Friday, December 23, 2011

Fire!

Here is another tutorial I did on my day off yesterday (finished today). I learned the merits of a clipping mask on this one, otherwise its nothing I really couldn't have done on my own. I think that means its time to move on to different/harder projects.



Well until the new year!

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Doin' Thangs

To keep up my skills and force myself to not be lazy, I've decided that on every day off from work, i'm going to pick a tutorial and follow it in its entirety. The last three that I did were all photoshop, and came out with some really cool results. I'm also learning some nice tricks that will def come in handy for my texturing work. Yay!

With this project I learned about making custom brushes, and got a clear grasp on how to work with masks. I dont know why, but they've always confused me before. I also learned how to make special selections like shadows and mid-tones. All in all it was fun, and now i have a really cool facebook profile picture!


I made this one with the intention of having it the header for this very blog (which also got a much needed makeover). I got some cool spray paint custom brushes from the project. Honestly, I didn't really learn much from this one. It was fun though.


This bad boy actually took me two days to finish. It was so long and complicated! I learned about creating your own alphas int he channels box and then loading them into selections to make masks and adjustment layers. Soooo many adjustment layers (which I had never used before)! I really like the adjustment layer, now that I know what it is and how to use it. I also made curve adjustments a lot, where I used to fall upon the levels slider, so thats something new and useful. This is one that I know I wont be able to recreate without looking at the tutorial again. But I like the final product and I can see how it can be useful in the future. I can also easily replace the coke logo for something else and just slap it into a project whenever I need to!


We'll see what I come up with next time... I wanna do some maya and mudbox/zbrush tutorials as well. I need to get better at using mudbox/zbrush in general and in maya I want to get better at basic lighting. Its a skill that can really help me in my work, but that I am seriously lacking knowledge in. That and procedural texturing... but that scares me.

Ja!

Monday, December 12, 2011

What i've been up to...

So thesis is completed. Degree has been earned. What have I been doing with my life since graduation?

Well, besides getting a fun part-time job at a sex shop, I've been working on my reel on and off. In the 8 months since graduation I have added three new pieces, and touched up a few others.


First I made this piece to show off what I know I can already do, and do relatively well. I'm really happy with the way it came out. I just grabbed some random model from the internet and got to UVing. It was fun and I got it done pretty fast. It feels good to do what you love, do it quickly, and do it well.


Next it was time to challenge myself a bit. This was my first attempt at using sub-surface scattering to make a cartoony little girl. All of my other projects are more photo real, so I was trying to show that I can make something like this as well. I like the way she looks, but the way I lit it, she seems more doll like than I'd like. I definitely need to work on my lighting skills.




Finally I made this guy. He was a bitch to UV and even more complicated to texture. So many individual pieces! But that's what i wanted to get from this project. It ended up being more of a burden and less fun, and once again can use the help of much better lighting that what I can provide, but I like it. 

With these new pieces in my portfolio I'm hoping to land a job sometime soon. I had actually stopped searching/applying for a few months. But then an animator from South Park came in to my part time job after pulling an all-nighter to finish the season finale of the latest season. We spoke for about 20min and she gave me her contact info. She really inspired me to start trying again, and so I am.

My friends all around me are getting their first jobs, I feel like its my turn. Fingers crossed!