Lull before the storm

If it seems like I slowed down, it's true.

Since returning to Columbus I've had to worry about shopping, cleaning, cooking, filling out graduation forms, having to set the alarm clock so I can wake up in time, sending my laptop to repair, and getting a taste for classes this semester.
With homework looming, but not a direct threat (yet.) I also abandoned my goal of filling a page with sketches a day, a goal easy to follow, due to it's smallness.

As far as my classes go, I think I will enjoy sculpture. The preliminary sketches for silk screening and advanced painting are making me groan, but once I get into it, I think things will go smoother.
Topics in biology should be good, like most of the liberal arts classes I've taken.
Pro Practice will be more of the same.
I'm enjoying Comp Anim I, but I enjoyed modeling when I took a similar course in Tiltan, my old college. It's when we got into texturing and animation that I started to struggle. I hope an older me can manage it better.

Today was the first free model session, with a model I haven't drawn before, which is always nice.
Maybe I'll catch her name later.

Had a hard time with her face, kept redrawing, still wonky when the session ended. :/

Classes start tuesday.

I'll be taking the 2 am train, arriving at Ben-Gurion airport an hour later, and starting the boarding process for my flight to Warsaw. Hopefully there won't be any delays, and I'll fly out of Warsaw 3 hours later, headed to Chicago's O'hare airport, before my final leg to Columbus.

It's been a short vacation, and as always, I feel as though I could have done more, but knowing myself, I think I've had a bigger output than I usually fall into. It's all about setting small goals, like doing a page of sketches a day, and keeping away from hardcore games.

Mom hung my paintings on the wall, even blew up and framed a sketch I did on a little post-it sized note, when I was bored during a family reunion. :)

Website is still work in progress, but it's close enough to finished that I started sending out emails inquiring about positions in game companies. I've gone through the numbers and "A"s on gamasutra.

Unless there's a snow day, my first class is Silk screening, 12:30 Tuesday.

My younger brother, the second of three is getting married at the end of Oct. twisting my hand to return. I'm hoping that by then I'll be well on my path towards my dream career (with the possibility that reality might roll out differently.)
When I do come back, I think I'll visit the Carmel mountain park, the site of the big fire that happened in Early Dec. and do some more plein air, like the digital work I did over the last two days. I had a blast.

9 more days in Israel

My website is still a work in progress. I realized that the gallery code doesn't work in IE, and I may have to replace it with something that does (and maybe get more space for explanations in the process.) So I haven't really started the job seeking process.
I also need to design ads for sketch group, and have them approved by our dean of student affairs, something which shouldn't take long, once I get around to it.

I haven't seen/painted the remains of the fire yet. I don't think the mock interviews are going to happen. Haven't done as much digital painting as I planned to. Still haven't gone to Masho Masho, my old workplace, to have a chat with my old boss. Still didn't buy Scott a gift.

At least I have my nightly ID sketch session.

I also did this pirate cocktail party, merging two INTJf topics, Pirate and Cocktails. :)

Happy new year :)

I ended 2010 attending the annual life drawing marathon at Tiltan, my old college. I talked with Erez and Michal, the couple who founded this small art school, and with Mail, the head of the graphic design course, who taught me back in the day.
I also saw Kobi and Ilan, old professors of mine, but we didn't talk.

On Friday I took the car to IBM in Petach Tikva, for the 2010 Israel game unconference. It was pretty sweet, seeing who makes games in Israel, listening to lectures, and dropping off some of my business cards. Free pastries for breakfast, free pizza for lunch. Can't complain. ;)

Sagi, charcoal, first drawing of the night, warming up.

Sagi and Andre, charcoal, one hour pose (These guys are champs, sitting for an hour straight)

Yael, 6B pencil, 30 minutes? hour?

5 min. gestures of Yael, charcoal

 

Yulia, 6B

Website is up (mostly)

While it's technically a work in progress, I've reached a stage in my website's construction if which I feel confident pimping it.
I still need to add content, such as a link to my resume, and I need to iron out bugs, like the errors I get in Internet Explorer, but the main galleries are there.

Go check it out at www.hamsta180.com

I also decided to post a couple of the ID sketches I did, all from photo ref.
Bongs are fun shapes, challenging too, with all those spheres and ellipses.
I don't abuse drugs, and neither should you, especially if you are the kind of guy who traps his cat in his bong, hilarious as that is.

I also liked how these garbage trucks came out. (so did mom :P )

Working in Israel

I've been a week here in Israel, and I am still flexing my artistic muscles.
I'm working on my website, waiting for the DNS servers to resolve after messing around with the IP address. Once it is up, and I sort out everything I want to put up on it, I'll have to start pimping it out in the hopes of finding a job before I graduate.
I have also been doing some ID type sketches with a ball point pen, nothing terribly exciting.

I still plan to buy some illustration board (how do you say that in Hebrew, and do they have any available?) and do some gouache paintings of what's left of the big fire that raged around here about 3 weeks ago.
I also planned to do try some digital painting tutorials in the hopes that I will find one I will really be able to follow and that will really help me push me to the next level, although these kinds of things have never really worked for me in the past.

 I did a digital painting tonight - the Christmasaurus, bring presents to all the good caveboys and girls.
It was inspired by something Cynthia Sheppard posted on facebook :D

The final finals of Fall 2010

I'm writing this post from Haifa, Israel. The city I was born and raised in, and spent 4/5ths of my life.
While it's nice to be back, with all the little annoyances that make it what it is, I will only come back permanently if my hand is twisted, and there's no other choice.

I'm still waiting for my final grade, for landscape painting, which should bump my average right back to President's list standards, a first for a Fall semester. :P

Once I get around the jet lag, I have plans to keep myself in tip top artistic shape, maybe even form better drawing habits. I know I need them to stay competitive. Or maybe I'll slack off like usual.

The Tiltan nude marathon is on the 30th, an Israeli game developer un-conference on the 31st (groan.) I have some gouache and watercolors I can use to paint what's left of the big fire that went down here a couple of weeks ago, and hopefully my dad can repair my Intuos' cable so I can keep working digitally.

I also did a piece in Children's market I need to retouch and scan, as it's supposed to be for the SOI (not that I think it has a chance, but whatever) and the faux driver's manual I did in web design, which doesn't quite work as expected because Flash Catalyst is a typically buggy version 1 piece of software.

What I do have is the couple of finals I did for landscape painting. Views of Aphelion II, the planet where my game (which I think I will call "Operation Steel Stag") takes place.
These are digital paintings over scanned oil paintings.

I also made a couple of sculpts in dimensional illustration. I call my first Sandy, on account of how much I needed to sand her. :P
My original goal was to make her a resin, but due to time constraints and inexperience, I kept her as a sculpey figure

My second sculpt is a nuclear bug (bugs were the theme for the class) done in the last minute because I had spent so much time on Sandy, but still needed to turn in a second piece. :P