ccsears sketchbook

[ccsears]

tightened up a few things. started rendering a "mars" bg.



NicponimskY--Thanks!
FUSHANDCHUPS--Thanks!

[prsnsweeney]

wow man those designs look badass

[don juan]

wow cool skills!

[ThomasM]

nothing needs to be said about those concepts. I hope the advanced vehicle design was fun and you learned from it!

Great stuff, keep it up

[kidult]

wow!!

[ccsears]

i just got back from my brother's wedding in jamaica. with awesome sears-luck i sprained 3 of my toes playing soccer on the beach within a few hours of arriving there. lame. but the wedding went well, and i was glad to see my parents.

now it's back to work.

i missed the last mech class because i was traveling, so i have to just do trial and errror with this stuff. it's fun but frustrating. i'm doing this without any sketching or plan. these are parts of the feet.



this weekend, we're going to spray it with gray primer and then shoot photos, bring it into photoshop and then render it out. lotta work.

prsnsweeney--thanks man

don juan--thanks!

ThomasM--Thanks! yeah the class is super-fun. just a lot of work to do on top of the day job with all the other stuff i have going on in my life.

kidult--Thanks!

[ccsears]

here is more progress and some of the model kits i used. there's also an A-10 kit i've used some parts from. also, armature wire, a plastic bottle cap for part of the turret, and an international adaptor plug for the bulk of the torso.

[surus]

I ate this eyecandy updates... now I am hungry... more!

[Alis]

You have an incredibly inspiring sketchbook, congratulations! You're style is really inspiring me!

[wasabi89]

Man, your stuff is insane!
Your sketchbook have a lot of great works !
keep blowin our minds sir.
cheers

[ccsears]

these are more WIP shots, and then a kinda finished primer'ed version. i need to get my digital camera, shoot some photos and then paint over them digitally.










surus--Thx, here ya go!
alis--Thx!
wasabi89--Thanks! cheers!

[GEB]

Very cool!

[NickyBeats]

wow! looks awesome man!! i really love that worms eye shot looking up at the mecha. has such presence! great work!

[obier]

oh man, your designs and ideas are beyond my comprehension, fantastic job.
Looking for more of your stuff

[kischi]

haha how cool is that!!
your latest pages are incredible.

[Teundeboer]

cool mech designs, I quite like this one too: http://attachments.conceptart.org/fo...3&d=1314175072

[Hyenathatdraws]

Oh my god... so much work and amzingness in only one sketchbook...
thank you very much for share your amazing art with us!

[prsnsweeney]

damn man thats awesome
so im up doing homework and looking through your thread and i just want to say thank you for all the usefull information im goin to a college right now that calls itself an art school but i havent learned much in the way of becoming better at drawing and painting so i have put hours and hours of practice in and researching ways to improve and mainly studying my favorite painters, but i was wondering if you had any recomendations for places that have figure drawing classes or painting classes in the Los angeles are or know of any really good teachers in the area ?

[ccsears]

hey guys, can't post any artwork right now. super busy at work. some concepts i did are being considered for some cool projects, and that's about all i can say.

just wanted to answer prsnsweeney's question really quick

probably the two most important friends and teachers i've had are Mark Westermoe and Mike Butkus. Mark doesn't teach anymore, and Mike has some books out but is usually busier than anyone can imagine with work.

other than them, here's some shout-outs, people i know, teachers i think will do a good job. if i've omitted anyone, no offense.

nathan fowkes--head drawing, head painting, color theory, composition. i've taken everything he has to offer. excellent teacher but very demanding. requires a bit of artistic maturity to get everything from him, might be worth taking multiple times depending on where you are. works at dreamworks, teaches mostly at laafa. workshops at various places.

kevin chen--runs concept design academy in pasadena. super nice guy, excellent teacher, studied under westermoe, huston, vilppu, (hogarth?) etc. knows virtually everybody in the industry. has very good analytical figure drawing course.

charles hu--i don't know him personally, but he has the same kind of background as kevin. maybe more fine art oriented though. runs a school/studio next door to kevin's cda in pasadena.

hong ly--i think he still teaches at gnomon. also an art director (i think) over at naughty dog. teaches a good course in production design. good overview of entertainment design processes. one of the first digital painting classes i took.

john brown--teaches sculpture at gnomon. has some excellent instructional dvd's that are probably available for download now. takes a lot of work to do the class but it's worth it if you want to sculpt.

rick morris--excellent artist and teacher, probably more fine-art oriented than concept art oriented. very knowledgable

glen orbik--never studied with him, but he studied under fixler and knew mark westermoe. teaches at california art institute in thousand oaks.

sergio sanchez--excellent for studying life drawing, head drawing, tonal stuff, etc. runs a workshop at art center, i think he teaches at charles hu's 3 kicks studio.

kirk shinmoto--runs a figure drawing workshop at art center. super nice guy. very good draftsman. teaches at laafa and art center.

ron lemen--i think he studied under westermoe at some point. prolific teacher, quality draftsmanship. teaches at various places, also online.

john park taught an awesome mech design class. he was teaching vehicles and environments too, but i think he will only be teaching mech stuff next quarter. look at red engine studios for their schedule. downtown la. also http://jparked.blogspot.com

marshall vandruff--took workshops from him somewhere in orange county. look at his website to find out when/where his seminars are. google is your friend.

david simon teaches sculpture at laafa and santa monica college, i think. good sculptor. fine art oriented though.

i also took one-day workshops with charlie wen, khang le, eric tiemens, etc. mostly at CDA.

can't think of anyone else off the top of my head.

laafa in van nuys has a good deal for life drawing practice--6 days per week for ten weeks at about 150-180 bucks. can't go wrong with that. look at their website for the schedule. probably you want to take something like this along with any class you decide to take.

there are a lot of other teachers who are very good, this list is incomplete, blah blah blah.



hyenathatdraws--Thanks!
teundeboer--thanks t, the gf liked it too. great success as a bday gift.
kischi--thanks man!
obier--Thanks
nickybeats--Thanks
GEB--Thanks!

sorry i can't write more. gotta meet a harsh deadline at work.
later
c

[-D_art-]

simply amazing sketchbook!!! thos last mech designs are wonderfull, I really enjoyed going through your sb.

dont stop posting!!

[ccsears]

ZBrush4 R2 is f'ing sweeeeet. I'm going through Ryan Kingslien's thumbnailing videos on zbrushworkshops.com. I highly recommend his tutorials. I'm going to start trying some mech thumbnails next.



-D_art -- Thanks!

[ccsears]

as a mech design, it's nothing that special. but i did it all in Zbrush!!! so i think i'm finally starting to get the hang of things. just gotta get a little bit faster at it. my gf is out of town, so i think i will get a lot of practice in this week.

[ccsears]

slowly but surely... WIP. getting the hang of some of this stuff.



if you guys haven't seen these, this is how i'm using zbrush:



ryan has much more detailed stuff on zbrushworkshops.com.

[ccsears]

some parts for future kit-bashing...

[yongs]

hey interesting 3d stuffs here. looks fun!

[ccsears]

i did some "cute" 8-bit-looking toy concepts at work and they're being printed out on a 3d printer for presentation. i'm pretty excited! i also bashed out a rough model of a star wars character to pose for a 12" statue. i'm hoping to get to spend a little time on it and maybe finish as much of it as i know how.

about a year ago i did a bunch of designs for a Rhino statue but it got put on hold for various reasons. i liked a bunch of my alternate designs so i want to try to sketch them out in 3d and take a shot at them. don't know if i will be able to post the posed figures, but there's nothing secret about this kind of basemesh.

feel kind of bad that i don't get to draw right now, but this is kind of like reviewing analytical figure construction and gesture drawing. it really is pretty fun.



yongs--Thanks!

[prsnsweeney]

i love z brush. im about to take a z brush class at school this quarter, and i like the mech designs a few posts up

[ccsears]

been too busy to post. had to go back to chicago for my brother's wedding reception, etc. but a lot of artwork has been getting done at my day job and doing some freelance. i'm going to be taking a character design class over at Red Engine Studios on sundays for the next 8 weeks too.

busy busy busy.

zbrush lunchbreak doodles.


prsnsweeney--Thanks man, good luck with the class!

[NickyBeats]

wow chris your really making some great progress on the 3D work! i just started getting into it myself, and so far have yet to create something worth posting, but seeing you fly into action like this is really making me want to get offline and get back into that program!

[ccsears]

some homework from character design class. had a lot of distractions this week. the two female heads are from a rough presentation for a movie/tv show--can't say anything about that one. nothing special with these though. just putting in time. been doing a lot of freelance concept/storyboarding work though.







....and....

it looks like laafa is trying to get me to teach again. i'd like to do a full-on illustration project class where i recreate one of the gigs i've worked on and take the students through the whole process--concepts, roughs, photoshoot, final drawing, final illustration. it looks like there's a delay though because the school is reluctant to pay the normal photoshoot rate for the models.

if you're interested, it will probably start in january next year. i've asked them to limit the class size to 12 students. because there's a theme (think arkham city) there could even be the possibility of a small gallery show if the work turns out well. PM me with your contact info if you're interested.

nickybeats--thanks man!