Hello! What the heck is up? My name's Eric and I've been lurking these boards for an embarrassingly long time so I thought I would pony up and post something because I finally feel like my art is at a place where I can show people stuff without having them cringe and grimace! I just completed my first year of college at Mass Art in Boston last year and I am super into digital art and videogames and pixels and stuff. Some artists that have been influencing my work a lot lately are Jake Wyatt, Zedig, Sam Bosma, Omocat, and Giannis Milonogiannis. I'm pushing to make it into the gaming industry, but I think I'm lacking a lot of direction right now with my work which is part of the reason I'm posting here now. In addition to critique on my technique, I'd also like to be aware of the kind of portfolio game developers are looking for and the kind of software I should be familiar with if that's not too much to ask. These are sorted from earlier this year to present! Thanks for looking!
I think my favorite teacher (Jarrett Davis) still teaches at Mass Art. I have no idea what course he is teaching there, but if you get the opportunity take one of his classes. He will be the hardest teacher you ever had, but one of the best.
Personally, I would spend your earlier years at school being a little experimental rather than immediately trying to put a portfolio together for industry work. I would also try and find some illustrators/artists that influence you that are way out side the current trend. Bosma, Wyatt, and Milonogiannis are all great, but much like when James Jean was really exploding, their feel gets copied a lot. Spreading out your influences is the easiest way to make sure you aren't slowly melding into any one of your particular favorite artists. Throw a wrench in there with something really odd, and see where it takes your work.
If you want to go for concept work, you probably want to keep honing your technical skills (perspective, light, form) and do some work that is less about the design and more about translating information. Turn arounds, environments, Story boards, those type of things.
I really enjoy the colors, and it seems like you have some good sensibilities. The flatter illustrations are sort of hard to critique, They are probably more or less what you were getting at, so it's left up to style and taste. The robot and mask show some weaknesses, mostly in really simple things like, not letting your edges get all sloppy, and being more attentive to blending. If you are rushing things, you may want to slow down and see that your work gets a proper polish.
NakedZerglingA more apocalyptic post apocalypse Portland OregonRegistered Userregular
When i was at Mass Art i had a HORRIBLE experience. Do they have a digital program yet? i was told when i was there that if you need computers to make it then it is NOT art.
We did not do well together.
@ Iruka: Thanks for the lightning fast response! I was lucky enough to have Jarrett for Drawing I and he was by far the most helpful teacher I had there. Seriously, the guy really knew his stuff. I can't say the same for a lot of the other foundation teachers I had there, which is a big reason I left (spoilers). I guess I was expecting a little more emphasis on building my technical skill and I just wasn't satisfied with how much I was learning. NakedZergling isn't even exaggerating when he says some teachers don't even consider digital works art. It's very strange considering how open minded everyone there seems... Even some of the students gave me flak on the rare occasion I chose to do a digital piece.
I totally agree with you about being experimental and loose while I still have the freedom to be, and I just happened to choose those artists because they are super-saturating my tumblr feed right now, but that being said there are definitely tens if not hundreds more that are penetrating my eyeballs everyday. Variety is definitely key.
You make a good point about giving extra time to polish it up too. I get caught up in doing a rush job at the end way too often and it could very well be that I'm just impatient about that sort of stuff. That being said I'm trying to be extra careful about this next piece and see that it gets a proper level of refinement. Here's the sketch so far! I don't think I've yet come to terms with perspective though, it sounds a lot easier than it is in practice.
Well, at least you got to learn under Jarrett for a little while, Awesome! So, are you giving up on school completely? if so, I can understand why you would want to focus on portfolio making.
I'm not sure if you can still sign up and buy the videos from the last class, but you probably already have some Idea of how to do the exercises. If you work stuff like it (master studies, environment studies, still lives) and post them for critique, you will get good feedback and it will help you round out your fundamental and technical skills. These are the kinds of assignments we tend to leave behind when no one is forcing us to, so using the forums to help push you can be a big positive.
If you can find open life drawing classes, thats a good way to stay in school without the frills of a fine arts program. Watts is launching its online courses in a few days:
Yeah! Great guy. And as of right now I'm not really sure what I want to do about school. My parents are really pushing for me to go college, but at the same time I've read countless artist interviews where they explicitly state that the debt you take on from art school is just going to ruin you. That being said it seems people in the industry are more concerned with the overall quality of your portfolio and not necessarily the degree you have. I just hope I can learn as much from online resources as I would in a college environment.
I'm definitely looking into Noah's Art Camp and this Watt's online course though. These guys seem like they really know what they're talking about. Noah's lecture on freelancing is also super insightful.
Thanks again for your help!
Whoa, thanks a lot guys! I'm really glad you guys have taken an interest in my stuff. I enjoy the community you guys have carved out for yourselves here!
AND AWAY.
Man I wish I had some crits for you on the environments, because I know something is flattening them out, but I am not skilled enough in it myself to tell you what. A combination of better differentiating of fore/middle/background and some more context clues for scale.
This one is working alright: http://31.media.tumblr.com/c2133ad72c0248e2ff250e01f8fc1848/tumblr_mw827rAA6L1ryrwkio1_1280.png
But the yellow one with the space ship, Your brush strokes for the grass on the far left are about the same size as the strokes for the foreground on the right, which sort of kills the illusion. Little things like that can make a huge difference.
Iruka: You're definitely right about the need for differentiating between the planes . I think part of the problem is I tend to start with a pretty abstract sketch and then try to make it "feel" like an environment however I can. I'll definitely start paying more attention to this spatial stuff at the very start so i don't end up feeling confused myself.
Bombardier: Thanks a bunch! I think I owe a lot of it to playing around with different brushes. It's funny how they transform into a vocabulary of sorts.
Aww hey thanks. And I'd definitely like to get in the habit of doing a more completed work for every few sketches that I do. I think Noah talks about bringing stuff to a more refined level in his week 12 video, so I'm interested to hear what he has to say about that.
This week was materials! Going off your advice I tried to hone in on two of the studies instead of doing a lot of quick ones.
I can't believe I never thought of doing thumbnails before starting a piece. I always thought I could just wing it. I feel like my sense of composition is really starting to improve after doing about a hundred of these. Here's some of the better ones.
Now I actually have stuff to work with instead of trying to just pull stuff out of the aether. FEELS GOOD.
Thanks Iruka! Yeah, I highly recommend doing them. There's something really satisfying about how immediate the process is when you're working this small. It becomes a lot easier to spot your good ideas quickly.
Here's some colored thumbnails that I'll try to take to a finish in my FINAL WEEK OF ART CAMP.
Shouts out to Noah Bradley for teaching me a thing or two about a thing or two! I think I'm gonna start structuring weeks for myself from now on based on what I think I'm weakest at. That sounds like a smart thing to do. Here's some stuff!
Dang, I think I need to find some other video-based methods of learning. Art is feeling really daunting to me lately now that I don't have a clear focus for each week. Here's some studies.
UPDATE! I feel like I'm improving! I've been doing that pixel lovely figure drawing stuff a lot and I feel like those quick studies really force to me to be confident when i put down strokes. I also just got one of those fancy 13hd cintiq tablets for my birthday and it's goddamn amazing. I'm stunned my bamboo lasted for over 5 years. Any who!
Thanks tapeslinger! I love the idea of man-made things being reclaimed by nature. I'd like to start doing more complex architectural design, but I think this was a good start.
Compared to what I was working with before, it's really ample space to work in, at least for me. But, I will say that I haven't really done any "painting" with it so far due to the fact that the colors on the 13HD display are noticeably different from the ones on my Macbook Pro. I think this might just be something I have to fiddle with in the settings. I haven't really taken the time to exactly figure out what's wrong. It's been great for drawing though! I find myself able to make more sweeping arm movements rather than working from my wrist. I'm definitely struggling less to get the lines I want whereas with the bamboo I'd be constantly hitting undo until I got it right. It's tight!
DANG it's been awhile. I just got a full time job at this whole food store, so I haven't had as much time to draw lately, but I'm still kicking!
And a photostudy!
Also some computational art! I'm reading this book called creative coding and computational art and it's really helping me learn about programming without being too overwhelming. I'm making it my goal to finish a video game by the end of the summer.
Posts
I think my favorite teacher (Jarrett Davis) still teaches at Mass Art. I have no idea what course he is teaching there, but if you get the opportunity take one of his classes. He will be the hardest teacher you ever had, but one of the best.
Personally, I would spend your earlier years at school being a little experimental rather than immediately trying to put a portfolio together for industry work. I would also try and find some illustrators/artists that influence you that are way out side the current trend. Bosma, Wyatt, and Milonogiannis are all great, but much like when James Jean was really exploding, their feel gets copied a lot. Spreading out your influences is the easiest way to make sure you aren't slowly melding into any one of your particular favorite artists. Throw a wrench in there with something really odd, and see where it takes your work.
If you want to go for concept work, you probably want to keep honing your technical skills (perspective, light, form) and do some work that is less about the design and more about translating information. Turn arounds, environments, Story boards, those type of things.
I really enjoy the colors, and it seems like you have some good sensibilities. The flatter illustrations are sort of hard to critique, They are probably more or less what you were getting at, so it's left up to style and taste. The robot and mask show some weaknesses, mostly in really simple things like, not letting your edges get all sloppy, and being more attentive to blending. If you are rushing things, you may want to slow down and see that your work gets a proper polish.
We did not do well together.
I totally agree with you about being experimental and loose while I still have the freedom to be, and I just happened to choose those artists because they are super-saturating my tumblr feed right now, but that being said there are definitely tens if not hundreds more that are penetrating my eyeballs everyday. Variety is definitely key.
You make a good point about giving extra time to polish it up too. I get caught up in doing a rush job at the end way too often and it could very well be that I'm just impatient about that sort of stuff. That being said I'm trying to be extra careful about this next piece and see that it gets a proper level of refinement. Here's the sketch so far! I don't think I've yet come to terms with perspective though, it sounds a lot easier than it is in practice.
If you want to push your technical skills, Id recommend trying some of the assignments in the Noah's Art Camp thread:
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/178745/noah-s-art-camp-ac-group-of-supreme-organization/p1
I'm not sure if you can still sign up and buy the videos from the last class, but you probably already have some Idea of how to do the exercises. If you work stuff like it (master studies, environment studies, still lives) and post them for critique, you will get good feedback and it will help you round out your fundamental and technical skills. These are the kinds of assignments we tend to leave behind when no one is forcing us to, so using the forums to help push you can be a big positive.
If you can find open life drawing classes, thats a good way to stay in school without the frills of a fine arts program. Watts is launching its online courses in a few days:
Anyway, awesome to see a new face, here. I hope you keep posting!
I'm definitely looking into Noah's Art Camp and this Watt's online course though. These guys seem like they really know what they're talking about. Noah's lecture on freelancing is also super insightful.
Thanks again for your help!
Been messing around with colors and brushes and stuff!
Here's s'moreeee
AND AWAY.
Man I wish I had some crits for you on the environments, because I know something is flattening them out, but I am not skilled enough in it myself to tell you what. A combination of better differentiating of fore/middle/background and some more context clues for scale.
This one is working alright:
http://31.media.tumblr.com/c2133ad72c0248e2ff250e01f8fc1848/tumblr_mw827rAA6L1ryrwkio1_1280.png
But the yellow one with the space ship, Your brush strokes for the grass on the far left are about the same size as the strokes for the foreground on the right, which sort of kills the illusion. Little things like that can make a huge difference.
Bombardier: Thanks a bunch! I think I owe a lot of it to playing around with different brushes. It's funny how they transform into a vocabulary of sorts.
This week was materials! Going off your advice I tried to hone in on two of the studies instead of doing a lot of quick ones.
Twitter
I can't believe I never thought of doing thumbnails before starting a piece. I always thought I could just wing it. I feel like my sense of composition is really starting to improve after doing about a hundred of these. Here's some of the better ones.
Now I actually have stuff to work with instead of trying to just pull stuff out of the aether. FEELS GOOD.
Here's some colored thumbnails that I'll try to take to a finish in my FINAL WEEK OF ART CAMP.
And some more master studies!
Also a banner for my band Glitch Blossom
Photo studies
Uncanny Magazine!
The Mad Writers Union
Compared to what I was working with before, it's really ample space to work in, at least for me. But, I will say that I haven't really done any "painting" with it so far due to the fact that the colors on the 13HD display are noticeably different from the ones on my Macbook Pro. I think this might just be something I have to fiddle with in the settings. I haven't really taken the time to exactly figure out what's wrong. It's been great for drawing though! I find myself able to make more sweeping arm movements rather than working from my wrist. I'm definitely struggling less to get the lines I want whereas with the bamboo I'd be constantly hitting undo until I got it right. It's tight!
And a photostudy!
Also some computational art! I'm reading this book called creative coding and computational art and it's really helping me learn about programming without being too overwhelming. I'm making it my goal to finish a video game by the end of the summer.