Trion Figure Drawing - July 6, 2011

I'm pleased to be putting up some new drawings this month (finally). For this 2 hour session our model was Brooke Milos.

2 minute poses.

5 minute poses.

10 minute pose.

I have taken over organizing our studio's bi-weekly figure drawing sessions. It was a bit nerve wracking at first, since I had no experience organizing any kind of event and have never hired art models before.

It's literally been months and months since I last posted anything. With the release of our game and a bunch of other stuff I got going on outside of work, I just got too overwhelmed with all these things happening at once. I guess I'm not as adept at multi-tasking as I thought. But all in all, this has been a great learning experience.


^_^

Rift goes live for headstart 02.24.2011

RIFT has gone live this thursday! Everyone who preordered the game can now log in and play online! It's a historic day for Trion Worlds, with the release of our first flagship title and already the number of players playing our game is through the roof!

Here's a clip of my Bahmi celebrating our release. ^_^

Rift will be out in stored March 1st, and in Europe March 4th.

Bahmi Tattoo Concepts/Game Screens

With the lifting of the NDA weeks ago and permission from Trion Worlds, I thought I'd do a little write up on some tattoo designs I recently did for the Bahmi charcters in "Rift."

The Bahmi is one of the playable races in Rift. Aligned with the Defiant faction, they are descended from the half-giant Shalastiri from the plane of Air, whose bodies and especially their faces are adorned with very distinct magical tattoos called sefir.

I've been primarily animating the male Bahmi, but this would be the first time I've contributed some concept art for it... and actually got it in the game (woo!!). Fortunately, one of the character artists working on refining the textures and model of the Bahmi shared my ideas on the character as far as (tattoo) designs were concerned - so after a few discussions I presented him with these sefir concepts;

 

Bahmi facial "sefir"

(tattoo) designs

Time was short (shocker). I submitted the designs and out of these they were able to create multiple variations of the base patterns, quickly doubling the number of choices for character creation. I'm quite happy with the results, considering the constraints we had;

Male Bahmi "sefir" patterns

applied to game model

Side to side comparison

of the female Bahmi "sefir" in-game

with the sketch

I was only able to design two patterns for the female version... pretty much ran out of time, but it still made it into the game.

The other races in the game also have tattoo options, but I designed the sefir patterns with the Bahmi specifically in mind. Hopefully, the patterns remain unique to this race.

Big thanks to the character artist Shawn Shain and our art director Darren Pattenden for letting me contribute these defining characteristics for the Bahmi race.

Rift will be available for the PC on March 1st, 2011.

Merritt College Drawing Marathon 12.05.2010

Another set of short poses from this past sunday's Bay Area Models Guild drawing marathon, this time held at The Merritt College in Oakland, CA.

Once again, the models they had were top knotch - there were quite a few that were really challenging to draw. Several stages were set up for particular pose lengths; 1-2 minutes, 5-10 minutes, 20 minutes and 25 minutes. I stayed with the short poses. I got me tons of drawings that took several hours to sift through and pick the ones that I'm quite happy with.

1-2 minute poses of Leah

1-2 minute poses of Carrie

1-2 minute poses of various

male and female models

This was the final drawing marathon held by BAMG (Bay Area Models Guild) for 2010 and so far, the largest crowd of artists I've ever drawn with in a single (full day) session. There were artists of all types ranging from simple sketchers like me, to painters and sculptors. Good energy overall and fun environment.

Next one's in February 27th, 2011... See you there!

Palo Alto Drawing Marathon 11.21.2010

5-10 minute poses

I'm finally able to attend the Palo Alto Drawing Marathon. Here's a select few from the session. The poses I have here range between 5-10mins I think... I was moving around a lot. Heck of a time to show up for an all day drawing session after months of no practice though. Ugh... can't believe how rusty I got. Still, it was a lot of fun.
The models are members of the Bay Area Models Guild and they are fantastic. My friend Katherine Burness is a member and was posing in the second half of the session (that's her on the top right and the one directly beneath it). I look forward to more sessions like this.

I believe this guild is having another drawing marathon on December 5th at Merritt College in Oakland. Let's see if I can make this one and end 2010 in a good, artistic note!

It's been a while

 (Random warm-up sketches)

(Various "Soldier" poses from Trion's
figure drawing workshop)



July was the last time I posted anything from figure drawing workshops. There simply isn't enough time in a day to do everything. Between my martial arts training and work schedule, drawing kinda took a back seat for the time being.

Our game "Rift: Planes Of Telara" is due for release sometime next year. So everyone including myself are really hammering down to deliver the most kick-ass and polished assets ever seen in an mmorpg. Since everyone is now busier than usual, Trion's figure drawing sessions have also been put on temporary hold until we ship. The "soldier" was the last model I've drawn and the last session I attended.

I still try to make it out to Dr. Sketchy's each month just to keep my drawing muscles in check and I actually attended last month. I'm just bummed that I wasn't able to draw anything worth putting up from the last workshop.

PUMPKINS!!

I know... this blogspot is supposed to be about artsy sketches, drawings and illustrations. But this time around I figgered I'd post something much more better... Photos of PUMPKINS!!

That's right... Happy autumn y'all! I've been living in the San Francisco Bay for about 2 years now. I don't recall the trees around here changing into the season's spectacular colors. Then one day I decided to go to the local Wholefoods Market for lunch in San Mateo and find these beauties.

I swear, I don't think I've ever seen pumpkins in colors other than orange - I've seen those "splotchy" ones that have a bit of green, light yellow, etc. on them... but grey? Maroon? White? That's just crazy talk!

I sometimes miss good photo-ops like these 'cause I seldom carry my Canon G11 camera - Luckily I had my samsung captivate with me. With really good lighting, this smartphone takes pretty decent looking pics. If I didn't have to hurry, grab some eats and run back to the studio, I would just hang out here snapping pics for the rest of the day. I don't have any pics of it, but there were pumpkins there the size of pilates exercise balls! There were cars parked too closely, so I decided not to take any pics of them. Maybe I'll go back later and snap a few if they're still there.

I dunno why, but when I caught a glimpse of these pumpkins, it was a really heart warming feeling. Autumn here is pretty blah - no leaves changing colors to signal the change of seasons. Not really anyway. Makes me miss Chicago even more, as well as the east coast. Taking pictures of these pumpkins made my day a little more enjoyable.

Dr. Sketchy's 07.20.2010

3-5 minute poses

Another really fun workshop at Dr. Sketchy's at the Minna Gallery. The models were the burlesque trio called Sister Kate. So far, these ladies have the best costumes I think. The sketching part though was rather disappointing... 'cause I was torn between drawing and taking pictures. They just looked so good on stage! The dance routine they did balancing a sword on their heads was tops! Check out the video below.