Macaroni and cheese.. Now updated every 3 years.

[Helium Macaroni]

Welp, I thought I'd pony up and throw out some of the crap I've been doodling in my sketch book.. oddly enough during studio classes at school, while not actually doing studio work. Anyways, now I can stop feeling completely useless and actually have somewhere to point would-be challengers for the next local group Tdome challenge. Let the inanity begin!

Here's a little heavy power armor guy.. Christ will you ever be seeing a lot of these..



A few random sketches in preparation for a larger project later on.. wow, what a surprise, more power suits!





Some random thumbs, personal storyline related..



Some alien spaceships..




A human spaceship.. this is a bit old though, noticing a theme?



Some hyperdrive engine concepts, for said spaceship..




And lastly.. a portrait of myself as some sort of robotic man from the future! This is a personal shout-out to anyone from Pratt who had to do La Padula's 6 self portrait assignment. It was done a good... 5 years ago? Holy God I'm old..



And this concludes my first attempt at maintaining a sketchbook thread! Hopefully this interweb will not eat me alive and I'll keep the bloody thing updated. Until the next episode, feel free to proverbially rip these things to shreads, and tell me your thoughts.. I can take it.. besides, a good cry never hurt anyone.

[Helium Macaroni]

I lied.. I found more..

A drawing I did a crazy long time ago and keep coming back to now and again.. maybe in 7 years it will be somewhere close to being finished.



A very untextured alien, and his power armor, done before I had really flushed out his proportions. If anyone knows how in the hell I should go about giving him a less milky soft appearance, I'd greatly appreciate it.. I'm a lousy texture drawer.




Lastly.. two diametrically opposed themes, 2 politicos from a roman/fantasy storyline I have, and a dropship pilot. I know her face looks like lumpy clay.. I can't draw women to save my life.

[Doktor Focks]

incredible

[liam.c]

exelent ~!

[cotron]

your robot designs are sweet! and don't be so down on the girl's face above, I think it looks fine... everyone's their own worst critic

[character]

LIKEY LIKE LIKE! WANT MOAR OMGZ! nice stuff man, you're really good =)

[Groover McNab]

HeliumMike! Good to see you start one of these.

This one is damn tasty!

[USER777]

great stuff u got there!
like the detail in all of those!

keep em comin!

[flex mathews]

awesome work dood. your mech stuff is hot.

[Helium Macaroni]

Thank you so very much gents! Thanks for the positive feedback, especially from you Flex, I have great admiration for your work and really appreciate your approval.

I'll be posting again soon, I have some homework to finish before that though... which will probably consitute some of my next post

[Sikkness]

wow...sick designs man. you inspire me.

[Helium Macaroni]

Thanks Sikkness! Don't let me inspire you too much, you'd be eating squirrel and doing black tar heroin by the end of the week if you did.

Here's a very blunt plane, ala Scott Robertson, and lo and behold I did it for his class. I apologize to all the Industrial Design guys out there, I've no ID training and this is my first real attempt at hardcore ID drawing. However to any illustrator who want's some fantastic instruction, get his Gnomon DVD's or (for Art Center kids) take his class.. he's phenomenal.

[JadeDragon]

Wow!

Top knotch design technique there, Helium! Lovin the alien characters. And those spaceships...I have always really been fond of the organic shape approach to starship design, seems like a logical choice for advanced sentient life to mimic nature for it's functionality. That crustacean layered shell look is smokin'~! It's a neat contrast to the human tendancy for straight lines and boxes.

And you are in Scott Robertson's Art Center class? Lucky Bastard! A coworker just showed me his website for the first time last Friday! Amazing, you will be even MORE genius-like after he's done with ya!

I'm very impressed and I'll be keeping my eye on this thread for cool new updates. Keep em comin'!!

Cheers and welcome!!~~~JadeDragon

[Burning Eyes]

Wow, this is some really great stuff... Love this kind of work, and I just cant seem to pull it off, no matter how hard I try! Alwell, ill stick to the figures for now! But you are doin great! Keep it up!!!

[Jonny]

Nice concepts man. Would you say you have any influences for the mech stuff? I've been trying to improve my mech drawing for some time. I think I've been learning a lot just by looking at spinefinger's stuff (and shirow of course). Hmm as for advice for alien texture, look at some super closeups of weird bugs for ref. They have excellent textures indeed. I feel your pain with the ID class. I'm an illustrator myself taking my first ID class this semester. Keep up the sketchbook!

[steak-tron]

wow, cool stuff man. Tech drawings like that require some real patience, I haven't done one in so long...

that alien that groover pointed out is great and the un-textured alien is a good un' too. If you want textures try screwing around with filling in the thing with graphite and erasing in funky patterns, keeping in mind to concentrate light, a good ol' smudge stick can work well too. The hand looks a little funky too, like it needs some more bone structure... other than that it's solid design, like a gentle giant type guy that gets furious if you fuck with his friends.

I've seen your work elsewere and am a Fan! glad to have you join the DSB partay.

I'd write more but I gotta go cook up some more of that sweet black tar...

-steak

[mentler]

Welcome to the asylum ~ You got some uptown drawing skills here Mac
Your take on anatomy is very interesting to me (especially your lower legs)
You have obviously spent some time developing your own figure structure.
Also like the way you shade (shade) your forms ~ the own side plane down plane thing is alive and well here.

Pax, Pox, Pix, Pos ~ Do not breath to much of the air in this forum!

[metalwinds]

fuck. ..another sketchbook to keep up with. you have some great stuff going on so far.. ..i ll give you some crits when ive seen more work.. .got any color stuff?

[xia]

Yummy!

[Helium Macaroni]

Good lord, 4 illustrious CA.org artists commenting in a row.. the pressure be on.

Let's see if I can pull this reply off.. I'm sure I'll get much more lax about this over time.

JadeDragon, yeah I'm a lucky son-of-a-bitch.. I actually had to track Scott down at ComiCon to get him to sign my "add a class" form. That's just how annoying I am! Glad you like what you see.

Burning Eyes, thank you sir!

Jonny, like you I am a disciple of Shirow, he and Otomo are really core components to my mechanical design. As far as I'm concerned the Japanese are light-years ahead in terms of what I like.. that's just the fan boy in me talking though. The biggest thing for me about the manga/anime approach to ID and what-not is a very uniform and cohesive design mentality. It can sometimes become monotonous, but the novelty hasn?t warn off for me yet. Thanks for your advice on the Alien!

Steak-tron, thanks for the keen advice, I concur on the whole, lack of bone structure thing, I think I have to sit down, thumb through some animal books, and establish a bit of real world reference for this thing maybe.. get it a bit more firmly planted in reality, maybe I can bring out more structure that way. Glad you dig the work! I am likewise a fan of yours and quite the regular in viewing your sketchbook. Don't collapse any veins

mentler, yeah my anatomy is interesting.. interesting in the kind of way that needs a shit load more practice as of late! Hehe.. I've become ridiculously rusty. Glad you approve though, do hand me a straightjacket!

metalwinds, I apologize profusely for adding to the sketchbook perusing task! I will make it a point to disappoint you to a level that you will no longer have to frequent here I'm quite glad you enjoy my work, you yourself are quite accomplished and I look forward to any crits you have to offer... and do I have color work? Yes. Am I confident in showing it now? Heck no!

xia, you're stuff is pretty tasty too, pal

Thanks for the warm reception guys, I really appreciate it.. and I appreciate the future throttling I expect to get when I post some real crap! Christ.. just wait till the color stuff comes.. *shudder* But yeah, thanks all around, I'll post a couple images when I get a moment after finishing up some more work.

[Phuzion]

I love the fact that you have 189 posts and you're only now posting your work. HOSER!! It's about friggin time! Jeez... holding out on these poor kids, how could you?

It's all looking killer man! Great great work as always

-Daniel
"It's hard work..."
-Little Dubb Tex

[steve kim]

cool stuff here mike. recognize a few and you got some other stuff too. wow gee thanks steve for pointing out the obvious...

like i said before i think your mecha designs are badass. i like the one groover pointed out the most. i like some of the other more refined mecha/technical stuff.

this is the anal side of me talking, but i'd like to see you push line quality and refinement a bit more. i think the overall design and believability is there.. but if there were perhaps a little more polish to the line an detail. for example maybe not a uniform thickness for the outline of your mechdude or your characters. (i know uniform outline around characters is sorta of an ent-design staple but...)

post more stuff
steve

[t.m0]

great work man... some really fine things in here. Waiting for more!

cheers.t

[Helium Macaroni]

Whoa now, and update.. man am I bad at this.

T.mo, Thank you sir. As you requested.. here's an update!

Danny boy, hee hee.. know where I got all of those posts? The political threads.. muaha. Thanks man, I appreciate the complement

Steve (aka "lover") Dude, do I ever agree with that line quality statement... no really, do I? Yes, yes I do. That is the lame part about being an illustrator in an ID class, they have refinement DOWN! They do those little exercises ala Feng with the whole drawing straight lines by hand, connecting points with fluid lines, and drawing nice looking ellipses in one stroke. I'm working on it I assure you. All my crap I feel has some design quality to it as you said, but I completely agree, I need refinement and a clean execution. Next time I see you, I'll hug you for the helpful crit.

A rather shabby tank design, quick but utilizing some various perspectives on a single object.. hard as hell if you're trying to be accurate.



This was a little sketch for a daily assignment based on a random word from the dictionary. The word was "pip-squeak" I know that gun looks very inauthentic, I had no reference handy.. and I forgot my M-16 that day



And.. some girls from mah head.

[steve kim]

yo yer womens need a little more +sexiness. now you don't gotta go all feng-esque 6-inch heel ho-style but maybe little smaller jawlines, larger eyes with defined eyelashes.. that sorta thing.

this IS conceptart we're talking about

[HilL]

The kid with the M-16 is very cool man

[rodrigo!]

whoa man these are aaaaaewsome thanks for sharing,

[lowpolymatt]

These
are very similar to the ones I've been drawing for TD8...doing dominion Tank Police...heh...

Very nice....just surprisingly similar...funny how two peeps can be thinking along the same lines eh no!

[liam.c]

man art center treating you well huh !!! super cool mate

[Xpose]

WOW! those are really great. You've got a lot of original concepts in there as well. Keep em com'n!