I wish I didn't have to sleep.

Started doing some art again. I was going to make it my new years resolution to paint more, but I got started early. This was for conceptart.org's Illustration of the Week #12, themed "Sci-fi Gladiator Ring".



I'm going to try to do more activities and competitions to keep my motivated. Got something else coming up so hopefully it'll end up here too.

Busy busy

So life on my own is getting in the way of my art... but I'm getting used to it. I just gotta wake up at a reasonable time, work enough to pay rent, and put the time into my portfolio...
That being said, I'm finally calling this one done, and moving on to something new. Much thanks for Kyle for telling me I wasn't done when I thought I was. I ended up learning a lot.
*Click to enlarge*

'Grappler sharks' live near the surface and use the eyes on the tops of their heads as light meters to camouflague their bodies to prey that swims beneath them. Though fast on their own, they prefer to sneak up on prey and latch onto it with their pharyngeal jaws before reeling it in. In this illustration it's attacking a human in an uncharacteristic fashion, adding to the many accounts of bizarre or aggressive behavior the planet's animals exhibit in the presence of humans...

Process animation.

And some concept sketches that lead to the final painting:

GOGOGOGOGO

Here's a few shots of me at my Senior Industrial Design show, with my lamp.

The show was a lot of fun. Just wish I would have taken some pictures after the sun went down...
So I've been busy trying to pay rent and get a portfolio ready before PAX this year... Here's something I "finished" a while ago. Learned a lot from it but I'm feeling pretty "meh" about it now. Life Colossus
And something I'm working on at the moment:
Grappler Shark for Project: Foster

Lamp zombie...

In the works:
Getting my 1/2" glass resized so it'll fit in the waterjet machine...
Get my glass tabletop cut in the waterjet...
To be CNC'd:
-Lamp index plate (it sits under the lamp in the middle of the glass table)
-Top lamp plate
-New battery cap finger tabs
Still need to fashion the copper ring to mount the LEDs, as well as the rest of the carousel. I as least got the internal plastic pieces FDM'd.
Bondo up a mysterious gouge in my pedestal, and send it off to be painted in the middle of the week.
Polish up my shiny aluminumunimums.

Surface Tension

Here's the final result of the project with Kohler's Ken Hanna. Fixed up the geometry and did some fancy new renders with water, and the touch-control details on the sides of the bowl.










In case you're curious (or dubious), this is a photo of one of many experiments I did in the sink that ended up driving the form:



All of the water is wrapping around the outside of the metal, thanks to surface tension, even with a high flow of water.

Now... To finish that lamp... Just less than 3 weeks to go!

Where's the ID huh?

Here are some quick renderings of the faucet/sink I'm designing...

A sensor at the bottom of the slide activates the water flow when hands are in the basin. Instead of the water spilling over the top of the slide, the water's surface tension makes it wrap down the underside before falling into the customer's hands.







I'll be investigating how to take the sink a little further (specifically adding a touch control for temperature) as well as the shape of the drain and drain stopper controls.

Hopefully not going to regret this...

Super, super, super busy, but made myself go to figure drawing this morning. This model was a juggler. Probably the most fun I've had in a session yet.







Tried going for some realistic color this time. Definitely slowed me down, but I'll probably keep trying it.

Dammit!

I want to do some art SOOO bad.

This doesn't feel right.

It was like A Beautiful Mind meets Crank...

I promise not to make a habit of posting my every day life on here... Just haven't been doing any worthwhile art recently, huh?

As my alarm clock shattered the reality I had created myself in my slumber, the first thoughts in my head were: How many people did I hurt, and what happened to the girl I was just making out with?

I'll explain:

I find myself at a large social gathering of sorts, amongst friends/colleagues, and possibly family. Not exactly sure what it was for, but it seemed like we all had a mutual friend whose birthday it was. I think I was going to have to give a speech for this unknown person everyone was there to honor, but for some reason I was enthralled with these flyers scattered on all over the table. They were trifolds covered in intricate ink line drawings of a medieval town, with handwritten words (I think they were shop names...). Anyways, I become absorbed in them, and the drawings are somehow coming alive. I guess I snapped out of it and decided to get up. As I walk around the largest table in the room, I notice a girl drawing, with a stack of other doodles on the side. She was exceptionally pretty, with her blonde hair up in a wild, but classy knot of sorts. She was a very talented artist (and I think I wanted to assume she was the artist of the enchanting ink drawings on the trifolds, but didn't inquire) and I struck up conversation with her. Apparently she was a friend of a friend.

I move on into the hall, and for some reason there is a TV playing a small bit about a world-class figure-drawing model. She was posing nude in a well-lit, studio full of white drapery, with what seemed to be many geometric cardboard sculptures scattered throughout the room. She's laughing and having fun as she takes directions, trying out different poses. She crouches low to the floor and briefly looks up, and I notice it's the blonde girl from earlier. I'm spellbound (wow, Ian, an artist AND a model? surprise, surprise >___<).

Eventually I make my way back to my seat, and someone taps me on the shoulder and I see that everyone is looking at me, waiting for me to say something. I don’t know what to do, so, naturally, I laugh, and then mumble "Uhh... what the fuck am I supposed to say?" This didn't go over very well, and my profanity seemed to offend a lot of people. For some reason, I continued to curse, as if I literally had nothing else to say, and people continued to get angrier and ridicule me. I’m getting angry myself, (because, you know, all the sudden I had Tourette's) and just as things start to get violent all the sudden I begin to feel dizzy, and the walls started coming in as I stumble out of my chair and everything fades to white.

Next thing I know, I'm in a house in a small suburb cul de sac. All pretty much the same guests from the previous party, but more kids. Seems like everyone was surprised to see me after my first outburst. I feel ashamed. Nonetheless, very quickly I find myself feeling loopy, start seeing weird distortions in my vision, and the cursing fits come back. People have even less patience this time around, and begin screaming at me, and even start pushing me around. That’s when I completely lose it and start a fistfight with everyone around me. I’m in an absolute panic, throwing punches and kicking and screaming until I find myself cornered against a window. My shirt’s off and bunched in my right hand at this point (as crazy people tend to do in psychosis, right?), and I wrap it around my arm before lunging out of the window to escape. I hit the ground running (in my socks, where are my shoes?) and just book it down the road. I run until I can feel the soles of my feet hitting the asphalt after I’ve worn away the fabric on the bottom of my socks. Everything fades out again.

I’m back at what appears to be my parent’s house. That artist/model girl is there with me (maybe my sister’s friend? Haha not likely…), and she seems to be really caring, and miraculously, not judging of me based on my random-ass tantrums from earlier. We make our way back to my bedroom (not the guest bedroom I sleep in now, the one I grew up in, that still looks exactly the same since the days I played with Legos and drew Pokemon all day. We lie down on my bed with the cowboys and Indians sheets, and make out.

Then my alarm on my phone sounds and I wake up. FFFFUUUUUUUUU.


So, basically I dreamed that I lost my mind. I wasn't aware that I was crazy, but everyone else was. I met the ‘girl of my dreams’, and out of the kindness of her heart, she pulls me out of my schizophrenia, and we fall in love... dawww
Who knew she’d be a blonde?

Oh, and this is what I looked like when I woke up:

Rise and shine!

New Year

My sketchbook's turned into more of a diary recently. Not sure how I feel about that.
Lots of things have happened since winter break... Just glad that school's started again and I can comfortably fall into the usual, stressful, daily grind.

A few highlights of yesterday's figure drawing session:











I think next time I'm going to take a more expressive/exaggerated approach to figure drawing. We'll see how that goes.