Sketching for Environment with Charles Lee - Review

Kazone is a new art school in Irvine, CA. It's kind of like Concept Design Academy in Pasadena, but a lot closer to my house. The teacher's name is Charles Lee - he is one of the owners of the studio. He is nice dude, very approachable and laid back.

Class size is small. There were only 3 students enrolled in the 10 week course, and 3-4 more students are enrolled in the ongoing portfolio prep program, so there are lots of time to ask questions.
Charles does brief demos and informal lectures during the class, but most of the instruction is when Charles works with you one-on-one. He looks at the homework you did and draws on it, demonstrating certain techniques.

This is one of my first class in entertainment design, having done only observational classes for the past year. When he was doing thumbnails, he encouraged me not to think so much about the function, but to just draw interesting shapes, focusing on the size relationships of big, medium and small. I'm used to doing environment sketches and plein air paintings in 2-3 hours, but we worked on detailed line drawings over the course of 3 weeks - which really helped me think in a different way. And because I was taking a production paint class simultaneously, I was able to apply this things I learned in this class with the painting one. 

Charles is the guy on the right.

I kind of wished the class size was bigger.  I felt a weak group energy because there were so few of us and we were all working on different projects. There's not that much peer pressure or competition to motivate you - so you need to be self-driven.

Overall, Charles is a very nice and capable teacher. He is generous in that he would do painting demos even though it's not a painting class. Charles is planning on teaching a speed paining class next semester and I plan on taking it for sure. Let me know if you do sign up so I can get the referral discount. :) Classes start in May.

Production Painting with Mathias Verhasselt - Review

Class work

Mathias is self-taught concept artist who used to do 3-D modeling. He has developed techniques unique to his own. He explains light, color, value not in terms of paint and pigment, but in terms of science and how light particles behave! It seems like he creating form and lighting as a substitute for a 3D program.The methodology in which he creates painting is very precise and intentional. He paints in a way that is unique to Photoshop and the digital medium - instead of treating Photoshop like a substitute for traditional paint.

In the class we creating production paintings - which are basically very detailed environment designs. We started with thumbnails, and worked our way to finished illustrations. His critiques are very solid and full of information.  He will explain exactly why he is doing this and why it's making the concept more interesting and/or read better.

The only thing is that the class is not for beginners. The concepts he teaches are pretty advanced in my opinion. So I would recommend having a pretty good foundation before taking it. Otherwise - it's pretty solid class and you will learn a lot.

Greek Sculpture Study

I'll be doing a series of masterstudies to familiarize myself more with photoshop.

This study is to learn to achieve hard vs soft edges in photoshop. 

My teacher's technique (Mathias Verhasselt) is to just use the soft round brush (opacity jitter on, size jitter off).  Bigger results in softer edges, smaller brush results in harder edges. No variation on the actual "hardness" setting of the brush.

just tracing - only takes 1-2 hours. making notes on where there are hard, soft, crisp, lost edges. riley style!! :D
I realize later my notes are almost useless. lol

this takes another 5 hours. very tedious. Values and color picking.

Refining edges is the hardest stage. the last stage took another 5 hours.  gained a lot of sensitivity on our to use the brush. Nothing can help you except.. perseverance.  Total took probably 10-12 hours.

Carlo Arelanno Workshop

Last week I attended another free workshop featuring Carlo Arelanno.  It was held at the Inland Empire Art Institute. Carlo is a fun guy - he told a lot of jokes. I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop. 

DO YOU WANT TO DRIVE IT?

Carlo's approach to design was more on the intangible, innate side. He told us stuff like...

If you were to design a robot or a vehicle, you should want to pilot it yourself.

If you design a cute creature, people should wanna say "aw..." when they see it.

When you are designing a character, you should be able to hear the voice in your head.

Ask yourself, is the design "aspirational?" Is the character someone you want to be?

INTENTION before INVENTION

He uses the Millennium Falcoln as an example of good design. It is a saucer plus a World War II bomber. Obviously, the designer had those things in mind. By using those recognizable elements, you can imbue certain qualities into the design.

LOOSE CONCEPT :P

Carlos recommends drawing out design, rather than generating loose blobs of paint. He is against generating pages of random black marker silhouettes, an art technique that many schools center their design process around. Again, he suggests that you should have an intent in mind before designing. While blobs of paint can be instrumental for a mood piece (ie Craig Mullins), a modeler usually doesn't know what to do with it unless they are given spec sheets. At his office, concepts artists whose designs are loose and illegible are given the nickname "loose concept" - which has a negative connotation.

 These workshops are hosted by a cool dude named Thomas Brillante at the Inland Empire Art Institute. He hosts these free workshops all the time, like seriously ALL the time.  You will find updates on facebook or art blogs. You will paying at least $120 for a similar workshop at CDA or something. You are dumb if you don't take advantage of this opportunity. Go. 

Cool Youtube video (not from workshop)

LAAFA Workshop Review - Mike Butkus and Rey Bustos

Last March I attended LAAFA's open house. There were two 2hr complimentary demos by Mike Butkus and Rey Bustos. Not only were these presentations tres tres dope - the reception included cake, cookies, strawberries and whipped cream! I know this sounds crazy, but the deliciousness of these snacks rivaled the Porto pastries provided by Estelle at the CDA workshops. :) lol

Mike Butkus did a zombi demo with acrylic and airbrush (left). He also brought in stacks of his original sketches as well as many of his original illustrations. It was inspirational to see how prolific professionals are. One of his tips to young artists was to hang out with other really good artists and learn from them.

Rey Bustos studied from Burne Hogarth himself. He was super excited and share his passion with anatomy with us. He prepared handouts for each one of the students, drew some back muscles, and sculpted the muscles on this little skeleton he made. 

These workshops are easily worth lots of money. LAAFA hosts these free workshops once every quarter - so you should definitely go when you have the chance.

Wondercon Reflections

So last month I was at Wondercon in Anaheim, California. I had a couple breakthroughs. 

First of all, I created a print portfolio to show to Lucas Films licensing.  This is probably the first time I created a print portfolio in 4 years. It made me realize what my skill level is currently at. Not as good as I thought! 

After getting 3 minutes of feedback from the Lucas Films guy - I realized I could show my portfolio to professionals in the exhibit hall. They were super happy to help me out, and I didn't have to wait an HOUR to see them. Making a print portfolio was a great idea!

Critiques:

Lucas Films dude suggested that I get my foot in the door ASAP to get experience. If you want to know the industry standard for movies - just look at the "Art of" Books. Your work has to be at LEAST that good or BETTER. That is the standard.

Victoria Ying suggested that I saturate my shadows a bit more for luminosity. 

Mike Yamada suggested that I include sketches and designs with my illustration to showcase my design skills. 

Jim Silke said while my painting skills were good, my drawing skills were really poor. So Draw Better! In terms of my subject, he told me to put myself into it. It doesn't matter if it's big tits or fast cars - do what you love and it will be good.

Mike Hayes suggested that I take more time with my work and make sure that I crossed my T's and dotted my I's. I draw a building, and my lines were crooked and not even - he was like - it doesn't take skill to draw evenly spaced lines - even a 3 year old good do that. Start slow. You will get fat at doing it good vs getting fast at just doing it bad. 

These were great critiques! And if you click on the links, you will notice that these guys are all from different fields. These conventions are a great place to get feedback on your work. Most of those artists are standing around doing nothing in the artist alley/ exhibit hall. They are super happy to look to your work. I strongly recommend it to all artists.

Victoria Ying/ Mike Yamada Mastercopy

Can't believe I haven't done this earlier. Great exercise. 

1) Take an image you want to copy

2) Trace on top of it

3) Make separate layers and color pick

4) Toggle original on/off to check accuracy

4) Done

Original By Mike and Victoria Ying