Bryce Homick

A slight deviation from what's normally posted here ...

2012-01-16T17:24:00.000-08:00

I'm big into Fighting Games. Most recently, my video drug of choice is 'Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3' and while attempting to learn Magneto's Hypergrav loops, I found that my inputs were both very sloppy and inconsistent. Hitboxes, and Stickless Arcade sticks had intrigued me for a while, because I used to play games primarily on the computer, and WASD seems to make a lot more sense than a joystick.

So I did a little bit of tinkering with my old stick, and found out that you could attach buttons for the inputs on the stick, which I promptly did, and began to learn a new method of input. About two days later, I was sold, and I don't think I'll be going back to the joystick anytime soon. However, this frankenstein of a stick was admittedly a very shoddy piece of garbage so in order to have something respectable for MAGfest this year I figured that I'd whip up a new box and stick for my new setup.

More a working prototype than a completed thing, this stick is compatable with both PS3 and 360 consoles. I ended up having to rush the job so I wasn't able to paint up a cover. Reaching for the nearest, colorful, printed thing, 'Two Scoops' was born.

The hole in the middle, in case you're wondering, is for an actual joystick; the notion being that if someone else wanted to play while visiting or while I was visiting it'd function as a joystick arcade stick as well. It currently functions as a clever way to pick up the stick, as most people who visit have their own sticks. The button on the inside of the box is the turbo button. I'll be putting it on one of the sides, eventually.

Additionally, the plexiglass ends 'early' because I was going to add a bevel from the plexi down to the wood using apoxie sculpt, but then the rasin bran box worked ... too well ... as a shoddy bit around the edges. At one point I started to cut it straight but realized it took away from the character. You may also notice the cracking plexi - this is due to the cardboard's springiness (I used the box you get a sam's club, that is corrugated)

I made it open like the Mortal Kombat special edition stick because not only would that make button swaps stupidly easy, but you can also store the cord and anything else you need (milk, a small bowl, etc) easily in the box.

Experienced modders will notice that I'm using a Paewang PCB. However, I'm having an issue on the PS3, where if I hold down and up at the same time it'll input up and to the right, instead of only up, which does NOT happen on the 360. Have not attempted to use it with a PC yet.

As I mentioned, this is more of a working prototype than anything finished. The future stick that I'm going to make will feature ...

- Use a latch system to keep it shut, instead of wire wrapped around two screws

- Plexi for the bottom so I can make the box itself even more low-profile.

- Bevel the vertical corners

- Custom Art, painted by myself

- Start/Select/Turbo/Home buttons on the back side of the box, instead of the top.

- Detachable USB cable and jack. The Paewang's standard cord is abominably short, and having a few options stored inside the box would be cool.

- Microphone Input! I still have to figure out how to add this but its frustrating not being able to speak with my 360 buddies while playing.

It went over real well at MAGfest, and I think I'm going to be taking it to Winterbrawl :D.

New model for Life Drawing

2011-11-13T14:08:00.000-08:00

Was gonna post these a few weeks back when I did 'em but drogo was bein' done.

We got a new model, mike ... who I've actually drawn and sculpted before at mica. Neato.

20 minutes

5 minutes apiece

Khal Drogo Halloween Costume Complete!

2011-10-30T19:15:00.000-07:00

... Well not quite.

I'm going to be re-making a few things as I've learned a great deal after wearing it for a day and a night and it took a bit of a beating. I had to make some rush adjustments after work friday, a few fixes to the loincloth, a remaking of a beltstring, a few other things. I now know a great deal more about what is durable and what is weak, as far as a few things are concerned. A general rule of thumb: make it twice as durable as you'll think it needs to be. Case in point, the medallion belt, which was made using 3 strands of incredibly durable waxed string used to stitch leather. As I couldnt break a single strand with my bare hands I figured three would be about right. I didn't think about the connections to the actual medallion, however. SO while string didn't break, the straws that I used as guides on the back and the apoxie that held them down did.

A knife also broke, just as I was getting in the car to go out ... which was super alarming. I had to rush paint the original knife I carved and casted, and used tinfoil tape on the blade. Lesson number two: have backup pieces for important bits!

Additionally, the spraypaint coating on the medallions themselves began to flake off. I'm going to experiment with using 5 minute epoxy as a basecoat before spraypainting over the wet epoxy to make a more durable finish. If that doesn't work, I'm going to cough up the extra dough to have them plastichromed.

There was such a positive response that I've realized I'm going to be wearing this around for at least another six months to a year. One girl in particular stared openly with her mouth open for like 20 minutes before timidly asking for a photo :D Almost every other person or group of people flip out, and a good number of people asked for a photo. I now understand why people do cosplay and such ... there's such a huge positive reaction to it, its a horribly fun time; I had a great night!

Unfortunately I wasn't able to get to the Ren Fair in PA, thanks to that bizzare snowstorm saturday.

I'm also going to be getting some better pictures of the whole affair in the future, which I will of course post here! Especially after I work up my pecs a bit more, as well as getting a spray tan :P

APPROACHING THE SOUND BARRIER

2011-10-25T11:43:00.000-07:00

Finishing. Everything. Up. I've got a mad 3 day dash to get everything done before i head up to Philly for halloween. I'll be going to work in the Khal Drogo Costume as well, so thursday night is the absolute deadline. I expect to have to stay up very late in the coming days.

The biggest thing that's been keeping me busy is the hide sash, which I realized was there while scrutinizing screenshots of drogo in order to figure out the ceremonial loincloth. Past that, I've also been working on the ceremonial loincloth. Tonight I sewed on the feathers to the sides, and dyed it to match the pants/girdle. Tomorrow night I weave together a bunch of jute bundles with beads and attach it to the front of the ceremonial loincloth, as well as figuring out a good way to attach it to myself securely. I'll also need to fix up / add to the hide sash, and do the finishing touches on the knives before i paint them on Wednesday.

That's another problem. In sunlight or Incandescent light, all of the leather looks very very red It turned that way after drying - when I initially applied it it seemed perfect. Sooo I went to tandy's to pick up some light blue or green leather dye. My hope is that the additional color will muddy up the red, and at the very least cause it to be far darker than the successive layers of the Mahogany Brown dye i've tried accomplished. I figure it'd be better to be very dark than very red, ultimately. A bit of a lesson though: when you do tests of leather dye, do it on very large pieces of leather instead of thumb-sized pieces, so you can see how it turns out on a wide scale.

That said, it'll look fine at night. I'll just need to fix it somehow before I go to a con.The photos are less than what would be desired. I need a new camera. Hopefully I'll be able to get some high quality photos from my coworkers on friday of the completed deal. For now though, these will have to do:

Good lord I'm pasty white. I forgot to experiment with tanning solutions sooo for now I'll be 'white walker drogo' maybe? hahaha.

Left to do is ... get the hair extensions in, figure out how to attach to my hair. Figure out a beard extension, buy and figure out how to apply mascara/eye shadow, shave my eyebrow a bit, temporarily dye my hair and beard dark black, finish the knives, try to finish the arakh (probably won't) get my boots from zappos (tomorrow!) Another big thing is to shave off sections of hide on the sash and dye from the back so that its not so white and clean, giving it the effect of longtime use, cut it up a bit more so its less like an amalgamation of hide scraps. Then I need to finish the back of the girdle so that the buckles arent out in the open and there's not a space in my lower back. Figure out the blue paint, put it in a bottle that I can carry and easily apply. Finish antiquing medallion beads (there are a few lacking) Get some gauze, dye it offwhite for the hands ... work out ... and go yell some dothraki at my friends

Drogo once again

2011-10-02T15:52:00.000-07:00

Sooo

I've been busy in life, but also busy on the side. Now that its October though, I've got a month to complete the costume for halloween.

During Hurricane Irene my power went out, and I had nothing at all to do but sew together the leather pants by candle light. The following day when the lights came on, I threw everything on and this is what it looks like:

The zipper in the front is taken from the pants I cut up to make the pattern, and will be hidden entirely, otherwise I'd have to make a leather zipper or cover somehow.

I really, really need a new camera. You can also see that the Arakh is basically shaped out. All that is left to do with that is add the hilt detail, and then polish the blade smooth, and paint the whole thing.

Speaking of blades, I've been beating my head against the wall that is casting the knife. I started by splitting the knife in half using some spare chavant and cardboard. I wish I had some styrofoam at the time but alas none was in sight.

I used Smooth-on's Rebound 35 for the silicone mold, several layers, followed up by a layer of plasti-paste. And then I slushed around some resin in the mold. Once that hardened, I put the mold together, and then poured in more to fill in the gap. First pull:

Not bad, but there are a few gaps and bubbles, and the blade doesn't feel heavy enough. I'm currently re-casting, only this time I've added some metal wire to the blade part, which should add some weight.

Finally I've casted the medallions. Actually this was done a while ago:

and spraypainted:

and after a bit of crashing and burning with the antiquing, here's what we're left with

I've also been making a good deal of beads out of Apoxie Sculpt, for the ceremonial belt. I've also realized, thanks to some scrutiny on my part, that beneath the girdle, and the ceremonial belt, is a hide sash with hair still on it. Given that its gotten pretty chilly as of late, I can't say I'd complain about an extra layer. Still need to buy more fur-on hide, though.

There's a lot the left to be done.

Main Girdle: 100%
Complete

Bracers: 100%

Pants: 85%
- Purchase Dye
- Purchase Satin Finish
- Dye
- Add finish

Hide Sash / Loincloth: 30%
Materials 70% collected.
Creation at 0%
- Cut hide to shape
- Sew together
- Further augment, fit to self

Ceremonial Belt 60%
- 'Antique' the now silver-painted medallions
- Make 30 more intermediary beads from Apoxie Sculpt
- Make 30-40 large beads for ceremonial loincloth
- Paint/Antique the beads
- Tear more strands for ceremonial loincloth
- Weave loincloth together, add strands of beads and the like
- Sew feathers onto ceremonial loincloth
- Put together

Knives: 60%
- Cast two more with epoxy resin
- Clean up casts
- Make model adjustments
- Buy brass, ebony spraypaint
- Paint

Arakh: 65%
- Add hilt details with Apoxie Sculpt
- Sand everything smooth
- Paint
- Antique

Hair/Face: 0%
- Buy horsehair, figure out how to attach into hair
- Buy Gold hairbands, or some better looking alternative
- Figure out a good temporary hair dye for hair and beard
- Figure out makeup

Chavant, Tin-Cure Silicone and Legos

2011-08-12T08:42:00.000-07:00

I took a break workin' on Drogo after I realized that I was not going to have it completed for Otakon, but after getting some silicone in the mail, I realized it was time to get into gear and start on the other parts of the costume.

The Girdle/Belt is basically completed. I finished it up and I'm pretty darned happy with it. The last thing that needs to be done is adding a backing with some suede leather to it so it rests a bit more comfortably on my skin. Beyond that everything is tied up, secured and finished!

Anyway, back to the medallion. As I'm looking to re-create what he wore on his wedding day, the medallion is a relatively important part of the costume. I started out by using 'medium' Chavant NSP clay:

And it worked pretty well ... but I still wasn't happy with it, and finishing the piece was going to be a little bit more of a hassle, so I re-did it with Chavant 'hard' and it felt a lot more natural to sculpt.

Chavant is cool stuff. I've got a heat gun that a quick blast will soften the hard enough to move large amounts around with ease. The longer you blast, the softer it gets. This is especially helpful for smoothing small imperfections, as the surface will melt smooth and shiny. Apparently you can also double-boiler melt it down into a liquid state and cast with it. I'm considering trying it with my first silicone mold, though I've got to figure out wether my silicone will deform or not with the heat.

Given that I've never casted in silicone before, I figured it'd be prudent to start small before attempting the complex medallion above. So I figured I'd give the beads from the medallion belt a shot first.

Breaking out the 'ol toys of youth - the amazing, incredible playthings known as legos, I made a basic frame for the beads, and sealed off the bottom with some extra chavant. Here's what I used:

The above are what i used ... OOMOO 25 silicone, Ease Release, and SuperSeal. I started by sealing the beads with a few spritzes, and then following up with a coat of ease release. I then also ease release'd the mold, twice. After following the manufacturers instruction for OOMOO, I then poured it into the mold, and sunk the beads into the silicone

I also experimented with using chavant for registration marks, as this was to be a two-piece mold. Next time around, I'm going to make sure to have some toothpicks to hold the marker upright ... or just wait until the silicone has begun to set and is thicker.

After it set, I applied another 2 coats of Ease Release, and then built up the mold higher, added another coating of silicone, and this morning this is what I got:

Experienced mold makers might notice that I completely forgot to add channels to pour whatever I'm going to be casting with ... you may also notice the hastily carved channels on the left side piece. We'll see if it works, and how my resin flows.

I noticed in the casts that there were some bubbles in the crevices, thanks in part to how I sort of ... unceremoniously dunked the clay originals into the silicone. On the top I tried drizzling the silicone into the crevaces first before pouring the rest. When i'll be making the mold for the medallion I'll be using a soft brush to force the silicone into every detail before slowly drizzling a good coat on, and finally inverting the medallion into a pool. This should hopefully reduce bubbles to a minimum, as I don't have a vacuum chamber.

Before that though, Ill be further testing by working on the knife, and casting that. Then I'll move back to the medallion, and once the belt is finished as well as the knives, probably the Arakh. I'm thinking though of using brush-on silicone for that instead, given its size.

Through all of this too, I'll probably also be working on the pants, which I'm likel putting a lot more time into than i perhaps should ... given that I need to sew together a bunch of pieces of upholstery leather I flayed off of a chair being thrown out. Currently I'm cleaning up the ripped seams with a little bit of barge. After that's complete I'll sew the two large sheets together and then cut out the pattern.

Finally, thanks to the kind folk over at dothraki.org, I've learned a few phrases so far:

Yer jalan atthirari anni: "You are the moon of my life"
Shekh ma sheiraki anni: "My sun and stars"

OOOOO romantic xoxoxo

and also:

Dothras chek: "Be cool" (lol, chill bro)
Fichas jahakes moon!: "Take his braid!"

Remember, the Dothraki measure status by how long the hair is - whenever a Dothraki is defeated he will cut his har. Drogo, has never cut his hair :P

More Drogo Work!

2011-07-25T10:50:00.000-07:00

Anha vaddrivak mahrazhis fini ondee khogar shiqethi ma vohharak okrenegwin mori!!
The Khal Drogo costume is really starting to come together.

I figured out the belt endings - I ended up going with 1" bridle buckles, which I'll be hiding partially with a corset-style lace up piece of leather. I'll probably also be painting the buckles so the silver doesn't show up too brightly.

Finally got everything laid out like I wanted it, so I went ahead and dyed the girdle. I'm pretty happy to see that the belts match the patches of leather pretty well, as leather differs in color and absorption of dye. After attempting to lace up the central star shapes, I found that the holes were too small to accomodate the thickness of the lace.

So I went to home depot to pick up a grommit punch that was 1/2" thickness. It seemed too small, so I also picked up a 10' pole of 1/2" conduit pipe. I was right that it was too small, so I took the pipe, cut off about 4 inches, and used a bastard file to sharpen one end. Worked Perfectly!

I also took the time to re-lace everything together (with the exceptions of the star centers, as I need to re-punch a few holes, and dye some more lace before I can actually thread them.

Here's where its at now:

What you don't see here is the version that's been laced up entirely, nor the re-dyed (darker) x-laces. Tonight I apply a finish to it all, and then treat the entire thing with some neatsfoot oil to soften it up.

Unfortunately I don't think I'll be able to have this done for Otakon :(

I did get all the stuff I'm going to need for resin casting in the mail today!! Silicone, Resin, Release agent ... I'm stoked! Before I can use it though I'm going to need to finish either the Arakh, the Knives, or the Wedding Medallion ... all of which are no more than 50% complete. Hopefully tonight will be rife with thunderstorms I can listen to/watch while I work.

Lifedrawing with Earth some more

2011-07-24T12:51:00.000-07:00

10 minutes

20 minutes

Khal Drogo

2011-07-20T14:16:00.000-07:00

Yeah sooo I decided to go with Kahl Drogo for halloween

I converted my dining room into a studio, and it is super exciting. I then went out and bought a few basic art supplies and sat down to figure out a few things. First and foremost, I needed to figure out how much leather was necessary. So I began to make a template, estimating sizes based on ratio.

The cardboard template:

I spent about 4 hours cutting the template out of the Leather that I had bought during lunch, and experimented with attaching the pieces to the supporting belts.

Finally I also bought some basswood and laminated birch plywood to experiment with for developing the knives. Initially I had thought to construct it with wood, then coat with resin for a smooth finish, but I figured that point this will be a template for a resin cast - that way I can weight it evenly when I cast, as well as utilize clay/bondo/epoxy/polyurethane to make a super smooth surface.

I then spent a good 5 hours marking out and cutting the leather. I ended up with *just* enough for the belt and his left arm's bracer. I'd still another belly half of thinner leather which I'll be using for lace and other parts. Wouldn't mind having extra, though :)

After I cut them all out I had to slot them for the 3 cross belts, which was a major pain, and I later realized that I would have been a lot faster to simply punch holes on the end, and connect them with a single cut.
I still needed to punch a LOT of holes for the connective lace, as well as the decorations. Spent another few hours beveling the edges of the leather, as well as bending it backwards against the smooth surface to add texture.

After that was taken care of I primarily worked on the Arakh - the long curved sword, that we don't actually see him use, but I figure will be fun to have around. I started out by laminating two pieces of 1 1/2" strips of pinewood together, then cutting them accordingly into pieces to match the curve, and re-connecting them. From there I further cut the shape, and cut the bevel of the blade's edge with a knife and a large wood rasp. Then i started experimenting with Apoxie sculpt and filling spaces, before just adding a large amount to the hilt to make it fit the hand:

Apoxie Sculpt is the shit!! After it cures it has the feel of a soft soapstone when further carving into things. The wood rasp smoothes it nicely, and a wood scraper also evenly strips the material away. Its mind blowing stuff, really. Emboldened by the success of the first layer, I added more overtop of the wood on one side, and began to shape the hilt a little further. Though it seems rough, once I rasp/sand/scrape it smooth it should be nearly as smooth as polished metal, which will really help for when I spray paint it.

Furthermore, the blade is starting to feel bulky and heavy, which is exactly what I was hoping for. At this point, I'm wondering if I should even consider re-casting the entire thing in resin, or if I should just focus on working it to a good state with the apoxie sculpt. We'll see what happens when I get to the detail on the hilt ... it may be a job for NSP, in which case I'll definitely need to cast it.

Here we can see the more completed Arakh, along with the knife, and the cut and woven and holepunched arm band.

I later coated the entire knife in fiberglass resin sans fiberglass, which was delightfully viscous and thick, allowing for a 1-2 millimeter thick coating over everything, and further smoothing. Sooo then I punched out most of the holes for the girdle, and added a tempoaray set of leather stiching. Looking good!

In addition to all that, I've started to think about the leather pants, and how I'm going to manage that. As luck would have it, today when I was dropping off my rent check I spied by a dumpster a chair that was upholstered with leather. Checking it out I noted that it was broken, but still in halfway decent shape.

Naturally I drove home and got my compound bow, and while ghost-riding my car drove by and nailed the beast just behind its front haunches. It didn't want to part with this world, so I had to nail it again before I reigned in my steed and performed the coup de grace. With deft hands I flayed its fallen body, making quick, skillful cuts in the right areas to let the hide be removed easily from the corpse.

The chair yielded what would appear to be just enough material to make the pants, and even better, despite the fact that it was finished, it would appear that the leather can be dyed easily. It may not be one large solid piece to be divided up into the pants pattern, but ultimately its an all in all good solution that just happened to drop from the sky.

I then spent some time working on the arm band, and experimenting with dye. The results are pretty good!

Clearly some work is yet to be done here. I need to finish dying up the edges, and the man who's instructing me on leatherworking has stated that after waxing the leather, adding 'antiquing' dye thats been diluted all of those edges and bright spots will be covered up. He also recommended that I pull it tight over some wood and slash at the whole affair lightly with a knife a few times to simulate combat damage. As the leather is pretty thin, I worry about marring it to destruction. I'm also slightly worried that its a bit too red ... though that only appears to be the case under incandescent light and direct sunlight. I recently purchased some more dye - this time black - and will be experimenting with adding more dark to leather before I go to dye the primary girdle. I've also attached a bit of pigskin leather to the interior, which needs to be worn down a bit, and possibly dyed itself to match the feel of the latticed part. A tshirt that has been cut into long strips attaches this to my arm rather snugly - this is but a placeholder until I purchase some more leather.

Today I also received 3 bridle strap buckles, which will serve to attach the girdle to me before the corset style lacing goes over. This should allow me a good deal of adjustability, both for comfort and good fit. Once this has all been completed and installed, I'll be ready to dye and more or less finish! I'm so excited!

I've also begun to re-carve the wedding belt, this time in 'Hard' Chavant NSP, which has proven to be more flexible than its 'medium counterpart' -- if at any point I find it too hard, a quick blast of a heatgun will get it to medium, another to soft. And its hard enough to allow for very fine details, should I want them.

More updates in the future.

Lifedrawing with mark yet again

2011-07-13T09:31:00.000-07:00

For those actually following who care - I accidentally deleted all of the uploaded images to all of my blogs thanks to google+'s overtly intuitive album features or something. This means I'll be fixing the previous posts in time, but not all of them.

IN the meantime here are some more images from a rather successfull life drawing session last month:

20 minutes

5 minutes

10 minutes

5 minutes

Also had a life drawing session last week, but I haven't quite finished saving out all the files/am very lazy. updates to come.

Another lifedrawing session with Earth

2011-06-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

20 minutes

10 minutes

Wasn't very happy with my work that night, hence only 2

Halloween

2011-06-09T10:08:00.000-07:00

Soo after last year's rousing success Halloween costume (I went as a hipster) I've been putting time and effort into what I should be this year. From a relatively large pool of candidates I've narrowed it down to two potential costumes:

Khal Drogo, from Game of Thrones:

and

Gaston, from Beauty and the Beast:

Honestly I'm a bit split about which to do. If I do Gaston, I'm going to need to learn his song inside and out, as well as his antics, expressions and mannerisms. Also I'll have to switch up my workout routine to size, because lets face it, Gaston is absolutely huge. I might also need to dye my hair black ... which would be a trip

If I do Drogo, I'm going to have to learn at least a fair amount of Dothraki (the language they made for the show) as well as stop cutting my hair, as well as my beard. I'll also need to supplement my workouts with more pectoral-specific exercises.

Costume wise, I'm going to need to start early on Drogo. I need to make his Leather Girdle, Bracers, an Arakh, two knives, the horse belt, leather pants. skins/feathers that hang, beads (lots of beads) and figure out how to do hair-extensions well.

Gaston is relatively less intensive/expensive, being a shirt and some pants.

Both of them require me to get a nice pair of leather boots, though, which i can't complain about, and both require that I tan up a bit, (Drogo far more than Gaston) which may be a challenge as I'm paler than most people.

Drogo excites me as I'll need to learn a lot of stuff to do it, from cold-casting with resin, to leatherworking, to silicone molds. Drogo is furthermore a bit more topical than Gaston, given that the show Game of Thrones is very 'this year,' and Gaston is timeless. There's a multitude of arguments, one of which being Next year i'll have a lot more chest hair. The best two arguments for either are the following:

For Gaston:

For Drogo:

Ultimately though, I think that I'll be making a Drogo Costume regardless, as that might be something fun to wear at Otakon. So perhaps Otakon = Drogo, halloween = Gaston. Either way I'm planning on chronicling my progress on either here.

My Friend, Ethan

2011-05-27T07:44:00.000-07:00

He doesn't really wear glasses anymore

Yet another bunch of lifedrawings

2011-04-21T07:21:00.001-07:00

10, 20, and 5 minute studies. Soon I'll make some more interesting stuff.

Lifedrawing and a Groupblog!

2011-03-26T10:20:00.000-07:00

Another productive lifedrawing haul during our bimonthly life drawing sessions at Firaxis. Grey is a 5 minute sketch, Colored two are 20 minute studies.

On a slightly different note, I've started up a Firaxis Artists' blog where I'm hoping to get all the talented artists that I work with to start posting stuff they've done outside of work. Hopefully, it'll provide a place for seeking critique and suggestions without being aggressive about asking for it, and through that, inspire everyone to do more to work that art muscle.

Check it out!
http://culturebombers.blogspot.com/

Epic Handshake

2011-03-19T13:22:00.000-07:00

Marvel vs. Capcom 3 has one of the best supervillains ever in it, as a playable character. I'm talking about Magneto, of course. Mag. Neto. Along with Super Skrull, my team would be complete if ONLY they had included M. Bison in the roster too.

Seriously Capcom? No Bison??

Seriously??

Fail.

I sure hope they have him in future DLC. For now though, I think the image speaks for itself.

Earth

2011-03-16T17:58:00.000-07:00

More life drawing, 10 minutes each. Our model's name is Tara but she likes to be called Earth, and she is excellent! I really wish I could spend a lot more time drawing her, and hopefully in the future we'll have a more continuous pose, if the others at the session would agree to it.

More Lifedrawing

2011-03-02T10:11:00.001-08:00

5 Minutes a piece

Huvudet i sanden

2011-02-15T20:32:00.000-08:00

20 minutes each, from a recent life drawing session at work. Next week we'll have a male model, hopefully half as good as this one here. Maybe I'll focus some more on the face this time too :P

Though I think I'll be going back to charcoal

Twist

2011-01-13T08:02:00.001-08:00

Went to an open life drawing session last night that was a lot more successful than the last month's ... even though this was the only thing I feel is worth sharing. I'm waay out of practice, but the focus here was to use vibrant colors instead of trying to paint what I saw ... because what I saw was pretty local and somewhat boring colorwise. Perhaps in the future I'll just go with black and white. Who knows.

10 minute pose with about 5 minutes touchup afterwards.

Simon Phoenix

2011-01-12T14:16:00.000-08:00

I just loved Wesley Snipes' character Simon Phoenix in 'Demolition Man.' A perfect mix of insane, evil and awesome. I think I'm going to do more portraits of some of my favorite villains ... but this time focus on women antagonists that I found particularly memorable or interesting.

Boxer

2011-01-07T06:48:00.001-08:00

She's angry at me because I forgot to draw her shirt haha

First digital piece of 2011! though in my haste I didn't use much ref (dumb) and it shows. Bleh. More, better stuff in the future, I promise!

Vermont

2011-01-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

I hiked up the side of a random mountain in Vermont to a friend's cabin for New Year's ... and alas, there were plenty of chores to do! From chopping wood, to ... chopping wood. But seriously, its crazy how important daylight becomes when you don't have any form of electricity.

In any case, this was the view off of the front porch of the Cabin. I am TOTALLY out of practice with oils. Though i didn't have much time to do more than a few bits, I'm planning on doing some more paintings based off of photos I took over the course of the week I lived off the grid on the side of the mountain. Alas, I would like to work into this more, but I left it at my parent's house in CT. Probably a good thing, I consider it a 'Work in Progress'

Additionally, the image comes from a photo so the color and brightness is a bit off.

Back Deck

2010-12-24T11:06:00.000-08:00

You know how when you start a lawnmower, sometimes it catches, but then eventually falters? That's been me the past few days, but eventually I'll get things running swell again. For now here's a quick study of my back deck with the woods. I'm not 100% happy with it but whatever it seems flat blah blah blah. Gonna try to do one of these a day.

Other stuff in the works, but unfinished. I'm trying out 'working on multiple things at once' which is a relatively new thing for me, oddly enough.

More ladies

2010-12-17T11:59:00.000-08:00

Feet are a bit big. Gotta try getting better at hair.

Aother pinup

2010-12-16T13:52:00.001-08:00

experimenting with color and a new technique

Enough Lethargy

2010-12-15T09:23:00.000-08:00

So its about time I get up off my ass and kick myself into full gear. I've been on vacation ever since I graduated, except for once during the Anagama class (which I plan on doing again in 2012) and since I cannot show anything from my job for a good while to come its about time that I get cooking.

Since the world'll end in 2012 (lol) I've decided to be more prolific in art. That means fixing some of the areas where I currently suck. Primarily, Women. I've never been comfortable or confident drawing or rendering women unless they were right in front of me, and even then I can never seem to capture a face well. I've had enough of that, and part of my daily sketching and the like I've decided to devote to women. I hope to sculpt some more women in my next body of ceramic work, should it be relevant.

Furthermore, the Firaxis is doing a monthly model session, with an excellent model by the name of Tara, who is gorgeous and I'm pretty excited to draw again in the future. I'll have some of the work from the last session up later.

So look forward to more posts.

For now though, here's a brief foray into a new style of work, in the pinup realm. Bleh:

Ruminations

2010-11-17T20:19:00.000-08:00

The Baron, Vladimir Harkonnen

2010-05-22T13:52:00.000-07:00

So, after so many weeks of much learning and struggling I finally have finished my bust of the Baron Harkonnen, from the Dune series. As you may know, our company had a project-wide competition for making either a Benevolent Leader or an Evil Dictator in game-resolution. Final model coming in at 3,884 polygons, with three 2048x2048 textures (diff, spec, norm) I'm pretty happy with the results!

I kind of wish I had spent more time early on/knew what i wanted to do early on/put more time overall in the period given, but whatever, I still finished! I'm pretty unhappy with the hair - next time I'll be using a subtool for the hair instead of having it straight on the model, and next time I'll actually spend some time figuring out how to sculpt short curly hair.

Additionally, next time I'll put more time into the small details. Right now he's a bit stylized but I wanted him to be a little bit more gritty and bumpy. I'm still learning the whole zbrush thing and though I've definitely learned much there is still a long long long way to go.

Here's what he looked like in zbrush:

As you can see, he's somewhat more gritty and pocked. In the future I'm probably going to try and make another bust of perhaps another character from my beloved dune series - I'm thinking a Tleilaxu or something. Who knows. NExt time around i'll be sure to go aysymmetrical earlier, and next time I'll use a tool when I'm retopo-ing instead of pushing points individually (bleh!)

Fingers crossed, I've got a 50% chance to win in my category!

More Baron

2010-04-12T06:54:00.000-07:00

So more baron. I think I'm getting a lot closer to the man I imagine while reading the book. He's still got a bit of work

And with different matcaps

Starting to get the hang of things

2010-03-18T14:05:00.000-07:00

Did this little 20 minute sketch this weekend

I'm particularly happy with how it turned out as a whole. I tried a new approach that felt extremely right, the type of thing where you do it and wonder why you hadn't done it that way the entire time. I don't want to say its done, as with everything I seem to do the more and more I look at it the more flaws I find. Sigh, add it to the list of things to complete, i guess

Anyway I'm off to yet another birthday party ... this spring is shaping up to be a particularly social one (no complaints here!)

More Zbrush Fun: Fatties!

2010-03-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

SO zbrush is great. I've been ridiculously busy between work, working out, and resting from those two things :P

Still, i've been trying to get some work in, attempting to comprehend this wonderful new tool called Zbrush. I'd like to do at least one head a week (even though they only take about an hour or two to do) and hopefully more. I'm waiting for my full version code, then I can start experimenting with zsketching and such

2 Hrs.

1 hr

With the second one, I only worked on it up to 3 divisions, then photographed it at 4, as opposed to continuing working on it when it was at 4, like the first one is. I might come back to it, but I'm also thinking that I might just keep on working on other, different types of faces.

I just quick opened up zbrush and saw the 3 division version, and it looks SO much better. Figured I'd edit it into this post:

So much better! I *might* end up working him up a little bit more now. we'll see.

I've nixed my previous idea for the office contest and I've decided to go with making Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, hence the fat men of this post (expect more)

lol blue people

2010-03-16T11:32:00.000-07:00

Right so about a week or two back I was on National TV:

http://tinyurl.com/yku6gd7

If you don't care to watch through it, its because for the last three months or so I've been teaching myself Na'vi, the language created for the movie Avatar. I rather enjoyed the movie, (as one would assume, given the fact that i'm learnign to speak Na'vi, and after seeing some of the attempts on youtube, i decided to try my hand at 'avatarizing' as its called. Here is a friend of mine, and fellow moderator at Learnnavi.org

And here is Sam Champion that I did for Good Morning America

yup

Dr. Skapril

2010-03-09T13:51:00.000-08:00

The results of my new vice. This time around I concentrated more on faces ... with the exception of the last sketch of the night:

20 minutes. I'm happy with how her face turned out anyway. The model was absolutely gorgeous, and quite animated, talking through most of the session, which somehow didn't bother me.

20 minutes. Sometime I really want to try an extended pose ... 20 minutes is such a tease, though i wonder if I had an hour or so, if I'd loose some of the spontaneity. Before the past two I focused solely on the face for the 10 minute poses:

At some point I might try touching one or two of these up to finish 'em, though zbrush might just take over my spare time. I'm totally buying Zbrush for my laptop, and I'd like to try doing a bust from life at some point. Could be interesting.

Its also warming up quite delightfully - spring appears to be around the corner! 'tis been a long winter and the warmth is definitely welcome. Perhaps sometime soon I'll try to do some plein air stuff.

Zbrush, at last!

2010-03-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

So finally I got zbrush, aaand today after work I decided to mess around with it / learn it. Sooo the result is some old unhappy slavic dude. Looking back on it, parts look a little bland and paunchy, but considering I didn't use any reference, I'm pretty happy.

I'd like to do more face 'sketches' ... its too damn fun not to, and since I'm currently sick and unable to work out, things work perfectly. Woot!

Yet another Sketchy's Post

2010-02-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

I have been pretty busy recently with some exciting stuff I'll announce in the next week or so, but for now here's another batch of work from yet another Dr. Sketchy's session. Was a little bummed that the customary blue lamp was missing this time around - that usually makes real cool colors for me to work with, but to make up for that fact, the model (Who was absolutely excellent btw) put on this wild outfit.

5 minute sketch:

She broke out into music about halfway through, with some ragtime songs which were quite amusing. It was difficult trying to catch her while doing this, though. 10 Minutes:

Here's that crazy outfit I mentioned, 20 minutes:

I tried to put more time into the faces this time around, and I think for the most part I did a little better than last time, particularly on this one:

20 minutes again. That is all for now, looking forward to another sketchy's in a week. Oh, and here's a fun little thing : http://tinyurl.com/ylpagko

cheers

New Decade, New Sketchy's

2010-01-27T16:05:00.000-08:00

So last monday was another lovely edition of Dr. Sketchys! The above image is a 20 minute pose which I was most pleased with (I didn't completely nuke the face!!)

That said I screwed the pooch on pretty much every other face. This was a 10 minute pose that I was happy particularly with the colors used.

another 10 minute deal I was happy with

Clearly on this last 20 minute pose, I was more interested in the neck/chest area ... guhh. One day I'll learn to paint faces quickly

5 minutes each

1 minute each.

Got to touch down with Isaac Orloff (check my links for his blog) too which was fun. Hopefully we're going to go sketching sometime, which means more updates coming! Next Dr. Sketchy's Baltimore is in two weeks, i'm lookin forward to it!!

Colonel Miles Quaritch

2010-01-07T12:19:00.000-08:00

Wanted to be more productive in the evening with learning my media a little more, so I fell back to an old standby; portraits! And in keeping with my self imposed tradition of doing Movie Antagonists, I figure I'd stay somewhat relevant to day's entertainment industry I decided to draw Quaritch, from Cameron's Avatar, a movie I quite enjoyed.

Stephen Lang has got a pretty interesting face, and while his character in the film was perhaps a little bit archetypal, I enjoyed his performance. I also found this interview with him on his character particularly interesting.

It was a fun 3 hours, i gotta say, after the initial explosions of failure that tend to accompany making a portrait. In the future I'm planning on doing more portraits, as i'd like to get better at rendering likenesses, the face, and painting digitally. Additionally, I don't feel as though I've really captured his character's likeness ... perhaps only his features. I may end up doing another portrait of this dude.

Anyway, 3 hrs, photoshop ... more soon hopefully

Lunch speedpaint

2010-01-07T07:01:00.001-08:00

More vivid dreams lead to lunch doodles. This appears to be a reoccurring character in my dreams, and I was in a groove when lunch happened so I decided to keep painting. We're doing a digital character modeling competition at work and I was going to take a crack at it and touch up on my 3d skills. Should be fun!

Happy new year all!

Christmas Dr. Sketchys

2009-12-14T20:47:00.001-08:00

I'm pleased to post something so recently after my last post. Perhaps, 2010 will be a year I resurrect my blog? Heaven forbid!

At work we got a little bit of a competition going on, and hopefully in the next month I'll be able to show some progress shots from that little deal. In the meantime, I once again hit up Dr. Sketchy's Baltimore, incensed by the warm praise on their blog and from others I've shown the work to. Tonight the model was absolutely gorgeous, and shamefully, I must admit that I captured very little correctly. I wish some of the 2-5 minute poses she held could have been the long ones, the light setup and the subtleties of the female figure were intoxicating.

Here is a butt:
Frustrated that I wasn't doing her justice immediately, I decided to try to go straight for speedpainting in color during the shorter poses. Disaster, friends, disaster. Only two sketches are worth showing. My mind was in another place.

THE LEG!

And this lil torso thing, which poorly represents anatomy, but here I was focusing on color.

Eventually we got to the 20 mintue poses (sadly only two) and in this first one she was mostly covered by a gigantic furry coat, so I decided to attempt a face.

Unfortunately I made her like uh I dunno 40 years older than she was. (Sorry Nicolette!!) Sigh, I wish there were longer poses, I'd really like to see what I can accomplish with more than 20 minutes. I think I might take an open model class next semester at MICA.

Finally there's this:

I was somewhat happy with it, though the arm is far too spindly for my tastes. (its resting on an umbrella btw. The image as a whole creepily resembles one of my earlier paintings, which kind of bothers me.

Overall the night, while somewhat frustrating was a rejuvenating, refreshing experience, as it always is. Sadly, I must wait more than a month for another Sketchys (Jan 25th, poop) Until then I suppose I'll just have to ride on the high I got off of the complements of fellow sketchers (thanks again :) )

Dr. Sketchy's

2009-11-23T20:26:00.000-08:00

Went to Dr Sketchy's Baltimore tonight. As always, it was a wonderful experience! I had particular fun because compared with my last Dr Sketchy's post, exactly one year ago, i feel as though I have improved much, especially considering I haven't done much figurative work at... work in the last couple months. The following are 20 minute sketches, and yes, she was wearin' pasties.
The event moved from Dionysius to the Windup Space, which is much bigger, though the stage used can really only be viewed from one direction, which is a bummer if you get there late - you'll be behind 5 or 6 people.
I think that one was my most sucessful. Don't look at the horrible head, gah, I need to get good at drawing faces quickly!! Next sketchy's, in two weeks, I'll try to remember to work on the face during the 5 minute poses.

She wasn't actually looking away, but it seemed like a quick easy solution to my head problem :)

Quite enjoyable, the whole experience, despite the fact that I think i'm coming down with some sort of cold (ffffff) I'd like to do some life drawing with the computer that last longer than 20 minutes, that way I could finish more parts. Spring semester I think I'm going to try to sign up for the continuing studies life drawing class. Of course, by then I'll be far into my new body of sculptural work but more life drawing isn't a bad thing! It was great tonight though, artistically re-acquainting myself with the female body.

Good stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stepping up to the threshold

2009-11-19T18:52:00.000-08:00

Life's been super busy. And I've done that on purpose. I haven't had a chance to just sit down and write on this thing or even update with simple images. In addition I haven't updated the blog because I haven't had anything worth updating it with. The Anagama stuff was sort of a barsetter as far as my sculptural work, is concerned, and everything past those has sort of felt like an echo, or a doodle. I haven't felt as though there was something worth conveying, which has been troubling. The Anagama work was a life-changing event, and it has been hard to follow that up. Furthermore I'm in the deepest point of self-transformation that I don't quite know who I am or even where I am going, so I've been unsure and uninspired. My illustrations outside of work haven't kept my attention long enough for me to get them to a point of being complete.

I did this guy last night though, as I've decided recently to go heavily back into figurative work

More of a character sketch to get me warmed up than anything, but whatever, he makes me laugh.

This was a piece I made a couple weeks back, and I'm particularly happy with how the hands came out. I woodfired it in Clayworks' Noborigama, which killed it, I'm afraid. Such metallic, shiny surface treatment has seemed to injure the feel of the figurative work. I've tried glazes in the past, but I haven't found one that has complemented my style yet, and I don't think I will. The best, by far, has been the Anagama treatment.

I don't think that, if I continue down the figurative sculpture path, I'll ever be able to not fire in anagama for the finish. I'm definitely going to be doing figurative work. The last week or so has been rough for me, for a variety of reasons I'm not going to get into. That broke, however, last night when I began to do some more thinking. Freshman-year me would scoff, but I've begun to realize how important critically analyzing oneself is towards making fulfilling artwork. So I'm in research mode right now, and I've begun to formulate a couple of ideas of themes and elements to spit out and re-arrange and re-examine, and I'm energized.

I think I'm done with thrown work, for now. I can't justify using them to myself, unless they are purely functional, and I've got plenty of mugs and bowls. I think its high time I got good at sculpting the female form, and its time for me to discover wood again.

Thats it for now. No hints about the themes, I'm still figuring that all out myself

Its going to be an exciting winter!

Dead Blog

2009-09-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

Well its been far too long since I've posted here. My life is a whirl of activity and because of this damn NDA i have been unable to post up any of my art! Furthermore I find it hard to do more digital painting at the end of the day after doing it for 8 hours straight, so I don't really have anything on the side to post up. I haven't been able to take pictures of my more recent ceramic work either because I've been too busy to remember to take photos when the sun is at the right arc in the sky to make for good lighting on the back of my porch.

Rest assured, though, I am still doing art!

I think it'd be a copout not to show at least one image for a post on an art blog, so I figured I'd put up a face of mine, a "Port'o'pa" that I absolutely adore. I've got an odd fixation with sculpting old men :3

I have a couple plans in the works for the future. Some extremely geeky, others cool, others CONCEPTUAL ooh. Considering how busy I've been I don't expect to get to half of them, but who knows!

exhumation

2009-07-06T21:36:00.000-07:00

Now that they're online and in one place, it feels like somehow I've not done enough. I was debating adding an artist's statement, but I figured more important would be posting the work somehow. The statement isn't even complete, as I'm in the process of writing a lot of things.

I will say though that these are breakthrough pieces for me, artistically and personally, and from greenware to gallery, they have closed doors that needed to be closed and opened a great deal more.

Show!

2009-06-28T19:26:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I flood the office with postcards!

Apparently I like the 'dusk/dawn' time of day

2008-12-26T17:15:00.000-08:00

More 30 min color experiments.

a relaxed day ... I should have been more productive

More Color Experiments

2008-12-26T09:54:00.000-08:00

I'm working towards broadening my color understanding by selecting colors based off of what I see outside my window, or if at night, what I see in the room around me, then modifying that palette to suit my needs.

This is another 20 minute quickie i did, this time its from a dream I had, that I may be developing into something more detailed and greater. we'll see.

This was another hour long quickie where I decided to channel Jon Foster, I think (badly, I might add) ... just a scribble

More to come!

Merry Christmas

2008-12-25T12:51:00.001-08:00

Whatever holiday you choose to ecelebrate, I hope y'all have a happy holiday, and a good time with your family and friends!

Figured I'd just post something to keep the blog alive. Here's a quick palette experiment, took around 15 minutes, more about color than form or description.

Hopefully over the break I'll get a buncha work done, I'm hoping to do some plain air stuff later on this week.

Prescription: MORE DR SKETCHY!!

2008-11-24T20:03:00.001-08:00

Holy AWESOME I just got back from "Dr Sketchy" which is an open model session where the models are burlesque dancers, and man, am I hooked.

10 minutes, final drawing of the night

2o minutes

20 minutes

20 minutes

I cannot express how invigorating it was - a great atmosphere with like 50s music playing in a small room ... beer on tap if you want it, and a model session all in one! Not only did it get me off my ass to do some art after work, but for the first time I brought my computer and tablet to the session, with some (in my opinion) really good results for the time.

here are some shorter poses that were done earlier in the night:

5 Minutes

5 minutes

1 and 2 minute quickies.

Once again, I'm hooked. Hopefully more updates in the future, thanks to this nice kick in the pants.

30 minute scribble

2008-09-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

Warming back up to painter, I decided to do a quickie of another notable villain, Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) from Sexy Beast.

I've been so busy at work now that I'm a full-time concept artist, that I usually don't want to do much more than work on my bonsai and play with my cat when I get home. I'm workin on an oil painting though, and I'm going to do a more completed portrait for sure in the future. Its been a while since I've updated but I want to get on a weekly basis at the very least!

more to come!

HB

2008-07-07T19:48:00.000-07:00

My grandfather, Harrison Bance. I made this as a present to my grandmother, who turned 90 last sunday. Happy Birthday Grandma!!

From a photo, of course, approx. 2 hours.

A lack of updates...

2008-06-24T22:56:00.000-07:00

...'Been getting ready to return to Maryland, also absorbed by GTA 4, the wonderful air of CT, forests, bonsai, and archery, so I haven't been on the ball with doin art all the time.

I had a really incredible, vivid, long dream a night ago though so eventually I'll do some stuff off of that and throw it up. Until then, though, please be patient, and my apologies :)

Hosting down ...

2008-06-12T18:25:00.001-07:00

If you notice, the rest of the images on my blog are down ... this is because my host is down for some reason. Hopefully it'll be back online soon. In the meantime I'll use blogger's hosting to put up these plein air drawings I did today. 30 min each.

The last one is my favorite.

John Doe

2008-06-10T20:09:00.001-07:00

1.5 hrs, mostly painter.

2008-06-08T21:22:00.000-07:00

Ash, from Alien. Another favorite villain of mine, from possibly the best scifi/horror films to be made. Trying to focus more on the character as well as likeness.

The fifth try

2008-06-03T20:45:00.000-07:00

Roy Batty, another favorite villan of mine. This was the fifth attempt to paint Rutger Hauer's oddly difficult face. But I'm happy with today's battle, even if it took me just over 2 hours to do.

Artist's block sucks

2008-06-02T21:57:00.000-07:00

I'll pull through. I'm workin on another portrait but the subject of which has a most difficult face to paint for some reason, and im not comfortable showin the results yet :/

so here's a doodle that I did tonight of this dude who probably should have won a fight but a call wasn't made and he ended up getting a couple uppercuts. Still fought like a champ tho.

EN PLEIN AIR

2008-05-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

with the computer, limited by the battery. Each took less than an hour, painter/photoshop. Not too too happy with 'em but whatever I'll get better. I'd like to do at least one a day from now until I get back to Maryland.

Jean Baptiste, Emannuel

2008-05-28T19:18:00.001-07:00

ZORG

Not entirely my favorite portrait, I'm probably going to rework this one or do another of our friend Zorg here, but that doesn't really bother me :)

In other news I've made another blog for my non-illustration stuff, Bryce Homick Lite

Finished!

2008-05-27T17:47:00.000-07:00

home at last! What a week! Lots 'o moving, driving, cleaning and packing, but I'm back in good ol connecticut and I'm definitely planning on doing some plein air or whatever digital paintings, as well as a good deal more portraits.

This was the last piece of my senior year. Eventually I'll put up pictures from my final show and make a website specific to the thesis so you all can make sense of all the landscapes. I'm done!

Countdown to the finish Pt 3

2008-05-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

Portrait of Anton Chigurh, a favorite villain of mine.

Countdown to the Finish pt 2

2008-05-20T07:48:00.000-07:00

The Siren Towers

Countdown to the Finish pt 1

2008-05-18T16:49:00.000-07:00

well since I didn't put everything up on the blog because I wanted the show to be partially a suprise, I've got a couple finished pieces! So here's the first!

Pretty soon I'm also going to be opening up another blog that'll contain any non-illustration work I do, so stay tuned!

Thesis show is UP!

2008-05-16T18:49:00.000-07:00

If you're in the Baltimore area and you like what you've seen on this blog, you'd probably enjoy the commencement show here at MICA.

My show is on the 3rd floor of the Fox building in the hallway right outside of room 315, and the opening reception for the entire campus is on the 18th at like 1:00 or something. Also worth checking out: my fellow students! We've got some amazing illustrators about to be flushed into the real world, and they're all worth a look!

later on tonight perhaps I'll edit an image into this post. Maybe, maybe not. I gotta go pack the apartment now

More portraits

2008-05-14T20:19:00.001-07:00

To those who are patiently waiting for their portrait, worry not, I'll get to em soon, rest assured!

Mr. French! 2 hrs painter/photoshop

I can't stop working

2008-05-13T18:17:00.000-07:00

Funny, after most semesters I just want to relax on the art side. This time around, I can't stand it if I don't do SOMETHING at least once a day.

Its LeChiffre, yo. 2 hrs.

Another Quickie

2008-05-10T17:09:00.001-07:00

flat in some areas because it was hard to see with the glare of the screen . Somehow I'm going to devise a way to cancel it out, really want to do more of these

A quick thing to hold you over

2008-05-01T09:10:00.000-07:00

25 minute sketch in class today. I'd forgotten how much fun painter was

Speedpaint

2008-04-24T11:58:00.000-07:00

The studios are gettin mighty empty these days, as senioritis takes ahold of so many ... screw that, ya lazy bums! The previous post has been finished but YOU CANT SEE until you visit the commencement show! So instead here are the humble beginnings of my next piece. I've decided to screw the old process I've been using which has been taking up a lot of time, and embrace speedpainting after doing a bunch of small thumbnails, and selecting one, blowing it up, then workin on top of that.

Lookin forward to completing this and one more before the year is up.

Also it was gorgeous outside and after some well-earned bonsai time I decided to do some more speedpainting. This one took me about 30 minutes off the back porch - the changing light wouldn't allow for any shorter time! Looking forward to doing more of this type of the thing in the future

The Return

2008-04-17T20:39:00.000-07:00

Its a lot more blurry and fuzzy than I'd want it to be and I've got more than a couple perspective errors and odd lines, but I'm generally speaking pleased with the way its going. Gonna size it up a little more, and this time I really want to concentrate on sharpening edges, as well as distance. Broad strokes, friends, broad strokes!

Shepard's Return

2008-04-10T07:36:00.000-07:00

Not quite done, but finished for now

Before I start to finish it

2008-04-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

Remember, god is in the details! I'm lookin forward to going crazy with this one! Then I gotta get another to this point before class on thursday woot woot

Troy Burning

2008-03-30T22:50:00.000-07:00

Poly and Phemus corp mining facility 808

2008-03-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

Very happy with the way this one went. Still not complete, but I figure I'd post it up for you regulars (wink)

Want to know what these are all about? I WONT TELL YA! unless you come to my senior show at the end of the year :)

Zbrush is AWESOME

2008-03-12T19:01:00.001-07:00

today at Firaxis i got to FINALLY use zbrush - I've been waiting to try this program out for YEARS since I first heard of it. Can't tell you what I used it for, but after work today I fooled around with it for about an hour and came up with this little thing.

I really wanna just grab it and go nuts one night with a proper base model to work from

Ker-plooie!

2008-03-05T22:31:00.001-08:00

The Laerstrygonians Attack!!

Once I'm finished, I'll post up the other thesis

Its been long enough I suppose

2008-02-29T20:09:00.000-08:00

Been pretty darn busy with the internship and bonsai class, but now that woodfire weekend is upon me, i'll be able to reallocate effort towards thesis a bit more than perhaps I've done. After the woodfire I'll hopefully have a bunch of pots that I can throw up online, if the firing goes right. I'd put more work up online but I'm not entirely happy with it quite what i've done so far yet.

As for this current piece, I'll let y'all guess for a bit as to what its about. I'll give you a hint: the spaceships in the center are meant to resemble greek triremes a little bit

"The Blame Game"

2008-01-30T20:27:00.000-08:00

A rather ambitious ceramic project I did last semester, Ceramic and Oak wood, approximately 5' tall. Currently the 'mascot' for the "Refiguring Bodies" show on display now in the Station Building Gallery. Lots of great work from that class - worth having a look if you're around station for sure.

Bill the Butcher 2

2008-01-21T12:44:00.000-08:00

Much more pleased with this one, even if it took me longer than usual.

Bill Cutting

2008-01-18T19:20:00.000-08:00

Not too pleased with it but whatever, I think i'mma do another one

Gaius Baltar

2008-01-17T16:53:00.001-08:00

Absolutely hooked on this series, and this guy's got a really cool face. Starting to explore other brushes then "flat smeary oils"

after a hiatus ...

2008-01-13T09:51:00.001-08:00

Back in Balmore after a night in PA!

your basic goon :)

2008-01-11T23:04:00.000-08:00

Thanks for the pic, Crusader :)

More painter fun

2008-01-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

Keepin it quick and speedy - the woman took me under 30 minutes!!

Andy

2008-01-10T18:26:00.000-08:00

Commissioned portrait woot

Hullghll??//!1!!

2008-01-09T17:31:00.000-08:00

Painter is great, I've decided. Its a heck of a lot faster (this portrait here took me an hour and a half) and the result looks somewhat more professional. Gonna keep it up for sure

Ragh

2008-01-08T16:26:00.000-08:00

I'd have another portrait but painter quit for no reason (Curse you Leopard)

But I figure kitty's more than fills the gap

More painter portraits

2008-01-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

wheee self portrait is terrible from the nose down ahahha

some 'ol MAYN

2008-01-06T16:54:00.000-08:00

Painter is fuuuunnnn

Kittyyy :3 :3

2008-01-05T18:25:00.000-08:00

no explanation required :P

A night's boredom

2008-01-03T00:01:00.000-08:00

was debating putting these up but was convinced it was a good idea

Thralk colored?

/doodles

Mudmen

2007-12-20T21:30:00.000-08:00

Work from Figuring Bodies. more as time comes.

Sabriel Thesis!

2007-12-16T20:17:00.001-08:00

SO here is all the work I've done for thesis so far (all the finished work.) As you might have guessed if you've looked over this blog, my thesis was based around the book "Sabriel" by Garth Nix. The idea was to do concept art (landscape/character design) for a fictional video game based off of the book. So I did the whole fantasy artwork thing, and I'm happy with my work, and I'm DONE with the fantasy thing :)

Next semester I'm planning on doing something futuristic! more on that later. For now ...

Lets Check out some Characters!!

Horyse:

Border Guard

Sabriel

Touchstone

Scavenger Leader

Scavenger

Sabriel's Father (Terciel)

... in 3D

Kerrigor

and Kerrigor again

Thralk

The Mordicant

And now for some landscapes!!

Abhorsen's House!

Again!

Boomchain!

Boomhook!

The Aqueducts at Beliseare

Ceremonial Cave

w00t - word of the year

Scavengers!

2007-12-11T12:35:00.001-08:00

These fellas are real creeps - they take slave children, and then use them to draw away the undead when needed.

Almost done. Detailing and finishing required.

Sabriel

2007-12-06T13:40:00.000-08:00

this 'un's a little difficult, her being the main character and all. I'm not happy with the face (as usual) and I feel she's lacking something... a lot of something.

Hopefully before the midterm I'll have her done, as well as another character or two. Here's hopin!

-Bryce

EDIT:

I started doing some sketches for additional characters, focusing on adding more detail and complexity to the clothes and here's what I came up with. Given, there are some anatomical problems, but I'm otherwise pretty happy.

Ceremonial Cave

2007-11-15T07:01:00.000-08:00

was up till 3:30 am on this one... darn woodfire has got my attention elsewhere

More 3D workk looool

2007-11-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

This time i focused on the hand and forearm. Next its the head, and finally the equipment!

I'm really startin to get the hang of things I think .. after I unwrap and texture this fellow I'll work on hard surface modelling in max

Abhorsen's House take 2

2007-10-31T21:27:00.000-07:00

another angle of the same house, this time illuminating the interior of the courtyard, and perhaps some other dynamics ... I dunno.

The sky is wonky and the house needs more detail but I'm happy otherwise.

Abhorsen's House

2007-10-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

Had a bit of a rough start with this one because I was being too precious with my acrylic/gouache when I started it. After I realized my folly, I got real messy and loose. I'm pretty happy where this went. 5-6 hours not including sketches.

Tomorrow its back to daddy abhorsen to add the arms and equipment, and perhaps the face depending on my own motivation. After that ... another landscape? a character design? we'll see

First attempt at a character in MAX

2007-10-24T10:25:00.001-07:00

Been wondering why the blog hasn't been updated?

Its because I've been learning MAX, and i don't have anything noteworthy to post, until now. I used to dislike 3D stuiod MAX a great deal, as I felt lightwave was a better modeller, and while I still prefer Lightwave because I know so much more and I'm more comfortable with the interface, I must say that MAX has gotten a LOT better since I last used it like 4 years ago. The edge pull tool makes me very excited, as well as the "Cut" tool, and the Customizable interface, which has allowed me to rig up 3Dmax's hotkeys to be very similar to max's. Very nifty.

Anyway, I decided to start with a head, and tried out several methods for goign about this. At the moment I'm not too too happy with the head so no closeups. However, I'm enjoying modelling the body a great deal more, and I'll revisit the head later.

As you can see, I've decided to use Terciel, Abhorsen's Father for the base of my first model. Additionally, this is my first real foray into low poly modelling, as most of my ships were obscenely greebled and mesh detailed. When I get a better grip on these things I'll definitely model Touchstone and Sabriel (when she's drawn) Here are links to the original concepts if you don't remember them:
http://zombat.roosteredge.com/nix/abo3d.jpg
http://zombat.roosteredge.com/nix/abhorsen3.jpg

I'd forgotten how fun modelling was. Anyway, now its time for me to do another landscape/architecture concept for the morrow! that should be up here later on tonight