Completed Sketch Challenge

Finally finished my speed paint challenge for the Concept Art Factory. Unfortunately the painting was delayed because of the Career Fair at the SCAD Savannah Campus.

Our theme was Evil, Medieval, African racer, with animals. I took influence from the Oliphant from the Lord of the Rings.

SCAD Concept Art Factory first meeting

I am so excited! SCAD finally has its official Concept Art club called the Concept Art Factory. We met for the first time and are about to make it official. Our officers have been decided and everything is underway!

Check out our blog:

concept-art-factory.blogspot.com

Concept Design Development: Chronicles of Marduk- Aeon's End

So I have been working on a personal story for about 3 years now since I was in high school, but it wasn't until now that I have actually started concept design for characters. All the time before was dedicated to getting the story fleshed out and I think it's in a stage where most of the essentials are down.

I made a series of silhouettes to get the general form of mechas that will appear in the story. There will be generic designs for normal government issues as well as more customized designs for specific characters in the story like the Pope.

I made sure the designs had some sort of thematic quality to them such as the body shape made from triangles and circles to hint at the gracefulness and the danger each model presents.

I kinda liked the thin frames because it has such a huge contrast from the bulkier look. That might be why I liked Evangelion designs. One of the main thing my story focuses on is the advent of psionics and the ability to amplify electromagnetic waves generated by the brain. The mechas must have a way to generate energy to power the psionic device. So I decided to use the circular structures on the back of the mechas as chargers which absorb electrons and other energies in this sci fi world to replace energy lost during psionic discharges. I really liked the design for the Pope's mecha (pope mobile XD) which has the weird tentacles coming from it. I refined the details for the silhouette.

The clam shell design was influenced by a Youtube music video for Vivaldi.

So this is the design I have come up with. It is a mecha with one face, but it is a mixture of two drama masks, one smiling, the other sad. I played around with other mask ideas but I thought the dual masks represented the dual nature of the Pope thus reinforcing symbolism and making the design more iconic.

New Temple of Cartoon Mojo Sketch Challenge Submission!!!

Hey Guys, I just submitted my Sketch Challenge for Wolverine at the Temple of Cartoon Mojo:

Yup, Oliver Twist and Wolverine. I have a feeling that this is going to be a rather Warm-Hearted adaptation of Charles Dickens's famous story.

SCAD Atlanta Boards Up!

I was telling a couple of friends about a site or a forum specifically for scad students so that we do not have to create groups and stuff on facebook. Just finished the beta for it and so I have opened it to user registrations. Just register and provide your scad email so that admins know that you are scad students and then once you are accepted, have fun and check out all the boards and join in discussions!

Click the image below to enter the SCAD Atlanta Networking Board:

Samurai Jack Sketch Challege

SCAD posted up another sketch challenge for the Temple of Cartoon Mojo. This time the theme is: Samurai Jack! I loved the series and watched every episode until it was taken off of Cartoon Network. Now I have a chance to show how much of a fan I am of the series XD

I kept the buildings and style relatively similar to the original Samurai Jack, but I took the liberty to make Jack more realistic. I have recieved mixed reviews about it all, but I am rather happy about the way it turned out. One thing I would've done is the way I drew the beetles. Ah well, I will revisit the piece in the future.

Back From Taiwan and a Merry Xmas to you all!

Well I returned from my trip to Taiwan and I am about to go celebrate Christmas Eve with some friends from SCAD. I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I will be updating with photos from my trip to Taiwan as well as new works I have completed. As of right now, I am preoccupied with my Demo Reel for animation so that I can show potential employers so stay tuned for more...

Friend's Blog Please Visit

Hey Everyone! I had a lot on my plate this quarter at SCAD, but FINALS ARE OVER! Sooooooo that means i have more time than ever to update my blog so check back for updates on new projects and other goodies. I will be in Taiwan until december 12 so I'll update with pictures from my trip. Now, I want to give a shout out to a friend of mine, Trevor Pledger. He is a pretty awesome comic book and sequential artist who has been a colleague of mine for quite some time. Check out his blog, you'll love it:

AWA TOMORROW!!!

I finally finished printing 10 copies of my print along with 10 copies of my 7 different greeting cards! I can't wait till I get into the dealer room and set up shop tomorrow!

Print Done!!!! Tutorial Steps Included!!!

So I finished my first print called "Beach Kiss", I know it's a bit sappy but I like stuff like that lol. Here are a couple of images of the piece at various stages:

I started off with the Inked line work which I scanned at 600 dpi and placed into photoshop at 300 dpi. I editted the black and white contrast using the Curves option.

Afterwards, I set the line work layer on multiply, created another layer and flatted out each "object" with their natural midtone color.

I created a separate layer for gradients so i can establish the direction of the light source before I start rendering.

Then on another layer I render out the different objects and planes.

Then I add in the highlights and additional background objects like the clouds and the sun.

Finally, I copy my line art into my alpha channel and make a selection for the line art. I then created the Dmax for the super black by creating a group layer mask folder with a solid color fill for 0/0/0/100 and another for 60/40/40/0. This process allows me to print out darker lines and keep the colors from going out of alignment when I print. The folder allows me to use a color hold on the palm trees by adding a color with a shade value lighter than the super black which pushes the objects into the background.

Dont forget signatures!

AWA and the Dealer Room

Hey Everyone, I am going to be at AWA this year and I have a table! I will be working with a fellow classmate named Irene Strychalski who is a fantastic artist. Check out her DeviantArt Page here:

http://alizel.deviantart.com/

I will be selling prints and greeting cards. On the side, I will work with anyone who wants a commission or caricatures of themself in Anime Style. Here is the link to my DeviantArt Page with samples of works I have done:

http://xvortexbladex.deviantart.com/

"Double Vision" -Website and Blog of a Friend Complete

Mark Ziemer, a friend of mine, just posted on facebook that he has completed his portfolio and uploaded them onto his website and blog named, "Double Vision". Recently he has been interning at Fanbolt. I highly recommend visiting his page because he is a very reliable and extremely talented Graphics Designer. He is also one of the officers for the Magazine team at the Atlanta Campus for the Savannah College of Art and Design- SCAN.

Here is the link to his page:


http://sylvisual.wordpress.com/

Website Header for Temple of Cartoon Mojo

During the July there was a contest for the Header Graphics for the Temple of Cartoon Mojo, a SCAD runned website featuring news for students studying Sequential Art. The old temple logo was created by Professor Nolan; the image depicted Shaolin Monks training by standing on one leg on poles. This is the one I did for this year's. I don't expect it to be selected, but at least I had something to do that could add to my portfolio. Enjoy!

 

Temple of Cartoon Mojo- Click Here

Send off for a Marine Friend

This week, a friend of mine who I knew since High School is about to get shipped of to Afghanistan. He had been through all the training phases in the Marines for almost a Year now so I really hope that he is careful while he's on tour. He's a machine gunner which is one of the positions with a pretty high casualty rate which really worries me, but since he is committed, I can only wish him luck.

Birthday Party Aftermath

So I went over to a friend's Birthday Part on Friday and it was one of the crazier nights I can remember. Beer and Vodka ran like a river and everyone seemed jollier than an octogenarian cracked up on Prozac. I got introduced to a new drinking game, I forgot the what it was called, but it involves the usual poker cards, an empty beer bottle, and a round of beer for the players. We each took turns drawing a card and each number meant someone had to drink like two is "you tell someone to drink", three means "me" so if I drew it I drink, stuff like that. After the people have finished drinking, the card is placed under an empty beer bottle- if anyone knocks it over, the person who knocked it over has to finish off all the beer they are holding. By the end of the night I had polished off 3 Honey Browns, 3 Coronas, 1 Blue Moon, and 1 Tsingtao.

It was fun, but after all that drinking I found it much more enjoyable to talk to my friends about how things are going since we haven't seen each other after we got out of School for Summer Vacation. In the middle, I left with a couple of my friends to talk outside about the stories for our comic strips when we heard fire alarms. Apparently some idiot in the other hallway had left their Hookah running. Everyone stared running out of the building, so I left with several friends to go eat at China Buddha before coming back and crashing from exhaustion.

Some Sample works

So here are some of my personal works I've done in the past. These are some of my digital illustrations.

New blog!!

Hear ye! Hear ye! - this is the launch of my first blog ever! Huzzah!

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Jeff, got a problem? I'm just kidding- so, moving on!

I am a student at the Atlanta Campus of the Savannah College of Art and Design, majoring in Animation and Sequential Art. I guess you can see where I'm going with this post lol.

I will be posting works I have completed along with links to animations I have done. If anyone wants to commission a work, just let me know and we can work something out! But on other occasions when I am not feeling so miserly- I will be posting my random thoughts to "give" back to the community.

How's that for being generous?