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

Almost done

Last class is tomorrow, Friday the 17th at 3:30 pm.

There will be one more post following this one with work from Fall semeter 2010. Anything after will be from Israel, (and I'm planning to be productive,) until I return on the 14th.

It wasn't an easy semester, and I have some mixed feelings about how much I learned, and the grades I'm expecting.

Landscape painting was awesome, I enjoyed anthropology. Comic book was pretty good, but a lot of busy work. It was fun to mess around with Sculpey, and I might use it again to make little models as reference, but I don't think I can turn sculpting into a career.
Children's market illustration was ok, but not great, as was illustration methods.
Heard a lot of good information during professional practice, but I'm not super happy with any of the projects I did, even though they were self-assigned.
Web Design II was fun, seems like I put more effort into it than anyone else :)
(reminds me I need to work on the overhaul of my site)

Art!

Caripeta angustiora - Brown Pine Looper:
Gouache painting for illustration methods, done from photo ref

Page 2 for comic book class. We never got to the 3rd planned page.

Mighty mouse cover redesign, done in Painter and Photoshop.
Pro practice class.
Original

Heightened drawing self portrait, charcoal and white pastel.
Photo ref.

2 weeks

Flying back home on the 18th, arriving early on the 20th or something like that.
Long flight, long layover (13 hours in Warsaw) and time zones will do that.

Maybe I'll finish my website in Warsaw, if I don't manage to get it done before hand.

I didn't have big plans aside from sleeping and getting my dad to fix my Wacom (I hope) but having heard Scott Hull talking about breaking into the illustration world, I think I may try to do some mock interview with Israeli game devs. I know there are a few of them doing casual games, mostly, even if I have to drive an hour and half to meet them.

Another view of downtown Columbus from the AMF building. This setup was a pain, as I was standing on a model stand, and looked through a tiny window, and we had a lot more time on it. My teacher likes it, so maybe it was worth it. ;)

"Architecture" themed drawing for Groff's sketchbook (which is no longer a requirement, but extra credit)
Kelly in the free model session.

Vasselin Behrovich, Combat tracker.

Character design for "Aphelion II" the game concept I came up with to focus my portfolio on.

A portrait of Cody.
Done for illustration methods, using Chris Payne's technique - graphite and colored pencil underpainting, gessoed, oil wash over that, kneaded eraser to take out the highlights, and acrylic and colored pencils to finish it off.