I spent some time working on some cloth studies this month. It doesn't seem like much but I learned a lot about just the basics and I always feel like I don't get enough practice in of real life.
September Patreon Timelapse
This is Septembers work where I use Procreate on the Ipad Pro.
If you want to see a longer video with commentary and get files and worksheets then
support my Patreon Page
https://www.patreon.com/RichardBlumenstein/
or visit Gumroad at
website
Personal Site: http://richardblumenstein.com/
Blog: http://skuatmraa.blogspot.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/skuatmraa
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.w.blumenstein
Music from http://dig.ccmixter.org/free
Transmutation by Kara Square
Blind Love Dub by Jeris
Diablo Postmortem
So I watched Diablo Postmortem today and it's amazing on how they made games back in the day, with 30 people or less they were pioneers on the electronic frontier. If you want the original pitch document you can take a look at it here And I recommend that you follow David Brevik on Twitter
Transylvania Map
Another piece for my for my Gypsy Rose and Patreon.
To support my Patreon account check out my narrated workflow with worksheet go https://www.patreon.com/RichardBlumenstein
Dracula Redo
Redo of a old Dracula render that I did for the Gypsy Rose project.
To support my Patreon account check out my narrated workflow go https://www.patreon.com/RichardBlumenstein
Updates.
So I have been working on several different things currently. First I wanted to focus on my Patreon site a bit more. So I put off an Artstation contest in order to focus more on the content of my stuff.
Thus I created a quick study of an escorche for my Patreon Subscribers. To show them how to create anatomy from the top of their head.
You can take a look at it over at https://www.patreon.com/posts/12890157
I also have been working on world building as well. I figured I can go through Gypsy Rose project and start by showing a work in progress map for the project. It's an ongoing thing so I am going to have to update it as I work on it and get ideas for it. Right now has some major points like Dracula's castle, Frankenstein's tower, the city, cemetery and such. I still need a lot of work on it but I wanted to have a full story of everything in images when I am done.
Starting with the Project, I figured I would redo my Dracula character. I have five different variations from my original concept. I don't like the hair much on the first one but will have to play around with it. All of this is my work in progress.
A note of the project name was called Gypsy Rose and I was informed that it was a racist slur against Romanian wanderers. I originally based it off of Gyspy Lee Rose a burlesque dancer in the States. So now I have to rethink the concept name. Sorry if I offended anybody.
Thus I created a quick study of an escorche for my Patreon Subscribers. To show them how to create anatomy from the top of their head.
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| Escorche sketch |
You can take a look at it over at https://www.patreon.com/posts/12890157
I also have been working on world building as well. I figured I can go through Gypsy Rose project and start by showing a work in progress map for the project. It's an ongoing thing so I am going to have to update it as I work on it and get ideas for it. Right now has some major points like Dracula's castle, Frankenstein's tower, the city, cemetery and such. I still need a lot of work on it but I wanted to have a full story of everything in images when I am done.
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| WIP map |
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| Vlad Dracul |
Starting with the Project, I figured I would redo my Dracula character. I have five different variations from my original concept. I don't like the hair much on the first one but will have to play around with it. All of this is my work in progress.
A note of the project name was called Gypsy Rose and I was informed that it was a racist slur against Romanian wanderers. I originally based it off of Gyspy Lee Rose a burlesque dancer in the States. So now I have to rethink the concept name. Sorry if I offended anybody.
Personal Site: http://richardblumenstein.com/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/skuatmraa
Victory Day
Click on the image to go to my Patreon site for a free walkthrough of how I painted Victory
Ancient Ruins Workflow
This is my work in progress, the Original was about 11 hours to make. If you want to check out the more indepth process check out my Patreon or Gumroad
Life Bah humbug
I have been really swamped lately with life. This week the wife had to go down to Chicago and the car engine blew up. I spent the week dealing with that. A day going to get the wife, a day to go and get the car, so my creativity took a huge dump. Really tired and really frustrating. I get back and a project that I was supposed to be done with wasn't finished properly and I had to scramble to fix someone elses mistakes.
I recently started a Patreon account and I am trying to focus on environments and it's not really going well. I mean with the time and energy I need to sit down and do it. So social media always takes a backside. Kind of frustrating that I don't have a lot of time. And I know everybody has these problems, it's just wearing on me at this point in time.
Learning Zbrush
To speed up my workflow I wanted to start learning Zbrush. I mean I have used Mudbox and Zbrush for a couple of years now just piddling with it, but learning Zbrush is one of those things that you have to spend a lot of time on it. So I get the theory of it, but the practice of it is one of those things that I just need to work on. So today I worked on learning how to get subtools working. It's an odd workflow, I made the head and indented the eyes and then started all over, and created eyes. I then dropped the head back in, appended the eyes as a subtool, duplicated them and moved them over. What an odd workflow. Sigh.
Things I have learned. Subtools, Rendering, Remeshing, I also saw a video on shadowboxing, interesting...
Thoughts. I would rather create the majority of what I need in Maya or Max and then import in as a group of objects that I can work on. And break them apart in Zbrush as subtools. I think that would be faster creation for me at this time. And I would have more control over the mesh.
I spent about 2 hours playing around with this while I was watching videos on how to do it.
Take a look at my Patreon for some of my work in progress.
https://www.patreon.com/RichardBlumenstein
Or take a look at my portfolio at http://richardblumenstein.com
Creating Scenes
In this 7 hour video tutorial we will be modeling, texturing, lighting as well as a little animation of this steampunk boxcar. This is for novice users who are just getting started with 3ds max and photoshop. I will cover basic theories in modeling and texturing as well as any issues that arise during the process.
If you choose want the files created during this video you can buy them along with the entire video process at https://gumroad.com/l/OsiVS
If you liked this support my Patreon Page
https://www.patreon.com/RichardBlumenstein/
99designs
So recently I lost some classes so I have been looking for a way to get back into freelance so I have tried http://99designs.com recently. And I am not too sure if it's right for me.
The way it works, is the client creates a contest. You have about 3 days to create a mockup for the contest. And then the client chooses the finalists and then you have another 3 days to work on the project.
I submitted several contests. The first one I did needed to be done in a day, and I really didn't have time to make it professional enough.
And then I worked on another one, And he wanted several characters and in a 70's style poster and I worked on that for three days and then he canceled the contest. He wanted so many different characters and so much stuff in the scene. And no real feedback on any changes.
Another one I posted he loved the concept and I raved about it. But in the end it wasn't what he was looking for. And that's fine, but again another three days were gone. And no real feedback on the design.
And now I am a finalist in one contest. But in the end I don't think that I will get it. Just me being a pessimist.
I worked on this one for a couple of hours, I wanted to submit a mock up and asked questions that were never answered.
So I think I am going to pass on the freelance contests because I put in a dozen different hours of work and don't feel good about any of it. None of the contest holders really answered questions about the contests. And it feels after two weeks of contests that it's just not for me. So I need to get back to actually doing work on my own stuff. I might start traditional painting for the local galleries.
The way it works, is the client creates a contest. You have about 3 days to create a mockup for the contest. And then the client chooses the finalists and then you have another 3 days to work on the project.
I submitted several contests. The first one I did needed to be done in a day, and I really didn't have time to make it professional enough.
And then I worked on another one, And he wanted several characters and in a 70's style poster and I worked on that for three days and then he canceled the contest. He wanted so many different characters and so much stuff in the scene. And no real feedback on any changes.
And now I am a finalist in one contest. But in the end I don't think that I will get it. Just me being a pessimist.
I worked on this one for a couple of hours, I wanted to submit a mock up and asked questions that were never answered.
Epiphanies
So if you read my previous post I have been having a little artists block. And I am okay with it. But when the artist block breaks it's like a dam. Your flooded with ideas that you can never do them all. This morning was one of those cases. I just started playing Mass Effect Andromeda, and I didn't get to bed until 2am. I still can't get used to this daylight savings time thing yet. I woke up as usual when the cat started bouncing on my head to get fed at around 5am. And today was a little bit different, with that mix of sleep in my head as I put my head down I am thinking wait, I can do a lot. I just finished two contests. One the Ancient Civilizations contest and another one was the Thrust Competition. I could really flesh out those universes. And I have my Batman Beyond that I haven't touched in a while, As well as the future Distant universe that I haven't played with. And I have some stuff from my Thesis that I wanted to finish. There is five things for me to do right there. Not to mention I want to get some more practice in on getting better at art. And I could easily come up with an illustration on one of those concepts. Just have to remember to tell more of the story. With all that in my head I really didn't get back to sleep until about 7ish. Wife is going to hate me today cause I probably will be cranky :)
Artist's Block
So every once in a while, I get artist's block. I pick up a tablet and try to draw something but it just turns into scribbles instead. Literally scribbles. No matter what I try to draw I just don't like it, or I can't get that idea in my head. And no matter what I just hate it. Sometimes it happens just for a day, sometimes it's a couple of days. I don't think I have ever had anything more than a week go by where I just don't want to. I don't get frustrated with it. At least not any more.
I realize that sometimes you just need to step away from your craft to get your head on straight. And even though I still don't know what to draw, I still do a little practice. I have been using Sktchy for a while now and just pump out some 30 minute sketches. It's not much but it's a positive direction for your craft.
I realize that sometimes you just need to step away from your craft to get your head on straight. And even though I still don't know what to draw, I still do a little practice. I have been using Sktchy for a while now and just pump out some 30 minute sketches. It's not much but it's a positive direction for your craft.
Embedded Images in Illustrator
I had several students who were having issues with embeding image files in Illustrator in order to share the file.
Trying a new Workflow.
I realized as I did the contest for Artstation that my workflow left something to be designers. I would block in, sketch, refine, add a new layer and create a new object and it just felt like I was spinning my wheels. So I watched some videos on how different people did different workflows and I thought about playing with them a bit more. So last night I created this in about an hour.
The steps goes as follows:
Rough Line Drawing: I created a rough line drawing, Used a solid circle shape with dynamics and no opacity or flow. I tried to paint the basic shape but for me working with lines is more comfortable.
Rough Silhouette with Lines: Selected the outer bounds of the lines, inverse and filled with black. Drew lines over to block in the shapes.
Silhouette Grayscale: Locked the layer, cleaned up the shape, and changed the values to represent the parts of the suit
Gradient Layer: Added a gradient layer over the the gray scale silhouette as a clipping mask. Mine looked like this to keep the colors where I needed them.
The steps goes as follows:
Rough Line Drawing: I created a rough line drawing, Used a solid circle shape with dynamics and no opacity or flow. I tried to paint the basic shape but for me working with lines is more comfortable.
Rough Silhouette with Lines: Selected the outer bounds of the lines, inverse and filled with black. Drew lines over to block in the shapes.
Silhouette Grayscale: Locked the layer, cleaned up the shape, and changed the values to represent the parts of the suit
Gradient Layer: Added a gradient layer over the the gray scale silhouette as a clipping mask. Mine looked like this to keep the colors where I needed them.
Multiply, Overlay and Texture: Next I created 3 clipping layers, a multiply for shadows. A overlay for highlights and another overlay for textures.
Paint Over: Finally I added a new clipping layer for some basic painting
For an hour, not too shabby.
Painting Mood
So on my quest to get better on understand painting with mood, I started researching last night on painting mood itself. And honestly there wasn't much out there. It was kind of this obscure search that didn't really bring up many results. Maybe I am thinking too much into it. The best I found was a info gram from StudioBinder.com on colors and mood. And it basically gave screen shots from movies and based the shots on color. A deep overtone of color.
So is this mood, does color really do it all? No not by itself. I think tonight I am going to play around with some sketches. to get true emotion. I am going to work with body poses and hands and faces. I have some sketches that I have started a while back ago and focus on the mood and feeling of each sketch.
I also got a new book that I need to go through tonight. Hopefully it gives a bit more insight on painting mood working with storytelling.
What to do now
Well now that I am done with my Artstation contest, I need to get back to some basics. A couple of weeks ago I managed to talk with Alex Negrea over Skype and got some good feedback from him. He said that I need to do the following:
1. Connect with my audience. The majority of my pieces have no interaction with the audience. This also is about working with mood and storytelling.
2. Work on my Lighting, lighting is about mood and I need to reinforce the mood.
3. Work a bit more on portraits and hands, mainly incorporate them into storytelling.
All good advice from him.
He did tell me that I was good at rendering and he did like my rendering of the Bar, because it tells a story, and generates a conversation in his head.
1. Connect with my audience. The majority of my pieces have no interaction with the audience. This also is about working with mood and storytelling.
2. Work on my Lighting, lighting is about mood and I need to reinforce the mood.
3. Work a bit more on portraits and hands, mainly incorporate them into storytelling.
All good advice from him.
He did tell me that I was good at rendering and he did like my rendering of the Bar, because it tells a story, and generates a conversation in his head.
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| The Bar |
So that being said I wanted to say that he was very supportive and very of me and very friendly.
So now what am I going to do about it?
After a bit of pondering while the contest was going on, I realized a couple of things. First is to get my workflow a bit more streamlined. I tend to jump all over the place when I work and with my workflow I feel I need to tighten it up a bit more. This will hopefully speed up my paintings and allow me to push myself into faster and more art. I watched several of Anthony Jones's videos on workflow and improving weaknesses.
I am going to practice working on some shadows and emotion stills to get a good idea of what I need to accomplish for lighting and get some more work on hands and faces with emotion. I will try to get some emotional stills from movies and paint some sketches from them to practice it a little bit more.
Overall I will continue to work on my work until I reach my goals.
Art is Subjective, But Design is NOT!
Now as you may or may not know, I teach Video Game Art and Design to students. Occasionally, I get a student who says that "Art is Subjective!"
And my response to that is that Yes, Art is Subjective, But Design is not. In this profession that you are striving for you need to be able to communicate your ideas effectively. If you cannot do that, then you have failed at your job. It doesn't matter if your trying to paint a scene and your audience doesn't understand the message then you are not doing your job.
And my response to that is that Yes, Art is Subjective, But Design is not. In this profession that you are striving for you need to be able to communicate your ideas effectively. If you cannot do that, then you have failed at your job. It doesn't matter if your trying to paint a scene and your audience doesn't understand the message then you are not doing your job.
Contest Continued.
I have been continuing working on the Artstation contest a bit more. I feel like it's going really slow, never getting much time to work on it. I have to take this class for a college that I teach at and it's sucking up a lot of time. But the plus side of it, is that I use the class to build up a gumroad tutorial that I have been wanting to do.
I need to re-evaluate my workflow and see if I can speed up my process. a bit more. That aside I am finding tribal tattoos to be a bit of a task, since I haven't really done them before. On this character I still need to work on his legs a bit more. I feel they are kind of bare with all the stuff going up on his chest.
This is the character line up. As you can see it's getting there. I have a little bit more of the background going on and I have 3 of the ten characters fleshed out. Not done mind you, just fleshed out.
If you want to check out the progress feel free to at https://www.artstation.com/contests/ancient-civilizations/challenges/14/submissions/14182
Art Station Lost and Found Civilizations.
I have been working lately on the Character design challenge for Artstation's Lost and Found Civilizations. I started out with individual figure designs and started with silhouettes and just built them up from there. To save memory I have been just working with the individual files and using references in the larger format. I haven't posted too much on the blog because I am pressed for time to finish these characters before the end of the contest. If you want to see the process of the characters feel free to check out here
Books On a budget
So for those of you that don't know I am a huge book nut. I love all types from instruction manuals like drawing, and painting to software to fiction.
Not only do I have a wall of books but several other bookshelves . A series of ImagineFX magazines in the closet. And people always ask me how I afford all of them. First I buy a lot of old used books on amazon.com. You can get a lot of them for under $5. Your software books like 3ds max and Maya haven't changed that much for the basics. There are still a lot great sections in most of the books.
They talk about relevant techniques that are current like box modeling, edge looping and more. The these books are great starters to learn software.
Drawing books are so many and honestly there is a lot of junk ones out there. I love this book because it's a highlights the basics.
I also check out Half Price Books for some hidden gems. And I look for sales. Live model books just had a huge mark down on slightly damaged books so I filled in my collection of missing books.
So you can do it all on a budget.
Now I just have to read them all :)
Not only do I have a wall of books but several other bookshelves . A series of ImagineFX magazines in the closet. And people always ask me how I afford all of them. First I buy a lot of old used books on amazon.com. You can get a lot of them for under $5. Your software books like 3ds max and Maya haven't changed that much for the basics. There are still a lot great sections in most of the books.
They talk about relevant techniques that are current like box modeling, edge looping and more. The these books are great starters to learn software.
Drawing books are so many and honestly there is a lot of junk ones out there. I love this book because it's a highlights the basics.
I also check out Half Price Books for some hidden gems. And I look for sales. Live model books just had a huge mark down on slightly damaged books so I filled in my collection of missing books.
So you can do it all on a budget.
Now I just have to read them all :)
Style Vs. Learning
I often am asked about how to get your own style. I think that one of the things that we don't understand as new artists is that style comes with knowledge. It is dependent on the information we learn and from where we learn it. If you learn your anatomy from a anime book, your style will be influenced with it. If we learn from classical paintings it will be influenced. All style is a collection of knowledge. The more knowledge you collect, the more you define your style.
Personal Site: http://richardblumenstein.com/
Deviantart: http://richardblumenstein.deviantart.com/
ArtStation: https://www.artstation.com/artist/skuatmraa
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/skuatmraa
Youtube:https://www.youtube.com/user/skuatmraa
Artwar: Cyn
So this is my final render for the ArtWar Competition, I wanted to create this futuristic woman for this. Now I don't do much futuristic work, so this was out of the norm for me. I wanted to create a near future warrior. She is a regular soldier, now turned merc with a good heart. Kind of an anti hero, she uses a light weight exoskeleton which increases her speed and strength. During her battle she she did lose an arm and had it replaced with a cybernetic replacement. With a taste for the dramatic she had the arm painted like a full sleeve tattoo.
Instead of loading her with a ton of gear, I wanted her to be self sufficient. I figured at this point with laser guns as overpowered as they are, body armor would be useless and not as developed as the weapon yet. I thought about developing fancy outfits and clothes, but then I figured out that this is probably only 50 years in the future, which things don't change that much, we are a slow growing society. So Jeans and a T shirt as still kind of the norm and matched her Tom Boy style.
Instead of loading her with a ton of gear, I wanted her to be self sufficient. I figured at this point with laser guns as overpowered as they are, body armor would be useless and not as developed as the weapon yet. I thought about developing fancy outfits and clothes, but then I figured out that this is probably only 50 years in the future, which things don't change that much, we are a slow growing society. So Jeans and a T shirt as still kind of the norm and matched her Tom Boy style.
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