Moai's Sketchbook

[Moai]

So once I actually start posting artwork again, the comments stop coming? Come on!


So, not too long ago I realized with a start that it has been, like, months since I've scanned and uploaded pictures from my sketchbook. Jeepers creepers! So here I am, rectifying that situation.
But first, and update on the mermaid. I'm finally starting to really paint this thing, as opposed to haphazardly placing pixels on the screen. As you can see, I reduced and changed the composition quite a bit, since the original was too complex and overwhelming, and my lack of success in trying to paint and unify everything was starting to depress me. So, I did what I needed to do in order to actually create and image I can feel halfway good about. Never be afraid to drastically change a painting that is going nowhere fast.
As an aside, I showed this to my neighbor, and I was more than a little embarrassed when we both saw that the mermaid's face looked more than a little like her. I don't have a crush on her, I swear!

So, the sketches.
-More noodling around with that humanoid frog idea that I had a month or two ago. Taking the frog's bizarre skeleton and turning it into a bipedal, large-craniumed form was a challenge. Looks too Mudokun-like.
-Studies for my animal anatomy class. I have to learn before I can teach.
-More.
-CoW 100 doodles. I did the majority of the critters all on the computer, but when my ideator was feeling cramped I would sometimes whip out a pencil and see if it helped. Some of these I scanned and included in my final entry.
-More CoW doodles. I was feeling particularly uninspired that day, and none of these were taken to the final. Also, my version of the cliched evolved penguin. And some caricatures of people on MySpace named Joe.
-More CoWs!
-And even more. Those thorny-headed scavengers were giving me trouble this day.
-More anatomy studies for my mentoring. I was planning on doing a musculature lecture, but ended up postponing that in favor of a lecture on joints and movement. Musculature will be up next month sometime.
-People from MySpace, random images in my reference folders, and images from some online international photo gallery, the name of which I have forgotten. Thanks to all people who took those photos and who were in those photos. As you can see, these are a mixture between caricatures and straight portraiture. Since I was out of lead for my mechanical pencil, I experimented with a wooden pencil. I'll probably use a mixture of mechanical and wooden pencils for future drawings, since both have their pros and cons.
-A Nissan Pathfinder, some Ukrainian grandmas, and an awkward attempt at some exobiological elephant. All from National Geographic, save the alien elephant. I remember being kind of frustrated with the way the vehicle turned out when I did it, but now that I look at it again I'm pretty happy. There's nothing wrong with it that some more practice won't fix.
-Random critters, another NatGeo face, and the best imagined person I have ever drawn. Ever. The pose of his legs is a little awkward, but his face and upper body have a spontaneous beauty.
-Last Man Standing sketches! I hope I'm not breaking the rules by posting these, but I'm not going with either of these ideas, and I'm struggling to think of how I'll be able to finish at all. In one of my ideas, a nightmare is attempting to descend onto a sleeping child but is blocked by a dreamcatcher. The nightmare is kind of a living stormcloud full of toothy skulls, deep sea fish, arthropod claws, and grasping hands. The other idea is of an infant-like creator deity waving its hand and...creating stuff.
-Really, really bad architecture. Srsly, I need to study that. There's plenty of great buildings for me to draw within walking distance of home. I just need to get out there and draw. The muscle man and sexy girl are from reference.

I still have stuff from another sketchbook to post, and the rest of my life drawings. Later.

[Ignominious]

dang!
great stuff! i love those creature skteches, i can glean this really fresh approach that you take with your designs, inspiring man!!

keep it up! the only thing that i thing that you need to work on is architecture and people. your humans are really quite good, but not to the same level as your animals

[Moai]

What the?? I guess I forgot to push the "post reply" button last night, because the post I made last night isn't here. Darn.

Anyway, here's an update of my mermaid picture. Still not quite finished. I haven't enjoyed working on this; it's been frustrating and overwhelming. I bit off way more than I could chew with the initial composition, and had to constantly change things that were turning out crappy, or that I just didn't know how to paint. I've learned some valuable lessons on not overestimating my abilities from this.
And now, my aunt's Christmas picture. I don't see her until I head up north for the workshop, which is why I can wait to get started on it till now. She has a thing for flamingos, so I'm doing a baby flamingo in the beautiful style of davekang (here's a thread of his: link). He has a very colorful style, full of textures and decorative criss-crosses and spirals. He works with watercolor and colored pencil, so I'm doing a digital analogue of that. Or trying, at least. It's been really fun to do so far. I think I may do more works in this style, in both traditional and digital media.

Ignominious- I need to work on my technological and industrial subjects too, don't forget! Thanks, man.

[Moai]

Hey look, I worked some more on these. They're either finished or almost finished. Something looks funny about the mermaid's ribcage, though...

[angelo cordon]

that chicken. looks. kick ass. all digitial? how did you do the cross hatching?

the rendering on the sea horse is also very beautifully done. i think that her rib cage is too straight, and would like to see a good solid curve from the rib cage down to her hips instead of it seperating like that. im talking about the left side that is stretched outwards. it just feels disconnected. this is halfway done for being finished

[Moai]

It's a flamingo chick! Anyway, for the more haphazard-looking crosshatching, such as on the upper side of its body, I did the crosshatching by hand. For the crosshatching on the underside of its body and the stuff in the background, the more precise-looking stuff, I just made a texture that consisted of a bunch of vertical lines. I then made a large image file and filled it with that texture, copied and pasted it onto the image, rotated it so that the lines were the diagonal that I wanted, rather than vertical, and then erased the stuff I didn't need. Hopefully that made sense.

this is halfway done for being finished

C'mon, man, I'm trying to be lazy here! Sheesh. I guess...sigh...I could work on it some more.
Thanks, dude.

[Ignominious]

hey great stuff moai! sorry. i don't really have anything to crit, but....haha, i accidentally deleted all of my thread subscriptions so i'm trying to get some of them back. haha

that mermaid is looking really good though! and the flamingos feet are exquiste

[Moai]

Ignominous- Thanks again, man!

So here's probably my last Christmas picture that I'll be working on. The picture is for my cousin, and the image is of her daughter and dog going on an adventure. I'm having fun and enjoying painting this, which is a nice contrast from the mermaid.

[mkshden!!]

wow... so much postings in so few days.
nice creatures as always!!, is also good to see more human drawings, specially faces.
just a "crit" for the mermaid... the position of her neck and head looks a little forced... like if her arms were pushing the head to the front/right , hehe, but that's just my opinion... (I'm drunk right now)

the picture for your cousin is beautiful, lol... i like the expression of the dog's face.

by the way, happy holidays!!

[Turisas]

A**hole. Stop being so good at stuff so I could be even a bit helpful!
Bleh. Anyhow, it's been quite a while since I last replied. Well. Time for some .

I love how the mermaid's body does a smooth S in your pic. And that kind of fins aren't something I see often. I like it.
The bird is quite clearly a bit different from what you usually do. Looks great, and once again, I haven't got anything to say about it.
Anyways, what I've always liked the most of your work are the sketches and studies. Once again, you make them look amazingly informative and somehow even classical. I love it. Those caricatures are great. You can see their personalities right through those delicate lines. I really don't even need to say anything about your creatures. You know I like them a lot. Bastard.

That's all I have to say, Moai. Keep up the amazing work!

[Moai]

Thanks, Monsterkill! Good to see you again. I'll comment on your new sketchbook in a few days once I get home.
Anyways, the workshop was a great experience. I met some very cool people, saw some amazing artwork, and got some of the best critiques and pieces of advice I've ever gotten from Jason Manley, El Coro, Jason Chan, Steak-Tron, Moby from Valve (the concept artist for Team Fortress 2), and representatives from Wizards of the Coast, Midway, and Bungie. I was a portfolio , as you can see. I now have plenty of new goals to work towards.
I'll post a more detailed acount of the event once I get back home. For now, everyone, study your fine art fundamentals before your fun characters and creatures.

[Halfmonk]

Hey Cory!
It was great meeting you too, I look forward to seeing more of your work! I will get to work with some updates myself :-D
Really impressive progression shown in your sketchbook by the way!

[amer-nazri]

Hey!!! The workshop mustve been awesome!!! Cant wait to se the stuff you've worked on. Your flamingo chick really caught my eye, I was like.. whoa. I think the crosshatching and textures youve added makes it so....eyecatching. I really like your caricature sketches, and I think your shading has improved a whole lot.

I completely agree with your last word of advice... only wit a comprehensive understanding of fundamentals can we really make believable creatures ad concepts. Maybe the best way is to do a bit of both, all the time?

Talk to ya later!!

[Yautja892]

Hey Moai, it’s been a long time since I’ve been in here; I apologize for the inactivity, been busy finishing up my college just graduated this December. I was wondering about the workshop are you allowed to take pictures, if you can you should share them. Well onto the crits….


Post #377

Cool design, his perspective is great, and your colors are nice. You should go back to this one sometime. Really not much to crit on him.

Post # 387

Nice animal skeleton studies, I like the skull the most. You mention a book: The Weatherly Guide to drawing animals. Would you recommend that book? I could use some help on my own animal designs.

Post # 390

Great design and I like the color scheme you are going for. I think the only thing that doesn't fit would be its posture and the overall perspective of the creature. I think recreating him in an action pose of some sort would give off more of how the creature thinks and will give answers to the viewer on what type of animal he is like.

Post # 398

Really great shapes and ideas in these sketches. Nothing much to really crit on those.

Post # 400

Your COW piece came out amazing man. I'm very happy that you went through with it and it showed that your really pushed yourself on this project. Yeah I would agree on Corriero's crit about adding more invertebrates. But all things aside the creatures you made where very original. I think the main thing that hurt you in the competition was some of the rendering seem flat on many of the designs. Anyways though you should be very proud of this piece and I applaud you. I'm not really sure on what my favorites really where but I enjoyed the Pink Furry Creature section alot. This piece would make a great poster or something. Hell I'd buy one from ya.

Skipping a few post .....


Post # 437

The creature painting is coming along well. It seems the lighting is shaping up well on the creature also. Some crits would be to give it some more vairation in color other then the shades of purple. I actually like how the composition is shaping up as well. Not much else to crit on. Something tells me that this creature doesn't seem that he would be in a rocking enviroment? Unless he has lost his way or is running from something....maybe that is why he is trying to climb up? Maybe push more of a story element into it instead of on design and technique. I guess I can't say that right now since its still in progress but those are some things that come to mine.

Really great figure sketch. Its great your doing some figure drawing and mixing up your subjects etc... The only that is a little wierd to me is his face seems a little flat compared to the rest of his body.

The second figure sketch is really great. The figure has great form and the porportions look nice .. well at least to me. How many mins/ hrs where each of these by the way?

The other ones are very nice and loose I really like the simple sketch one alot for some reason.

Post # 439

The first drawing seems like his pelvic/stomach area is too long porportion wise. Nice eye also. I like the girl with the sharp contour lines. Makes it read differently, and the other drawings are nice as well I don't see really anything major wrong with them.

Post # 452

Great start on this piece I think the composition works well. Something about her head is strange or maybe its where it connects to the neck that is making it look strange. Also something about her arms feels very mascaline to me. One thing I notice is that alot of your paintings have a very similar perspective or view point I have this problem as well. Maybe push some of your ideas on different points of view such as from the top looking down or from below looking up. Just a suggestion.

Post # 453

Very strong post, I think this is one of your better ones in that you can really see that your branching out on subject matter and within the studies and creatures your line quality is getting better. I think you shouldn't be afraid to go really dark and push your contrast even in some of your sketches but thats just nip picking.


Post# 460

Very cool painting, I'm sure your cousin will love it. Not much to crit on this one, it seems that each element in the piece is shaping up well.


Hope the workshop went well for ya. Hope to see any notes, pics or anything else you got from the workshop.... I'm fully back from the dead now and will be more active from now on...I've missed this place for way to long and all of you guys. See ya next update!

[angelo cordon]

how Moai went from




to




next on the true concept art story



hope seattle was a blast and you got back safe. now spill the beans!

[Moai]

Alternate title: I Am No Photographer.

So yeah, after a little post-vacation break ( ), I'm finally getting back to my forum-related responsibilities. So, here is my account in words and pictures of the Seattle Workshop. After these responses, that is.

Markeshi- Thanks! I think her head looks forced because of the way I've painted the neck. I'm busy repainting and re-repainting that area. As for the dog, he has a very wrinkly and expressive forehead/eyebrow region, which I had fun with.
Yautja892- Thank your for going through all my old posts and commenting on them, man! I'm going to respond via quotes.

Post #377

Cool design, his perspective is great, and your colors are nice. You should go back to this one sometime. Really not much to crit on him.

Our opinions differ on this piece. I tend to think of him as a generic human-frog hybrid design, with numerous errors in the modeling of the form. I don't plan to return to him.

Post # 437

The creature painting is coming along well. It seems the lighting is shaping up well on the creature also. Some crits would be to give it some more vairation in color other then the shades of purple. I actually like how the composition is shaping up as well. Not much else to crit on. Something tells me that this creature doesn't seem that he would be in a rocking enviroment? Unless he has lost his way or is running from something....maybe that is why he is trying to climb up? Maybe push more of a story element into it instead of on design and technique. I guess I can't say that right now since its still in progress but those are some things that come to mine.

Interesting point about him not fitting into his environment. Now that I look at him a little bit more, I'm feeling him as more of a tropical creature that is partially subterranean, living at the entrances of caves or borrows. And like the frog, this really isn't a work in progress. It's an abandoned project, like so many other images here. I wasn't crazy about the concept or how the painting was turning out, and it was more frustrating than fun, so I forgot about it and moved on. Lazy me.

Really great figure sketch. Its great your doing some figure drawing and mixing up your subjects etc... The only that is a little wierd to me is his face seems a little flat compared to the rest of his body.

The second figure sketch is really great. The figure has great form and the porportions look nice .. well at least to me. How many mins/ hrs where each of these by the way?

That's a problem I had with a lot of these pieces. The faces are flatter than the bodies. Something to work on. These figure drawings range anywhere from under five minutes to a few hours.

Post # 452

Great start on this piece I think the composition works well. Something about her head is strange or maybe its where it connects to the neck that is making it look strange. Also something about her arms feels very mascaline to me. One thing I notice is that alot of your paintings have a very similar perspective or view point I have this problem as well. Maybe push some of your ideas on different points of view such as from the top looking down or from below looking up. Just a suggestion.

The view point problem you mentioned is something I've been noticing in my work. It's definitely something I should work on. I'll also consider her masculine arms and see if I think anything needs changing there. I'll post an updated version within the next few days.
Thanks for the crits and comments, dude!
redSpade- Haha! That's awesome, man. Thanks for the encouragement. Consider the beans spilled.

So yeah, the Seattle workshop. Overall, it was a bitchin' experience. The people were great, the art was inspiring, the lectures were informative and thought-provoking, the critiques were brutally honest, and the party was epic. This was my very first time out on my own, without anyone that I knew (outside of these forums) with me, so that made this experience that much more interesting. So, without further adieu, a day-by-day account of the workshop.

Day One

This day was fairly intimidating and overwhelming. For like the first ten minutes of taking my seat in the main presentation area, I didn't say hi to anyone. A lot of people were being shy like that. Then I took out my sketchbook, and that broke the ice, and I chatted with a few of the people who were sitting next to me, none of whom were actually members of this forum. Quite a few of the people I met weren't on the forums, oddly enough. Anyway, pretty soon all the instructors got on the stage, and the workshop was underway.
Lorne Lanning, one of the heads of Oddworld Inhabitants, was the first speaker. He was a very edgy, energetic person. Here's what he had to say in a nutshell:

There's a lot of fucked up shit going on in the world. Don't rely on the information other people give you. They are either not giving you the whole story, twisting things for their own benefit, or outright lying. Go out and discover things for yourself and form your own opinions and judgments. Until you do this, and incorporate your ideas and feelings into your images, your art will be meaningless. The most important lessons you learn are often things that you really don't want to hear. Et cetera, yatta yatta.

I think El Coro was next. His presentation was on creature design and ideation. El Coro turned out to be a really funny and entertaining guy on stage, so this was a very enjoyable lecture. Once it was decided what kind of creature he was going to draw (a chupacabra), he started making thumbnails. Then, after he did six or so thumbnails, he chose one and he rendered it out a little more. Then he copied and pasted it and gave each version of it a different texture (shiny, transparent, furry, etc.).
Some of the notes I took:
-When designing creatures (and anything else), "shape language" is important. The shapes of the creature determine what kind of reaction it will cause in the audience. In general, rounder is cuter, sharper is scarier. To gauge the reaction the audience will have to the creature, ask yourself, "Would I want to touch it?" "Where would I want to touch it?" etc.
-Shapes and proportions are the first priority when designing. Values come later, colors after that, and details last of all. Heavy emphasis on not getting caught up in the details.
-Don't get caught up in one sketch, either. Quickly put down several different ideas before choosing one to refine. Again, leave detail work for later.
-Be careful when using reference that you don't end up just copying the reference. You want to create an original image, not a copy of your reference image.
-Sometimes, a Chubacabra can be a little naked man.
-Ctrl+shift+c copies everything on every layer.
-To make a good brush for fur, choose a soft round brush, select Dissolve as your painting mode, and lower the opacity to well under 10%. This will cause your brushstroke to be just a few random pixels. Select this scattering of pixels, define it as a brush, then go to the brush palette and lower the spacing to 1%. Try it!
-Sometimes, when El Coro feels that his creature design is too generic, he will add boobs or a dick to it.

Much hilarity! Anyway, as he was yucking it up and sketching away, several other guys were doing creature designs on the other screens. One of them was especially good. After the lecture I went over to find out that this artist was indeed my hero, mister M.C. Barrett. In my opinion he is tied with Prometheus as the best designer and renderer out there. I should have gone over and started picking his brain as soon as I suspected that it was him. That's one of my regrets for this workshop. Ah, well.
Anyway, either after El Coro or before him, I don't remember, some Bungie guys came on and discussed how they created missions for Halo. This was an interesting talk, but it was much more geared towards game design than concept art, so I don't think I'll copy down my notes. If you want me to share my notes form this lecture, than I will, but otherwise I'm not going to bother.
Anyway, for the rest of the first day I basically wandered around, met some people, absorbed information, and felt overwhelmed. I met one of my mentees, Jake Kobrin, and did some creature sketching with him. By then, I was about done with being social (I'm pretty introverted), so poor Jake probably didn't get very much from our sketch session. Sorry about that, Jake!
After that, it was time to head back to the hotel, drop some stuff off, and grab a bite to eat before going to the party! Myself, RobRey, Villa, Andrade, jojomonster, Halfmonk, and a bunch of other people whose names I unfortunately can't remember went out for some delicious Mexican food. I didn't have any cash and we were all on the same bill, so they all ended up giving me the cash while I paid with my debit card. My wallet was so freakin' fat that I couldn't even close it. I had to go to the market next door to exchange all my ones for some twenties.
Anyway, the party was in the fucking Space Needle. How awesome is that? Pretty damn awesome, I'd say. Like I said, I'm not a very social person, so the fun I had at the party was not proportional to the awesomeness of the location. There were several really hot women in really crazy costumes dancing, and the views of the city were incredible, and Android was doing a live painting, so at least there was plenty of eye candy. It was a really windy night, so the Space Needle was swaying slightly. I know that it's structurally designed to do that, but it was still a little disconcerting, to say the least.

Day Two

Myself, longshao (my roommate for the workshop), RobRey, Villa, and Andrade went and had breakfast across the street from the hotel at a restaurant called the Hurricane Cafe. By the workshop's final days it seemed like everyone attending the workshop went to the Hurricane afterwards. The poor people who worked there, that's all I can say.
Now that I looked back at the workshop schedule, I see that the Bungie game design presentation actually occurred on this day, rather than day one. Oops!
Anywho, the highlight of this day can be summed up in one word: Brom. Brom himself was present and very approachable for the first two days of the workshop. He was actually a very cheerful and innocuous person, despite the subject matter of his paintings. Speaking of paintings, he had several of them out on display in the traditional room. Yes, original Broms. Some of his more recognizable images too. They are probably the most beautiful little paintings I have ever seen in person. His paintings are absolutely flawless. Even when your squatted down with your eyes two inches away from the surface of the canvas, they are as perfect as the prints you see of them in books. Absolutely incredible and inspiring work. He also gave a very entertaining talk about his work.
The only downside to Brom's presentation was that Kevin Chen's figure lesson was going on at the same time. If you haven't looked at his figure drawings, go out into the internet and find them. If he doesn't come to be regarded as the next Loomis or Bridgman in future years, then the human race is even more foolish than I thought. Anyway, he has several of his beautiful figure drawings laid out to look at, and several others and myself crowded around him as he sketched some heads and faces in someone's sketchbook. Even those little sketches he whipped out right then were some of the most informative lessons I came across in the workshop. It's a shame that his official lecture on the figure overlapped with Brom's presentation. Despite that, I did see the second half of his figure drawing lecture, and it was packed with useful information. Kevin Chen is a natural teacher. I'll dig up my notes from that and post it sooner or later.
After the workshop, back to the Hurricane. We hadn't started taking the place over yet, fortunately for the people who worked there.

Days Three and Four, as well as my few lousy photos, will be added later.

[Ignominious]

man, moai! when are you gonna post agian?

i'm feeling severally depleted of the usual amount of moai work!
haha

[OldJake666]

I met one of my mentees, Jake Kobrin, and did some creature sketching with him. By then, I was about done with being social (I'm pretty introverted), so poor Jake probably didn't get very much from our sketch session. Sorry about that, Jake!

No way Cory, it was great hanging out and drawing with you! Thanks for your time and effort!

[Moai]

Ignominious- It's coming! It's coming!
Jake Kobrin- You just put a smile on my face, Jake. I really didn't feel like I was being very helpful, but I'm glad you felt different.

Day Three

Jason Manley opened the third day with his famous lecture on color theory. This was a very good lecture, and it turned on several little lightbulbs in my head. I didn't take very many notes, but here are a few good points that stand out in my head.
-Light and shadow are opposites. Obviously, light is light and shadow is dark. But also, if the light is warm, the shadow will be cool, and if the light is saturated, the shadow will be unsaturated. And vice versa.
-There's a good chance you've already heard this one, but I'm sayin' it anyway. The darkest value on the lit side of an object and the lightest value on the shaded side of an object will be very similar.
He also analyzed paintings, pointing out how the painter used temperature and saturation to pull our eyes from the foreground to the background, and many other good points. Go to Panda's notes thread in the workshop section to find more comprehensive notes on this lecture. And buy Jason Manley's Color Theory video when it comes out. Judging by his lecture, it'll be well worth it.

This is out of place, but I also dug out my notes from the second part of Kevin Chen's figure demo. This contained a lot of general information that can be used in all art, not just in drawing the figure.
-There are three kinds of curves. There is the straight line, which lacks a curve. There is the "C" curve, which bends in just one direction. Lastly, there is the "S" curve, which bends in one direction and then bends in the opposite direction.
-The more major curves you have, the weaker and less dynamic your pose is. Generally, things start weakening at three curves. This was a lightbulb moment for me, as I've never really thought about these things.
-There are three kinds of edges. In a hard edge, there is little or no transition between two adjacent values. In a soft edge, one value blends smoothly into another. In a lost edge, the value of the foreground and background become the same, so the edge seems to disappear.
-Soft edges give the illusion of a curved form. Hard edges give the illusion of a form that is composed of planes, rather than curves.
-Cast shadows have hard edges, but the edges get softer as the distance between the object and the surface on which the shadow is cast increases.
-When drawing the figure, muscular forms usually have soft edges, while bony forms (the elbow, the bridge of the nose, etc.) have harder edges.
-When drawing the figure, four values are plenty. The four values are white, light gray, dark gray, and black. Use white and dark gray to block in the light and shadow, and then use light gray for subtleties in the light and black to punch in your darkest darks. I imagine that you can apply this principle to any object of any value range.
-The darkest shadows occur on surfaces 90 degrees from the light source; this area is called the core shadow. The side opposite the light source often catches some reflected light, so it is lighter.
-Texture is often most visible in the core shadow. Think of surface texture as little tooth shapes with two sides. On the lit side, both sides of the texture shape will be lit. On the shadow side, both sides will be in shadow, obviously. However, on the side of the shape, where the core shadow is, one side of the texture shape will be in light while the other will be in shadow. It's difficult to explain in words, so here's my little copy of Kevin Chen's diagram. The little two-sided tooth things on the sphere are symbolic of surface texture.



-A note on lighting situations. Natural light (sunlight), comes from a point source, but that point source is so far away that the light rays can be considered parallel. In an artificially lit situation, however, the point light source is much closer, such as a light bulb in the corner of a room. Therefore, artificially lit objects in different positions will be lit from different sides, whereas in naturally-lit situations, the light source is so far away that objects are lit from almost the exact same direction no matter where they are. Here's my version of Chen's explanatory doodle.



-The distance from the top of the head to the bottom of the pelvis is four head lengths, according to Chen. I measured myself in the mirror, and this seems to be true. So, screw those books that put in an extra half a head length for the neck!
-I came in at the tail end of the proportions segment, but I believe I heard the following information correctly. The bottom of the ribcage is halfway between the shoulders and the bottom of the pelvis. When the arms hang at the side of the body, the elbow is at the same height as the bottom of the ribcage. When the arm is lifted straight up, the elbow is at the same height as the top of the head. The point of the iliac crest, the most visible part of the hipbone, is half a head above the bottom of the pelvis.
-If Chen got to the proportions of the lower body or of the arm past the elbow, I wasn't there to see it.

That's it for Kevin Chen! He's really an amazing teacher. I highly recommend learning from him in person, if you ever get a chance.
The only other thing I really remember about day three is that some guys gave some pretty cool demonstrations on animation. Some guy did a short video of creature animations from the game Tabula Rasa, and another guy, I think from Massive Black Shanghai, did an animation demonstration in Maya and then ran a video of Project Massive Black, which is apparently a video game based on some fine art sculptures by Pete Konig. There are some images of those sculptures buries in the Massive Black Art thread, if I recall. Really cool stuff.
After the workshop, it was back to the Hurricane restaurant again. Pretty much every booth in the place had a group of CAers, I think. The poor people who worked there were pretty stressed out by all the beer-demanding concept artists, I think. Anyway, I had a nice sketch session with peter_john, Lander, redehlert, and longshao, and also spent some time chatting with Killer Napkins. All really cool guys.

Day Four

The big thing in day four was definitely the portfolio review. Really, the event could have consisted of just the portfolio review and it still would have been extremely informative. I was kind of a with my portfolio, stopping at nearly every table, but I think pretty much everyone did that. Pretty much everyone who reviewed my portfolio was extremely friendly, helpful, and approachable, with a few exceptions. I'll get to that.
First, I stopped at the Wizards of the Coast table. Like I said, very cool, friendly guys. Here is what they said to me.
-When presenting concept art, be sure to include process work. They want to see how your mind works, how you went from initial idea to final product, and they want to be able to choose to go in a different direction from an earlier version if they don't like your completed version. Include thumbnails, sketches, idea iterations, color scheme tests and variations.
-The WotC guys, like pretty much everyone, weren't really impressed with my paintings but really liked my dragolope and the style it was done in. My colored linework is much stronger than my paintings.

Then I went to the next table and talked to Wayne, who worked at Midway. He had lots of good advice on how to make my concept work more useful to other game development team members, such as modelers and animators.
-For example, I drew just one view of the dragolope, but it would be much more useful for a hypothetical modeler or animator if I did other views depicting the dragolope in movement, in various poses, doing various things, opening its mouth, showing how its internal anatomy works, and other stuff. Basically, give the guys who use your concept art to make something as much information on the movement, behavior, appearance, etc. of your concept as possible.
-I included some of my drawing class still lives in my portfolio. Wayne advised me to do away with those. Academic drawings of boots and cow skulls won't tell them any more about my ability to make art than the rest of my portfolio will.
-Try to put more of my characters and creatures in environments.

Next I went to chat with Moby Francke, from Valve. He's the guy who did all those great character designs for Team Fortress 2. He also has a badass Moleskine sketchbook full of character paintings done in guache, but that's beside the point. Anyway, Moby Francke was a very friendly, polite, and insightful portfolio reviewer. He asked me about my education and my plans for my art. I told him about my plan to take a break from formal schooling next year to pursue art on my own. He then advised me to seriously consider going to art school and devote five years of my life to learning the fine arts fundamentals. Since I plan to do art the rest of my life, he said, I may as well properly learn the basics, since I may decide that I want to become a fine artist rather than a concept artist. It's easier to become a concept artist when you have a firm grasp on your fine art skills, but it's much harder to become a fine artist when all you know about art is specific to concept art. So yeah, now I'm much more turned on to the idea of actually going to one of those art schools that people are always talking about. I suppose I'll have to start doing research on those now.

After that, I went over to chat with the guys from Bungie. I think the guys I talked to where people in the game design team other than concept artists (animators, level architects, modelers, etc.), so it was interesting to get my portfolio reviewed from their perspective. Like Wayne from Midway, they told me to supply the other guys on the team with as much information as possible when doing concept art, and to keep in mind practical things such as how characters will be recognized from a distance, how characters will board vehicles, how they will use weapons, and such.

Next, I went to have my portfolio reviewed by the man himself, Jason Manley. He'd probably been working his ass off for months getting the workshop together in addition to the regular workload at Massive Black, and had probably looked at a million amateurish portfolios already that day, so by the time I got to him he was fairly gruff. Here was the guy, the head of this website, the person that probably the majority of the people on this site hope to work for some day, and he had my less than stellar portfolio in his hands, and he was in a bad mood. It was pretty terrifying. Anyway, he sliced away at my work, making me quite aware of how weak it was. He said my creature design skills were up to where they needed to be, but noted pointedly that my creature designs were all that I had. When it came to characters, environments, robots, vehicles, items, weapons, those were either very weakly represented in my portfolio, or not at all. His review was probably the harshest, but it was all very true and relevant, and I'm stronger now that I've heard it.

I was pretty shaky after Jason Manley, so I was kinda hesitant about who I should go to next. Lorne Lanning from Oddworld and Kevin Chen were reviewing portfolios, but their lines were moving about as fast as frozen molasses. By then, though, the line at the Massive Black table had thinned out, so I went over and put my portfolio and sketchbook into the formidable hands of El Coro and Jason Chan. El Coro can give some pretty brutal critiques on the forums, so I was really pretty intimidated. However, in person the guy is really very friendly and funny, so there wasn't really anything to be scared of. He used a lot of humor to point out weaknesses in my portfolio. For example, the first two pieces in my portfolio were my Yellow Blood Sucker and my Sauromander. He said, "Hey look! A yellow-and-black lizard creature, and a blue-and-red lizard creature!" in a kind of goofy voice. You can't slip anything by El Coro without expecting him to comment on it. He also said that my creature designs were pretty good, but that there were people a whole lot better than me. He also said that while my other paintings were pretty mediocre, my dragolope piece was actually good. Jason Chan noted that, in my paintings, my edge quality was lumpy. Then they flipped through my sketchbook. They liked the line quality in my pencil drawings. El Coro said that it was pretty much a matter of mileage. Fill this sketchbook, then another sketchbook, and then five more sketchbooks. Very cool guy.

And finally, I got my portfolio reviewed by Steak-Tron. He had some pointed words about some of the images in my portfolio. For example, on my dragolope image, the text seems just sort of randomly pasted on, and I was kinda screwing myself by printing out my CoW 100 image so small. He also most closely shared my own opinion on my creature designs. They're decent, but I need to study the inner workings of animals more before I can be great.

So, after that, it was the instructor thunderdome. Practically all of the big names got their own screen to paint out their interpretation of the topic which was the "Dream Devourer." Jason Manley and Dan Milligan provided the microphone coverage. Jason Manley was pretty exhausted, but Dan Milligan was very animated and pretty damn hilarious. Some guy came up on stage and beat boxed for our entertainment. He was the best beat boxer I have ever heard, ever. Then El Coro showed up, and all the other instructors and the audience shamed him into painting his entry on the main screen. He did kind of a half-assed (no offense!) joke entry. It was some crack cocain and a ligher, painted in a kind of Microsoft Paint type style. Anyway, Jason Chan ended up kicking everyone else's ass, so he won a hug from El Coro and a kiss from the Black Frog. The Black Frog is a very eccentric-looking character, by the way. He has a full beard and wore a huge, black, furry coat and hat. Anyway, the thunderdome was over, they took the group photo (in which probably at least a quarter of the people were hidden behind other people, including me), and the workshop was over, and I grabbed my stuff and boarded the ferry to go to the other side of the Puget sound to visit my cousin. The end.

Here are the first ten of my workshop photos. I'm arranging them in groups of ten, so it'll be easier to keep track of them. Like I said in my earlier post, I am no photographer. My photos are, with very little exception, either blurry or dark and grainy. Well, whatevs.
-The instructors on stage, with people holding their hands up for some reason. 1 is Andrew Jones, 2 is Brom, 3 is Jason Manley, and I don't know about everyone else.
-People drawing costumed models.
-The guy turned away from us is AardvarkPhill, I believe (I don't even know if I got his forum name right, though). The guy walking away is Raziel. The guy in the middle is Brom himself.
-Andrew Jones, demonstrating that we are each character designers insofar as we choose how to present ourselves to the world every day. He chose to present himself with a cape on this particular day. The third guy from the left on stage, the guy with the dark shirt with his hand on his chin, is Lorne Lanning of Oddworld. The rightmost guy is Moby Francke.
-El Coro, in the early stages of a chupacabra. It is neither a naked man nor does it have genitalia at this point.
-Andrew Jones absolutely kicked ass in the creature demonstration. His technique seems to be to sort of paste down a lot of shapes using custom brushes, and then use the lasso to create custom shapes and fill those with color. "Normal" brushstrokes seem only to be used to paint highlights.
-The rest of his menagerie.
-The creaturiffic Matthew Barrett. Look at those beauties.
-An enviro by Bungie.
-And another.

[Moai]

More Revelations photos.
-The first four images are photos of actual, real life, in person, oil paintings by Brom. They are absolutely the most perfect, well-rendered little paintings you can ever hope to see. If I were rich, I would definitely have asked to buy the third and fourth of these images, which are some of the best works in recent fantasy illustration, in my opinion. But I'm not rich, so Brom got to keep his paintings.
-Android wielding his countertop-sized Wacom, painting a model. The guy on the laptop, wearing the beanie, is Nox, I believe. I should have taken a picture of his final painting. It was amazing.
-Two images out of the two dozen or so that Kevin Chen had spread out for our perusal.
-Brom pointing out the hidden skulls that he had painted in this otherwise idyllic scene.
-Brom using himself as a model.
-Accidentally caught the screen as it was transitioning between slides. The resulting image is pretty cool, I think.
-The most un-Brom-like Brom painting I've ever seen.

My camera died after this. You'll just have to imagine the rest. Or look in the workshop photos thread.

[angelo cordon]

dude.

you have. the most amazing experience ever. i read your post word for word and i felt like i was there and i imagined the how great the fucking experience mustve been but i know it will never ever do it justice unless if i was really there. pure jealousy man.


dont worry about jason manley. i hear he is like that to everyone. he told my friend once who went to insomnia last year to actually draw from photographs because he wasnt ready to draw real figures. and this guy was our school's figure drawer rockstar.

oh man, all of those advice that they gave you, are soooo good. good and bad words alike are so valuable. every now and then we all need that slap in the face.


sigh.

[Nightblue]

This sounds way awesome. Hopefully some day I'll actually have a paycheck so I can go to stuffs like this The portfolio part sounds really cool and scary at the same time!

[Moai]

redSpade- It was awesome, man. Definitely make it a goal to go to one someday. The kinship you feel with the other CAers there is at least as rewarding as the information you get from the instructors. And I'm not worrying about Jason Manley. I'm choosing to view that whole thing in a positive light; he gave me a very honest critique and left me with lots of goals to work towards.
Nightblue- Cool and scary indeed.

So here's a bunch of not-to-great sketches that I did during the workshop. I spent more time talking and seeing the sights than sketching.

-An old South American guy that I drew before the workshop, and some skulls and whatnot that I drew with Jake Kobrin.
-A portrait of the incredibly gorgeous Bohemian Chaos (doesn't really look like her), and some random creature.
-Sketches that I did instead of socializing at the Space Needle party. CAer Rabid, someone else, and some quick sketches of the hot dancers.
-More of the aforementioned hot dancers.
-Some sketches I did at the Hurricane. The bearded guy is supposed to be peter_john, but it looks exactly nothing like the guy. Also, a dancing skeleton that got lost in the scanning process, and an ostrich-human.
-Sketchez of some workshop peeps. There are some game designers, none of whom actually look like themselves except for the Asian dude in the hat, Killer Napkins, and a none-too-flattering caricature of Dave Ehlert (redehlert).
-The results of a creature-sketching session at the Hurricane.

[Blue Severin]

Hey Corey, it was good to meet you in Seattle. lol Those sketches of Dave and Peter John are great.

[Moai]

Zoinks! There are some comments that I forgot to reply to!
Halfmonk- Hey, Grant! Thanks!
amer-nazri- Thanks, man. Yeah, those fine art principles are key. I was looking at the ArenaNet artists' blog yesterday and I was captivated by Cicinimo's digital paintings. I've also been reading the blog of James Gurney (of Dinotopia fame) and getting exposed to some more traditional fine art. Apart from the difference between the media they use, there is no difference between the digital paintings of Cicinimo and those traditional oil paintings. They are all based on abstract principles of light, shadow, color, and composition, and each mark is placed deliberately to describe a form or a movement. It's really very abstract. Less experienced artists such as myself tend to think in terms of symbols of things, rather than abstract shapes of value and color that more truly represent what an object actually looks like. I'm not sure if I'm making sense, so I'll just move on. Thanks, amer!
Blue Severin- Great meeting you too, man. I'll see you again at a future workshop!

So yeah, another big ol' lump of figure drawings. These aren't new, but are from the same time period as my last batch. I've just neglected to post them until now. The cool thing is this: these weren't done very long ago, but I look at them now and I know that I've learned so much since then from the workshop and my own studies that I'd be able to surpass these completely today. Nothing like getting better.
In terms of more recent art, I've kind of been in a funk for the past several days. Lack of motivation, and frustration when I start working. I know what's causing it, too. I'm trying to paint things that I don't know how to paint. Same thing as with my mermaid. I really don't have the knowledge base yet to paint what I want to paint to my satisfaction. In case you're wondering, I've been trying to do both EoW and CoW. EoW this week is Pirate Cove, and I don't know how to paint rocks, sand, or water. CoW is Elemental Dragon. I'm not finding a design that I like, and the animals I'm referencing in my design are things that I don't have experience with; namely, shelled arthropods. Understandably, my pencil studies have been the only thing lately that I've been satisfied with. I've recently had a few small breakthroughs in my pencil technique and in my studies. However, these studies are done in my sketchbook that is too big to scan, and I don't have my camera with me, so you won't see them now. So there.
Anyway, let's see how this attachment thing is working today.
Excuse the books in the corners of some of these images. The papers were really curly and I had to hold them down.

[Moai]

And some more.

[Moai]

Oh, and these things too.

[Jorge Gecov]

Love the last post! Very cool stuff.
Thanks for the workshop pics too.
You are doing great with life drawing. Keep posting!

[Yautja892]

Hey Moai nice updates and thanks for posting all of those workshop pics. Awesome stuff. From your pics and all the others in the workshop thread it looked like an amazing experience. Also cool to see some more characters from you and your figure drawings are coming along very well. Keep up the good work I know you will. Cheers.

[ab4185]

Dude I'm hungry for more of your creature designs i love em.
keep em coming