iAn's sketchblog

The Wanderer 02

2011-03-14T18:56:00.002+08:00

The Wanderer 01

2011-03-08T01:28:00.003+08:00

i have to get this clunky thing of a blog back up running. so many things have happened this past year, it's been a roller coaster ride; didn't have time to paint for leisure. here's an attempt at environment visualization.

Awe inspiring sculptures by Motohiko Odani

2011-02-20T03:28:00.006+08:00

Motohiko Odani

Scott Burdick's The Banishment of Beauty

2010-11-02T18:46:00.004+08:00

what happened that turned the art world upside down?

this video essay by Scott Burdick (one of my favorite contemporary painters) points out how modern art has become just illustrated literary statements (more often than not, bullshit) and abandoned the visceral, visual power of beauty.

And Then There Was Salsa

2010-03-30T14:23:00.004+08:00

now this is some really creative use of flash.
watch it on this vimeo page, not on your reader so you can see what i'm talking about.

Tone Matrix

2010-03-17T02:35:00.009+08:00

among andre michelle's amazing experiments in his digital lab, the tone matrix is my fun favorite. it's a simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. each triggered step causes a force on the underlaying wave-map, which makes it cuter.

some tunes i made (you can copy paste and share):

67584,16392,1026,33796,65672,32784,16448,0,65808,16,33288,512,66564,8192,16416,34

8192,32768,16612,65536,8192,34560,16388,65536,224,40960,16386,66432,0,40960,20712,67588

73726,0,32768,8160,65820,258,8450,284,73696,0,32768,8190,65564,224,18176,8190

2,6144,0,0,12816,528,64,512,16928,0,320,640,9248,0,4100,0

plot your melody and share!

A month overdue

2010-03-11T06:08:00.007+08:00

one post for february, how typical of me. here's making up for it. been busy this month. although i had no date, i:

1 went to 3 beaches (5th this year already)
2 faced lots of work at the office (madness, made me throw up literally; new HQ producer thinks there is a big "make awesome art" button on our keyboards )
3 new project (i'm excited)
4 met with good old friends (and newfound battles they now face)
5 got a second hand acoustic guitar ( japanese replica of a morris; i realized i have not improved my guitar playing since high school)
6 started studying acrylic painting (mixing colors is a challenge to my patience )
7 started playing dragon age, torchlight, scribblenauts, and LITTLE BIG PLANET (hoboy! this game deserves all the awards in the world)
8 movies: up, 9, ponyo
9 music: lady gaga, dario marianelli, regina spektor, john mayer (heart of life)
10 had recurring dreams of flying...and always forgetting to wear pants ( i checked what they mean: i enjoy being in control, but somewhat insecure)
AND did not draw a single thing (even my DSi is begging me to draw on it)

ok just something random on my wip folder that i tried to finish. some girl i noticed on the stairs at the lobby. sucks. doesn't even look like her. the best are really the ones you finish before you lose interest in it (i mean drawings not girls :P)

Avatar: The Last Airbender new trailer

2010-02-09T07:04:00.004+08:00

they released a new sneak peak for the superbowl... can't wait for this one

p.s. for some reason the old trailer is showing, click this to see the new tv spot

you can see all forms of bending... water bending by far the most awesome

CoW #165: Zombie Dinosaur (final)

2010-01-22T06:33:00.008+08:00

lots of great entries for CoW #165! i did not have time to polish this drawing, crunch time took over at work. i tend to like to keep things raw and unrefined though.

Mark Khaisman

2010-01-19T22:36:00.005+08:00

Saw this from CG Unit.

Mark Khaisman uses packing tape to create imagery.

http://www.khaismanstudio.com/#

Transparent Wall

2010-01-17T23:22:00.001+08:00

Now this is some good use of augmented reality.

Gameloft Philippines is looking for people

2010-01-17T20:48:00.003+08:00

1. 6 3D Artists
http://siva-ph.jobstreet.com/_ads/ph/jobs/2009/11/default/80/2223599.htm

2. 4 C++ Programmers (Senior profile if possible but Junior profiles are also welcome to apply)
http://siva-ph.jobstreet.com/_ads/ph/jobs/2010/1/default/80/2269993.htm

3. 3 Flash Artists
http://siva-ph.jobstreet.com/_ads/ph/jobs/2010/1/default/80/2270241.htm

4. 1 Game Designer
http://siva-ph.jobstreet.com/_ads/ph/jobs/2010/1/default/80/2270035.htm

5. UI or Pixel Artist
http://siva-ph.jobstreet.com/_ads/ph/jobs/2009/11/default/80/2223567.htm

6. 2 Flash Programmers
http://siva-ph.jobstreet.com/_ads/ph/jobs/2009/12/default/80/2255012.htm

send profiles and portfolio to recruit-phils@gameloft.com

CoW #165: Zombie Dinosaur WIP1

2010-01-17T20:26:00.003+08:00

the theme is so cool this week i just can't not join.

Snowflake Faerie (final)

2010-01-12T08:37:00.004+08:00

some people actually voted for me... yay! made my day, guys. thanks.

Snowflake Faerie WIP2

2010-01-11T13:02:00.002+08:00

i dreamed of poorly handling a bad situation i dread would come sooner or later. i hope i do better when the time comes in real life.

added colors. had a mini-challenge with myself, make it feel cold using warm hues. i'm happy with the direction...

The Third & The Seventh

2010-01-11T01:14:00.006+08:00

works like these make me all dreamy and inspired. all cg.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.

.Fullscreen it, please.

A FULL-CG animated piece that tries to illustrate architecture art across a photographic point of view where main subjects are already-built spaces. Sometimes in an abstract way. Sometimes surreal.

Credits:
CG
|Modelling - Texturing - Illumination - Rendering| Alex Roman
POST
|Postproduction & Editing| Alex Roman

MUSIC
Sequenced, Orchestrated & Mixed by Alex Roman (Sonar & EWQLSO Gold Pro XP)

Sound Design by Alex Roman
Based on original scores by:
.Michael Laurence Edward Nyman. (The Departure)
.Charles-Camille Saint-Saëns. (Le Carnaval des animaux)
Directed by Alex Roman
Done with 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects and Premiere.
http://www.thirdseventh.com/
third.seventh@gmail.com

Chow 185: Snowflake Faeries WIP1

2010-01-10T11:38:00.013+08:00

im joining the CHaracter Of the Week at conceptart.org; gonna make a run for it this weekend. topic for the week is Snowflake Faeries

WIP. i'm gonna sleep a bit before finishing it.

hello 2010

2010-01-04T09:41:00.005+08:00

first sketch this year

and something to look back to if ever i might find myself lost this year -
a rather popular poem but is close to my heart:

Invictus
William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

New Year's Resolution

2009-12-31T09:32:00.006+08:00

happy new year, you! this year has been the worst ever in my life but i've picked up myself fast and i'm moving in the right direction!

i have only 3 items on the new year's to do list.

1. draw.
2. draw more.
3. don't stop drawing till your eyes bleed.

lets end the year with this random drawing:

Daria. i had a crush on her when i was a kid.

Nintendo DSI + Colors

2009-12-28T18:13:00.003+08:00

although I work for a gaming company, I'm not much of a console gamer. i decided to buy a Nintedo DSi this holiday, though. not much for gaming, but for this little app called Colors. it's like a mini Corel Painter for the DS. the iphone is a more powerful device (it can display more colors and larger resolution images ) and has more apps for digital painting but I have tried them and it just doesn't feel right. why i chose DS?

1. fingers - bad for precision, it covers much of your drawing area, and when you are painting for a long time rubbing your hands on the screen just makes it a bit sore. although there are styluses for the iphone, having a stylus on one hand prevents you from doing dual input easily, which you use for zooming and panning the screen.

2. UI - the ui for iphone is a bit clunky IMO, you either have to tilt the iphone or press a designated corner to access the tools. for the DSi you just have to press and release the sshoulder button.

3. 2nd screen - the second screen shows your painting's natural resolution so you can see your output even when you're zoomed in for details.

there are a lot of cons to the DS's Colors though.

1. low color depth. the DS is just 18 bit or 262000 colors.
2. no undo
3. no layers

my style sets these pro's and con's in favor of the DS.

i just wanted something i can practice on while i'm stuck on a place i don't want to be in (i.e. waiting for someone, stuck in traffic, boring party, etc...) so time doesn't feel wasted. also, i wanted to be more prolific in my sketchblogging. now i have no reason not to post frequently!

and hey, you can make animations of your painting process! im gonna post these from now on.

waffle joy

2009-12-26T20:49:00.006+08:00

i was on my way back to my apartment and mulling over what i'm going to eat for dinner, then felt the need to smoke. saw a waffle stand, decided to have hotdog waffles and ordered 4. just as i was about to pay for it felt someone tugging at my pants... 2 smiling kids asking for a peso. at the same time the hotdog lady was giving me my order... so i impulsively gave them the waffles. so much for dinner. i know this is nothing but i'm the least altruistic person in the city - this is quite a feat for me. i'm one of those humbugs who believe kids don't belong to the streets and shouldn't be given alms. anyways, as i was finishing my smoke... i noticed one of the little boys smiling at me and dancing with joy to the beat of his waffle chewing. it was priceless. it felt good.

there's hope for me, i suppose.

My Dad's a Youtuber

2009-11-03T09:07:00.004+08:00

I remember getting a phone call in the middle of a team meeting some years ago, I had to excuse myself and answer the call. It was from my dad. Apologetically, I rejoined the meeting. My peers asked me, "Who was that?". "My Dad.", I replied. "Sounds important." someone remarked. With a silly grin, I answered, "He was just asking me what character stat was good for a druid in Diablo 2." They burst into laughter. They all thought my dad was so cool.

After helping me haul some furniture I bought from a friend last saturday, my parents and I went window shopping for hardware. My dad has a new hobby, repairing the house and collecting tools. He was constantly intriguing the salespeople with this power tool he saw on youtube. I just find it amusing that my dad is actually youtuber, and was never really left behind when it comes to emerging media; unlike my mom, who is the exact opposite. I wouldn't be surprised if I find my dad posting video tutorials on youtube later on. Hehe.

It's fascinating how technology changes the way we live right before our eyes.

Saffron

2009-10-02T09:02:00.002+08:00

I made something some time ago ... and I love it. Looking at it now i cringe at how ugly the background and how random my drapery is. NEED MORE PRACTICE.

Are you a nerd, geek or dork

2008-10-17T02:43:00.000+08:00

turns out 'm a pure nerd.

http://www.helloquizzy.com/results/the-nerd-geek-or-dork-test/?fromCGI=1&var_nerdiness=18&var_geekosity=11&var_dork%2bpoints=11

SUMO PAINT

2008-10-15T19:36:00.002+08:00

Just found out about Sumo Paint, a free image editing and painting software. It's amazing how yesterday's expensive applications are now available free on your browser. It can do most of photoshop's basic tools. Try out the symmetry tool you can come up with a lot of cool stuff.

ALIVE

2008-07-25T15:44:00.006+08:00

again after almost a year of not posting i might as well just revive this thing.
reading the last post i see how different things were. i'm not working for Renderdream anymore. anyways here's something we worked on, it's not a game it's just a demo to showcase our game art talents.

Forest Defender from Ian Aguas on Vimeo.

First Weeks as a Game Artist

2007-09-23T10:27:00.000+08:00

Been two weeks at my new job at Render Dreams, and it's really going great. I look forward to work the next day. The people are nice and very inspiring. It's really different when you are surrounded with people who are so creative and love doing what they do... no, no slackers in this office. The amount of talent just pushes you to juice out more from yourself just to keep pace. You learn so much from everybody. And everybody's very nice to top off that. There are some things you wouldn't like about some people, but you have to learn to live with it I guess.

At first I thought I couldn't make the 9AM at Alabang from Quezon City, but after 2 weeks I only had 1 late attendance. It's not that bad at all. After all these years thinking I was not a morning person, here I am waking up at 4:30 in the morning to catch the early train. I used to be afraid to ba part of the clump of people I see every morning at the North Avenue MRT station filling up half the breadth of EDSA; I was telling myself, I will not work in Makati ever. I will not be a part of that mass of humans engaging in a slow penguin walk to the train cars, breathing each other's breaths, pushing and jostling. But it just looks worse than it really is. Also, my circadian rhythm is normal now, and I feel so full of energy in the morning. Completely the opposite of how I believed I was a month ago. Soren Kierkegaard slaps me in the face again. Probably its because I don't burn the night oil doing digital art anymore. I don't have to; I have so much of that at the office. Around 5PM I'm practically burnt out.

Another thing I realized when they started asking me is that I was the only one who didn't have DeviantArt account. LOL. I didn't in the past because there were a lot of mediocre work there that were getting the grandstand, and I hated the pretentious back-patting culture. Now it's a goldmine of talent and creativity! Of course the amount of professional advice and growth you can get from DA cannot compare with forums like conceptart.org, cgtalk and polycount where they shoot your work down to the pits of doom. You wouldn't get real professional crits at DA, only mandatory praising and back-patting, but it does a good job of social networking, and pimping yourself. Well I just had to get one.

http://levin3d.deviantart.com/

Mental note: Things aren't always what you assume.

The Wheel weaves as The Wheel wills...

2007-09-17T21:37:00.000+08:00

Robert Jordan just passed away. A sad day for WOT fans out there; he will be remembered.

I'm just at book 9 tho. I wonder if he has enough material for someone to continue his gift to the world and let us see the ending.

Korean Film Festival 2007

2007-09-10T04:50:00.001+08:00

leeched from http://philippineartscene.blogspot.com/

The complete schedule of featured films is as follows:

Sept 25 (Tuesday)
2 p.m. Ditto
5 p.m. JSA
7:30 p.m. Taeguk-Gi

Sept 26 (Wednesday)
2 p.m. Libera Me
5 p.m. Ditto
7 p.m. My Heart

Sept 27 (Thursday)
2 p.m. My Heart
5 p.m. Libera Me
7 p.m. JSA

All films are in 35mm print, with English subtitles. Screenings will be held at the UP Film Institute Cine Adarna , Magsaysay Avenue, UP Diliman, Quezon City.

ADMISSION IS FREE.

i have always loved korean cinema... especially horror. too bad there's no horror on the list. i'm not really much a superstitious guy; nothing horror really scares/appeals to me that comes from the US and or Japan, but K-Horror is a cut above the rest. my personal favorites are a tale of two sisters, sorum, and wishing stairs tho i would love to see some more.
korean movie posters have a particular sense of style... unique to them too, i have been collecting them for design references ever since a long time ago...look:

i have to dig my hard drive for some more later...these i just quickly stole from wikipedia...

anyways i might only be able to see the 7pm ones because of work...if you guys want to treat me to isaw or fishball after the film showings let me know ;-)

Looking for a job... as a game artist

2007-09-04T06:31:00.000+08:00

i did it. i quit my "day job".

it's not really that far from where i want to be; besides making websites is still graphics... but it gets reaallllyyyy boring really fast. i know a lot of people love graphic design but it's not for me. and when i want something, i'll get it. it feels so rad, and good to take some sort of chance.. again. it's so exciting when you don't know what's gonna happen next.

anyway here goes my demo reel, i am looking for a job as a game artist.

Krumgol and Pink Plastic Socks

2007-09-02T01:14:00.000+08:00

at first i was thinking of just posting my sketches and drawings here but now i've decided to extend and talk about... well, things of interest to me. i'm not much of a writer so i guess i need to find a good source of things to write about. so expect posts about 3d, anime, videogames, philosophy, metaworld topics and well.. dreams. i don't know how it would be of any interest anybody to at all but hey i guess it's a boring complement to my boring digital art stuff. totally unrelated at all. i've always wanted to archive my dreams, because they have this annoying habit of just slipping away from memory, especially the really interesting and bizzaare ones.

anyways, i dreamt last night.

we were going for some sort of audition, the four of us, my highschool group of idiot friends.
it was a fully packed audition so may people some sort of dance or performance thing i got lost from them. it started to rain, and curiously my left foot felt a bit too soaked. i realized that my fake cheap left rubber shoe had a big hole and i could see my foot guess what my sock was a -- a pink plastic grocery bag wrapped around my foot.

i went to a nearby peddler stall that repaired shoes... they were selling those "alfombra" sandals (those sandals that some boys like to wear, especially takatak boys, even though it's a usually for old women-- and i thought crossdressing was shunned in this country!) i asked if they had rubber tsinelas slippers... a dark, short and well built man gave me of a rubber sample and asked if that's the kind i approved, he disappeared with the promise that he'll come back with a pair
then came my friends frantically running past me, like something was chasing them, i realized a police officer was after them. they dashed pass the street and i realized before crossing the street, after paying attention to the traffic signals... that i am in singapore! then i woke up.

utterly senseless. i have read that dreams most often about things that you were thinking most of during the day. i was actually thinking a lot about a job interview, so that explains the audition probably... but the other things probably came out from a monkey's scrotum, for all i know.

anyway here's something else out of that particular monkey.

Spongklonk the murloc

2007-08-07T13:41:00.000+08:00

Just goofing around with zbrush , trying to get down using alphas, texturing and shaders. the murloc which every wow player loves ( i wonder why) . oh my. it looks like a lump of colored turd lol... but it was fun to make!

Zbrush 3

2007-08-05T03:09:00.000+08:00

zbrush is my new toy! i began trying to learn zbrush last june. before i was always leery at using it because i do not have a very powerful pc, and because of the 2.5 thing, the dropping and pickup and heavy use of the projection master really turned me off. zb3 is so much better and easier to use. needless to say, i sculpted stacks of turd before i made something decent.

this "chubby" dude is my first actual foray into texturing with zbrush that i am not ashamed of (a bajillion of those of course)... i named him charlie.

The Book of Imaginary Beasts#4 : Heatwave

2007-07-30T14:36:00.000+08:00

unfortunately, i'm still alive. =P

i did an illustration for The Book of Imaginary Beasts#4 : Heatwave an LJ community. check it out, it's a bi-weekly online ezine with a certain topic each issue. this month the topic is "heatwave". the story i illustrated is Escape by kerilu from LJ

the illustrations need more love from me. too rough and unpolished. i'm so not happy with this one, but i have to keep this blog alive. sucks my work isn't as good as the great stories there... need to improve.

Levin, Lord of Hamza

2007-04-27T21:54:00.000+08:00

ok i have been working on this for days. the concept of a humanoid lion character, for the interest of a video game friends of mine had this plans of making years ago has been sitting in my hard disk for ages. incidentally there's this game right now that i am into, the chinese-fantasy MMORPG Perfect World. in this game there is also an anthropomorph race which inspired me to finish this piece. i could have made it chinese themed in theme with the game but it would be a waste if i did not finish this.

i wanted to make the character of some noble blood in him, like a duke or prince.. hence the intricate garb. initially the idea was celtic design.. which is very far from the end result lol. as for the name, i was searching for a name that meant "lion" so i googled it and lo and behold Levin was one of the names listed (Latin for Lion-hearted). who could have thought?

Fucking huugee orc

2007-04-26T16:47:00.000+08:00

i was browsing around conceptart.org a while ago trying to get inspired... and stumbled upon this ridiculously huuugeee orc sculpture by an artist who goes by the name renwei (dunno where he's from, maybe china or korea). talk about hardcore. oh yeah am i inspired...lol

link

A Dispomaniac Wife

2007-04-19T04:02:00.000+08:00

check out this amazing short by students from A.T.I. Paris 8. entitled Une Epouse Dipsomane

it reminds me of an alfred hitchcock twilight zone episode, title of which escapes me.

http://www.epousedipsomane.com/

burnout break

2007-04-09T02:28:00.000+08:00

i feel bored with the thing i'm working on right now. personality tests FTW!

"Which Super Villain are you?" quiz.

Your results:You are Dr. Doom!

Dr. Doom 77%
Mr. Freeze 77%
Venom 64%
The Joker 64%
Magneto 63%
Apocalypse 63%
Lex Luthor 62%
Riddler 58%
Two-Face 57%
Dark Phoenix 50%
Mystique 45%
Poison Ivy 39%
Juggernaut 37%
Green Goblin 33%
Catwoman 25%
Kingpin 22%

Blessed with smarts and power but burdened by vanity.

My score on The Heroes Personality Test:
Sylar (You scored 20 Idealism, 79 Nonconformity, 62 Nerdiness)

How can you stop what's coming... when you don't know anything about power?
Congratulation, you're Sylar, the artist formerly known as Gabriel Gray! You are a seriously nerdy person with an enormous desire to be different, and to be recognized for it. As long as you don't go eating brains, this doesn't have to be a bad thing at all. You're ambitious, intelligent, tenacious, and unique.
Your best quality: Panache
Your worst quality: An obsessive desire for recognition and power

pencils made from cremated humans

2007-04-08T16:41:00.000+08:00

From drawn!:

When I die, this is how I want to go — Carbon Copies. Artist Nadine Jarvis can create pencils from the carbon of human cremains. “240 pencils can be made from an average body of ash”. Just think — after you die, you can live on through other people’s sketchbooks! (via BoingBoing)

i would love this ... but the person who uses my pencil should use it to draw at least, and not on sudoku or megalotto.

Green Eyes

2007-04-08T07:56:00.000+08:00

CGTalk daily sketch #1029 Topic: Green Eyes

1 hour. way past my sleep time. been awake for 20hrs. a bit drowsy now. i actually used alodia's pic as ref. doesn't look anything like her tho, i wasn't aiming much for likeness... just having fun.

analog stuff from the past

2007-04-06T10:46:00.000+08:00

i found some really old stuff rummaging through an old hard drive.
a classmate of mine back in highschool. from a photo another friend took which i found in his drawer, i thought the light and shadows were interesting , and also because she's really cute ;-) .matahari concept. i found this along with the unfinished game model.

Retainer Girl

2007-04-05T19:39:00.000+08:00

something old. back when i didn't have a pen tablet just scanned and moused it lol. i think she still has a lot of charm. i have to 3d her and make her dance "oops i did it again" one of these days. lol

みちしげさゆみ

2007-04-05T08:14:00.000+08:00

lol i actually learned to put hiragana! read it tho... i'll be like a 5 year old kid trying to read.

there are concepts i'm working on for days now that are taking me forever to finish. the hard part is the design . it's hard making something out of nothing. i always seem run out of gas when i'm doing the same thing for days -- revise revise revise puke... im sure it's beacause i was foolishly trying to draw without reference and aiming for a level of detail way past my short attention span. i'm gonna start drawing simple things that wouldn't take more than 4 hours to make as therapy -- maybe i'll get somewhere. here's sayumi michishige of morning musume from a pic you can find on google( kawaii ne). yes i listen to them, they're cute. don't laugh! lol, i listen to the whole spectrum of music genres; from the cheesiest to the hardcore i give them all a shot because i get bored with the usual stuff easily. sayumi is the worst singer ever... but is the cutest by face factor alone. she's not my favorite musume tho.

actually took me 5 hours... lol broke the rule right away- and doesnt even look like her!... but i finished something at least. got lazy with the hair BUT learned a lot from this study, especially nuance in skin tone i don't know jack about.

Aiel

2007-02-21T15:48:00.000+08:00

The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan has been occupying most of my time lately. I'm still at book 3 (The Dragon Reborn) as of now (late comer, i know), and I'm an instant junkie.

Anyways I'll try to illustrate some of the characters and events as they come...

Here's an Aiel Warrior concept...I don't know much about the warrior clans yet (i dont want to spoil my reading so i dont read ahead) ... but i just recently read that they wear tight fitting clothes... i'll do another later

Dominance War 2

2007-02-19T04:11:00.000+08:00

Concept Art for my Dominance War 2 Entry ... wish me luck

head#2 Salome

2006-11-13T02:45:00.000+08:00

i don't think i succeeded in this one... a lot of things don't look right. i'm kinda disappointed. well i have to move on. the original is Salome with the Head of St John the Baptist by Carlo Dolci

digital drawing tablet: first timer noob

2006-11-09T07:37:00.000+08:00

I just bought a digital drawing tablet. After years of painful yearning i finally saved enough cash to buy one. Well i didn't actually save, that is a skill i have yet to begin learning, but i finally mustered guts to set aside other financial priorities so i can buy it. I guess i can spend the next month eating instant soba for dinner (but i see less and less yakisoba in the convenience store nowadays; so choosing a flavor is not an option anymore) . Somehow this new toy has refueled my desire to draw; and has extinguished my World of Warcraft addiction, which is a good thing, but i do not want to lose my interest in the game entirely, but it's good so I can stop playing it like there's no tomorrow, disregarding every other aspect of your life... (this rambling is too early in the blog entry) i'll talk about that sometime in the next episode. I'm still fumbling with it, took me a while to be comfortable and control it to a manageable level. The main difference with a mouse is that it has pressure control and that the coordinate system is absolute, as opposed to a mouse's which is relative, meaning if you put the pen to the upper right most pixel, the cursor will be at the upper right most pixel of your screen, unlike the mouse which you can reposition anywhere, and would just move if you glide it along a surface. And yes, it does make drawing on a computer easier tenfold (compared to a mouse). No serious digital artist should be without one.

I joined the Anatomy Lesson Series: Body Part 1 - The Head at CGtalk. The goal is to make mastercopies of 50 heads from a selection of classical masterpieces in a span of 1 month. It makes sense to learn from the best... by copying the masters you will get an idea on how they do their kungfu and gain their mojo and be a badass, or something like that.

This is my first beheading (it would sound much more unpleasant if i wrote "....my first head") . Not so bad, I must say so myself! I didn't believe i could actually do it, i thought that it would be hard to grasp the technique, but i believe i actually did well for a first try. I enjoyed blocking the mass then slowly detailing it, as opposed to a detailed linework that I'm more used to. But my strokes are obviously clumsy and need to be more refined. Took me like 2 hours to do this too, maybe too long for the level of detail it lacked. Well 49 more heads to practice on.... i actually think i'm not going to be able do all but what the heck... a head a day might not be too bad. By the way this is the original sculpture http://www.wga.hu/art/d/david_a/1/11davida.jpg. I don't even know the artist but i guess to those educated in fine art it should be familiar.