skMOPBOOK! ☉_☉

[aargh!]

very cool illustration man, you're doing great. i'd suggest doing something to the weapon-holders beard to pop it out from his collar though, that and push the shadows in his pants to sell the fabric

[fersteger2]

Nice work. That still life may not have had the best light set up, but you captured the light that was there, it's very solid and believable, great progress my friend!!

[skMOP]

ForScience: haha don't hold your breath, they're not that exciting

mehran: thanks! haha i don't usually think of colors as a strong point in the first place

yemi775: cheers

aargh!: ooh nice, catch, will try to get around to fixing that.

fersteger2: thanks!
--

been in a bit of a funk, and not been doing much drawing, but heres a couple studies from the last week.




(mullins)

[skMOP]

[l'Aria]

I've been in kind of a funk too. I think you have the right idea, do some studies to get out of it

That staircase on the previous page is sweet! I keep staring at it. Amazing.

[ForScience]

I agree with the previous post, that staircase went straight into my inspiration folder. Your environments remind me of the Prince of Persia concepts. You have a very Ubisoft style.

[Forrest_I]

Your recent studies are looking great, I feel like you should probably try and go for some longer studies. Try and render stuff more, spend as much time on it as you can, it's really great practice for patience while working. I feel like a lot of your stuff (even your illustration on post #477) looks very unfinished, the perspective is very skewed as well. You're working hard though so keep it up and keep applying those studies

[Asmundur]

Looking awesome man! huge improvement
How are you doing with regards to your Art Center application? Think you'll make the priority deadline?

[skMOP]

l'Aria: thanks!!
For Science: haha i dont think i deserve that, thanks!
Forrest I: hey thanks for commenting. definitely agreed on longer studies and more time overall.
Asmunder: thanks. i posted below, I finished/submitted about one or two weeks ago.

--

Here is a few sample pages from my Art Center portfolio. If you're interested in seeing the full version, you can find it here: blog!
The link is the portfolio I submitted save for a few very minor changes.
I was going to wait a bit more for the deadline to pass, but its close enough anyway. Nobody steal it!

Fingers crossed to get in and for a nice scholarship haha.

[Kungfoowiz]

Very nice work dude, hopefully you get in, your enviros look really niiice too =)

[ezekrialase]

You've got some great work here, keep it up! I really like your character designs, and the head paintings in #483 also stood out to me.

[Momucat]

Hey nice improvement! I noticed you're applying to Art Center and wanted to give you some tips as a former student. A lot of people aspire to "get into Art Center" and think that it is the mountain top in terms of schools and all that. But because of that attitude every has a huge ego and Art Center is kinda like a venomous pit where people enjoy tearing each other's confidence to shreds, especially if you go in Fall term. (I peer mentored alot of incoming students and the Winter terms kids are alot less competitive, since it's a smaller and usually 20+ group, and more supportive of each other usually.)

Some people thrive on it, others detest it, but I guess the thing I'm beating around the bush to say is... I don't think you're ready from looking at the work here. I'm not saying you won't get accepted, I think you might get in actually. But I really feel that Art Center works out best when you have a skill level that is near professional when you go in. Not only will other students be supportive and help you grow but the instructors can really iron out your wrinkles and fine tune you into an extraordinary artist. If you go in as is you'll have to work twice as hard as everyone else and let me tell you, even the slacker at Art Center work their asses off (Slackers are kids who actually sleep).

Furthermore the benefits of being the top of your class are so unlimited it's crazy. It's worth waiting another year if you can go in and be among the best students. You'll get a scholarship, which at a school that's nearly 20 k a term is invaluable, and you won't have to kiss ass to get attention/decent from your instructors. They naturally want to mentor the best kids in their class. And one thing most people don't know they give you a number score for your portfolio in admission and if you score above a 90 financial aid is alot more likely to work with you if you have a financial crisis. I swear I've seen them tell people they have no money and then give a grant to someone else less than five minutes later (They said no to my boyfriend and then covered the rest of my balance in grant money. Same lady five minutes apart.).

I hope I'm not making accd out to sound like a bad place. It's not. It's a great school but it's a business and they have alot of politics like anything else and I've seen so many of my friends drop out, graduate with no job and just break down from the pressure. The only folks I've seen avoid things issues entirely are the ones who walk in with superior work. If I could do it again, I would have taken my time and made sure I had a very strong foundation before entering. I hope I've helped and given a little perspective on the school and even if you charge right in, at least you've had a heads up. Good luck and I think you're work is really great. I'm sure you'll make an awesome designer. :3

[skMOP]

kungfoowiz: thanks!

ezekrialase: thank you

Momucat: Firstly I want to say that thanks for such long post, and I will probably appreciate this even more in a few months as I usually tend to do with longer comments/crits. That being said I personally disagree with some of the points (this could just be me being naive however D: ) I think being the best in the class is something I think I almost want to avoid. From limited experience, being the "best" at my high school (and a few other social groups), it does nothing but boost my ego and give me a false sense of security. I sometimes fall into the mindset of "Oh I don't have to draw today, I'm already so good!". It's pretty terrible. I think that being bottom of the barrel would be a much better motivator. A good metaphor I think is from my experience in cross country (lol). It's always better to have someone to chase than to get caught from behind unexpected. Not sure how much sense that made.

If that makes me work twice as hard that's great. I don't want to go to art school to polish my skills, I want to go to get the fundamental knowledge and get the wrinkles out on my own. On a side note I think having some 20- would be better to have some more people in my age group haha. I hope I didn't come off as too snobby and I really do appreciate your comment, I'll definitely be keeping it all in mind before I make any decision!

also many thanks for being honest.

--
warm-up doodles




practicing perspective in environments. mostly trying to achieve a larger scale. (from photos)

[skMOP]

finally done! been on and off on this one for a couple weeks.



also a still life

[lionheartGFX]

mad interior studies! mad i tell ya! duuude you are moving with very big and bold steps keep it up, always keep on raising the bar on what you think you can do vs what you can actually do!

[Kungfoowiz]

Yeah man, your work's really gone up a notch. Ofc ass kissing won't help you much =), so as feedback you may want to work more on your edges, really push your drawing by expressing better edges, for example better water ripples and details on the snake. Push some nice subtle colours into your shadows with some glazing / transparent washes (if you're into that). But generally push your edges. Cool stuff.

[skMOP]

kungfoowiz: yeah I definitely think I need to work on not making everything so sharp and work on focal points.

lionheartgfx: thanks!!

--

hands!





and a late night doodle

[Freshfool]

yoo awesome stuff, i looked at your portfolio and it looks really solid great job on that, i liked how much detail you put in it you should get accepted no prob, keep it up man

[Jmob]

love the textures and concepts. well done. I'm pretty confident you'll get a good scholarship!

[teapo]

vincent!! you have progressed so much since i last stopped by. you have already left me in the dust u.u"

anyway, i took a gander at your Art Center portfolio-- seems like you have many skills under your belt now i wish you luck in getting in and i will strive for quick improvement as yours!

[ezekrialase]

Great updates, really like that first piece in #494! Hope you get accepted to Art Center

[skMOP]

freshfool: thanks a lot

Jmob: thanks, hope so!

teapo: haha thanks, you've improved so much too!

ezekrialase: thanks!
--
still life! really challenging. a toy lizard not a real one.


and me trying to do a mech. some perspective problems because not everything matched up quite right in the construction.

[Andrew Sonea]

I'm really enjoying your new stuff! It seems I look away for a minute and you get better and better. Gotta admit I'm pretty jealous of some of the stuff your doing lately (loving that interior with the staircase!).

I'll echo what others have mentioned, and say that you need to learn to spend a bit more time on things. You are good at pumping out quick sketches that are 80 or 90% there. And for concept art purposes some of it is 100%. But you need to be able to put that last little bit of finish on things sometimes. Often that last 10% will take 80% of the time, but it's worth it. There are just little things you can clean up, like some brushwork, or edgework (I can see you varying edges, but it's like you put in very hard or very soft; you need a variety of edges going hard>firm>soft>lost, and need to control them very carefully everywhere in your paintings). Other things may be adding a little more colour variety, for example, that last still life of the lizard has almost no variation in hue. Just lots of little things really.

Perspective-wise things are pretty good as far as I can tell. Your designs are coming along, but can still use some improvement. Some things like the crawler has a few issues. The cockpit is awkward, and I'm not sure how a person would comfortably get in/out, and the controls aren't really in there. The body of the mech is not a very interesting shape either, and I have some doubts as to how well the scooper thing would actually work. The legs are interesting though! The thopter suffers a bit as well. The body is also a bit boring shaped, and kinda clunky. And the wings do not look like they'd be able to support that much weight, plus they are placed very far back on the vehicle, so I feel like it would be very front-heavy. Additionally the way they are attached to the body is not well defined, and appears like just a hinge joint, which wouldn't have the appropriate range of motion. I may be wrong too, but I seem to recall that in the book the thopters were more avian than insect based, and describes some interesting wings having parts sliding over each other like feathers on a wings as the open and close.

Anyways, all in all it's a solid portfolio. I hope you make it in--I think you have a decent chance at it, and if you got in you'd become scary good

[skMOP]

andrew: thanks for the long reply dude!! i am slowly getting better at finishing things I think, but definitely still working on it. I should've sent my portfolio to you first to crit before submitting haha! A lot of the designs were done in like November or December so I can see a lot of flaws too now. and on the thopter bit, its highly possible that they were avian-ish, in fact I think you're probably right, I just thought insect movement was more interesting to look at.

value practice for environments.


living room study. first time doing life painting of an environment '__'


haha goddamnit i hate environments.

[Chilingo]

So inspiriiiiing! great work! I love the improvement and it makes me wanna fill up my sketchbook more!

[skMOP]

Chilingo thanks you have a cool name!

a quickie imagination speedpaint. My first time in awhile just sketching in color without any real type of plan. Pretty interesting, unfortunately anatomy and the drawing itself was compromised for the nice colors


some character practice

[skMOP]

happy with this one. even if its not fully rendered, I feel like I got the colors down to where it looks like actual sunlight.


aand something from imagination where I could not for the life of me get a head in. feel like I learned a lot about lighting though.

[Aragah]

goddammit man!
looking fucking good.
to try to be hepful i would sa you lack a little on the anatomy/gesture front.
keep kicking ass!

- ha sorry, same crit as last time.
i guess i like being redundant!

[skMOP]

Aragah: thaaanks man I know, haven't been life drawing in a loong time.

sketches from life













still life



portrait from imagination,

[PieMonster]

Hey man! Super cool to see your progress, you're improving loads!

The studies from life are great, especially the still lifes. I think you could work more on anatomy in general though, some of your characters and people come off as flat and lacking in structure. I can definitely see improvement though, so just keep up the good work.

I did a quick paintover on your last portrait to show some stuff, hope you don't mind. If you want me to remove it, I'll do it asap.