The latest...

Announcing dims comicles!

2009-05-02T09:50:00.000-07:00

As I'm playing around with the newly discovered weebly.com, I've come up with a dim development! Announcing the experimental Daily..or weekly...or whatever I can, Series:

DIMS COMICLES

So check em out, ill try to post new ones. I think Weebly will offer a nice platform for them, a new and easy way to upload them daily without having to use FTP..and all that. See you there!

Also...

Step-by-step process for the above image, from concept to final!

2009-04-28T23:17:00.000-07:00

Dear friends!

Dimgraphic.com will soon be evolving from an old furry catepillar in its cocoon to a butterfly of awesomeness! This site has overgrown weeds and decomposed skeletons in its closets...Time for Spring Cleaning!

What a load of poetic metaphors that was...hehe, but really now, I've discovered the wonderous www.weebly.com along with many other beautiful online discoveries...if only I had the time to list them all here.

But anyway, with the help of weebly, I'll be restructuring things and pushing for a better, more readible site...I have received lots of feedback from several people and really appreciate it. All of it will be taken into consideration as dimgraphic evolves into a more superior species!

stay tuned..

2009-03-18T13:33:00.000-07:00

My Concept Design Academy classes have been pretty great lately. They've definitely forced me to rethink my usual approach to drawing, from a stylistic method to a more analytical. Especially the figure drawing class where we break down the form into simple shapes and polygons...morph them into 3d objects and evolve a human out of it all. It's like modeling in 3d
but on paper.
My creature design class has taught me a lot too so far. Most importantly the approach to drawing and developing the concept. We start from a silhouette thumbnail and redraw a bigger version of the figure, gray scale it and add lighting+color. It's a great process and it works. We're currently in the "sci-fi" stage and are drawing monsters/aliens/zombies...etc.

What I'm realizing to be the key important thing when creating concept creatures and characters, is to relate them as closely as possible to that which already exists! Everything must be based off of something that already exists. References are vital, and any lack of references just throws the whole concept off...makes it unrealistic.

Anyway as the classes are taking up my spare time, I'm still working on a few freelance projects. Deadlines deadlines deadlines!

First Week Homework

2009-02-14T04:39:00.000-08:00

So here are my Environment sketches I made over the course of this past week. I drew them into my sketchbook at different places and then scanned them into Photoshop. I then reworked them a bit by adding different shades to backgrounds and foregrounds.

As I understand these were supposed to be quick sketches, real simple shapes and layouts...I might have gone with too much detail and tinkering. I have to learn to simplify and focus on shades and shadows...

This was at a motorcycle shop in San Pedro. I was waiting for the doc to come out with the news..

I like using the blue col-erase Prismacolors as they give this nice soft feel to the image, not as harsh as using dark lead. Very good for initial concept layout.

During my break at work...

I went riding my bike through Santa Monica on the way to get my plates at the DMV. I found these two buildings, worth sitting down next to and drawing. The shading was mostly added at home.

This bridge looks awful...I rushed this one badly... I think it was getting dark and I was cold.

walking the dog near the apartment I ran across these electric meters...not too exciting.

February is here

2009-02-04T19:26:00.000-08:00

Big plans for this month as I'm starting my art classes Saturday, tomorrow I'm going to the art store to buy some supplies. I've also bought a motorcycle finally...and I'm ready for the road, this is how I'm going to get from place to place from now on. Since classes are starting I'm sure to be drawing a lot and thus posting a lot of new concept art and stuff on dimgraphic.com.

Freelance wise, I'm working on a logo for Aaliyah's production company to come, so far the concept is there and I just have to rework and make it look more corporate, or logo-like. The idea behind this one is taken from the name of the company being Dirty Water Productions which relates to her community and its history. I took the symbol of cupped hands holding water, after considering a few other visual options like a sewer drain or a gutter with a deposit of stagnant water...The hands represent an offering, even if it may be dirty water...the gesture overpowers the purpose.

I've been commissioned to create a music video as well, so I'm generating ideas involving a song titled "Little Girl" by Chris Alleyne, you can hear it on myspace at that link.

I've updated my DemoReel page by adding a title credits animation I did a few months back for a film project called "Sophie" as well as some other old motion art samples using After Effects.

A new year and a moment to write about it!

2009-01-27T05:15:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since my last post and I haven't uploaded much of anything new lately, so atlast behold...words, updates! The months just flew by...Christmas, Newyear's, birthday...and now it's almost February. Well, here's the latest...
School
I enrolled into a few 10-week classes at the Art Academy of Design in order to brush up on my craft and learn a massive lot of things hopefully. Analytical Figure Drawing, Environmental art, and Creature Design will be on my courseload for a few months and I'm really excited about that! Unlike my past experience in taking drawing courses, the Art Academy focuses specifically on the elements needed for what I want to do in the concept art field...for example, figure drawing isn't just drawing a nude model anymore, the workload seems promising in being detail orientated and specific as I'll be spending weeks drawing knuckles, and hands, bones, joints...piece by piece, working up to a full human form. The Environment Drawing class is definitely going to upgrade my ability in working with lighting, shadows and everything to do with composition. We'll be going to different locations and draw on the spot, gathering from the class description. The Creature Design class speaks for itself as I could always use more practice in making crazy concept characters. It's definitely been a while since school, or at least it feels that way...but this is good, this is refreshing and well needed. Having taken a drawing workshop at this school earlier last year I really enjoyed the class and expect to get a lot out of these courses as well.
Freelance
After working on the storyboard for "After the Headlines" Aaliyah had asked me to create a few more things, a DVD cover and disk design for the dvd. The work is in progress as we're going back and forth discussing ideas for the design. I'm also going to do a Logo for her future production company. At the same time for another client, I have some photo retouching work and animation to do. What I'm doing is taking older black and white photos during times of Slavery and reworking them in various ways. Coloring areas and highlighting faces, retouching the quality of the photos and adding color here and there. There will be some animation involved as well. I have also been recently asked to do a music video for a short piece of music, this should be a fun project; I'll write more about it later.

Up top is a photoshop character design of an Alio Bounty-hunter chick I made up one night and worked on for several nights more painting it.

A few new things

2008-11-20T08:14:00.000-08:00

I just uploaded a few new pieces and a few old pieces! Check em out by clicking Concept Art and Archives to see whats there. As I'm doing more art and trying to categorize things into their appropriate places like concept or illustration or 3d...I realize that it's getting hard managing what goes where! For now I'm devoting "archives" to store my illustrations as well as some 3D that I've done in the past. Now if I get into more 3d, ill most likely add a whole new link. "Concept Art" is mostly pencil scanned drawings and digital sketches that I've done. They're not meant to be final pieces really..Anyway, the most important thing I realize is keeping everything simple and easy to find. No one likes to dig around and waste their time when they're looking at sites. It's usually a quick 'flyby glance' if anything.

So, In my free time I've been helping out my friend Hasan building a site for his Photography and Videos, using Dreamweaver. The site should be running shortly at www.hasansenol.com so you can take a look there if you want. As we're both building it and adding quicktime videos, and flash components...sound files, etc, I'm thinking of ideas that I can incorporate into my own site. For example, I have yet to update my comix page and make it all nice and pretty. It looks terrible right now. But the more I focus on the presentation aspect of things, the less time I have on the raw creative part. Of course both are essential as I have to impress people in order for them to take me serious and/or hire me for that matter when I direct them to dimgraphic.com.

The piece way up top is a space marine I sketched up, scanned in and painted in photoshop. A couple hours of work. I should start timing myself to see how long it takes to do a piece like that for my own future reference. It's inspired by the upcoming StarCraft II game from Blizzard. I sent them the piece so maybe they'll put it into their fan art section!

I also added some old Paintings into the Archives. The photos are pretty poor quality I must admit but I figured I'd post what I had for reference. I do want get back into oils again. Oh! Almost forgot, I gotta brand new shiny "People Counter" at the bottom of my page to track how many visits I get.

Working on 3D, Concept Art and Storyboarding

2008-11-03T06:29:00.000-08:00

Just Uploaded my 3D artwork
I dug up my 3d work that I made back when taking a Maya at UB and posted some of my characters and texture work here in the "archives." This way I can maybe show people some of my 3d knowledge and have them hire me and pay me and give me benefits and etc to create elaborate masterpieces of all sorts...I'm trying to revisit the program and get more 3d stuff going...maybe some landscape and cityscape pieces would be nice!

Concept Art
About two weeks ago I attended a 'concept art' workshop at the Concept Design Academy out in Pasadena, LA. The whole thing was really interesting and inspiring as Christian Alzmann, an awesome artist described his works and techniques in creating creatures and characters. The thing was about five hours long and well worth the time and money. Since then I've been inspired to draw and paint my own concept stuff...and even to consult Christian on a few tips and pointers. The guy emailed me right away with a plethor of advice-so I have him linked to my "blogs list" so that that YOU and I can both check out his work periodically!

My Latest StoryBoard
I've been working briefly on a side gig too, helping a friend with a short film that she's doing called "Who is Chasing Whom." I drew up something of a 20 page storyboard for her and helped her and my friend Hasan film downtown one day. The storyboard in any film or animation project is vital since it's basically a blueprint of every single shot that the director plans to shoot. Without a concrete layout, you can imagine how much time and film could be wasted both on shooting and editing. Also, attention to detail can be lost without good note taking and make the film inconsistant with the story especially when shooting your shots out of sequence. With the SB, everything went quick and smooth!

The more storyboards I do the easier it becomes for me to come up with sequences and shots. With this project I worked directly with the director and there's a big difference when you have em right next to you as opposed to a director that can only be reached through email or phone. It makes for less revisions and the whole thing takes less time. Much easier to work that way in my opinion. Having photograph references is of course the other huge advantage when storyboarding as well as a map or top-view of the location, if there is a lot of action to be had. This way you can plan out character movements in relation to camera movements and the such.

I'll post the storyboard for this film soon!

Wall Mural and 17 Days Exhibit Animation

2008-10-11T00:50:00.000-07:00

GGR Wall Mural

I've been meaning to put up pictures of the wall mural my friend Vali and I painted in two days...about a week ago. This is a 20 ft. wall mural of a face, I think it's the face of a guy in the 6o's that was used in commercials telling kids not to use drugs. So I call up this ad asking for an artist to paint a mural for them and I responded, checked out the location with Amber and estimated how long it would take to do...I took the job and with Vali, $130 worth of paint+stuff and 14' ladder rental from home depot we got the job done in two days. We transformed this wall into that wall!

The place is Called GGR or Gourmet Green Room, it's a medical marijuana distributor...how medical really...im not sure as I've seen people of all ages come in and out through those doors...I just painted thinking, well, Perhaps we just have a very ill society these days if everyone is in dire need of weed. The owner offered to write me a letter of recommendation in the case that I ever wanted a marijuana card for myself. Man was he surprised to know I wasn't really interested. "You guys must be from the East coast or something?" how did he guess? Anyway the guy paid us a nice sum and said if I ever wanted to hang some artwork up in his joint I could do so. He'd take 10% of everything sold. Now I gotta make some art to hang there. You can see more the mural in progress pics on my Myspace album at this link!

17 Days Exhibit

So I've finally finished my Animation for the 17 Days Exhibit and just at the last minute too, as I am supposed to show it on the 13th of October. My piece is called "Panoranimation" and it will be running the whole day at Western Michigan University on a loop and maybe even in the Cepa Gallery in Buffalo sometime next Spring. The piece is a mixed media animation piece featuring a stream of imagery and subtle animation with video. The name of this piece portrays a panoramic moving landscape that expresses a slow trickle of time passing, as one gazes at the panorama. This is a sedated moving piece running at a little over 6 minutes and thus requiring the viewer to stop and gaze for a while in order to absorb it in its fullness. Panaranimation studies an ongoing transitional flow of video with as little ‘cutting’ as possible of scenes. As a matter of being, it is for the most part just one scene. If "Panaranimation" was a still painting, it would surely take up a good 30 or 40 feet of horizontal space, thus in animated form, the art compacts itself to save physical space. You can see the animation in its 3:2 format at this link, or the widescreen format here.

Quickly on Politics

Politics...what lunacy lately..then again it's always been lunacy for as long as I remember. What have we turned this country into? A reality show! Gambling our own futures with self righteous, finger-pointing, corrupt assholes. I did have hope at one point during this past year and that was when Ron Paul was running...I agreed with him 200% and would have been more than proud to have him be my president. A man like that could have really turned this country around...instead we have lunatics running the show. 3rd party candidates of course have no chance but to be deemed as nuisances trying to "steal votes" ...what a load of shit. But anyway what can I expect, what can anyone expect these days when the media is all bought and owned by a certain few, when the political system has all rotted down to its very core!

I created these two political cartoon style sheets and a few political cartoons about McCain and Obama earlier this summer as I thought I'd be doing a whole series relating to the campaign trail, laughing at these two fools and their very important viewpoints and positions. I had a few concepts going and some rough cartoons, but it never really got beyond that. Now that the whole thing is bound to end soon in November, God save us all, there's really no point in trying anything...why contribute to this fun-packed thriller-suspense extravaganza!? In my closing thoughts I'd like to mention Bob Barr, the Libertarian party candidate who I've picked to be my choice as he's stated again and again about the corrupt nature of our bipartisan system and the fact that our two choices (obambi and MickyCain) are the one and same really. Your thoughts??

Updated Resume

2008-09-23T05:14:00.001-07:00

Here's just something I made in Graffiti on Facebook a while ago, it's a simple and fun tool that lets you draw on your friends' walls. The best part though is when you're done, you can see a time-lapse video of how you drew your piece turning it into a process-art like animation.

Actually the real reason for a post is to say I've updated my resume page! Check it out.

Moved and Settled for a while

2008-09-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

On the left are some Blog Logos I came up with in my spare time back when working at Clearmedia. Maybe I'll throw them in once in a while here and there when I write stuff on here.

Amber and I just moved a little farther west in LA, to an apartment complex called "The Madrid." It's definitely a lot nicer and in a better location than our other slum. This place in nice, has a gym, pool, hot tub and spa..all enclosed like a giant graham cracker box fortress from the outside barbarians.

Jinx dog is with us for an additional $35/month...she's gonna owe us a lotta money after our lease ends in March; the million dollar dog! I'm gonna switch to a closer Job location out here in Westchester soon, still working for Borders bookstores part-time. Well besides all the moving nonesense this month, I finished doing the storyboard for "After the Headlines." The total number of frames reached over 200, all on 14 pages. I'll post them on my storyboards page when I have them approved and revised.

I'm really behind schedule on my animation that I have to submit for Michigan, but that is gonna be my next focus. I'm going to send it out by next week for sure. In the meantime, ill be looking for more freelance gigs and other art jobs too.

17 Days Video Series

2008-09-01T17:03:00.000-07:00

I have been invited to have one of my animations play at the 17 Days of Video Series happening in Western Michigan University and also at the University of Buffalo, my old university in New York.

17 Days is a video series, curated by Adriane Little, for the Atrium Gallery at the Richmond Center for Visual Arts at Western Michigan University. The concept is that there are 17 Days paired with 17 video artists. One artist’s video work per selected day will play continuously and simultaneously on both of the 50” plasma screens, one on the first floor and one on the second floor, located at the front entrance of the Richmond Center for Visual Art in the Atrium Gallery. 17 Days began with the spring 2008 semester and then continues in the fall semesters going forward.
For this Installation I have created a piece called "Moving Landscape" but the title is subject to change as I put my last finishing touches to it. I'm currently finalizing the editing and sound work. Once I finish I will post the video and explain the concept behind it, as it is abstract in many ways.

In Search of Inspiration

2008-08-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

In one of my very ordinary days working at Borders bookstores I came across a fellow artist. We began to chat and exchange all sorts of information and excitement regarding authors, comic book artists, storyboarders...etc. This guy started scribbling a whole list of precious names, links and sites...I checked them out briefly and compiled a list here for others to see and visit:
Alex Maleev........fine artist/photograpy
Alex Ross ...........comic book/superhero artist
Craig Mullins.....fantasy art
Travis Charest....comic book/fantasy art (gallery 2)
J.G. Jones...........comic book/concept art
Jae Lee................comic book/covers
John Van Fleet...fantasy art
Ashley Wood......fantasy art/concept art
Kent Williams....fine artist
Tim Bradstreet...comic book art
Bill Sienkiewiczart...comic book art/ art

Splashpageart.com
albertmoy.com
comicartcommunity.com
illustration.org

The Past Three Months

2008-08-26T14:12:00.000-07:00

I've been working at a company called Clearwire for the past three months as a web graphic/interface designer. Clearmedia 365 is the web division where I joined forces and worked alongside Pat Prekel, another intern graphic guy. The Clearmedia site is currently in their final stages before launch and when they do, they will provide the public with media, news, photos, entertainment, sports info, downloads...etc. Throughout my time here I worked
mostly with Photoshop, puting together background images and graphics for navigation tabs, a little logo work and a little clean up, readying images for online posting. This type of work doesn't let you be too creative unfortunately, as I primarily worked with pre-made images that just needed a few tweaks, overlays or touchups, resizings, a color correction to keep everything consistant...whatever. It was great practice regardless. At one point I was asked to work on caricatures for the two running cadidate goons Obama and McCain, so I picked up my sketchbook came up with some ideas for cartoons, face expressions and whatever else related to the daily campaign trail.
I'll post some political cartoons a bit later on a different post or somwhere else on this site.
So now that I'm going to have all sorts of free time until I find my next job, I'll finish working on my site, do some freelance gigs and also make some art I've been waiting to do for a long time. As a matter of fact, I have some canvas ready for stretching and painting upon back at home. Lots of inspirational material to look at and plenty of ideas circulating in my head at the moment. My site still needs bigtime revision I think. I like the way the homepage is looking, with a simple navigation up top, a spot for a daily comic/drawing in the middle and this blog feature towards the bottom. Please offer some ideas if you have any on how to make dimgraphic.com even better. I'm looking for a better way to present my comics with a simple navigation option to go from one to the next. It's gotta be a simple enough system where I can just keep all images in one folder and upload new images as I make them. I'm also thinking of dumping a lot my art into one place: the Archives and just store them there rather categorizing paintings into paintings and animation into the animation section. There just seems no point, art is art and I like to try a little of everything. "Specialization is for insects" -Robert Heinlein.

Welcome

2008-08-19T23:47:00.001-07:00

Slowly but surely I am adding and fixing dimgraphic.com to make it look better as not only my portfolio website for a lot of my artwork and animation but also as a portal of communication to the outside world. Here I will post ideas, issues that interest me, some nonsense and always a fresh piece of artwork, or a sketch dug up from long ago. I used to have a similar blog that I called "Mindwaves" powered by Bloglines. You can visit the old posts by clicking on the link.

If you notice under Links, there are sites like Youtube and Artbistro that I have accounts with where I upload stuff. Recently this Summer I was hosted as an artist on Phauxshow.com so I've got some stuff there. As I come across other blogs or tutorials, art sites or whatever I'm sure to post them under links just as well. Finally you can subscribe by using RSS (up in the right corner of blog) that way you know when something new is posted.
Feel free to leave comments and suggestions of any sort.