Sketches about things.

 These are two things that I did yesterday that I don't really know what to do with. I think I'm satisfied with the simplicity of both of them in a way. They have nothing to do with the new year, for some reason I'm never good at doing seasonal art work.

eth.

Western concepts

A couple of pretty rough sketches I did tonight. Following the theme of the latest CGHub New Worlds Challenge. I tried to keep them really fast and mean, but the middle one ran a little long.  Fun stuff, all the same. It's good to break out of the usual aesthetics. I've been long working on sci fi stuff, this is a good change.

15 min.

 30 min.

15 min.

eth.

081413 posting.

Maaan, sometimes the summer shows up, sits down, feasts on your free time, and then poops out a bunch of half-baked ideas that you can't quite make anything out of. A month or two later you wake up and realize you haven't done anything of consequence, certainly nothing tangible, and you still haven't satisfied your need to experiment, learn and grow.

I probably come to this conclusion at least 4 times a year, but I really need to make a more daily effort of doing this bloggy stuff.

If there is one thing I have realized in my time away from school it is that as my sketchbooking has dwindled, I don't progress through ideas nearly as quickly or thoroughly as I'd like. I tend to be curious about something, explore it half-assedly, come back a week later with no new conclusions, and retread the same ground, getting just about as far as before, but barely any further, if at all.

These are my silly forays into science fiction from the past month.

Photo source credit: Isaac White

eth.

041113_ too long

It's been way freaking way way freaking too long since I've posted and I am done with that. That being not posting. I've been getting caught up in the crap of being a professional and liking games like CS:GO too much. 

Of course, playing isn't bad, in fact, I make new distinctions about art every time I play another video game. Working in the industry certainly makes you attuned to every little thing about the craft of game making. 

I recently began playing Age of Empires II HD with some of my family, like old times, and I've been really blown away by how much is done strictly to serve the the player. There is no slavishness to realism in the visual sense. Horses are as big as houses, etc., everything has a consistent visual hierarchy which makes discerning what is happening on screen actually feasible.

But that's just a ramble. Someday I might try really writing/talking/videoing about these nice visual qualities in games and all of the smart decisions that are made by some art peoples in the games industry.

Enough chat. Here are selection of scans from the past couple of months in my sketchbook. I'm ashamed that there are not more that I actually like. I've allowed my relationship with my sketchbook to become a little too casual. All of these are pretty much graphite and ink.

My tools of choice for anyone that is curious:

.05mm Pentel Twist Erase mechanical pencil

.03mm Copic Multiliner

.03mm Pilot Hi-Tec C

Thanks for looking.

eth.