Thursday, December 16, 2010

Friday, December 3, 2010

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Illustration_5 Visual Essay_1: Proposal

So for my visual essay, Ive decided to document the Metals Museum of Memphis. Ive been there many times now, and I am fascinated with the culture, the life style, and especially the sense of community they share with everyone there. They do not have a great deal of income coming into the museum, but they offer Residency to traveling metal smiths. It's where you work and in exchange you get room and board and money. They hold events and auctions frequently so it will be interesting to go there to observe the community they bring together during these events. The biggest event they hold is called Repair Days when hundreds of metal smiths and metal enthusiasts alike come together from all over the world and repair anything and everything except for cats, cars and broken hearts. They hold workshops and demos there as well. These demos teach upcoming metal smiths how to practice certain techniques or processes that are very difficult to learn. Repair Days is a good opportunity for this because they have so many other artists to learn from and exchange techniques. It is a wonderfully interesting culture that's very supportive and open, and I'd like to show that to more people.

Childrens Story Book Class

Thursday, September 2, 2010

What sort of an illustrator are you anyway?

Im not sure what type of illustrator this makes me.

I know I'd like to pursue a career in either comics, story boards, character design or concept art.

I feel like for the most part, my present body of work reflects my career aspirations pretty well, but it could use some beefing up.

My portfolio could use:
1. a brief animation based on a story board I've drawn.
2. more environment designs
3. more successful digital paintings
4. better examples of color uses
5. more finalized comic spreads
6. more variety of character designs
7. more practice with color and painting
8. much more 3-D modeling
9. a short of a graphic novel adaptation for an example
10. a successful 3-D modeled painting.
If I had to spend the rest of my life illustrating a book its a definite tie between Band of Brothers, The Harry Potter series, or Dante's Inferno.

I would go apprentice with Jack Kirby because the man's a genius. I'd be interested to see his work ethic and understand his thought process.

I would also like to apprentice under Gustave Dore because that man had an inane work ethic having created over 10000 illustrations in his career.

If I were banned from the art world, I'd rather die than find another job not pertaining to any form of art. It's as simple as that.

With one month and 1000 dollars, I'd create a series of etchings for a section of Band of Brothers. The etchings would be displayed in a graphic novel format and would only show the first quarter of the book.

The next six months would be spent creating a graphic novel adaptation of Band of Brothers using digital format materials. I would buy a Cintiq pad and adobe CS5 Design Premium Edition.

The next year would be spent creating an interactive 3-D web comic/ animation adaptation of Band of Brothers. (I know at this point you're probably thinking, okay guy whats with all of the Band of Brother's crap? Im just hung up on it, so bare with me.)

Ten Illustrators/Artists I Admire

1. Jack Kirby
2. Will Eisner
3. Neal Adams
4. Lou Fine
5. Wally Wood
6. Frank Frazetta
7. Shofela Coker
8. John Lasseter
9. Steve Brodner
10. Maurice Sendak

Creative Process

My typical creative process starts out with an objective, this can be very vague, like an emotion. Then I start sketching the first image that pops in my head pertaining to this objective, then the next one and so on. After I have all my sketches I decide on which one I think is the strongest.

My creative process should probably have a little more organization and definable steps. I should also look to thinking more creatively in my process leading up to my sketching, i.e. thought mapping, etc.

Chuck Jones would draw from past experiences and childhood memories for much of his creativity. He implemented backbreaking concentration and devotion towards getting a job well-done for himself and his pride.
My personal favorite piece is my Sinbad scratchboard drawing.
I like it because I feel like it was well executed, and
it displays good examples of principle concepts that I should use more.

Others like my Demon drawings from last semester but I think they should have been better.
They probably like them because of the style I executed them in.

I was most surprised by a painting I did. Illustratively, it wasnt very interesting but what surprised me was that I proved to myself that on some level I could paint if I needed to.

Saturday, August 28, 2010

I like working with: Ink, Scratch board, Digital medias
I hate working with paint because I just can make it work for me, but I think its because of my poor use of color.
I would like to try gauche.
Photography influenced my understanding of composition and contrast as well as depth.
Sculpture helped my understanding of physically working out an object in space, improving my ability to communicate it on paper or otherwise flat mediums
Life Drawing influenced my illustration because it improved my ability to convey form and figure with line variety and weight.
The work of my peers has changed my aspirations and work ethic as well as my understanding of my own style.
I like sci-fi and fantasy subject matter, and action based subject matter.
I like to read about the same things I like to make.
I listen to progressive rock, grunge metal, psychedelic punk, hardcore,  and classic rock as well as underground rap and classical music. Its important to have a well-rounded appreciation of music because it allows me to change my style and my mood according to what type of music I listen to. It ensures that a different aesthetic can be felt or expressed accordingly.
I enjoy video games, movies, biking, paintball, graphic novels.
Apparently I am one of the only people who liked that show called 12 oz Mouse.
If I could own any works of art they'd definitely be the original etchings of Dante's Inferno by Gustave Dore, Bernini's David, and any Normand Rockwell painting.