ArtCtrl

My toe. From life. Started with a pencil then colored with colored pencils - matching the color as best as I can. Quite happy with this - really looking forward to the life drawing next week!

Animation tests in the A6. I will take these ideas and apply them to blender. The first cycle is a basic walk cycle - a large lift of the leg as its brought forward and the front is brought backwards.

The second animation is a simple movement of rectangles out then a flick of the end - followed by quickly bringing it back in and back at the start.

Maybe it could be a looping animation of something being dropped.

A second walk cycle. Andrew mentioned this was working better.

I’ve been up north so n access to the internet. Fun trip away, I did have my laptop with me and worked on a little Blender.I haven’t drawn. Next week I’m spose to be back in Wellington and I’ll have a model on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Looking forward to it. I’ll like to keep the Blender learning happen this term. I had a good talk with Andrew yesterday with ideas of what I could do.

Here’s an render of recent blender animations:

The first 5 secs is the model recent work I’ve been doing. These models can be seen in another recent test. This time it’s less animated (just the camera), but UV textures have been applied. I’m still trying to understand how UV textures work. I found this video that was a great help:

Changing the mapping coordinates from Generated to UV was what I was missing. The texture was being rendered - but not correctly.

Screenshots of the animation currently:

Overall shot of my workspace. It’s a bit messy but gives me lots to work with.

This shows how I traced my drawings - lining a cube in front - then extrude, rotate, and scale. Working in a 2d plain.

These are not correctly UV mapped yet but I plan to fix them. I’m not sure where this is going but I’ll keep experimenting and learning.

I did a scribble in Andrews a6 visual diary. It was the first time I’d used a pencil all holidays. I’ve mostly been spending my time with Blender - creating animations. I imported some of my artwork into the program and traced around it. I’d like to explore the idea of a 2d world further with the help of my artwork and blender.

Can you spot my artwork in amongst the mess?

Still no drawing. This must be the longest time I’ve taken a break from it for years. That’s alright. I’ve been keeping busy with Blender - most of my time is spent on it (I did have play Brick Force a little today though!).

Here’s what I’ve been working with in Blender:

A simple creature model. Bones have been added and attached to the mesh. It’s animating fine! It was great to get into using bones in blender, the weight paint tool is especially handy for this.

Red material was added to the model, but a UV map would be best.

I got sick of working with that model so created this, it’s the same idea but many more limbs. This one isn’t animated so much - only small movements like legs and the spring on the top of the head moving up and down.

Modeling practice. I’m not sure what this is - it’s just been extruded, twisted and scaled. Maybe it could be a weapon of some sort?

Large poly count in this one, I was working towards a face of some sort. Looks like horns.

I’ve been enjoying Half Life.

I’ve taken a break from the blog well I’ve been in Levin. I’ve taken a break from artwork in general - the last week was a crazy time of life drawing and a break has been wonderful. What have I been doing? Playing Brick-Force lots - very impressed by it. It still has a long way to go but still - Minecraft meets call of duty.I enjoy the map editing mode. It got me interesting in looking into using the Source/

Blender. I got into Blender again several weeks ago and it was fun to fire it up again. This time instead of working on a character model I choose an environment.

I worked on a building and the area around it. The H was a start of a character model - but I quite like it as it is. I’ll keep working on this scene this week.

Here’s a closeup of the building. I’ll like to learn how to apply real textures to these - I downloaded this program from Wood Workshop to generate textures.

I’m going to buy a new pen for my tablet tomorrow (wont receive it till next week), must photograph and upload the life drawings from the Friday class last week.

I think I’ve lost my tablet pen. I have either left it in the library or it’s fallen out of my bag. I’m a bit sad and disappointed as I was looking forward to digital painting over the holidays.

Nothing good ever happens.

Here’s some digital works that I started today. I had hoped to work on these further tonight but with no pen that won’t happen.

Started this in the library. It was a trace over a recent life drawing work. Long pose so the detail is high. By high detail I mean high tones!

From Christenas. I really liked the drawing and felt I had to take it further digitally.

6 hours of life drawing tomorrow then done for a while. I’m not sure what content I’ll be uploading next week…. I may draw buildings and such in Levin (colored pencil most likely) and upload them.

No more Roberts for the week - Instead I’m in Christenas. She created a block class as there were a bunch of foundation that weren’t told about signing up for classes and there was an overflow of students.

Christina is lovely and allowed me (and Angelique) to join into the class for the rest of the week.

I wanted to carry  on with ideas that I had been developing since Friday. This meant continuing with oil pastel. Focus was on capturing light and dark. The lighting was brilliant - dark room and spotlight on the model. This made looking for the lights and darks easy….

I started with how I started the other sessions this week - with quick 30 second drawings with a 8b graphite pencil. A large focus of these were hands - I’ve wanted to improve my skills in this department.

Slowing down to one minute poses - chance to add tone into areas. It wasn’t much but happy with some of these works. Christina liked this arm so I thought I better take a photo of it. I didn’t get a whole lot of feedback from her - but I enjoyed her attitude and enthusiasm to the class. She is certainly a life drawing ‘tutor’ and helps people greatly with their work. A balance with expressionism and studies I found.Oil Pastel. Similar colors and ideas that I’ve been working with these last several days. The light today is partially good - strong contrasts between the light and dark allows me to capture it easily.

Something a bit different. There was a skeleton model setup in class and for this pose the model and the skeleton held the same pose. I started with the skeleton and drew in James over top. Working the skeleton and model together is something I’d like to explore further. 

The drawing on the right is working well for me. The black helps the contrast well. I’ve applied a white over the black to help with blending. Progressing from earier sessions I feel.

I’ve done 21 hours of life drawing since Friday and have another 12 to go. Out with a blast - it makes me happy!

Six hours of life drawing with Robert. Normally it would be three hours on Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday but this term it’s switched around. Fine with me as I get the chance to jump into Christenas class for the rest of the week. So much life models - but great to end the term with a bang

I spent the day carrying on with oil pastels - seemed fitting to keep the development and exploration happening.

Graphite 8b warmups. Some tone is applied to areas. Alot of this is done blind which I feel I’ve been neglecting. Good practice. I like the strong straight line work on some of these. These were just warmups and I switched to oil pastel for the rest of the day.

Color scene is similar to yesterday I focused on limbs - looking at the light and dark. Those feet on the top left are looking better! It’s certainly something I have to focus more on - feet and hands.

This is a good example of a work I started but never had time to finish. You can see the pencil lines. More curvy lines are used in areas - and they work. I’m always worried that the curvy lines wont look at good as my normal straight lines. But I wont know unless I do them!

Sitting pose. This was the only time I used white crayon - I used it more yesterday. Rachel said she liked this one, but I don’t think much of it.

I talked about the chair with Angelique - I found it helpful using the chair for reference in measuring the anatomy. The proportions are certainly blown up here.

Another couple of pieces that I’m not happy with. Something it just doesn’t work.

Here I’ve progressed from yesterday and decided to use a black. This was a hard choice as it destroyed the color somewhat - I got around this by using a cloth and smudging the black into the work. This gave it a more painterly effect and wasn’t so over whelming,

When black is added to yellow green is often created. This happens here. I’m not too sure about this color. It’s getting quite muddy.

This was the long pose. It was spose to go all afternoon (3 hours) but people didn’t want a pose that long. Instead this went for 1.5 hours. I’m happy that I got a long pose in that really allowed me to develop the drawing.

I started it how I started the rest - with a pencil outline of the figure and features. Then went in with red for the darks. Yellow for the lights. I covered reds with yellow as well. This helped give it depth. I then added a white - especially on the yellow areas - which hadn’t had any layers yet. This gave a interesting texture and of course depth to the piece. Finally finished it off with black - used a hand towel and rubbed into areas. This really brought areas forward. This is the suggestions that Roger would of given me. I wish I had him there today to help!

Tomorrow I may work in my visual diary - I’ll switch to pencil and colored pencil if so. Or I’ll keep working on an easel with brown paper and pastels. See what happens at the time!

It’s block week at TLC and Robert has a model Monday (3hours) and Tuesday (6hours). Here’s my life drawings from Monday.

I decided to keep exploring oil pastel - though I decided to start with an HB pencil and create figures out of straight lines. Getting the full figure down wasn’t a focus - instead I focused on capturing limbs (something I feel I’m weak at). If I had time - tone was created with oil pastel. Yellow was used for light and a red brown (it looks purple) for the darks. I used a flesh tone over these to blend the works. Blue was used for the negative space.

These are warmups. Quick poses - 30 seconds roughly. These are all completing with my chunk of 8b graphite. As you can see - limbs were a focus.

More warm ups. But some development is happening. Oil pastel is used to look at tone. The middle drawing of the back of the lower body is the strongest and most developed. The blue contrasts well against the yellow and orange.

These are longer studies. I focused hard on looking for lights and darks and capturing them how they are. I feel my eyes are getting better at picking these ideas up naturally. A white tone has been added over these - I don’t like it as much as the powerful reds that were created with mixing the yellow and pink together. Maybe if I had applyed the white over the red?

The final works for the day. Some I feel are becoming too flat with color - in some ways I like the bottom right drawing the best (though the lines are messy). More depth is needed.

Recent digital works - taking the life drawings I did on Friday and working over top on Photoshop. Matt painting was a focus 

This was a struggle in digital. I had problems finding lights and darks in the drawing - it was all a blur and didn’t offer a strong contrast. I painted a very flat image - this could of been created in photoshop. Opacity is set to 100%. I attempted to layer but had problems.

I perfer the original oil pastel works. I looked at oil pastels in Frech Art Shop. Consided buying a white…… I need a part time job!

Here I’ve worked differently. Layers have been used. I want to paint more like the old masters - I’m attempting that with the oil paints - Layering the paints up. This is much cheaper with digital paint than oil of course. White has been a large focus with over laying it onto the color.