The long hello.

Why hello Blog. I have not faded off into the aether, been de-atomized, or any number of things. I have been sketching and painting like a mad man though. Check it out.

Tadpoleon


Parahnoid


Ice Frog


Decadence Frog


Crark


Crab Claw Shark


Sweetness


Whalephant



On a side note this here is a sketch book made for me by friend Sara Wick. She used the subway map from our New York trip to make the cover. It contains pure nostalgic value.



More to come as I ink them.

More late night toils.

These are some things I have been working on...





More to come later.

ciao,
Matt

I Stroll With You.

Hello again Blog. I have returned for real this time. In the time since we last got together things have gone on. I put my portfolio together, started my summer job, and have been working on more models. Enjoy..

I did another maquette. This is of my new character Herkimer. I am especially proud of his hand







I got a book by the sculpture Donato Giancolo. He is incredible and builds his models from their skeletons through the musculature then on to the skin. I tried to follow his technique. Here are some wips.






The following are the characters I made for my character design class. These are just the color comps.

This is Herkimer the platypus.


This is Velomoto the sloth.


This is Myra the Echidna.


This is Lox the tankephant


Here is a rough I did for a client for her hotsauce she patented recently.

That is all for now.

Ciao Blog!!

The return...

Hey Blog. Sorry I haven't been around a lot lately. My camera is broken and as soon as I fix the bugger I will be posting more goodies.

Inspiration..

If anyone out there actually reads the things I write then you have a fair idea of what goes on in my head. The things I like and what I am striving for. Well I love it when life mimics my thoughts and we come across real life monsters.

I know these two aren't really "huge" per se but they are still impressive. Also i do love amphibians.



The antlers say it all.



I kind of dis-like the fact that we only tend to see these monsters when they're dead. But they are still sweet.



Mega hog!!



Here are some crocodiles. These beasties have made their rounds on the web already and I'm sure you've seen them.







Catfish. These only help feed my fear of being eaten while swimming.





Bunny of gigantic proportions.


So huge gigantic animals make me feel all giddy inside and frankly I like being giddy. I'm gonna go draw!!

Week 10 fruit harvest.

Good evening Blog. Here is a pretty big collection of my work from the quarter. Bbelow you'll see work from my Dimensional Illustration class and Illustrative Design. For Dimensional we had to do a series of three illustrations that were tied together by a common theme. My theme was: A futuristic dystopia where people have been mechanically augmented to clean the environment. Over all this have been looking good. Illustrative consists of 2 different assignments: one was a two page spread and the second was for a hot sauce bottle.

This was my favorite of all my sculpts. This was my Fat Guy. He was supposed to eat garbage an such. His figure was very very cool and a ton of fun to make. I am not to hot over the photo though. I am definitely getting better though.



Of all my dimension pictures this one probably turned out the best. The figure itself is ok. Her abdomen has a solid glass sphere in it I got a glass student (Rebecca Arday) to make. If you can't tell (which means I didn't do such a great job) she is supposed to be a water purifier.



In this pic we see Air Filter Guy. He's my least favorite. I lost something from his character during the transition between sketch and sculpt.



I did this image for my illustrative design class. We had to do a 2 page spread illustration for an article of out choice. I will post the text added version later.



Here was the original sketch for the polar bear. I may actually go back and prisma this one up a bit. I kind of like it.



This was made for my illustrative design class. I got to illustrate my own hot sauce label. I called it "Burns Ya' Twice"


Hope you enjoyed the upload Blog. I'll see ya around.

End of the quarter post, more to follow...

Hello Blog,
Long time no see. I have some new work to show you.



I ended up using my Hexaped for an assignment. I had to Illustrate a cover for a book and the also the title page. I was very excited when I got to use the Hexaped, he's (it?) an awesome monster. Anyway hope you like it.

As I get more done I will post more. My sculptures, paintings, and sketch book work should be done by the end of the weeks. So more on the way soon.

Keep it real Blog.

Sketch Again.

Check out this incredible Flickr set that my buddy Jason showed me.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23063671@N02/

This sort of thing makes me want to sketch ten times harder than I already do. That is all for now Blog.

Success!

Blog! Guess what?

-What?

I just got the tattoo final approved and the second half of my payment confirmed! Things are looking good.


On a totally random tangent. Here is a painting I did for my Book Illustration class. We had to illustrate a Guinness world record. I did "The most apples cut mid-air in a minute with a samurai sword" We where supposed to illustrate the record with out being to blunt and use some creativity. I did pretty well. This is probably one of my better instances of painting.



Not too shabby.

Sleep well Blog. I have been awake now for a little more than 18 hours and I need some sleep.

Ciao.

Tattoo finale & Fisher-Price.

Guten Tag Blog! I have finished the pegesus tattoo for my client (man I like saying that). Take a gander.



Things have progressed really well between the client and I. I have never done any freelance work before and while this was really really small scale it still counts. So I am stoked to skate over my first job! Sweet.

Any who, moving on.

I also added Fisher-Price/Mattel to my list of places to apply to. We shall see how it goes.

Ciao Blog; and play nice with the other blogs in the blogoshpere.

Trying to put my skills to use...

Hello Blog. I have spent the last two hours pouring over the internet gathering a list of companies I want to apply to for an internship or co-op. This is what I have so far:

Massive Black
Weta Workshops
The Jim Henson Company
IBC Digital
Bizarre Creation
Nihilistic Software, Inc.
Bungie
Digital Alchemy

Granted it doesn't look like a lot of companies, but it is a pretty great list so far. I have been rifling through Conceptart.org looking through their job listings. It has been very helpful. The RIT job website (which is where the school herds you) is too clunky to navigate easily, I will have to go back when I am more awake and give it another go.

On another topic. I finished my tattoo design. I am waiting for half of the payment from the client before they get the final product, as we agreed. I am very glad to finished with it. I will have to post a scan later. I am off to find another moment of partial employment Blog. Wish me luck!!

Getting jiggy with Prisma Colors...

Ok so I laid out the gray scale Prisma color markers on Hexaped. He looks pretty good. I like the sensation of meat on his bones. Tangibility is a good thing.


Next will come the colored pencils but that will have to wait for another day. School had been bearing down on me and it is time I lay a little weight back into the ol' brick city. Computed statistical analysis says I can't win. Well those analyst need their eyes spooned out, mashed, and fed to them over rice. I'm not too stressed out Blog, don't worry about it.


On a side note I got a job off of Craigslist. A woman wanted me to come up with a tattoo design. A pegesus seen from a frontal position. This is what I came up with...





Taint too bad. This is only the rough but she approved so I am off to the final now. Wish me luck Blog.

p.s. Blog, I like the way "Cage Master" Caggiano addresses his blog so I am osmosis-ing his tendency.

Letting go of it.

So I have realized that I was in absolute love with my maquette, the Key Keeper. Here is the break down. I took a class last quarter called "Dimensional Illustration" and twisted it into a class on building maquettes. I made two. The robot and the arm guy which you can see if you scroll down. I did well in the class and put a ton of time into the work. I loved it.

But I have realized that I was holding myself back to some extent. I didn't fully understand that I was hampering the process of my other classes. Which I also did ok in but not as well as I should have.

Anyway below is the final image that I sent in to my prof.


Now this is image is terrible. I am disappointed with the blurry quality and graininess. But that is the price I pay for trying to sculpt and paint down to the last minute.

This is not a personal bashing session, those are tuesday nights. No this is an honest critique of myself. Improvement has to happen or you suck forever...

Round two...

Ok, so like I was saying in my last post I am going to try to get a better grip on this colored pencil process I am trying to develop.
Here is the new monster I am going to try it on.




I've named it Hexaped. "Hexa" being greek for "6" and it having six legs. My creativity astounds and abounds.


Anyway I've also decided to look towards the past and learn from those who came before me.




This is an example of Alan Gordon's sketch book work. Notice his link off in the right column. He was my first art teacher when I went to community college, he also graduated from RIT and was one of the major reasons I decided to go to RIT. He uses Prisma color grey scale markers, Prisma color pencils, acrylic, acrylic washes and various other mixed media in his work. He obviously knows how to use the media and I plan on learning what I can from him. I really love the solidity and depth his shadows have. They are part of his piece and I feel that I don't know how to achieve that yet. This also nails and establishes a wonderful sense of light in the image, something else I haven't quite gotten the hang of.


On a final note I based my concept for Hexaped on an old sketch I made from when I was fifteen or so. I am glad that I have the literal pounds and pounds worth of old sketches and things but sometimes I think I may be using them as a crutch for my creativity. I maybe wrong though.



So good night and good luck fellow toilers!

ciao,
Matt

What I am doing?

I recently started working with colored pencils (Prisma color) on toned paper. It's great! I have seen it done before by other artists here and there and it was definitely a good move on my part. My understanding of color, form, and shape is much more solid. So here is what I have come up with...




This is the Sharkalo... and here is the finished colored version.




This us the final product. I need to pay better attention to areas like the shadow. I can see now that I rushed it. Some of the form of the head, shoulders, and arms is kind of sketchy. That's what I get for not getting good or any reference though. All in all not too bad. I have to noted improvements on the next one but I am quite please with how this turned out.

For the next round I have already started the character I will be posting. This time it will be more step by step, which I am doing so I can look back at my process and keep refining it.

'Til next time!

ciao,
Matt

That is right...

For tonight all the changes I am going to make are done. Blog title, personal imformation, links I am going to add, and a small other snippet or two. So done!

On a side note I want to point out that yes I did link to JAMES GURNEY!!! I am such a fan boy. There is even a picture of me in his blog from when he visited RIT. Honored. Beyond. Description.

Also I got Carly, Doug, Bobby D, and Alan Gordon. Success!!!

That little light went on.

So I surfed around the blogoshpere to learn what I could, as I said I would, and have come back better for the journey. I figured out how to link to other blogs which was something I have been struggling with. I feel like I may be one of the last few people from my generation who will never become fully integrated with technology. It feels like I am pulling my own teeth sometimes when I try to do what I think will be a simple task. For example I have NEVER sent a text message. I have tried but seems like a waste of time. Oh well. Next I want to get the format of my blog to be wider but that will take some more time. I have to go pick Greg's or Leffer's brains a bit and see if they can help.

Hopefully as my grasp of what I am doing improves I will be able to use my blog for it's newly realized potential: personal retrospective, art review, and networking.
'Tings are looking pretty good.

Learning...

I am slowly learning how to post with greater skill and attention to layout. I am also trying to figure out how to link other blogs to my site. Since I can't post an image right now, blogspot said that there is currently some problem with posting, I will have to do it later.

I will be back.

Art Dump!!!

Well I am going to post up some of the stuff I have been doing lately. Here goes nothing...


These are the dimensional pieces I did for the fall quarter. The robot guy kinda sucks. He was my first attempt at doing a maquette. The second guy, I call him the Key Keeper. He is a character I have been drawing for some time and I am pleased with his sculpture. The final image though came out kinda terrible. That's cool. the next will be better.