Peter Ninja Pan progress!

Check it out! Progress! *(only on the face, and the hair is wip) I sure took my time getting back to this little guy, but the model and uv's are all finalized. Now I'm going through the task of painting textures to fit into the "stylized-realism" category. I just know that if I didn't have Mudbox to keep me company on this project, I would be pretty miserable. Is it sad that my software is keeping me company? yes and no, i suppose...

Minocentaurus Final

Minocentaurus = the head of a bull, the torso of a man, and the main body of mostly bull/kind of horse. I think the ax turned out pretty dang awesome, but I can't say the same for the rest of this piece.

I saw some awesome digital art today at this site: http://ldaustinart.blogspot.com/2011/10/hogger.html and then I felt sad when I looked back at mine. Getting back into the digital painting game is tough. I feel like I'm starting from scratch all over again, which is incredibly unpleasant. Feel free to post crits or offer any helpful feedback.

Thanks for coming around to check out my stuff!

behold, the Minocentaurus WIP

wooopp halloween's coming! I sketched this piece using pencil and paper, then scanned it into photoshop. At this stage I'm laying down some ambient occlusion before I get into the more complicated lighting stuff. and the wicked battle ax is obviously temporary. I call him "The Minocentaurus."

On that note, I'm looking for work as a Video Game Artist! If you or anyone else you know happens to have info on those types of jobs, you should probably pass that good stuff right this way. To my inbox. Thanks in advance, you!

I've also updated my portfolio site, if you hadn't already noticed. http://ezralauportfolio.blogspot.com. And you should all be expecting a lot more regular updates, as I am devoting a lot more time to upgrading my portfolio and producing higher quality 2d/3d artwork.

why hello, mudbox

I just started doodling around in the 3D Digital Sculpting package known as "Mudbox," and this cool looking bust of a surly Frogman came out. Here's some of the images that came up in my reference search (thank you internet! also, I don't own any of the images below: all rights go to their respective owners and blah blah copyright jibber jabber):

cute!

precious!

Naruto! narutoads?

hmm... Battletoads? 

This frog neck is what nightmares are made of.
Imagine how many babies he could fit in there if it was fully extended.

If you actually made it to the bottom of this post to read this, then you sir/madam are a trooper. Thanks for coming around to look at my art! Comment and post your best joke and see if you can beat my Jorge Lucas one. 

My internship submission is in

And now all I can do is hope and pray for the best. These are some of my "finished" renders of my little environment piece. I was running really low on steam and time tonight, and so I am quite unsatisfied with what I've got to show. But I guess that's just life. You just gotta do the best you can with what you've got. And hopefully in the process your best keeps getting better.

And the only thing worse than a grubby animation student doing his/her best to get more experience in the industry is a greedy animation graduate trying to hog it all for himself (yup, that latter one's me). But sometimes it's okay to be selfish, right? People do desperate things when their job satisfaction is suuper low. We'll see if I even get considered for the spot, because otherwise this rambling is all moot...


Time for the sleeping! woo hoo! Thanks for coming by to take a look, and I appreciate all your support and whatnot. Peace.

ha! i bet you all thought I had gotten lazy!

Source: ArenaNet blog

But in fact I was super busy working on an Environment Artist Internship application which I found out about just last week that is due today! (ArenaNet had posted their internship positions Aug. 15, but I only read about it on their blog Sept. 12) ... and come to think of it, daily posts are exhausting for both the blog writer and the blog reader... so I might amend my previous commitment to weekly blog updates.

I was delaying posting my WIPs and any other details about the internship just in case some other grubby animation student was planning on stealing my spot! Now that there's only 24hrs left before the submissions are due, I figure there's no harm in showing you all what I've been working on. Here's a link to the blog post with all the cool details about ArenaNet: http://www.arena.net/blog/arenanet-class-of-2012-internship-program-now-accepting-applications

I still have a few things left to work on, but I've only got so much time in the day to devote to this project. If only I didn't have to go to work all day every day... JUST KIDDING I LIKE GETTING PAID MONEYS

Anyways...

If any of you have any crits/feedback, feel free to drop a line. If not, then feel obligated to wish me luck!

progress?

Yup, I suppose this could be considered progress. His arms are about halfway done, and his legs have yet to be started. My long weekend was pretty awesome, involving good friends and my first ever outdoor rock-climbing expedition (FUN!). Oh, and I saw Super 8 for the first time at the local dollar theater here in Provo. It was good. And I watched Memento (2000) last night with some work friends instead of working on my art stuff. That movie made me think about how I think about things. It was cool.

I'm realizing now how out of shape my character modeling skills have gotten. And my eye for human anatomy = also quite rusty... *sigh... at least I'm working on it, though I wish I hadn't let this digression go on for so long.

Stagnation and mediocrity leads to greater frustration, and I am perpetually reminded that my present existence is plagued with all three.

sketches from institute

I went to an LDS Institute class today. I drew some people. as I was listening to the uplifting Gospel message. I promise.

Sadly, I didn't make much progress on Ninja Pan today... but there should be more to show tomorrow. Promise. Actually, I take that back. Tomorrow's Friday! No promises on having artwork to show for the weekends.

almost a duplicate but not quite

yup, this post looks a lot like yesterday's... but I actually spent a ton of  time getting some better edge flow and tweaking verts to get his face to look "just right". So I'm pretty sure I'm finished with his head, and then tomorrow I'll see how fast I can get his body and everything else done.

ninja Pan in 3D! kinda...

A little screenshot of my Maya work space. I guess I'll be keeping this guy low-poly with tri's with the intent of putting him into a game engine. Kinda wish I'd gotten more done on him today, but hey it's progress. I think I spent about an hour modeling to get the face this far.

blog lovin time

Wow, my last post was around 3 months ago. Sheesh. Well anyways, with a bunch of my friends going back to school today, I figured I should set some new goals for myself and push my artistic boundaries. So each day I'll be doing a sketch or some type of art activity, and I'll be posting my progress here as a means to hold myself accountable to you, the people/robots/sentient beings of the internet.

Meet Ninja Pan, an interrupted clone experiment that will never age, with his AI guide TNC (Training/Nurturing Computer; pronounced "tink").  This is the futuristic/Asian/street culture restyling of the classic Peter Pan story. Stay tuned for more art featuring Pirate Mercenaries, Mutant-spliced Savages, and the crumbling vestiges of Earth's civilizations. I figure that if I'm going to be making art on a regular basis, I might as well think up a theme to base them all on. The story line is still in production, but I'll be posting more soon.

Used Photoshop to draw the character, about 45 minutes total.

'nother update

Finished another piece of the pie... the skull-spear prop is super lo-poly (164 tris), and so with that consideration in mind, I think it turned out pretty good. The detail comes mostly from the diffuse and normal maps.