DZDAZE

I need to finish....

2009-12-12T19:19:00.000-08:00

Progress for my Matte Painting Final - it started out with the intention of being a train station with some dude and a red umbrella, and then it turned into a sort of futurisitic thing with a bridge and people racing flying cars and the like. I dunno. Ironically this is my first matte painting(I haven't turned in the midterm one quite yet...) but here ya go. The perspective is still kind of whack. Crap I have to hurry, this lab closes at 10pm.

Finishing up

2009-12-10T21:36:00.000-08:00

Here's the character concepts I posted a while back- fine-tuned the color palette and started blocking in the colors for the penguin. Experimenting with some new photoshop brushes. Impartial about whether to leave the line drawing in or to render the colors a lot more and remove the outline. Meh

The Standard

2009-12-07T18:42:00.000-08:00

Super quick 20 min speed coloring of Superhero 'The Standard' based off a script assigned by the instructor. Outline was done in 30 min. earlier today. Hi-tops with pumps in the tongues reminiscent of those early 90's Reeboks and a sweet hairdo with an "S" carved into it to match the uniform. The script/character description will be posted another time. Finals to do! *dash*

Inspirational

2009-12-05T11:48:00.000-08:00

Link to a great photo by my good friend Sean Lai - http://www.modelmayhem.com/pic.php?pid=15438163&group_id=&ua= shot very recently. Inspired by Rihanna's "Wait Your Turn" music video. Really like the composition of this image.

I'm excited for him to put up some other images from his last shoot, which I'll link you to as well in about a week.

Bada bing

2009-11-02T20:26:00.000-08:00

planning on a new domain name/blog name that's easier to remember. This page will be here for a while, but a 'new' (and hopefully the last change) name is in order. Not for awhile though. maybe another 4-6 months from now. Stay tuned.

Waiting

2009-10-07T21:42:00.000-07:00

waiting for the 4th floor classroom to be done with so I can go in and work on some stuff. In the meantime I've been coloring this

Updates

2009-10-07T19:26:00.000-07:00

Here are scans of 5 characters almost completed, they're gonna have to be photoshopped to clean up the lines and stuff, etc etc. I'll color them when I can, but for now they're just line drawings.

Emotional Teapot Assignment

2009-09-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

The lines are kind of rough, which the teacher talked to the class about after everyone turned in their stuff. Meh, it was the 1st assignment.

It's been awhile

2009-09-23T09:50:00.000-07:00

I signed up for this ~~experiment~~ special topics class called Digital Visual Development. It's listed under gaming, and focuses on concept art. It's basically all the drawing classes I was planning on taking rolled up into one. AWESOME. We're doing 6 completed character design by next Monday. Which is a hell of a lot more exciting than the previous assignment, which was creating emotions with teapots via facial expressions and the like. Apparently they have to be consistent enough design-wise to be able to co-exist amongst each other in whatever world they live in.

Student in class: "so...what exactly do you mean by 'completed?'"

Instructor: "well, that's entirely up to you. If it looks completed enough(good) then you can move on to the next character."

Class: "........"

.....this is going to take a while.

Matte painting has been a little bit more challenging, one reason being that it's online only. I'll begin the routing of posting things up near the beginning of the week starting monday.

Damn, and I have to move too. Ugh.

About the name...

2009-06-22T01:18:00.000-07:00

I dunno if the title of the blog leaves you puzzled or not(most likely not since you are quite intelligent people) but for the sake of providing you with a clear idea for the reasoning behind the name: It started out with the intention of being a blog about a secret project(to be unveiled later).) It kind of turned into a miscellaneous project/art show review blog, which is cool too(but I'm afraid the blog will slowly steer further from its original purpose...)

The theme revolving around this project will portray situations that wouldn't occur in real life- hence the name to emphasis the lack of logic in the situation, and also the hidden logic behind it the idea. So basically it might not look like it makes sense, but it really does if you think about it(you know what I mean?) The idea is that while reality is supposed to make the most sense, sometimes fantasy provides more concrete truth and reason than its counterpart. I don't want to reveal too much, but it'll make sense eventually, lol. This whole thing is taking a lot of investments to various degrees, but hopefully it'll start to pedal a little bit, ideally at the same rate a kid can pedal a big wheel.

Thanks for putting up with an irrelevant(sorta) post. And to whoever reads the stuff I babble on about, thank you too

Cheers!

sneak peek

2009-06-19T23:41:00.000-07:00

Here's a sectioned preview of one project in the works. It's an older black and white drawing that was dug up from the archive and I finally decided to start coloring. Enjoy :)

Fall Setup

2009-06-17T02:14:00.000-07:00

Taking Matte Painting, Rotoscoping 1, and a Digital Design class outside my major. Hopefully this schedule works out, I'm quite excited(also, slightly worried.) :) Expect to see that kind of stuff on here I guess? lol

Le Merde "We are Brothers II" @ Super7 4/24

2009-06-04T00:00:00.000-07:00

Mike "Le Merde" had a show entitled "We Are Brothers II" on April 24th(I know, a while ago.) It also coincidentally happened to be Super7's 8th Anniversary. I happened to be at Super7 2 weeks earlier to see the promo flyer for the event, and was super stoked about it. I had seen stuff on youtube where he walks through his process for producing toys while doing a search for casting plastic/moldmaking for designer toys. His stuff is quite awesome - the ones on display at the show were one-off productions, and in a variety of shapes and colors. He also casts them in resin so they have that cool semi-transluscent appearance. He has a series of figures belonging to an imaginary band = neat. I was pretty much being a nigel walking around for an hour and a half browsing through the store's knick-knacks and of course, Le Merde's toys on display. It was a bit awkard because everyone seemed to been in conversational circles and they all knew each other, etc. But I eventually got to speak with Mike about issues I was having in the sculpting stage, among other issues. Quite informative and receptive to my trivial questions, he shared valuable info that will come in handy for my 2nd attempt at toy making(whenever those supplies ship in.) Overall very interesting - attending future shows is a must.

One of the "bandmembers" with the band name "ZEU" across on his shirt(a frequently used phrase in Le Merde's work)

The usual display(mainly vintage Japanese/Godzilla inspired figures, lots of cool art books, collectible vinyls, etc.) at Super7

New

2009-06-02T03:54:00.000-07:00

I know it's been awhile since the last post, sorry for the delay.

I revamped the site at least, lol....something's weird with the wallpaper, I'll have to fix that later

Here's a brief glimpse of upcoming posts:

+ Papercraft Robot Frankenstein Toy

+ Feature on Le Merde's show at Super7 from April

+ Mini post on Babylon Falling's last show

+ Plans for A.P.E.

Random

2009-05-09T19:50:00.000-07:00

faux promo poster for a musical artist from earlier this semester.

Haven't decided on a font yet(that part always seems the most challenging)
The ones shown are experiments.

I went with an Adam Tensta collage/graphic art and a semi-Alphonse Mucha-inspired layout.

This is another one that still needs editing(wow, who would've guessed.) I asked Jeremy who teaches my VFX class(he's mainly an illustration instructor) what could be done and he suggested I rotoscope the shoes to fit in with the central figure, and maybe alternate the colors of the star-filled bars in the background(and to maybe have them extending from the top to the bottom of the poster)

Work-In-Progress

2009-04-29T17:02:00.000-07:00

...still needs a lot of work.

Started out doing it in corel painter, but I got annoyed and switched over to Photoshop.

I may do a few more urinal-themed images(friends at the lab were cracking up and giving tons of suggestions for possible ideas.) But for what I had to turn in last night, I'm pretty satisfied for what got done. Came out differently than the original sketch with superman staring at batman's special area. But then it was changed to "Why is this Marvel character in the DC universe men's room/superman staring at spidey."

Hopefully will get to work on it again before next week.

Backward Heroes

2009-04-23T02:57:00.000-07:00

Going to start working on my digital painting for my Monday ILL_233 class...superheroes at urinals. We had the option to choose between doing a CD cover(front/back) or a painting in the same dimensions(chose this one.) Pics will be posted soon...

Stayin' Alive

2009-04-06T15:56:00.001-07:00

I'll probably re-submit this later. Was going for the painterly approach with loose brushwork in the face. It was fun to work on despite the gory subject matter. I'm not used to drawing dark subjects such as this, and as gross as it looks - I like it a lot, lol. Gonna have to refine the details in the face so they don't get lost when printed onto the board. Props to James for the tips on making the clothes look worn and nasty. The font isn't standing out very much, so that'll have to be fixed...

They see me rollin'

2009-03-26T05:39:00.001-07:00

A "Faux Photoshop" assignment...create something that wouldn't normally be in a scenario with photoshop(make it look as convincing as possible.) Not sure whether to keep the spokes from the original photo or not. Will edit depending on how Jeremy critiques the assignment.

Used this image:

Skateboard Deck - Roughs

2009-03-23T02:41:00.000-07:00

these are rough because the main concern was coming up with ideas and the layout rather than trying to put a ton of detailing into each one(a mistake I made from the last assignment that drained me of precious energy because it wasn't necessary...) Also, each drawing is about the size of a business card.

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1: Each square would have one of the 3 ghouls(plus another) as they continued like a pattern. i.e.: 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4, etc. The backgrounds would all be mixed up. It's a pop-art Andy Warhol approach. The figures might be kept black and white so it doesn't clash so much, but it stil hasn't been decided yet.

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2: the idea was to put a vampire(dracula?) the werewolf, and a mummy together displaying gang signs relevant to each ghoul. The werewolf with the "westside" symbol(or maybe two W's formed by each hand as they cross his chest), vampire with the butterfly hand gesture(reference: Napoleon Dynamite), and a mummy forming the letter "M." The vampire was the ghoul I thought of 1st and then it developed into using other entities(which is why he's the front.) The background was going to be a dark purple, with the figures in black/grey/white(half-toned technique you would see in manga.)

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3: a traffic light, except the "box" of the traffic light is a grey color instead of the traditional black. I saw a pic of a novelty one somewhere, don't remember...each circle would represent the stages of a samurai killing an opponent. The top red = encounter with the the enemy or attack stange, the middle orange/yellow/whatever = anticipating and preparing to attack or in the middle of charging at opponent, green= killing the opponent.

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4: Remember that famous "Saturday Night Fever" image of John Travolta doing that disco stance? It's a zombie doing the same picturesque pose with the quote "staying alive" underneath it.

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5: very conceptual- a Chinese/Japanese dragon made up of many paper planes, as you drift further from the head(which is at the bottom of the design) toward the tail you can see the individual planes trailing and drifting apart into the individual pieces. The color scheme was going to be borrowed from this: (navigate to the 3rd image with the right arrow key) http://www.davidmascha.com/main.html. The dragon would be white with thin black outlines.
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Final image: turned this into a snowboard. it's a city of modernized igloos(skyscrapers, office buildings, etc.) with an igloo cannon shooting a penguin that's wearing an aviator hat, goggles, and a scarf. Random, I know. lol.

tried putting a lot of effort into each idea so that I wouldn't have "1 good rough and 5 whatevers," as that has been lectured about by the instructor while talking about professional practices and crappy portfolios out in the real world.

Vinyl Toy Update(Still kind-of crappy roughs, not the final)

2009-03-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

Went back to Isaac's earlier today to see how the 1st mold came out. His roommate was talking in his sleep at random moments blurting out "cash or check?" mumbling, and then snoring. Also, his phone kept ringing off the hook. It was pretty amusing.

The dixie cup was easy to remove because we applied release spray(a very important step)
Here you can see Isaac slicing 2/3 of the way through the mold:

What the current mold looks like:
Then we mixed together this concoction made up of two liquids(equal parts) in a dixie cup. This particular mold used very little "plastic forming goo" (only filled 2 cups about a quarter of an inch deep each.) After mixing it for 30 seconds or until it was too hot and my hand was going to fall off(whichever came first) it was poured very slowly into the mold(which was being held together by a dixie cup so it wouldn't split open while casting) so air bubbles wouldn't form in the end product. Of course, this was done after we generously sprayed the inside of the mold with release spray. Once the mold was filled evenly to the top, it turned from translucent to opaque in less than a minute(see video below.)

After letting it settle for about 5 minutes, the molde was split and the cast removed(it was really warm and covered in bits of clay):
We experimented with differenct colors, and lined the interior of the mold with gold powder to make a "super intense" gold vinyl figure:
Here are some "action shots" of the figures. You'll see in the close ups that there are lots of bumps/very rough, but this is only 1st mold to get the general form of the figure. From there it will be sanded down, refined to make a polished piece, and re-molded(to make the final cast.) Then painted! I'm pretty stoked about how these came out(being my 1st attempt at making a toy) It's pretty exciting because Isaac is also still trying to master this because he started not too long ago, so it's learning experience for us both.
DRAMATIC MACRO SHOT:
The army of figures(the ones in the front are Isaac's casts of Woodstock from Peanuts)Again, these are not the final product(but it's getting there!) I'm excited for the painting process(we're not sure what paint to use, but I guess we'll find out lol.)

Next week(Friday) we're going to head to the school's Industrial Design building so Isaac can print a sword he modeled way back when. Apparently at the facility they can do 3D prints/casts of your 3D models produced in Maya for dirt cheap(a fraction of the cost a lot of companies out in the 'real world' charge.) Maybe we'll be lucky and see Adam Savage(he teaches at the Academy part-time, but I think that's at another building.) Maybe. Also going to try and re-mold a refined version/maybe paint

Vinyl Toy Moldmaking?

2009-03-18T12:54:00.001-07:00

I went to my friend Isaac's dorm yesterday to learn how to make designer toys/vinyl figures similar to what KidRobot and Super7(a handful among MANY companies out there) produce. Look them up, they're awesome. Here's a link. If you google 'Vinyl Toy' you'll see what I'm talking about as well.

Isaac is a fellow animation student, and is way good(and supa fast) at 3D modeling. He's trying to apply for graduation already! :O also he interned for G4 back in the day(he's around my age and already had his A.A. degree in his teens. RIDICULOUS.)

For those of you not familiar with what vinyl toys are: They're basically plastic limited edition(some more so than others) figures that are hand-painted(either individually or reproduced from an original painted by the artist) and sold as collectibles. They can come in various colors, clear, or glow-in-the-dark. Some are easily purchasable, some are more sought after. They are not produced in huge quantities like what you would find at a toy store, and are of much higher quality. They are works of art that are more affordable to the common person(unless you buy something that's only been produced 50 times; then it could be upwards of $500 but that's an exception to the rule.) I don't about you, but I can't afford an oil painting. Maybe I could do one, but I don't know how to use oil-based paints so never mind, lulz.

Main collectors of these figurines are adults, because they are meant for show.

He's been working on producing a replica of those tags from Digimon(don't be judgin' it's cool.) Here's his set-up:

His bed is the bottom half of a bunk bed turned upside-down with a piece of wood covering the top to make a workstation. He sleeps underneath it like a fort(or a coffin, which some people have commented) because it's uncomfortable to be that close to your roommate. Also, it makes for a much more economical workspace, lol.

These are some pics(sorry for the blur) of the clay prototype I sculpted yesterday:
Right now it looks about as glamorous as a dropped pie, but work with me it's still in the beginning stages. Oh and this clay is awesome because it never dries. Also even more awesome because Isaac took it from the school, lol:

I didn't realize how difficult it would be trying to sculpt on a small scale(esp. cleaning it up x_x) to give you an idea of how big it is - if I were to sell it to someone it would have a handwritten warning label stating that it was a choking hazard for children 4 and under.

It was gonna be Earl Jay at first, but then I decided to go with a figure similar to Isaac's chibi figures:

Then it turned into an astronaut. Now I'm not too sure o_O...but it's ok, since it'll be blank it could really be painted into anything.

Right now it's among these choices:

1. a funky astronaut thing
2. Ironman
3. Mech Spiderman

This is the rubber mold that takes 8 hours to settle. After that(which is going to be later today when I go back to Isaac's dorm) we're going to take it apart and fill it with a substance that takes 60 seconds to harden from an opaque liquid to white plastic. From there, I think he said we could sand down the plastic(?) model to clean it up more and make the 'final' mold(smooth surface) for use with the final product. Going to pay him in 2L Pepsi bottles.

*SURPRISE UDPATE LATER TONIGHT OR MAYBE TOMORROW*

Stuck

2009-03-17T04:14:00.000-07:00

I have to come up with 6 skateboard deck design roughs for my Illustrative Digital Imaging class by Monday. DANG.

Something

2009-03-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

from a while back(beginning of '08?.) It's an attempt at copying a Michelangelo master drawing. Did touch ups over winter break since turning it in.

Taking a photo of it taped onto the window gave a neat textured effect to the paper. I was thinking about adding a sneaker to his foot, lol.

Assignments this semester in no chronological order Pt. 1

2009-03-15T14:33:00.001-07:00

This was a recent coloring assignment for my VFX 1 class - we were given an option of 2 line drawings the instructor(Jeremy Saliba) did of 'Walt' and 'The Dude' from The Big Lebowski:

and the original:

Something screwed up the alignment of the line drawing with the coloring, as after I had cleaned it up it didn't save(found out when I got home....) I'll clean it up again in the next few days.

While experimenting with light, had it like this:

...need to add more values on the face after cleaning up the lines again, will repost soon.

Do-over

2009-03-15T00:23:00.001-07:00

I lost the flash drive with all my website data, so from now on visitors to www.susatron.com will be redirected to this blogspot account(until the day I redo the site - in which case I'll still post new work on this blog, but it will be an extension of the domain.) Since I'll be doing assignments every week, expect this to definitely be updated regularly.

About

2009-01-05T23:47:00.000-08:00

dedicated to the progression(or digression) of my 'graphical' endeavors. Still learning while trying to find a balance/style that I like. It's challenging to stay consistent, but hey - it's fun nonetheless. Hopefully I can get a job after graduation. *cough* anyway, enjoy. whomever you are :D

Contact

2009-01-04T22:05:00.000-08:00

deezdaze@gmail.com