Well, well, well..Look who finally decided to “update”.

I know, I know. This is a way long overdue update, but better late than never, right? Well I do have some legitimate excuses!

-I’m working hard on an “idea” that’s been brewing in my head for about 2 years now. I’m striving to be as innovative as I can with this one and I’m putting a lot of thought towards many different aspects of it. I’ll get some art up here soon. I promise.

- We recently wrapped up an important milestone at work the other day. 50 hour weeks for a couple weeks. Oy!

-And most recently..well here’s what I posted on a forum tonight:

“the past fews day have been oh so woeful for me and my lappy.

i accidentally spilled water on my laptop’s keyboard. this happened to me before and i only ended up having to replace the keyboard. but this time around i guess the water dripped into my harddrive. so after i paper towel’d the hell out of the keyboard, i unknowingly assumed that everything was ok, but i was greeted with an error from my BIOS saying that i had no bootable drives. by then i had to go to a co-worker’s party. so the next day i took my laptop into work hoping there’d be someone there to help me. luckily, there was! my co-worker helped me take out the hard drive. haha. there was water on and inside it. i dried it off and inserted it back in. and after 30 mins of waiting, i finally had windows back up and running…and missing 5 gb. so i backed up all my important files and psd’s and replaced the now damaged hd with a brand new 320gb hd.

just when i thought everything was ok, i install a CPU temp/fan app to monitor my cpu temp and for some reason it’s 60C when idle (whereas i would usually get about 45-50C idle. i tried unscrewing my hd to see if there was a problem, but in the process of doing so, i grinded out the grooves of one of the screws. so i couldn’t get it open and looks like i never will again. hah. so as of a few minutes ago, i was pissed, but i turned my lappy back on and now the temp is back to normal.

-____- i’m happy, but i’ve got a big ‘WTF’ balloon hovering over my head right now. ”
Anyways, I swear that I do have new art to share right now, but I’m just waiting for the right time to share it all with you. I’m trying to go for the gold this time around. After having many arty chats with my buddy, Kevin Dalton, I’ve decided to pursue this just as seriously as Kevin is with his Almighty Tiger work.

Oh, and a bit of sad news. I won’t be attending San Diego Comic Con this year. I really thought I was going to, but I actually have to go to California for a friend’s wedding in early September. So yeah, it’d be a lot of trouble and money to fly to California twice in less than two months. Next year (unless another one of my California-based friends have a wedding around the same time again!)!

As for my next update (yes, I’ve already got it planned out)…it’ll be good. Solid good.

Sorry about not updating, but finally, here’s my long overdue blog update.

——————

So in the middle of November, I applied for a position for Ignition USA. A week or so later, they responded back expressing interest in me. Eventually, they flew me down to Gainesville, Florida and I got to take a look at their (temporary) office and meet a couple of the people there. After some more communicating and preparation, I finally made my way over to Gainesville last Saturday with my brother, who helped me pick a car.

So far, I’ve got to say that it seems like a far more productive work environment for me than Cryptic ever was. No offense to Cryptic, but having a group of concept artists is a lot more motivating and helpful than just being the sole concept artist. Our current rag-tag group of concept artists consist of Armand Dacuba, Steven Stahlberg, and fellow newcomer Daniel Cross. It’s incredibly inspiring to work amongst these guys, and it’s probably one of the best things about the job.

It sucks that I had to leave my friends and family in California in order to get the job, but I think me moving was somewhat inevitable for me.

I’m in the process of getting an apartment in a few weeks. Once that happens, I’ll be hopefully getting back into doing more personal work during what personal time I’ll have left! Expect pics of the apartment (keep your expectations low, since I won’t even have a bed to sleep on until I find one).

Oh yeah. And here’s teensy art update. Due to the holidays and the whole job hiring process/move, I haven’t been able to get a lot of work done. Hopefully that’ll change soon!

Till next time..BER!

so ever since i finished up art school, i had come to realize that i spent a lot more of my time drawing up characters than i did creating environments. so i wanted to make sure that i put in an equal amount of effort/time into creating them both (especially since environments are very important for concept artists to be able to do). i knew it wasn’t going to be something i could get used to doing immediately (especially since i had very minimal experience working on environments), but i was hoping that eventually i’d have a lot more environments to add to my portfolio. i still feel like i’m not at the level where i’d like to be. for some weird reason, i’ve created somewhere around 5 characters this past month and 1 completed environment and 2 incomplete environment/sketches. it kind of makes me sad, but i’m going to keep trying. i think the thing is that i am always worried that if i spend too much time not practicing doing characters/environments, i’m going to lose my edge. totally not true, but it’s a fear that a lot of artists seem to exhibit every so often.

anyways, i’m going to try to spend a lot more time working on environments now. i’ll actually be splitting my schedule into doing figure drawings/characters and environments. somewhere within that schedule i’ll try to squeeze in some props or machine stuff.

here’s a few new-ish things

 

<—this is some stuff for another story i’m thinking about starting..but i always say stuff like that! :p

so a lot has happened since the last update. we’ll just go through it in list form. (it’s easier to read!)

-not at cryptic.
first off, i’m no longer working at cryptic studios. from what i was told, there wasn’t really a need for a concept artist or any real concept art. it was really unexpected, but understandable. so yes, i am looking for a new job.
-artwork galore.
secondly, if you haven’t been to my site in a while, go now! i’ve added a lot of new stuff. the past few weeks all i’ve been doing is working on new stuff for my portfolio. as always, the most recent image is the first one listed in the gallery.
-site changes.
i’ve changed some things around on my site. the biggest change is that i added a “sketches” section to the top menu. it’s dedicated to work that’s either sketchy or art that i don’t really care for but other people do. i also added in an “extras” section where you’ll get to see much larger versions of my long pieces. i’ll eventually get some wallpapers and my brushset up there.
-comic-con
comic-con was alright. it kind of gets more dull with every passing year. but it’s always great to see old friends and to buy new artbooks! i’m not sure if i’ll be attending next year’s…but we’ll see.

and to end this post, here’s my latest piece of art:

and what i’m working on next:

I swaer to God, I’ve been thinking about writing an entry all month, but I just felt that I didn’t really have much new art to share. I’ve been going on and off some stuff, but I don’t think any of it is in presentable form. And this week was E3 week, so I did absolutely no personal work so far. I’ve just been pressing F5 repeatedly on a bunch of gaming sites.

Anyways.. As always, I’m been trying to plan out new things that I’d like to try. I think I know what my next two art assignments will be. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish them up real soon, because I just recently decided that I want to create a little art book. Yep. An art book..with art…my art! I’ll most likely be utilizing lulu.com’s services and I’ll most likely not be releasing this until later this year. It’s going to be hardcover, in color, and I’m not certain how many pages it’ll be. I think lulu has a max limit. But anyways, hopefully I’ll be able to actually get this done.

As for the San Diego Comic-Con. Man! What a headache! My plans seem to be changing everyday. There’s a chance I’ll only get to go for Fri-Sunday. Hopefully it won’t end up that way, because I really was looking forward to coming in early and soaking in all the fun. But yeah, at least I’ll be going. :]

Things at work are getting a lot more interesting. I wish I could share more, but I can’t.  :/

And a vow: the next few things you see from me will most likely be quite different from my usual stuff. Less robots (not that I hate them, ’cause I loves them!) and more interesting poses in my characters. Less robots because I want the next robot I design to be very very different. So I’m just taking a little break from drawing them. More interesting poses, because I often hear that my characters end up really static. I’ve already done some toying with poses, and I’m seeing a LOT more personality in them. Hopefully this will help better serve my creations and help you understand what I’m striving for. And also..you will see things that sort of take a departure from reality. I really want to make people want to see my work and think to themselves, “Wow! I wish that were real”. Anyways, time to nap!

So if you haven’t already noticed, I changed my main site’s layout to flash. I just wanted to really simplify things and make it easier and faster to navigate around. I’ve got close to 100 images there, so woo hoo to that! Eventually this blog will go through a bit of a revision as well. Just so that everything is consistent in design. :]

This past weekend I tried out Zbrush 3. And what do you know? It’s fun and pretty easy to use! So with that being said, here’s some recent art that I’ve done. Eventually some of these will make their way over to the gallery (if they haven’t already). Most of these are work in progresses/experiments of sorts!

And lastly, here’s a video turnaround of the goddess model: http://youtube.com/watch?v=yKytBmoBYeM

I’m most definitely not done with this, but I’m getting there. Expect more, soon. :]

It’s been a long while since I last posted here. My apologies. I’ve actually been in sort of an art slump. Aside from doing art at work and the occasional casual napkin doodle, I haven’t really been acting productive at all. I’m trying to work my way out of this, as I’ve got a lot of ideas that I’d like to work on.

In a way, I am glad that I got to take a break from it all. Art will always be my first love, but I think it was about time for me to enjoy the other things that life had to offer. So, I finally gave my social life a chance and I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit! Whether it’s watching a movie with friends, checking out Muse with friends, or just chilling at a cafe with friends, it’s all lead me towards living a more refreshing and fun-filled life. I’ve also spent some time observing light and how it affects the world around us. Regardless of the fact that I did a lot of this “observing” at bars and concerts, I still learned something, right!?

Expect an artsy update soon. 

So here’s a quick update with two little drawing thingies I’ve done/been working on this past week. I’ll hopefully get around to coloring them sometime soon!

:-|

-WORK-
So tomorrow my studio will be moving into a new building (across the street). It’s gonna be much larger and much cooler. Hopefully I can get some pictures up sometime soon.

As expected, my life has mostly been revolving around work. I don’t get home until 7-9PM because I just enjoy being there. Or maybe it’s because I know I won’t get any work done at home. But unfortunately, this means I’ve gotten a lot less personal work done. But I am in the process of doing some more studies/mock up work for Project Clock and I’ll be changing the sidebar image of my site soon.

-FRIENDS-
Me and some art buddies are getting a head start on planning on this year’s Comic-Con. Last year we acquired a hotel that was two miles away from the convention center. It might not sound like much to some of you, but when you’re walking around in 100 degree weather and walking more than a mile outdoors, things get gross and sticky and quite uncomfortable rather quickly. So we’re going to try to bag a room at one of the hotels right next to the convention center. They’re much fancier, too!

Next month, I’ll be heading to SoCal to do some live painting with my friend, Ed Tadem. For those who don’t know what live painting is, it’s basically painting something at a bar or a club. I went to one about two years ago, and it was just awesome seeing artists paint to the music and the crowd. I’ll be painting with acrylics and markers. It’s been a while since I last used either of these, so I’m going to have to train my butt off!

-MISC-
I finally got around to sending off my submissions for Spectrum 14. Like I’ve mentioned before, it was a huge surprise for me to get in last year. Simply because it’s a very prestigious honor to have your work published in the same book that pays tribute to artwork created by many of my own artistic heroes. I sent out 120$ worth of submissions. Oy…my wallet!

Anyways, I promise I’ll post some new art on the next update. I’ve got a few things I’m working on. I just need to find some time to finish them! Oh, and I’ll be taking print requests sometime very soon, so I’ll let you guys know when it’s ready. Till then….