On the (Job) Hunt Again

Finished modeling, texturing, lighting and rendering my architectural visualization. Gave the renders a post production treatment in photoshop, and started applying to jobs.
Unlike concept art, I actually see posting for such positions in Israel. I have no idea how much competition I have or how I compare with others, but at least I have hope.
Being sent a confirmation that my CV has been received is a refreshing change from the days where I applied to jobs I had no intention of pursuing, just so I can get a break from my concerned mother.

After a few days of taking things easy, I felt like there's still plenty to do on the concept art side of things, where my long term plans still lie, and I dusted off the gun concepts I had worked on, finishing them today.

Sign ups for the GDC Eu Conference Associate program have come in last Monday, naturally I signed up. Mom told me she would sponsor just one more such trip to Cologne, so I should probably talk to her about making arrangements to do so, though I still hope I get hired soon and manage to provide for my own travel and accommodation expenses, as well as perks.

Speed Paints:

I'm back

Back to Haifa, Israel, the city I lived in for 24 of the 31 years I've been on this planet. Living with mom again is now picnic, with the constant requests, questions and planning on my behalf. I didn't fly here straight from California, though, first flying to Toronto to visit family, then Germany for 8 days to volunteer at GDC Europe, which gave me access to Gamescom, and I had an amazing time meeting other hopefuls and pros, generating interest around my portfolio, sitting through interesting sessions, collecting swag and playing the newest games. I want to find an industry job more than ever, and contribute my share to creating these amazing pieces of entertainment software, as well as having the financial ability to play them, even if they say I'll have less time to do so, but I'm sure I'll manage to squeeze some in, it's not like I have a girlfriend to distract me :P I installed the trail of Photoshop CS6 on the PC I now have access to, and started playing around, trying to find my way back to producing art, and the constant drive to improve my portfolio. Here are some of the first paintings I worked on.

Skrejgib fashion

Concepts for Skrejgib costumes, and my final decision on the look of these fox like alien antagonists.

Skrejgib anatomy

Having finally hit a direction I'm happy with, I expanded the bust into full body studies of Skrejgib anatomy. Before I did the bodies, I tried a quick color test, concluding that I need to do more of those, and tried out the "fool the Captain into doing our bidding" expression.

I also did some concept art for Scrappy over the past week, experimenting with terraforming as per our new background story.

Skrejgib bluesky

I started tackling the main antagonists in Captain Comic, the foxlike Skrejgib. Tried out a few different techniques to come up with ideas, at first trying to design them clothed. These felt too much like sticking fox heads on human bodies, so I tried to focus on their bodies, but got a similar result. Switching technique to a shaky line drawing type deal, focusing on the bust, yielded much more interesting results, which I will expand to the whole body. I gleaned some nuggets from all of these studies.

Less than 2 weeks to go, finish as much as possible and get it printed for an update to the portfolio, take out things I've done in school.

Song Bird

Started digging deeper into designing aliens for my game concept, I thought a good first contact would be an alien that could heal, and doing it with sound would be an interesting concept. This reminded me of how barn owl use their face as satellite dishes, and I took it from there. The healing aspect then changed to buff/debuff using songs on one skill branch, while the other will turn these aliens into skilled night fighters. I started sketching adult-sized aliens at sketch night, and took the concept I liked into Photoshop only remember I wanted to go super deformed. I also decided I would call my game "Star Voices" as there will be many playable species, each with their own voice, as well as for the democracy system which will give each played a voice on global game concerns, such as alien diplomacy or research options.

Alien thumbnails

Jumping ahead of myself and into a new project I've been thinking about (art to which I posted somewhere, possibly on Sketchaton) It's a social version of X-Com, where you can fight TBS battles with your friends, trade soldiers and play mini-games to increase attributes, game cash and collect cool items, all on facebook. I'll get back to the forge thing when I get back to Austin, but in the mean time I'm constructively procrastinating ;)

Everything is due on Tuesday, more or less.
Electronic illustration is done. Finished it Thursday around 4 am, felt great.
Styles & concepts has a good amount of work completed, and I'll have another work to finish.
Figure drawing is out of the way, Psychology of development exam on Wednesday.
I have been thinking what I should do for copywriting, but nothing written just yet.

The biggest obstacle is color concept. Pixel art mock-up of a video game. Taking forever.

Final for electronic illustration:

Figure drawing. Audrey this week. A couple of charcoal (stick for the first, pencils the second)

And finally, Audrey in Crayon (plain old Crayola)
One of the first media anyone picks up (at least in Western culture) yet so hard to do serious work with it. In that way they are like pencils. I'm pleased with how this turned out. :)

Two working weeks left. Why am I blogging

It's because there are two weeks left. When it goes down to one, that's when the all nighters come and beating myself over the head over how I should have been working. Or maybe it will be better this semester? Last Spring was alright. It might be a cycle I'm developing.

Inkwash from figure drawing class, after the first session, and the final.

The Keakeumm, an alien species I have developed for Electronic illustration. Still some work needed on it. There's another alien in the works, which I should address in the next few days.

And some Bunn guns for advanced structural. These fire magnetically accelerated nano-ammunition, custom built inside the rifle from atmospheric gasses.
These are connected to the other alien race of my game idea for Electronic illustration :)