Corruption
Update: see The Making of Corruption!
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During my early sculpting days, when I sat in on a few of Valerie’s art classes, I developed an interest in making my own 3d digital sculpture pieces. This is perhaps my most literal attempt, the lighting and depth of field and little details were all intended to produce the effect of realism while still obviously describing an art piece sculpture.
Der Gruntlig
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Sometimes I’ll still find myself ready to draw but nowhere near my computer. Though at the time of posting this it’s more that I haven’t actually done any drawing in a long time, digital or otherwise. Speed of life I suppose. Back on topic, this is one example of a traditional pencil drawing I enjoyed doing. It was much more about the inspiration than the medium.
Shackles
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Here’s a dark one, and I’m not just talking about theme. The thing I remember most about making this image is that it was the reason I began to think about monitor calibration.
This was probably around the time I started working the graveyard shift for a part-time job, and I hung up towels and blankets over the blinds in my room to block out as much light from the windows as possible. Having created, for the first time, a truly dark environment for myself (really just to be able to sleep when I got home in the morning), it started having an effect on the way I used my computer.
Digital Dream Kids (Narrated Audio Version)Download the audio clip of my Digital Dream Kids poem.
The audio reading of this poem in MPEG 2 Audio format. If you have trouble opening it, rename the file with the .mpg extension.
Delilah: Contemporary Elf Chick Drawing
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Drawing Delilah (no, not Running Delilah, though that may have been where I got the name) was fun. At this stage in my artistic development I was starting to do a few things right, like drawing from photo reference for a (meta)human figure, and drawing at a larger size (higher resolution) than the final version shown here.
Dawn Eye Sketch
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As this was something like the second drawing I made with my Wacom tablet and Corel Photo-Paint, I fell into a trap that snares many new digital artists. The final presentation of the art is the same resolution as the original working copy. I drew it at 1:1 of the final size. Or put another way, I didn’t realize I could have been drawing at a very large size and then reducing it for the final presentation.
This is important for essentially the same reason that drawing instructors tell students to draw big (not that I ever spent time in art classes, to my detriment). It’s a way to let the small shakes and defects blend and get smoothed out as you resample the image down to presentation size.
Creature Face Sketch
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The neat thing about trying out my then-new Wacom tablet in Corel Photo-Paint was that it made drawing both familiar and completely new at the same time. It wasn’t until some time after this sketch that I arrived at pencil settings I liked, yet the experimental settings used in this piece were fun.
Drawing on the tablet but looking at the results on screen took a little getting used to, but once I got over that I realized it offers one big advantage: I never had to worry about my drawing hand obscuring some part of what I was working on (let alone smudging it unintentionally).
Widget Autospork 350
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Somebody once told me that this looks clearly like a glue gun. The amusing thing is that I think the person who told me that was interviewing me for a job, something with CAD and 3d visualization of industrial design pieces.
Digital Dream KidsI am a part of you
I replace you
No need for skin and bone
I can take you further
Wish for strength
Wish for speed
Wish for power
I am your genie
Technology is perfected
Steel sinews
And platinum nerves
You need that rotten fetid flesh no more
Morph and Explode Animation TestsDownload the animation test videos:
morph.avi (320×240, 388KB, MPEG4)
explode.mpg (240×180, 1.01MB, MPEG1)
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Simple tests I did while getting the hang of basic animation tasks within 3DS Max.
Demon Hand: 3D Modeling Project
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It seems like this was a point in my artistic development that I was just beginning to gain some confidence working in 3d, and suddenly started biting off more than I could chew. I can remember some very ambitious plans for characters that were simply hands, fighting each other with all manner of Asian weaponry like kusari-gama, nunchuku, etc. They were going to be animated pivoting and kicking as if fingers were legs, all the while performing complicated manuevers with chain weapons. No wonder I never finished such a project.
Then:
Demon hand is simply a working title for this modeling project, where my current goal is to make a fairly life-like hand. To begin the model I used the technique of box modeling, extruding and scaling faces on a primitive mesh to get the rough shape down. The hand will be modeled in a relatively neutral pose, for easier animation setup later.
Plasm
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It seems strange to me how an image made so simply can still captivate the eye, if briefly.
This image definitely falls under the category of “happy accidents”; some people think that term applied to digital art is akin to stating an oxymoron as everything in digital art is precise and controlled. In fact, that’s not always the case.
Vortex
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My favorite aspect of this piece must be the funky greenish texture of the walls, everwhere the circuit traces are not etched. It’s both blockish and nicely grungy and tarnished, like metal with some sort of fungus growing on it. If only I had come up with textures as inventive for the rest of the materials, this might have more appeal overall.
After Hallway, this is the second in what is essentially a series of mine in “corridors”. I guess I just enjoy the long perspective shots (or have compositional stutters).
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