Dingbats!

"Project Dingbats"

This project began with a serious brainstorm the ended with me settling on the theme of "Wizards". This seemed like a theme a could easily work with, and perhaps not have to delve too deeply into the research department to my already fairly good visual familiarity with the subject.
I began just drawing from ideas that came to me, these first sketches were mostly cartoony almost resembling cheesy chip art one would find in MS: Word.

After about 10 images the classic "bearded man in the pointy hat" began to get a bit dry and I tried to branch out a bit. I began to think about different kinds of "wizards" wheather of not these wizards would be good or evil and maybe how they could dress differently then the pointy hat while still looking mystical.

At this point I began to do some more visual research online looking work by the lead artists for blizzard as well as numerous other images I just found searching google. However, the at this point I would also say my theme took a bit of a shift in that i decided to go from drawing just wizards to "people I know in real life who are most likely wizards". This gave me all sorts of new ideas for people to draw, including celebrities, teachers and the old men I see at work. Finally I ended by decided to mix it up a bit more and add some females to eh groups as well and drew a few sorceresses.

Once I had 30 images I went back to clean some of them up and by adding color and in a few cases going a bit overboard with the detail but overall getting some great images in the end. The finished products are categorized below.
The Line Wizards:

The Wizards of Color:

The Sorceresses of the Overly Indulgent Attention Span:

Scarlyn's Back!

That's right she's back and she wants YOOOUUUU!!! After having so much fun drawing wizards on flash last week and upon finding myself with more free time to chill in the lab then expected Monday afternoon I decided to create this image. Scarlyn, as some of you may remember, is my rogue from WoW. She was last seen being awesome right here on my blog, which is where she is right now being awesome as usual! She is possibly the best damn rogue in the whole World of Warcraft and sips expensive wine all the time.

Block Town: 3D modelling take 1

The initial start for this work was in looking that the drawings by Piranesi and the being overwhelmed by the overall epic of it all. I decided it wanted to try to model some of this epic structures and gathered about 10 or 12 works of his.

I settled on what I wanted to do and had at it, choosing an image of what I would guess to be a temple surrounded by smaller buildings. I decided this image offered the right balance of difficulty (since it was not covered on every surface by tiny statues) and what I would call the epic factor.

I recreated the structure as best I could to match the original shot angle. I had planned on modeling some of the other structures after this but decided to continue working with this one. Although I was able to match the original sketch in terms of shape and scale I feared some of the epic feeling was lost in the translation from line shaded drawing to blank gray forms. I decided to try to regain some of the epic feel by playing with the angles of the shot instead.





Visual Research:
The works of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, and his study antique architecture.

The Day after the day after tomorrow

The following 12 images are photo-shopped pictures from my post apocalyptic anti-narrative. They tell the story of what life will be like in the post apocalypse. It is gonna be hardcore.

Epic Mathiys

The past week of thanksgiving break, was spent chaotically running around Dreadford with mother looking for "things" for my house that apparently everyone should have. In addition, laying around in a semi foodcoma and doing my best to maintain focus on the completion of this beast.

I suppose its partially my fault for putting most of it off, however I am not one to complain about something that turned out well, and I must say after about 40 hours of inking while listening to the Blue Plz podcast and sipping Dew the result has turned out well.

A brief introduction to start you off. This graphic novel is intended to be something of a modern reinterpretation of the classic "Don Quiote". The scene the reader sees swaps between the views of the two protagonists, Dave and Mathiys. All the character in this book, save the "LK" are based off of people I met on WoW. But I ramble so without further interruption...

Epic Mathiys

Ash's kinda Late Gift...not my fault!

I finally gave Ashley her graduation/birthday gift late enough to practically tack a "/christmas" onto it as well. I want to note that this is not my fault, well, at least not entirely. I began this project in July and finished it in September, which I guess even then would technically still make it a late gift...but as late?...I digress!

The gift was the a carved wooden box, not terribly large but not particularly small either, the kind that is perfect to place on ones dresser or perhaps nightstand and keep important little things in. The project began with the acquiring of some hand carving tools my dad had, followed by a bit of practice and the purchase of wood. The idea to make a box like this came from a gift I received on my High School graduation from a gentlemen at my church.

Below is a picture of box lid, still unstained. The wood is a piece of hard cherry which, using a combination of hand tools, dremel and soldering iron I carved/burned to create the result below. I would also like to note that this lid was extremely difficult to get rimmed to the size I needed, I actually had to go to a cabinet shop to get it cut right. Bloody hardwoods...at any rate...
after they asked what I was making I couldn't help but notice them raises an eyebrow as i responded with "The project is ambitious beyond your imaginations wildest comprehensions" :)


Moving on! The picture above ,however, was merely the lid, the remainder of the box was made from glued slabs of light bass wood. The only of place with burning/carving was on the bottom of the inside of the box. The image below shows a stage on minimal carving to this section inwhich I had been experimenting with using burning to create definition.

Finally with the carving done and sanded smooth I added a mahogany stain for the final result. i was particularly pleased with the look of the stain over the burnt shading of the bottom image. All in all a deam this project a sucess.