Back, as if nothing has changed

After more than 2 months in east Asia, I've come back home to live under the same roof as my parents.
Still without a job and feeling as far as ever from a career as a concept artist at a game studio.
There are interesting events coming up during Hanukkah, after which I will see if I can get a job working for a company that sets up trade events and conferences, in another attempt to avoid freelancing. Save money to travel again. Get into the green card lottery.

I had fun in Japan, and an even better time in Seoul, and I'll never forget it.
The GDC Eu and Gamescom combo is still the one event I can't miss, but G-Star in Busan comes in second, hopefully I can make it there and to Seoul again someday.

I need to get back into creating portfolio pieces, work through the disappointment I'm feeling right now.
I took over 1800 photos during my trip, and I'm adjusting the raw files, now that I have access to lightbox and more computing power. Until I go through all that and incoporate them as reference, textures, and color palettes, I'll continue with my speed paints:

The Update You Have All Been Waiting For

My flight to Dusseldorf leaves 6 am next Friday. I hope rocket fire from Gaza doesn't affect that.

I'll be going through Kiev, in both direction, hopefully the strife in that area doesn't affect me. Get what you paid for I guess?

From DUS I'll be taking the train to Cologne for my 3rd year as volunteer at GDC Europe. It's going to be great.

I also have my flight to Japan and South Korea in September all figured out as well. Maybe I'll get lucky enough to finally break into the game industry during my trip. Otherwise freelance will probably be my last option.

Printed out my portfolio; updated my website, taking into account some constructive critique I received; and noticed that I printed a slightly outdated file so I may go back and reprint it, if I feel it necessary and time allows.

Here's the final Silverhawks work:

Abandoned the Chroma Witch project after building it in vector

Somehow found the time to do a virtual plein air of a village in Croatia

And pumped out speed paints on a daily basis, off course. For some I have been using colors found on a "palette meme" on Tumblr. :)

Vacuum Tube Night Fighter

Made a basic model of the dieselpunk night fighter in 3ds Max, threw mental ray clay and glass materials on it, composed it the way I wanted it and gave it the photoshop treatment until I reached that point where I'm not sure what more I can do with it, so I called it done. Need to go back to my Silverhawks.

I always started something unrelated to portfolio work on the side, more of a color theory and animation exercise, working on it off and on.

Seems the external HD where I stored all my photos has failed, or is close to it. Maybe I can manage to run it for just a bit longer and save as much of it as possible. Damn shame.

Reworked a speed paint... but despite the positive comments on facebook, I don't think it's quite up to standard.

Speeds:

Letting Things Go

I have been reworking another speed paint I liked, but decided things weren't clicking just right. The perspective has some deep rooted issues, and the composition ain't great, so I'm letting it go at this stage:

I've also started polishing my Silverhawks, but that's also a bit on hiatus, as I figured I need something showing more progress as expected from a concept artist, utilizing my contemporary skills. I want a minimum of last year's work in my portfolio ready for GDC Europe. (Waiting for volunteer applications to open up for 2014, I've already booked my flight and hostels, with a couple of days in Dusseldorf.)

A Dieselpunk vacuum tube night fighter is the idea that came to mind. I just love aircraft and I'm going to have fun with the lighting. Here's where I'm at so far:

 

 Speed Paints: