Chomp's Last Breath

Here's a little piece to ruin your perfectly happy day. And for the sole purpose of making this even more depressing than it already is: This is the Chain Chomp that you rescued from Booster's Tower in Super Mario RPG. Let that sink in.

(DeviantArt Link)

Yearly "Don't Worry, I'm Still Alive" Reassurance

It has again been too long since I've posted here. Well, I can safely say that I'm not dead, I don't want to go on the cart, and I feel happy. Actually, I've sorta betrayed Blogger for Tumblr. So if you want more outta me, or asking me any random question you can think of, check that out. That and my Reblog Tumblr.

Regarding my piano antics, I'm still not apologizing over anything, but I feel the need to bring it up, having been piano-less for about a year ...okay, that's not entirely true. I still play - I'd go insane if I didn't - but I'm away from my good ol' 88-keys, and temporarily left with 16 less keys and no sustain pedal. They'll be back. I'll make sure they come back... or else!

Now let's see, there's has to be something I can show...... AH, indeed there are. Take this little piece here, where Tumblr asked me "Robots or Dinosaurs?" and I responded with this:

Or this cute one, which was a blast work on!

There are plenty others I'm either working on, or just aren't ready to be shown quite yet. However, on top of everything else, the first entry of the graphic novel I've been working on has been completed! "A Tiger's Last Song - Episode I: Wolves of Gondwana" is now available on Google eBooks and printed versions on Amazon! Thank you so much to those who have supported us. This is an awesome journey to be on, and we still have a long way to go. For more info and updates, please visit our Main Website and like us on Facebook!

A Tiger's Last Song - Kickstarter Launched!

Well my friends, it's finally up! After several days of delays, the "A Tiger's Last Song" Kickstarter page has finally launched! CLICK HERE to check it out!

A Tiger's Last Song - Holiday Update

Here's this Christmas card thingy I put together for friends, family, and supporters of our graphic novel project "A Tiger's Last Song." It was put up on the ATLS Facebook Page a while ago, and I even decorated the page itself for the winter season. I'm a little late putting this image up on my blog... but what can I say? I've been enjoying my Christmas, and have been on crunch mode making new material before we launch our Kickstarter page on February 1st.

I'm WAY excited to be working on this. It's one thing to get out of college and find a job in your field - just for the work. I'm just very fortunate to have a possible opportunity to be doing something that has my enthusiasm and confidence through the roof. In which case, I can't stress this enough: Pwetty pweeeease check us out and 'like' us on Facebook, and spread the word to your friends!! ................with a chewwy on top?

...And to all, a happy new year!! :)

A Tiger's Last Song - Artwork 01

Here is my first promotional environment piece for "A Tiger's Last Song,"  the graphic novel I'm helping with. This was partly an experiment in blending my environment with work done by our character artist Jack Malametz. It also sets our level of detail standard that we want throughout the book. Check out our Facebook page for more details on this project, and spread the word. Any support we can gather is greatly wanted and appreciated. Thank you! :)

Zoras Be Jammin'

 

      It's no surprise that I love Zelda. My favorite entries is a tie between A Link to the Past and Majora's Mask, and my favorite creatures in the series have to be the zoras. This piece was inspired by one of my favorite Zelda songs, "Zora Band," particularly the Mario and Zelda: Big Band Live version. I began this sucker back in 2009, but because of school, I never had time to continue until recently. It started out with a couple reference photos of me and my guitar. Unfortunately, I don't know where those photos have gone to. I then went and did a trace sketch. It looked embarrassing as hell. :S

      Yes, folks. This is the schlock I had spewed out in '09. Just be thankful it wasn't a fully fleshed out version with these wonky proportions. I would never have heard the end of it.
      You can see a bit of ass coming through Japas' (left) scale-flap. This was just to figure out proportions, as vastly improportionate as it already is. ...No, if you must know, I was wearing pants in the reference photos. Actually, in the design stage, I was thinking of a way to tastefully censor him without interrupting the flow of anything, since the zoras are naturally exposed - more so in Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask. Overall, I just didn't want a the vast majority of the internet comments being about Japas' ass. So I took some liberties, and incorporated parts of the Twilight Princess zoras. You could argue that the zoras didn't evolve these features yet in the timeline, but for this particular instance, I'm letting it slide :)
      Moving, on, I jumped a bit far ahead, and worked on a color layer separation, while tweaking a few proportions. Japas' neck and bass are noticeable changes here. After this, the project hat to remain on hold, until school wasn't consuming so much of my time.

      Two years later, on a Winter Break, I finally returned to this piece, while I still had a bit of school left to do. I had gotten pretty far in it, but unfortunately, the file corrupted. I was pretty upset at the time, but it was a blessing in disguise. It gave me the chance to start almost from scratch, fix even more proportions, and to make it where the two zoras aren't standing so ridiculously close together. In also comes shading/highlighting and the first incarnation of the background. The second iteration came when I decided the characters shouldn't be so close to the frame.

      Around the time I was doing this, I had my oil painting instructor check it out. He gave me some pointers on what I could do to improve on this piece. It had been a long while since I painted anything. Most of what I was doing at the time had to be done in 3D programs. I'm glad I understand 3DS Max and Maya, but I always had more fun, and would have rather improved my 2D painting skills. It took a while for things to click and re-learn what I had lost when I first started college, but that one oil painting class really helped out a lot.

      Here we have what was a placeholder final product. Water light and reflections have been added to the characters, everything has texture, small rocks are coming out of the water to counterbalance the picture, Mikau has a new pick, and we have a new third background. I just didn't like the way the old one was turning out. That, and I changed the aspect ratio to 16:9. The fins also have a new sparkle, based on that of how the original artwork of Japas appeared. I was thinking of adding water droplets, but they were became distracting to the picture.

      Now, a few months later, we come to the latest latest product (up top). Version 1.1, if you will. More detail has been added to the lighting and the rock wall, faint spots have been added to Japas' bass, and the rocks in the water have been replaced. The water collision edges have also been toned down. The one thing I couldn't stand about the image was Japas' head fin, so I made it to where it was over his shoulder.

      ...Well, thank you for sitting through these long ramblings over a silly piece of fan art - over the little tiny details you probably didn't care about. :P Now this may not be the best way to go about doing art in the slightest...but it was a good little experiment, and I learned a heck of a lot by doing this one picture. And with this, I opened up my DeviantArt account.

Oil Paintings

These are some of the artwork I did for my oil painting class. A lot of these I feel I could have made better with more time, but whether or not they were the best things in the whole damn universe didn't matter to me. The class was fun, and I learned (or re-learned) a lot, especially near the end.

Action Figure Sketches 01

I haven't drawn for myself in quite a while. School's been having me do more 3D work, which I may post later. But I've been starting to sketch some of the action figures that I own. I began with my Motoko Kusanagi from "Ghost in the Shell," and my Orion Moon Slave from "Star Trek." This is but a very small fraction of my figurines.

Some self portraits

 These are the images I used as the posters in the piano room picture below.