Summer Commissions Ahoy

I know many people don't read this blog, so announcing that I'm doing summer commissions is pretty much pointless. However, I am going to put a paypal "buy" button here, so people can buy commissions from me right away.

EDIT: THE COMMISSIONS ARE NOW OVER!

Here are some examples of what people have commissioned.

Lightwave Reboot part 1

Recently, I've decided that I need to refresh my skills in Lightwave 3D. Back in the day, I used to use Lightwave 3.0 on the old Amiga Toaster 4000 to make reallly bad models and animation, but I excused alot of my crappiness because it was such a primitive program. Even so, I loved the program, and to this day have yet to be impressed by any other, Maya and 3DS Max included.

I stopped for two reasons. That Amiga broke down (which really didn't matter because I was able to get Lightwave 7.0 for my senior project in highschool) and (more importantly) I was informed by some artists far greater than myself that learning to draw is far more important than learning software. Once I was told this I began my journey learning how to draw in order to become better at making things in 3D. This was around 2003.

Along that path, I became distracted and I learned that I would never master traditional ideas completely but my effort had a more tangible result. Thus, I pretty much abandoned 3D.

However, every medium that I want to have a career in requires some knowledge of a 3D program and more and more I'm beginning to appreciate 3D programs as a kind of painting tool. Competent use of a 3D program requires the same knowledge I use in my painting, and while I may not be an expert in painting, I still want to see what I can create with these tools. So, I've decided to make making 3D models and scenes in to a hobby similar to my digital painting. A realm where I will continually try to make good looking images and animation.

I was an expert in Lightwave 3.0, but there have been quite a few changes over the years. They are all the way up to 9.0 I think. Well, I can't afford 9.0, but I still have my 7.0 copy and inside lightwave 7.0 by dan ablan. 7.0 has more than enough capabilities to cut my teeth on. However, even between 3.0 and 7.0 there are some major differences.

Thanks to those differences, I'm going to go through Inside Lightwave 7 a chapter a day. I'll do the tutorials and read all of the little things to make sure that I understand what I'm doing. I'm going to chronicle my journey here.

By the end of this summer, I plan to have at least two pieces of art created with Lightwave.\

Anyway, on to

Chapter 1

Chapter 1 was an introduction to Layout and Modeler. Most of it I already knew. The whole thing about how the hub connects Layout and Modeler is fucking awesome tho. That wasn't in 3.0. I also like the "hide the tool bar, and use shift+ctrl+ mouse click to access tool bars" I think that'll really streamline my process.

No projects though

Chapter 2

All about the surface menu. Functionality is pretty much the same since lightwave 3.0, but once again there are a few new features that are really cool. The whole thing about being able to use layers and layers of textures and being able to mix and match them in a manner similar to how photoshop uses layers just adds a whole new layer of depth.

I have to admit that the projects were a little boring, but gave a great introduction to the surfacing process. I know that the book gets in to UV mapping and THAT is what I'm really looking forward to.

Tutorial 1 taught how to add a basic texture, and some of the properties of color, gloss, and basic shit like that.

This tutorial taught how to use and edit images and create bump and specular maps.

This tutorial used the same process as the last one, but added the extra texture layer of a procedural and a gradient to give the surface a dirt swept look.

This shit is so basic it hurts, but I don't want to jump ahead to where I think I should be at, just incase I miss something or am totally wrong about where I should be at

Thumnail Sketches

Yes, another Kukaku piece. This is based on a panel I saw in the Manga. I saw it and thought "how the hell does she tie her top?" So even though I haven't drawn in the hand, that's what she'll be doing. (Plus this view helped me realize why I like Kukaku's outfit.... "easy access.")
This is just a cool image idea that I have no idea where I'm going with. I'm not sure if I'm going to make the figure on the horse a naked female, or an Atreyu looking guy (if you don't know who Atreyu is, stop being so young.) I'm not sure if I want to make the harpies chasing him in to full fledged harpies, or in to something tongue in cheek like flying evil bankers. (I'm also not sure about the anatomy on the horse because I did it from memory. I'll have to get some references, you can't fuck around when it comes to drawing horses.)
This for a painting based on the Dark Tower series. It's from the second book when the gunslinger is in the mind of mort, he's in new york, has just stolen two guns from some local cops, and is headed to get some keflex. Goddamn, that whole sequence where Roland was in Mort was fucking awesome.

I'm not sure which one to do first.

Bleach - Show me your resolve

In your sword, all I see is "Fear."

When you're dodging, you're "afraid of getting hit."
When you're attacking, you're "afraid of hitting me."
When you're protecting someone, you're "afraid of them dying."

Your sword is filled with fear. It's pathetic! You can't give in to fear in a fight, it won't help you at all!

When you're dodging, think "I won't let you hit me!"
When you're protecting someone think "I won't let you die!"
When you're attacking think "I'm going to cut you!"

This painting is loosely based on one of my favorite scenes in Bleach. (Though, granted, I stopped watching the show a long long time ago.) I decided to make Ichigo a little more nekked and a little more battle damaged, because I thought it looked bad ass and for no other reason.

At the risk of sounding full of myself, I have to admit that I am astounded at how well this turned out. I had to edit it a couple times on DA, but I got it to a place that I like. I am a huge fan of Bleach.

Though, I have to say, Bleach is dumb as fuck. It's mindless, but god damn, is it fun. There are great breasts galore (mmm Kukaku, Orihime, Rangiku, Halibel, and Nell) and just fighting and blood. I'm tired of my anime being psuedo intellectual quasi existential bullshit. Why does everything have to be so fucking deep? (And half the time, it's just a repetitive kind of deep)

Bleach is just stupid fun and that's why it's good.

oh, and since I need to start including things to bring people to my blog. The sketch of this piece of art. I wish I had the rough thumbnail to show you, so you could see how far it came from concept to finish.

Temptation

Here is my depiction of the serpent offering eve the fruit of knowledge. I have a lot to say about this and I may jump around.

First, in regards to the subject matter, I find religion to be a great source of material. I consider most of it to be metaphor. I think any one, religious or non-religious, who takes religious writing literally is a full fledged moron. For the sake of argument, lets say god is real and he relayed the story of the bible verbatim. How the fuck would a person over 2000 years ago begin to be able to comprehend things like...the big bang or evolution? If you were god, you'd have to simplify it so that your moron children would be able to kind of comprehend the basics of what you were saying. Ofcourse, these moron children can't get past the idea of a metaphor and instead of getting the basic message, which is "be a good person" it's "WE TAKE THIS LITERALLY AND IF YOU DON'T YOU'RE GOING TO HELL."

In keeping with my idea of metaphor, I've always thought that it was odd that a snake could convince a woman to eat something. I don't think the snake was a literal snake, but a metaphoric one. An asshole with a shit eating grin... like this motherfucker.

When it comes to the rendering of the figure. I have this general policy of treating men and women the same. I draw women with huge tats and round asses, but I also draw men with 0% body fat who are fucking ripped. I do this for two reasons. To make sure that you can tell the sex of what you are looking at. Many people go on about how comic books and fictional characters set unrealistic standards and expectations for the young. I say, it's merely a symbolic representation of the sexes that is a reflection of societies expectations. I also think both sexes drool over certain archetypes of the opposite sex. Certainly, most leading men are handsome and attractive.

I mean I don't fit this physical archetype. I wish I did. In fact I've been trying to take care of myself more, and I've been slowly easing myself in to eating better and exercising more. While the health benfits are certainly the best long term reason to do such a thing. The fact of the matter is, I want to look better too.

So there are social pressures upon all of us, and to be fair I choose to represent figures equally. If I'm going to be drawing hot girls, I have to draw hot guys too.

Kei Costumes

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Avatar Ten Years Later Compilation

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