Sketches: The Bow and the Rose

Woohoo. I've been debating for awhile if I should enter the Steampunk competition on CGTalk. Now, I finally have an idea - crafting a movie poster style piece using my old characters in a Steampunk setting.

Here are the head figures I draw which will adorn the frame-elements of the poster. The left picture is the test run, the right is the updated (after Ted's one sentence crit "needs moar gadgets"). Some still need work.


And here's the (horrible!) accompanying first-draft story I wrote.

Rant: They Don't Build Things LIke They Used To

It's about time I write something insightful. Before things turn sour, a quick shout-out to Jonny Cota from SkinGraft Designs. I'm loving the sleek new website. Easy to navigate, and I enjoy the focus on events. I still wish I could afford those clothes, though! (And wish I had the body to wear them... goddamn you, holiday weight gain!) Now, on topic...

I had the fortune of breaking my iPod recently. I also replaced the keyboard of my Dell Latitude two days ago. That's the third or fourth time I've had work done to my primary machine. Poor Phineas has been through an orange juice spill, the abrupt failure of a charger, the eventual fail of a battery, a short circuiting during shutdown, and the slow smoothing of the plastic on his keyboard. All in two and a half years. It's costing me a fortune. What's the point in having a warranty if it barely covers anything? It will cost $100 to repair the iPod which I got less than two months ago. This calls into question, though, not the nature of warranties (which, in my mind, are built to cover everything but what happens) or the nature of my klutziness, but the nature of design. Where are our principles taking us?

I had an interview yesterday at a certain empire-like corporation. That's right, Microsoft. The digs were nice - free food, laid back people, shuttles going everywhere, five-star hotel with incredibly attractive doorman. Seeing real pine trees was a plus for an east-coaster like myself. I think it went pretty well, and I learned as much about them as they did about me - and maybe a little more about this world as a whole.

I should clarify that I didn't interview for a programmer position. I went for "Program Manager" - the shortest way I can explain it is you design a feature within the program you're working on. Scheduling meetings and documentation are secondary. The key is you are a designer. For all twenty-odd classes I've taken at an Ivy League University the key, designer’s, "takeaway" is this: Know your consumer. While I agree, there is something to be said about the way human beings consume.

They consume an awful lot. An epidemic of obesity can't solely be blamed on hormonal imbalances. The number of people who won't turn off their computers overnight borders on - in my mind - ridiculous. A friend once told me she didn't eat meat because it was "inefficient." To make a cow, said cow must consume grain - let's say 500lbs of corn for a 100lb cow. A human can get 1000 calories by eating 1lb of corn or 1lb of cow. Why use an extra 499lbs of corn if a human being can attain the same energy from one? At first, I thought that was ridiculous, but now, I see her point.

What is the shelf-life of a computer? I feel this period is getting shorter and shorter. To my surprise, my old machines still chug along while I my newly-released laptop get fixed so often, it seems like it gets a check-up. My mother watches YouTube videos on a machine from the 90s. It's slow and loud but perfectly functional. Same goes for our color printer.

At Microsoft, they follow deadlines. A product need not be perfect as long as it caters to 80% of the market. Look at the latest Word - bold, italic, underline, all right there. But if you need letting or line height… good luck. In this case, the rule makes sense. Not too many people will care about line height. I mean, there's no Resume Formatters Union. But in the larger scope, should we have so many deadlines to begin with? Should we force ourselves to consume? It is a principle of technology business that once everyone else gets faster, you must get faster, too.

Our younger generation has become spoiled with instant gratification - cell phones, messengers, fast food, credit cards. But do we really need a new video game every month or a new computer every year? If we took the time with our development cycles, we could certainly make things last longer. Better yet, if we slowed down and took a look at the material culture around us, we could sort out what's important - what's 'new' and ‘fast’ versus what's actually 'good.'

Erik, Arik, Rich, Devindra, if you are reading this, it was fun talking with you guys and coming up with ideas. Thanks for the opportunity.

Art post soon. I drew a lot on my trip. :) The Puget Sound is a lovely area, by the by. Sitting next to crying babies on the plane is not-so-lovely.

Art: Chock Full of Cute Chicks

Wow, I actually have people following this. That kind of boggles me. Thank you, everyone! Anyhow, I have some real art updates today. This one is for an exchange over at CGHub that exploded past sketches into pieces somewhere between speedpaints and full works. Oh man, the talent on that site is such a motivator!


And this is a long, long, long overdue art trade for my friend on Gaia. I think her character is gorgeous. And she drew Gaspard Ulliel as my character for me in exchange. Admittedly, who doesn't love Gaspard?


And finally, this one is for Mekania in our Gaia Art Whore Guild winter exchange.


None of these were referenced, but I've been drawing people I know from life and taking a closer look at makeup in magazines. I like doing these portrait things. I really need to practice faces and painting. I hope to enter more exchanges soon! Or rather, I hope I have the time to!

Sketches: Centaur WIP II

Just an update on the centaur - now with cloth texture, grass and half-finished torso! I've been using a lot of reference photos and new brush sets. The goal is to make it good enough to submit to competitions.

Sketches: Centaur WIP

There is a long-standing joke about my friends and I turning our characters into centaurs. Or rather, just everyone turning my character into a centaur. So, I figured I'd do it myself. I tried to make life easier this time around with a series of initial sketches (which are un-scanned), and by doing some color comps.



Here's the WIP-roll, if you want to see my painting process. It was pretty much "get values down, add color, refine."





I'll start on the ground and figure tomorrow. Also, I updated my website, so I now have about 80% of the content up.

Art: Historical Exchange and Holly Secret Santa

This is late, but it's the historical costume exchange for a friend at Private Exchange. It's her character, Victoria, in Victorian children's clothing.

Early post, but no one is going to see this. This is for http://pchaness.deviantart.com. I didn't have much to go off of, but I figured no one dislikes a night in shining armor.

Sketches: A Murder of Crows

Here are some base sketches for my "A Murder of Crows" concept for Taron's "Natives of the Lifeless Forest" challenge. The idea is that a soldier crashes his plane in the forest (which is more like a swamp), dies of starvation, and gets picked apart by these crow-women. As with all things that rot, things begin to grow from his body - nasty things. The crows stand around 4' with stringy hair, and their pinkies are wing-like (so they look like they have many more joints than an arm should have). I can't decide if I want to give them all different haircuts or not.

Art: Horus

So, it's technically Rivek cosplaying as Horus, but who cares? Four months, but it's finally done. Color pencil, 12" x 18".

Sketches: Since Thanksgiving

So, it hasn't been a good semester. A lot of my grades were on the edges, between letters, and the coin flip fell on the not-so-good side because I'm a bad test taker. A friend also got into a bad accident and passed away last week. Buckling down means I haven't had time for posting much other than site critiques, which are required for class. Thanks to my friends who've been a great support during these times. Also, I think I might disappear for longer because my computer really needs repair - the touchpad's worn away and the down key isn't responsive, so navigating a browser is difficult. That said, I've bought a lot of stuff as a future investment in my art-ly education.

I've been working on some sketches, leftover commissions from September. This is from the contest I held. The character belongs to http://semiramis.deviantart.com/.


Cheap sketch commission for my friend http://mirrew.deviantart.com/.

Commission for an adorable couple from the New York Anime Festival.


Chibi commission from the New York Anime Festival. I like doing bright-colored, chubby chibis.


And just for kicks - here's a render from the raytracer which I had to do for my graphics programming class, my favorite challenging course this semester.


Later, Ill post some progress on Horus (yes, that age-old thing I've been doing since August), and my new labor of love, "A Murder of Crows" which is my entry for Taron's Natives of the Lifeless Forest" contest at CGHub.

Site Critique: Tokyopop

http://www.tokyopop.com

Tokyopop is an American publisher which specializes in ‘manga,’ Japanese comic books. Most of their sales come from translating popular Japanese series and selling them stateside. They also have published work by American artists who use the manga style. Only some of what they do actually shows through on their site because most of it is devoted to social networking around the series they publish. Tokyopop has become a “MySpace,” or more accurately, a “MangaSpace.”

The home page is crammed with update information from “New Releases” to the “Fan of the Day” to a “Top Manga” section. Some of these links are self-explanatory, but “Top Manga” is actually the highest voted user-written manga, not their top sellers. Otherwise, there is a main menu at the top, and a corporate information menu at the bottom. This system clearly focuses on the user-generated content. “Shop” is a small link at the end of the main menu. While the navigation never disappears, the categories can be vague. Submenus appear on rollover. While the manga section is nicely divided between “Tokyopop Titles” and “Fan-Created Titles,” the user section has “Creators,” “Fans,” “Revolutionaries,” and “Rising Stars.” Each series the company publishes has a user profile, which makes no sense because a manga series cannot be a website user.

As the viewer travels, the layout switches between one, two, and three columns. Boxes with rounded corners are used to divide content and sometimes lead to a cluttered feel. A site with so many graphics should rely more on negative space. Just like many other sites I have reviewed, the main color is red because it matches the robot fish logo. The font is black on white, easy to read but sometimes gets lost among the graphics.

I think the most effective selling tool is actually the manga previewer which lets you read chapters before you buy. Many people purchase manga based on artwork, so this is very enticing for people looking for new series. Also, it allows for quick and frequent updates. Also, their rating system is a convenient way to gather data and possibly locate talented American artists.

In all honesty, this site shows how badly some businesses can get caught up in technology trends. Not everything needs “social networking,” “Web 2.0,” “User-Generated Content.” A site about comic books does not need to host user videos. Despite all the activity the site gets, I expect a large portion of revenue is being lost simply because of the minimal product information.