00.000-08:00

drawling from Concept Club last night. I I was going to work on this much more, but I think I'll just move on for now. Concept Club was a really nice kick in the butt yesterday and has helped me start thinking about "what I'm drawing and why" again. So thanks for the insightful convo's urrybody!

I can no longer expect to have a great piece, or a piece I am happy with every time. The important thing is learning something from the pieces and using that knowledge in the next piece. I think expectations can be a very deadly thing if you let them control your art the majority of the time. So something that I will be trying to keep in mind is to just simplify if I don't understand something, and try to learn from it. If I worry about what other people think, or how far away from my goals I am, my progress will slow.

Elena

2012-01-21T01:14:00.000-08:00

This is a fanart of my buddy Reggie's character from his webcomic David-PR

So this is a re-occuring character Elena I created in college. She is a magic based character that makes it her life journey to learn magic from the camps and cultures she travels to. She eventually dabbles in some very dark magic which eventually begins to corrupt her. This is just a quick sketch of her beginning to experience some of this darkness.

Yes yes..another hooded char...no clue what my fascination with that is other than adding a level of mystery to characters. In all fairness though, she was originally designed with a hood

Also while you are surfing the interwebs, go check out my buddy DarkHalo's latest album: A Million Drops. Be warned, this is a highly addictive album and you will find yourself craving to hear the sweet ambiance of this terrific release. Go check it out on soundcloud, or download it. Also if you'd like to read more about it, go peep my friend Irene's great article on it.

Lunch Study

2012-01-13T18:24:00.000-08:00

Did this as a lunch study. I worked on it after work a bit more. I tried to intentionally be mindful of my brush strokes, and the lighting/value shifts of things. The cloth turned out decent, but I am still rusty with that junk. I am also trying to become more aware of my value ranges. The photo I studied from was found in Mjranum's gallery. Happy weekend all!

Vamp Hunter

2012-01-13T01:29:00.000-08:00

Just some lunch time doodles, working on fleshing out a vampire hunter for shits and giggles. The toys and things will be fleshed out a bit later, for now just having fun exploring different character types with a standard style body. The stories for each variation is floating around my noggin, and developing as I go, but for the most part I am trying to include some subtle ideas of him being very cautious about his neck urrrrea.

Sketchbook

2011-11-30T15:21:00.001-08:00

remember when I used to sketch all the time and upload stuff? yea that was forever ago. So here goes some stuff thats been in my neglected sketchbook.

Attack the Block

2011-11-08T09:51:00.000-08:00

Another one of those lunch time sketches with some work at home. Two weeks after watching the Attack the Block, I randomly started listening to the sound track. I was looking for some good jams to paint to, and I remember the mood from the movie had this fun, modern, serious vibe if that makes any sense. From what I could recall it had a bit more of a "thickness" than the Drive OST. I pulled it up and was working on a different lunch time doodle, which I should be posting up soon, and then immediately started sketching this one out.

What was fun about this one that made it different was that I was inspired by my boy Kalen Chock, and his planned method he used when livestreaming this latest Halloween piece. He planned for things ahead instead of rushing headfirst into the piece, and tripping on it like I do the majority of the time. I tried to think more of my process and went back to a more fundamental approach. I found things being easier to work on and modify. I could keep things a bit clearer, and better organized. This would have provided me with more flexibility if I so chose. I also got to experiment with different poses for the characters, and also got to see what they looked like when they occupied different parts of the screen. It was great to get back into that sort of mindset, where as of late I was getting attached to my pieces right from the get go.

A quick and loose sketch where I drew each character onto their own layer, accompanied by a fill layer underneath.
I begin to use that fill layer as a mask to begin choosing my colors and laying them in.
I add some shading and some quick light sources. A 2 pt scheme with a warm and a cool back lighting. I start thinking about how the shadows and things are going to add a bit more drama. I usually try to include the face, and so I won't turn heads at specific angles. I used this as a way to start making conscious decisions against that. My 2nd favorite character is actually turned away from the camera so it doesn't seem so posed.
Things were rendered and defined a bit more, as well as the mood, and angle pushed slightly more. I wanted to keep this quick, and so I had to fight myself from going in and rendering everything.

The tunes...

The trailer...

Batch of old and new

2011-11-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

Just cleaning out some old drawings and paintings and thought I would post em up. Some of these are a bit more recent but I dont think I will be working on them anymore, so lets get em high for people to see. It's weird how during the years I have held on to old paintings that I think I am going to finish, and stunt my own growth by not proceeding. Shit if I've done it once, I can do it again, better possibly the next time. This is my attempt at sorting my thought process out with that and moving forward instead of holding on to old ideas...gotta make room for the new ones!

Anyone else encounter this type of mindset or problems?

Spreading the Word!

2011-11-01T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well many of my art friends have been doing some great things lately, so I figured I would put together a post and point some people in their directions since I think sharing forward movements in art like this is a very important thing.

Today I got to catch my buddy Kalen livestreaming today. So if you want to see the awesome Halloween piece he busted out today, you can peep it and the process here.

Secondly some friends from work have started a 7 day trial of consecutive daily posts. They are doing a piece a day, so go check their marathon of madness at the following links.

And also my friend Reggie Roquemore, better known as Point-Alpha just launched his first web manga David. He has been working on this for a while and its great to see him put so much hard work, dedication, and passion into this. I personally find sequential art like this so incredibly difficult, and he did an awesome job. Go peep it!

Well I hope you enjoy and in an upcoming livestream I will be discussing some interesting art topics such as crutches, habits, and artistic decisions. I hope everyone had a happy Halloween!

Gunner Bot

2011-11-01T03:19:00.000-07:00

Just a little exercise piece to try to break the normal proportions of characters. My actual time to draw has been super scarce as of late, and when I sit down I am playing catch up, and it takes me longer to warm up. I end up drawing the same thing over and over, formulaic if you will. This is very discouraging, since I feel that there is more growth for me to have and I am not experimenting enough like I did a few years ago, and even more so years before that. So this was done mostly using a flat brush, and just trying to break habits, and it was quite refreshing if I do say so myself. It's great that a quick lunch doodle can feel so good :D

The shapes are basic, and I had to struggle a bit to leave them that way, since blocks and cylinders aren't really all that interesting. Sometimes you got to get the boring out, cause it's blocking the way of the interesting.

ghhdefg

2011-10-14T10:09:00.000-07:00

Have you ever started working on a piece, forgot to save it, and then when you remembered you just type anything so that you can get back to painting?

"ghhdefg"

Jon Snow

2011-10-13T02:10:00.001-07:00

*Gasp* I am alive still! It has been a while since I have update jack. I have just been keeping busy with life, and am trying to gear my free time more towards art again, and try to use some new inspirations to drive myself forward. It felt like I was stuck in neutral for a while an now its time to build up some steam. Here is a long overdue Game of Thrones fan art. I posted the WIP a little while back, and I don't feel like too much has changed since then.

I have been thinking that I just need to start posting more work, regardless if I deem it complete or whatnot. The fact is that I haven't been posting much, an I have been keeping myself from doing so since I felt like the pieces weren't up to par. I just wanted to hold on to them and work on them until they would be worthy and presentable. Well this mind set seems a bit incomplete, and I can't help but think of all of the great things I learned from Marshall Vandruff's workshop that I am not putting to use. Well hopefully you will be seeing some more stuff, and I hope that I can set aside more time to draw :D

Recent Pixelage

2011-09-06T10:14:00.000-07:00

Woo it has been a bit. I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend, and got nice and BBQed up. I know I did, we had some friends over and got to try out a game called "Bang" which is like a card game reincarnation of Mafia apparently. Good fun, and good company :D Anyhow here some of the latest pieces I have just completed:

BW Sketchy Girl

2011-08-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

Finding my way to get back into the swing of things. I wanted to do a little sketch n chat tonight on live stream and here was the results. Its been a while since I have just mindlessly done something like this, and it was great to chat a little with old and new friends who have inspired my life so greatly. Shoutouts to all you who made it out!

I dont know what

2011-07-06T00:44:00.000-07:00

Just a sketch from tonights stream

John Snow

2011-06-02T02:24:00.000-07:00

*NOT A SPOILER AT LEAST I DONT THINK*

Don't tell me either way

Here goes a Game of Thrones fan art WIP I have been futzing around with. I don't know what happens and I don't want to unintentionally spoil anything. So this is a small scene in my head that I don't know if it actually happens or not. We find Jon and Ghost are beyond the wall and suddenly they have some blue eyed company.

I have begun to get a better understanding of composition and how to push my work to be more artistic, interesting, work as a piece and more intentional thanks to a life changing workshop I took over at the CDA from the great Marshall Vandruff. Before the workshop I was working on the top version, and shortly after...one night I had a moment to paint and got to rework the piece into the bottom rendition. Still a little bit to go, but I am liking it a whole lot more :D

CHOW 246

2011-05-28T11:48:00.000-07:00

I got down on CHOW this week. Here goes my Archangel :D

<3s if you go and support me when the polls open, it should open up tomorrow!

Doodles for the night

2011-05-17T02:15:00.000-07:00

Some mindless doodles. Homeboy looked more butch, but I messed around with a more eastern appealing face after. I realized that I need to get my face proportions and planes in check for this type of stuff.

Costume Life Painting

2011-05-15T17:38:00.000-07:00

We had a special treat and got a 2hr pose this week from an awesome model. I brought my laptop with me this time and got to try my hand at "Life Digital Painting" it was alot of fun, and makes you think about so much more than just shape, lighting, color, and all this is a ton to think about in a suprising short amount of time. This morning I was still on the kick so I pulled up a photo from mjranum-stock and did a quick exercise.

Enviro Exercise

2011-05-11T11:17:00.000-07:00

Some bg practice...I think Ill have to work more on perspective and some day/night scenes as well...or perhaps interiors...GWAH! too much to do!

QDF - Burton

2011-05-06T14:20:00.001-07:00

So at work every Friday we have a quick 1 hour speed paint session during our lunch break. Here is what I came up with.

CHOW WIP + Sketchbook Nonsensticles

2011-05-04T02:34:00.000-07:00

So here are a few sketches for CHOW# 243 : War of the Magi. I am running with this Death (Dark) Magi style. I have a few ideas I want to get down. I like the general direction these are heading. The chick has some plainness, and I definitely need to push her costume design a bit more. This is my first time running with the CHOW folk, so lets just see how it all pans out. So far I am liking it. Also here goes what I've been up to in my sketchbook as of late.

So this past weekend I had some good times with some friends, and had some complete days. Overall it was just a great weekend and towards the end of Sunday, some nostalgia of younger me began to creep up on me. It was and interesting experience, and I was reminded of who I was, how far I've come, and how I've changed, and how much further I have to go. I took this past Sunday as a nice lesson on how pleasant things can be and how surrounding yourself with the right people can really add a richness to life. So now I'll just leave you with this video of this guy who has never seen this sheet music, and is a badass, but more importantly, just loves doing what he does. LOOK AT THEM FINGERS FLY!

Paint Dookay

2011-04-22T10:21:00.000-07:00

Just a mini dump of some stuff I never uploaded

Drachen, Siya, and Ricben

2011-04-17T16:33:00.000-07:00

A 3 character commission of Drachen, Siya, and Ricben getting ready to handle business. Drachen is reading a scroll while Ricben listens in.

Skull Face

2011-04-12T02:32:00.000-07:00

Quick doodle taken from my sketchbook and plopped in the computer to paint up. Its been a while since I've scanned anything. I hope you laiiiiii~

Quick Draw Friday - Space Cowboy + Tron (update)

2011-04-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

Lunchtime Quick Draw Friday time! Topic was Space Cowboy

and last weeks was movie poster remake:

Collab Craziness!

2011-04-07T23:54:00.000-07:00

So as of late Rejean and Kayo have come back to the states from Japan. We have been hanging out, and I thought it would awesome to have RJ be a guest on my livestream and we could do a collab. Without thinking about things too much and just naturally letting them develop, we ended up with this:

We both had lots of fun working on it, and enjoyed the chat and whole experience. We got to really make new art decisions, because we have such different workflows and we had to adapt to this very organic and alive process of switching back and forth. Hopefully we well get a chance to finish this up before he heads back to Japan.

On another collaboration note, me and Crazy Spork I Am started a collab last year, and had some help from Kirby UFO as well. This was my take on her famed Nurse Lacey character, and we had a similar back and forth process but online. The disadvantage to that is we didn't get to see the actual changes being made, only got to see the image after the fact. Still was a very fun and different process due to artistic decisions out of my control and giving me a great piece to continue working on. Here is Nurse Lacey in all of her seductive glory:

Art Dumpage

2011-03-09T04:06:00.000-08:00

Heres some old some new, lets kick it off with some studies.

Livestreamed this, I will probably return to this later, perhaps when my comp doesnt bsod and the tablet drivers dont bunk out randomly.

...and finally my first idea for the DarkStalkers art tribute book. I found this again in my archives and realized I hadnt posted it. When I first was working on this I was really unhappy with the results, but now I'm kinda diggin it and may revisit it at some point in time.

thrill me

2011-03-04T08:58:00.001-08:00

Don't you hate it when you lose your high res? I just finished this one off at actual size, hope you like it! Behold! Boob glow!

Commission batch for GCG

2011-03-03T03:39:00.000-08:00

Okay this batch took way too long. Too much stuff happened between working on this and it just got put on the back burner for a while. I am happy they are finally done, and I can continue through the rest of my list I have from 2010 xO

Work Notepad Sketches

2011-03-02T00:23:00.000-08:00

So I am still alive, still very busy, but making more time for arting :D I dont have things finished, but I thought I should post up some old sketches from my notepad at work. Return of the lined paper, wut wut!

Mechrap

2011-02-07T00:10:00.001-08:00

I ran into all sorts of issues with this one, however I received some helpful advice to my livestream watchers and it ended up a bit better than I thought it would. I attempted some stuff and learned a little. I'll have to find a way to isolate my weaknesses and work on them one at a time instead of tackling a few at once. I'm just glad I got some painting in, thanks again to my audience, I will not be coughing while streaming soon enough :D

BOLD Livestream

2011-02-02T00:08:00.001-08:00

Thanks to everyone who came out and made my first live stream in a while tons of fun. Here she is, Bold. The monocle wearing chick. I had tons of fun guys and sorry for stratling you all with my coughs into the mic.

Zodiac

2011-01-19T02:33:00.000-08:00

An old scrap. A jam I did with Tongman one night over skype. We decided the topic to be a Zodiac Warrior. Which after some fussing with, I just ended up turning into a Sci Fi book cover. 1 Hour jam. I didn't finish, but im most likely not going to revisit this anytime soon. Enjoy :D

Study from last week

2011-01-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

Here is a hour study from last week. Just a reminder to myself to keep doing stuff like this.

Dream + Zombie Killers

2011-01-06T03:01:00.001-08:00

Tuesday night I knocked out after making and stuffing my face with a delicious dinner. I passed out and had this crazy dream of this epic fight between this King who came to rule a kingdom through DBZ like strength, and his wifes guardian Wolf. The only person who won't listen to him is his own wife, and so in the scene he is yelling out to her while the wolf is perched up on the roof tops ready to defend his master.

I picked up L4D2 on Steam's black friday sale, and it totally fed my Zombie craze. That week I did some fan art, and these turned out crazy better than my Mass Effect 2 marker ones which have yet to be posted.

Unused Perfume Art

2010-12-23T14:55:00.000-08:00

Just something really quick, I have a bunch of art I need to post, but in the mean time here is a quick unused design for a Perfume Label. I had fun drawing this last night, and it made me approach things a bit different. I havent thunk about fluid lines like this since Caricature class back in school.

I hope everyone is having a safe and happy set of holidays. See you all next year!

Character Forge Submission: Iron Crutch Li

2010-11-16T23:52:00.001-08:00

This is my first time competing in one of these. I didnt get a chance to spend as much time on this as I wanted to. However what time I did spend on it, I made sure I had fun and stayed loose and with purpose. This is my robo humanoid take on Iron Crutch Li, one of the Eight Immortals.
You can go and check out the other submissions here.

2010-11-16T14:26:00.001-08:00

Did a quick 1 hour study for the day. It's been a while and I felt like this was a great exercise for my eyes. I was noticing bigger shapes, and then subtle value shifts. Some stuff was hard to translate down, but thats exactly why I need to do more of these. You can also check the progress of this here:

Watch live streaming video from failstar at livestream.com

Halloween Cosplay

2010-11-15T12:41:00.002-08:00

So for halloween this year I did some cosplay ish. I went as Yun from SF3 Third Strike. Here is my progress shots and final result. Also I would like to thank my co workers for helping me out with this, and I would not have been able to complete everything without their help.

The very first thing I did was bought cloth and cut it based off of a pattern for a vest. I planned for the front of the vest to be closed, and just have it more of a slip on style functionality.

I ran into trouble doing the hat, I went through two, and found that fabric paint in the soft can form is just horrible unless you are planning on using only one color. My first go I thought was going to be a success after masking off the top. It ended up bleeding and didnt work out.

Attempt #2 Masked off the hat with Duct Tape and a plastic bag, before hitting it with an actual air brush and fabric paint. No more crappy soft spray fabric paint.

I made the patch on the hat out of some foam sheet I got from Michaels. I just hit it with some prisma colors and they tended to smudge a lot since I didnt wait very long to wait for the ink to dry. A fixative is definitely recommended for this process.

After remasking the hat, dying the other side, and completing the patch, and sewing it on, I am pretty pleased with the hat. The old one I tried saving with some spray paint, but even that couldnt cover up the bleeding. The original color of the dye I had is showing on the button on the mistake hat.

These arm sleeves were pretty much the first things I have sewn. I bought some elbow spandex gloves and cut out the appropriate fingers. I sewed the edges so that the spandex wouldnt fray.

and a close up...

By this time the jacket is begining to come together and the collar is attached and looking pretty bad ass.

I found a frog button pattern online, but figured that the over all look I wanted was a bit more clean, so I made some fake frog buttons out of the blue trim used for the collar. I was over sewing at this point. But the vest is pretty much complete.

Due to trying to keep the idea of a budget and time, I just picked up some $6 XL sweats from target ,threw on my adidas, picked up some long black hair extensions to make the braid, and called it a day. Eventually I will pick up the baggy kung fu pants and some kung fu shoes that look pretty damn close to what Yun wears.

A quick shave and...

Overall it was a really fun experience, and I was really enjoying how crafty you can get with projects like these.

Lifedrawing Doo Doo Dump

2010-11-09T12:55:00.000-08:00

We have started doing some bi weekly life drawing at work. Here are some of mine:

Also I have been watching this today, and I found he has some good tips and advice outside of his caricature tutorial: http://blip.tv/file/2594875

KOF Clark Fantasy Remix

2010-10-10T21:22:00.001-07:00

So me and Andre decided to do a jam today. The topic was suggested was King of Fighters, which we threw a fantasy twist on as we went along. I chose Clark as a Dragon Wrestler.

Commissions

2010-09-15T11:04:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the long absence, irl has been getting crazy! On top of the madness, I just got a new puppy. World, meet Houdini!

He's one of the chillest dogs I have seen, and spends tons of time sleeping on my desk as I personal work/game. I should be posting some new work as I adjust to my new schedule!

Quick Draw Friday Batch

2010-07-30T19:21:00.001-07:00

So at work every Friday we have a quick 1 hour speed paint session during our lunch break. Here is what I came up with for the past couple of weeks.

Cosplay

Wild West

I think I will work on this one a bit more later and bring it to a presentable level.

Thanks for looking!

Commission + Pchat Session

2010-07-22T02:28:00.001-07:00

A recent bust commission of Michiko Hachin wearing Kamina's glasses. Cross over fun!

I got to try paint chatting tonight. Space man was my warm up, and then I tried painting Tong's lines as he drew them, fun stuff. I need to find out how to make pchat less choppy. The stylus feels really chunky, and non responsive at random intervals. It definitely doesn't feel as smooth as any painting program I have used before, including microsoft paint D:

Live Streaming Luli Loli part 2

2010-07-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

Further progress from last nights session. We had a good turn out tonight, and I want to thank everyone again for all the support and feedback. You guys are helping me learn, and hopefully am helpful to you as well. When I am finished with this I will post some close ups or something. A book I mentioned towards the closing of the stream can be found here: 100 Ways to Motivate Yourself
It's a nice collections of short lessons or mindsets that you can try and apply to your life if you are feeling like you need a little extra push, or want a more optimistic outlook on things..I personally enjoy it, and suggest you at least give it 5 or 10 minutes of your time. The author is also the speaker (I have the audio book) and sounds a bit funky at first...but if you can get past that, there are some gems in here.

Live Streaming Luli Loli

2010-07-19T02:29:00.000-07:00

So here is a WIP of a Gray Scale to Color demo that I am doing over on my livestream found here. This is my progress so far, I still have a few minor things to touch up and finish. I will be continuing this demo tomorrow night at midnight PST. Come on in and hang out :D All of the feedback I get while drawing helps out tons, and you guys can be a fun crowd!! Looking forward to tomorrows session.

Quick Draw Friday cont. again

2010-07-16T13:31:00.000-07:00

Here are the last couple weeks Quick Draw Fridays.
DINORIDERS!

Day of the Dead

Livestream

2010-07-16T02:18:00.000-07:00

Demo'd a after work sketch I finished today. The paint is still WIP, and I gotta get faster at this stuff. But here goes the progress so far. This will probably be finished some time later. Other things have priority right now. Thanks to everyone who stopped by and asked questions :D

You can check out the livestream progress here.

Most of the major issues are still there, I need to get this chick balanceddddd

Michiko Commission WIP

2010-07-13T02:58:00.000-07:00

This is the progression of a commission I am working on. I am struggling with this tanner skin tone in the sun. I keep getting a good color going and then add this bleached out highlight tone above it which just lightens everything, and losing that richness. For reference of the char google: "Michiko". Kinda chipping away and making small changes to the other WIPs I posted earlier, and will post more progress as soon as it becomes a bit more significant.

Quick Draw Friday 7

2010-07-03T13:19:00.000-07:00

I've been unable to participate in the last couple Quick Draw Fridays at work, but this is my latest from yesterday. Vampires, with specific instructions not to make bedazzled bloodsuckers. I went for some Castlevania fan art, and hit up Lord Dracula. The only vamp that can pull of a gotee and not look so sleezy. More work coming up soon.

Oh and heres the vid progress of the WIP from my last post:

Watch live streaming video from failstar at livestream.com

Lean wit it Rock wit it

2010-06-30T02:24:00.001-07:00

Here is something I drew at starbucks today and then proceeded to start painting at home. Kinda fun to just let loose. Its a nostalgic feeling I must say. Lately the weight of having to "finish something good" has been a mental star destroyer which casts this fatty shadow over everything I draw. Its nice to break out of that a bit.

Some recent sketches from the good ol fart book. I used to live in this book and until recently, it hasnt been getting much love.

*Note: there is a Janaschi and Jeff K Simpson study in there. Lately noses have been on the mind and I was trying to figure out how they handled them.*

Commissions + Chick Tat WIP

2010-06-29T01:43:00.001-07:00

Here are my latest quick pencil commissions, these I generally try to keep pretty quick. I tend to add tones since my sketches are feeling a bit more rushed lately. I still sit down and spend time in my sketch book but its getting easier and easier to get distracted. I am going to remedy this by leaving the house to draw to isolate myself from the interwebs and ps3.

*note: I dont remember where I got the photo for the bats bg, but just throwing it out there as to not take credit for it*

This is just a painting I have been messing with after work. I have never painted up a sexy type chick so I decided to mess around with this one before I jump into it. Trying to get my blending down and introduction of more colors. It has been a while since I jumped straight into color and instantly pleased with the lack of greys and dead colors. Still chipping away at this and finding myself needing to reference things. Any feedback is welcome!

Drake Commission

2010-06-12T19:29:00.000-07:00

My latest color bust commission. I took way too long on this :(

Quick Draw Friday cont.

2010-06-11T18:47:00.000-07:00

So I haven't decided whether I should upload these in batches or in singular form. This one is fresh off the presses. I just picked up Peace Walker and am playing Snake Eater at home, so when the topic: "Game Hero" came up, Snake CQCed my brain. 1 Hour and massive hunger, but no snakes or frogs around for me to snack on.

Quick Draw Friday Batch

2010-06-05T00:57:00.000-07:00

So at work every Friday we have a quick 1 hour speed paint session during our lunch break. Here is what I came up with the past couple of weeks.

Chick Studies

2010-05-30T14:26:00.001-07:00

Just decided to do some face studies of some girls. I also tried to exercise the use of big brush strokes to define the form. I limited myself to one brush which was rectangular and tried to see what I could do with it. It was interesting cause I had to fight myself on certain parts and just let some details go.

Diggin through boxes

2010-05-24T02:17:00.000-07:00

So I was digging through some old bags and boxes of materials I had left over from school a while back and decided to use the materials I once deemed as pointless, and put them to use for a nice little painting practice session. Luckily I had just enough of the supplies to mess with, all except a white acrylic. It was like cement inside the tube, so I just tried to make it more playable by kneading it between my fingers. Here is a quick practice painting, multi media ftw! Oh also I tried using some of my digital techniques on the traditional. I started from gray scale and tried to colorize that ish. Some funky white, and no black was used for this.

2nd Commission

2010-05-13T01:13:00.000-07:00

Wew...I started this a while back, but got caught up at work a lot shortly after. I struggled through, and felt like I lost tons of steam during the break away from this. I tried to tackle a few different things, and found a nice way to achieve a vignette look I was happy with. The client was super patient during the wait and I can't thank him enough.

First Color Commission!

2010-04-19T23:47:00.000-07:00

Lately I have started taking color commissions to try to get myself a bit more comfortable with illustration. I am trying to take my art further, and work a bit smarter so that I can squeeze in a bit more polish. At the same time attempting different lighting situations, introducing unique materials and just try to explore different takes on a piece. This is my first finished one:

WIP it good!

2010-04-15T22:40:00.000-07:00

Here are some WIP's im working on. My blog feels neglected, and my dA even more so. So heres a lil sumthin sumthin:

This is a collab I am working on with the talented Crazy Spork I Am. It is one of her OC's.

This is a color bust commission I am working on.

2010-04-12T00:53:00.000-07:00

Some location life drawing from the weekend. Food courts are awesome! Graphite sniper strikes again...muhaha

2010-04-07T16:23:00.001-07:00

Okay so here goes a peice that has been collecting dust through the new year. Time to get rid of it since I am not going to work on it anymore.

Initially The guy on in the foreground was the focus, and then I decided that I wanted to open it up a bit more and actually have something going on. As I continued, I wanted there to be this robo threat. I could have added more depth by knocking the structure in the back in the env. I cant help but see all these things I could do which is why I held on the this for a while. Instead of polishing poo, I will post and learn from it.

2010-03-30T03:36:00.001-07:00

First off big thanks to Andre for helping out with it! Here is my first CD cover. I ran into issues, and tried what I could to make it my own since it was based off a scene/screen cap from the movie Metropolis.

In the end, my friend was staying with me, watched me paint it, and be all zoomed 600% n shit, and then was like..."so thats a CD cover huh? Isnt it only going to be like this big?" *hand gesture to approximately the size of a cd cover* I zoomed out and was like "Awww shit!" live and learn. I could have gestured in a lot of the detail, and just spent time on the important parts. Plus all the parts I wanted to concentrate on, you wont even see. There is always next time.

Note: Looking at the two, the composition and contrast is so much greater in the movie. Damn...I should have had this up as reference more....

2010-03-27T12:58:00.001-07:00

Just a new technique practice. I kept everything pretty damn rough, and found a pretty nifty workflow that utilizes some of Adam Hughes technique. It simplifies things, and helps me think of the properties of shadows. I thought of HTK when I was doing the shadows on the skin, since he likes his greys.

I also got to mess a bit and see how it would look with a white base color. I separated everything on different layers, so it made it a bit tedious, but there is a cool look to it. The power of clipping masks help make this so much easier though. This method is so very flexible, and sets it up nice for concepts, since changes can be made on the fly, even line work can be changed, and then the color layers can simply be modded to follow the new work. (originally she was wearing a sweatshirt cut off)

This would help me setup everything I would need for a painting, or if I just wanted to leave it colored. It was weird, I had an itch to start painting, even before I had the legs colored. I fought it and tried to push through and just see what I could do without painting. The line work is another element which could be painted, or I could even Adam Hughes it, and start detailing stuff in inks.

Anywho, just throwing it out there.

Break

2010-03-24T20:55:00.000-07:00

Just some doo doo. It started out as a 15 min sketch I did as a break from work, and then after work was done, I put another 45 min on it. Its nice to play, and think less about junk. Just a nice quickie!

Shatty shatty bang bang!

2010-03-23T03:26:00.001-07:00

After a terribly busy day, I returned home to get some me time going. I sat down, setup this still life display and started painting. It feels great to have my computer be reliable again, and not crap out whilst streaming. It's been a little bit since my last study, and I feel shitty about that. While I was doing this, I could see what that short break from this type of thing can do, MAKE IT WAAAYY MORE DIFFICULT. anyhow here is another small stepping stone of a study. You can watch the progress on http://www.livestream.com/failstar if you are so inclined.

Shinku....

2010-03-10T23:14:00.001-08:00

Tonights study. I got the mannequin head from CrazySporkIAm while visiting her and darkhalo. I decided to finally kick my ass into a study tonight. I have been all over the place as of late, and its nice to sit and just kick back painting.

Streaming

2010-03-02T01:14:00.000-08:00

So I did a longer stream tonight, you can watch it on my livestream, found here. It was a pretty good experience overall, and I really appreciate the support of my friends and fans that came out. Heres what I was working on until I slowly deteriorated into tiredness. I will definitely be doing more streams, and will try to find better hours to work in.

EDIT: here is the blog I mentioned in the stream: http://www.colourlovers.com/blog/

Here is where I stopped tonight:

Failstalkers 2010

2010-02-28T13:23:00.000-08:00

Hey Hey all,
So I just recently picked up my sweet new tablet PC. I was kinda in limbo figuring out if I should pick one up now, or wait for later this year or next. I think 2010 is going to be the year of a whole new wave of tablet PCs. Anyhow, I found a sweet deal on craigslist, and hot damn...I'm loving it.

I decided to give my unsubmitted Failstalkers piece for the Dark Stalkers Tribute Book another go. I was really unhappy with it. This new one was a step closer, and more of a test for myself to see if I could push a few things on it. So I started working on it on my new tablet PC :D and just worked on it here and there.

Im Super Turnt Up!

2010-02-26T15:30:00.001-08:00

So here are some studies from earlier this year. I have been a bit out of it for a little bit now, just swamped with work and life, however am ready to hop right back in it. I decided to post these up and move on...gotta keep moving. IM SO TURNT UP RIGHT NOW!

Sunday Cleaning

2010-02-21T19:50:00.001-08:00

So recently I asked a co-worker to crit my shit. He suggested I draw characters from different angles since I trapped myself in the eye level shot (for concept purposes). Unknowingly I have refined my camera angles, where as before I used to play with them more. That night I went home and busted this out. I slapped some quick paints on, but haven't gone back to it yet. I don't know, I am kind of fond of that roughness.

Go check out his stuff: http://artdabbler.blogspot.com/

Originally wanted to get crazy buckwild on this thing, but I lost a lot of steam, and as opposed to sit there and polish poo, I decided to post it and move on. I learned what I have trouble with, working on this. And will have to come back at a later time and try to tackle something like this again.

This is how I feel about it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=arXMhMJbT0U

2010-02-18T00:46:00.000-08:00

Hey all, so here goes some stuff I was working on towards the end of the year/beginning of this year. I decided to clean up my sketches a little bit, and layout some stuff. Some of the characters I wasn't planning on sharing until they were painted up, but it looks like I am not going to get around to it. Too many bigger and better things to be working on :D

This will probably be end of my super scratchy style...I have been working on cleaning my lines up, and planning them out better so I am not consistantly going over the same line. Overall it should help me become a better artist since I am thinking about my stuff more, and not rushing through it.

Mess Head: You have seen him before in my first post, nothing is different.

Guaba: Just some girl I can throw down some fashion jyles on. Did this after I got back from Japan and saw all the damn cool clothes.

Bird Dagger Dood: I haven't named him yet, and am not super happy with his design, I feel his silhouette is pretty cool, and he would be a cool character type, but would definitely want to go back and refine his look. Plus alien birds that scream I need to learn how to draw birds dont really add much.

2010-02-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

Woo a lot of activity going on in the "ART" section of my spec tree. Currently I have been working on a few intense projects, and meanwhile been doing some commission work, and trying my best to cram studies in there as well. I just finished one major portion of my workload, and have found myself drawing in that newly found free time. Unfortunately its really scratchy rough stuff which is more just doodle diarrhea. I have been finding some very insightful videos that are great reminders of things, and can express what I feel, think about. I should have some art up soon, but until then:

Graphite Sniper

2010-02-01T11:15:00.000-08:00

Muahahaha. At one point in time my subjects were dropping what they were doing, and just would look right at me...kinda freaks me out. That baby had a hard stare.

Wolvie Sent

2010-01-26T22:25:00.000-08:00

Just a quick after dinner paint...I was sorting through some brushes and was just testing them out, when I decided to turn it into something. I deleted practically all of the brushes used in the process, haha. Just messing around with blending modes and funky color schemes.

Lauuuunchh!!

2010-01-19T13:10:00.000-08:00

Just a quickie at lunch. 30 min

Monkey Kang!

2010-01-12T21:29:00.000-08:00

Ok so YourFathersBelt and Jen Zee invited me to jam with them on the topic Monkey King! Here's my punkier version.

Blargh!

2010-01-11T00:31:00.000-08:00

Just posting up some stuff from the end of the year...time for some new work after these :D

Starburns

2009-09-30T01:26:00.001-07:00

Just another lunch time sketch. Trying to work on my paints sans blending layers and color shifts. Its been a bit since I've just straight up painted and chose my colors. I had fun with this one and tried to keep it nice and quick. Enjoy.

Pat.D

2009-09-17T02:02:00.000-07:00

Another piece to try to figure things out. My main concentration was to try to achieve softer blends. I also realized I need to go back and do some more cloth studies...I am forgetting things. I spent way too long on this and can now continue on...

Oh hay girl, HAY...LE

2009-09-08T23:04:00.001-07:00

So went to the OC Food fair the other day, and ended up in an antique shop looking at WWII memerobelia. looooo put on a german officers cap, as well as a soldiers and was straight up rocking it. I told her I would do a fan art, so I busted this during todays lunch and a bit after work. about 1.5 hours. I am not terribly happy with the pose, and will have to try this again sometime.

Reporting for Duty

2009-09-04T20:12:00.001-07:00

So this was supposed to be a lunch time sketch, but I ended up spending another 2 lunchtimes and some after hours time to bust this out. Trying to find some techniques n shat. HELP HE CANT REALLY TURN HIS HEAD!!!

Rising From the Darkness

2009-09-04T01:32:00.001-07:00

So here is my contribution to the Mysterious Journal of J.S. Lewis, which launched this August. I felt honored to be a part of the project, and even got a chance to meet and talk with him and his team at Comicon.

In other news, my friend dark halo just launched his latest album "Phase Shift" which he is releasing for free. If you are down with drum&bass, house, breaks, idm/experiment, and ambient hop on over and grab the album here, or stream/preview it here.

Smore!

2009-09-04T01:27:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. I have been trying to bust out more stuff. My sketchbook is getting more of the attention as of late. So here is a jam I busted with my buddy Codes. He wanted to do a character of one ethnicity that was fully submerged in another culture. I tried a little blending, but took it for the most part as one ethnicity dressed up as another. Here is my korean girl in a dashiki. wut wut bum bum ba waaaaayyyyyy~

Lauuuncchh

2009-08-20T01:31:00.000-07:00

So I ducked out of the normal KOF XII matches today to do a quick painting. I worked mostly then and then did some final touches after work. Just a little something something to post until I start wrapping up on a few more paintings I got going. I tried to keep the colors the whole time and avoided the bw method which I have began to grow accustomed to. practice practice practice. Gotta start speeding my junk up.

Bucky O Motruckin Hair

2009-08-04T11:17:00.000-07:00

So I was talking with some co workers about some old tv shows I watched when I was a younger version of the kid-man I am today. And I pulled up Bucky O Hare, we watched the intro and I immediately wanted to do fan art after seeing Blinky and Dead Eye Duck. Quick jam styles :D

Star Chick

2009-07-21T03:07:00.000-07:00

Just another chick drawing. Tried to use this as a warm up but ran into problems and ended up taking more time on it than intended. You can see the action in the live stream. I might go back and revisit this later, but for now I aint touching it no mo! ONWARD HOOOOO! Thanks to everyone who stopped by and watched as well :D

Enchanting Harp

2009-07-20T02:06:00.001-07:00

Okay so this was supposed to be quicker than it actually turned out to be. I keep running into issues with live stream bogging down my comp. I tried switching to normal streaming, and that seemed to fix some lag issues, I just know that it's all a bit unstable right now. Soon I will figure out a way for everything to run smoothly. This is just a quick speedie that I decided to do before bed. Just a practice peice, I dont feel like the comp is solid as well as alot of other things in here. The things I am worried about will mature over time and practice :D Just something a bit fantastical. Have a good night folks.

PS. I just got a new brush set and decided to explore it while painting. I normally stick to only a hand full of brushes, which all got deleted after my recent reformat. You can check out the brush set and a tutorial on how it was used here. Yang Xueguo achieved some really interesting looking strokes in photoshop. I didn't get a chance to read through and use them correctly, although I am sure they could be more powerful that way.

Mystic

2009-07-19T03:03:00.000-07:00

Here is a painting/sketch type thing I have been pushing around in my spare time the last couple of nights. Just some practice grounds for some paintingzzz. I wanted to keep a mood going in this one, so I kept it a bit darker. There are prolly better ways of going about this, and will have to experiment with it more.

FIRST!!1

2009-07-14T16:07:00.001-07:00

Ok so here is my first post for my brand spanking new cool kid crew blog. Gonna drop some more pencil doo doo down soon. Decided to step it up and start posting a bit more of my work and get some nice feedback and get more involved with the art community out there. Thanks for stopping by folks.