Fantasy Playground

I'm working on developing more structures for my portfolio and decided to start off with organic shapes. Rock formations, especially sandstone formations, were the main reference for these. I present to you my initial concepts for the ultimate climbable playground--all ages welcome:

Landscape Practice

Just a little landscape practice this week. Based on a amazing shot by photographer Vedrana Tafra.

Final Fish Designs and My First Sculpt

The final designs ready for modeling:

 I decided to hold off of Zbrush for a little bit. Instead,  I downloaded Pixologic's free sculpting software called Sculptris. From what I understand, the tools are basic tools are the same, but the navigation is a little easier, making it ideal for speed sculpting and as an introductory software. I found it very comfortable to use after making a little practice sculpt:

The auto-symmetry tool is especially wonderful. It cuts the sculpting time to less than half what it would be if I were to sculpt physically with clay or Sculpey. Unfortunately, there is a small limitation to the symmetry tool. It can't be applied after creating an asymmetrical detail to your sculpture. For now it won't be too tricky with all my creatures being symmetrical, unless I wanted to give one a really cool hairdo.

Here is the finished sculpt based off the first in my set of creature designs. I stayed as faithful as I could to the 2D design.

One thing I need to figure out is if Sculptris can render high-resolution images. I'm still working out the small details, but I can see the potential that the program has not just for creature and character design, but for illustration too.

Flying Fish 2.0

Here is a continuation of the designs from the previous week with a few more variations and more detail.

My next step will be picking one of each, refining detail, and then creating 3D models in Zbrush!

Fish Telephone

Silhouettes are a great starting point for character and creature designs, so I thought I would use them for a new series of flying fish-like animals that I'm developing.

Before I started these, I built up a little visual library by sketching out some bizarre sea creatures. Afterwards, I mapped out a couple blobs on my page, which gradually morphed into what you see here. I applied some characteristics of non-fish ocean-dwellers (whales, nudibranchs, shrimp,...) to make them more fantastical, but still believable.

I chose five different creatures from the initial set of silhouettes that I thought had the most potential and developed them further. For this particular creature, I focused on the head, making sure that the other parts of the body complemented its shape. The blue highlighted designs are ones I thought were strongest.

This particular design departed more than the others from its first silhouette. When one feature changes, it sometimes results in all of the other features undergoing a small change. Like the game of telephone, you might end up with something that resembles the original idea just vaguely.

With each additional design, I found that it helped to focus on a personality for each creature. After my 4th design, I wanted to make something more sinister to contrast with the others. Knowing the personality ahead of time for my last creature really informed the development of his fins, for example. Spiky, angular things read as hostile and aggressive for any creature design. But who knows? Maybe he's soft and cartilaginous on the inside. 

Caricature: Enon Kawatani

I'm not choosy when it comes to bands, but I think I have a new favorite by the name of Gesu no Kiwami Otome. Inspired by their serious skill and catchy tunes, I did a caricature of their lead vocalist, Enon Kawatani. 

It took several revisions, but I think I did Enon's hair justice in all its shining glory.

Bill & Maggie's Intergalactic Taxi Service

This past weekend I dropped by CTN Road trip and met some incredible artists. The Creative Talent Network hosts some great events and combined with SILA, I'll have no problem getting involved in the SoCal illustration community.

In other recent news, I finished up a movie poster illustration that I created for SCAD student Jonathan Leiter and his short film, Bill & Maggie's Intergalactic Taxi Service. It was a challenge both for me and my poor laptop, but we pulled through together! It's about time for an equipment upgrade...

You can learn more about the film and stay in-the-know for news on its release through their Facebook page.