tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-194367952010-03-02T15:33:55.742-08:00I draw, I sketch, I art. Concept Design and more!Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.comBlogger138125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-69047322434192125932009-09-17T23:02:00.000-07:002009-09-18T00:54:18.914-07:00

Everyone's heard by now of the new movie just out last weekend called "9," created and directed by Shane Acker and produced by Tim Burton and Timur Bekmambatov. There was originally going to be a video game based on the movie (as most animated movies have these days), but unfortunately because the publisher of it went under, the partly-completed game was scrapped, almost a year ago.You may

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-72320745094640082612009-06-22T16:00:00.001-07:002009-06-22T16:03:13.527-07:00

Here's the hovercraft done in a marker rendering:Used Prismas and Copic markers over a copy made on my new printer - the inks don't smear when markered over, which is great. Hit it with a bunch of ProWhite for the splashes and highlights.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-55311703273109051572009-06-15T01:06:00.000-07:002009-06-15T01:08:09.717-07:00

Here's a spaceship thing I did for fun while at a meeting.I draw a lot of spaceships.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-55884128017816784902009-06-11T12:07:00.000-07:002009-06-11T12:23:54.043-07:00

I came up with this idea about a year ago but never rendered it; it popped into my head last night so I decided to draw it. I couldn't find the rough sketches so I had to do it from memory:I like this better than the first sketch ideas that I remember, actually. This vehicle is kind of like a hovercraft version of a jeep or HUMMV with a machine-gun mount (reminiscent of Halo's Warthog, to be sure

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-61540616829412833052009-06-04T12:32:00.001-07:002009-06-04T12:35:18.735-07:00

Here's the digital-marker version of the design drawing:Yeah, that's better. Is this a perfect drawing? Of course not. I think if I turned it in to Scott Robertson, it would get a C-minus because of some technical flaws. However, it says what it needs to say, I think.Oops, forgot to drop in some people for scale. Will update later and repost.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-63587052615349010082009-06-02T11:54:00.001-07:002009-06-02T12:54:27.186-07:00

If you are an artist of any kind, especially in a professional capacity, you must get very good at playing the game "What's Wrong With This Picture." Even if you've been doing it for years, you will very often work for quite a while on an image before looking at it and saying to yourself, "there's something not quite right about this, but I don't know what." 99% of the time, your instincts are

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-33391051713666531122009-05-26T17:01:00.000-07:002009-05-26T17:43:55.409-07:00

I asked my esteemed colleague Kevin (who is currently kicking my ass with his output, so I gotta catch up) to throw me out an assignment off the top of his head, and he IMed back "Planet Exploration Vehicle." So here is one of those:I saved out many progress images in case anyone wants to see the process. I'm trying to work in something similar to the Doug Chiang way, so...1. I started with a

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-80866129005352859842009-05-19T12:37:00.001-07:002009-05-19T21:58:43.300-07:00

While you're waiting for the next comic, here's a few things from the giant stack of sketching I've been doing, on paper with markers:Automated street vacuum:Some kinda machine-y thing:Dog-like mech:I'm both going back to some of my sketching roots and working to be in Doug Chiang space. Trying to learn to get the same kind of look that Chiang gets with markers, which seems very specific -

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-67402184423879696972009-05-04T15:04:00.000-07:002009-05-04T15:06:04.170-07:00

I have to bow out of Dominance War, I just don't have the time to put into it right now. Too much else going on. I'll try again next year.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-27303436506748443262009-04-16T10:17:00.001-07:002009-04-16T16:20:09.812-07:00

Last night I did some War Machine designs:I like the stuff on the first page. The second page isn't as lively, although the image I have in mind of the large thing at the bottom is from a low angle on the battlefield and this particular design might look pretty cool as an illustration if not as a designed object.Really, I have to remember that, like designing stuff seen in a movie, I probably

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-66018679294360352882009-04-14T23:21:00.001-07:002009-04-14T23:42:22.677-07:00

It's time for the Main Challenge of Dominance War IV. It's another character design/render, and this time we have 3 races to choose from with 3 classes in each race. I've looked them over and decided that I will do either a Demon Lord or a War Machine - both are supposed to be huge creatures bristling with weapons or magic or demon-whatever.Tonight I started doing some shapes and silhouettes of

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-33030956135449884882009-04-04T23:18:00.001-07:002009-04-05T00:16:28.401-07:00

I'm working on another "master copy," this time following Khang Le's demo from his CDA seminar:This is progress after about 4 hours. You can see the original image that Khang did for his demo here. (Scroll down to the second image, you can click to enlarge.) You'll see that I'm not trying to copy it as closely as I did on my Syd Mead master copy, but I'm starting with the same subject ("giant

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-82806686897992421882009-03-02T16:34:00.000-08:002009-03-02T16:42:01.344-08:00

He's done! Total time 9 hrs 22 min:I'm happy with this guy. I don't really have any gripes with the final product as I usually do with other stuff - for instance, the Steampunk thing I really like a lot, but the gripe is that it's not really "finished" finished. This one here is finished and I can totally leave it behind. Cool.Right! Well hopefully the judges will like it. Apparently there will

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-88436746739735038882009-03-02T00:55:00.000-08:002009-03-02T01:00:49.608-08:00

Worked on it some more tonight, as the deadline is tomorrow, wanted to try to get closer:I thought the chest armor was too bright so I knocked it back a bit. Tried to bring the face tentacles forward a bit and separate them from the rest, not sure if it's successful. I can always take it to Photoshop and lift stuff off, brighten/darken, etc.At this point apart from the getting those tentacles to

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-62483899132070716352009-03-01T14:07:00.001-08:002009-03-01T14:09:39.784-08:00

Today's progress:Kind of incremental. I added some armor to his chest to extend the bluish titanium colors to another part of the piece, worked on the front tentacles a bit. I will be coming back to this tonight to work for a couple more hours most likely, as it's due tomorrow.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-82605621843313294802009-02-27T16:12:00.001-08:002009-02-27T16:16:27.001-08:00

Today's progress on the War General:Added color and adjusted the lighting a bit. Still quite a ways to go but I'm pretty happy with him so far.I'll be working on this painting again this Sunday, March 1 at 12 noon Pacific Time on my UStream channel. Come watch and say hi!

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-58462049924720530102009-02-27T00:12:00.000-08:002009-02-27T00:29:31.378-08:00

Once again I throw my Art Fedora into the ring for an online challenge; it's time once again for the annual Dominance War contest, which starts with a mini-challenge: portrait of a "War General." Here's the value pass where I'm at now:First pencil sketch, on letter-size copy paper:Then I did a trace & transfer to a piece of Bristol, to do a cleanup before scanning:I originally wanted to do a

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-3404578336167789092009-02-11T21:55:00.000-08:002009-02-11T21:58:09.273-08:00

Sketched this between caricatures at Wumpskate this past Monday:Anyone want to buy it?

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-17201463286648417472009-01-19T15:54:00.001-08:002009-01-19T16:00:05.801-08:00

Hooray, I managed to get something done enough to enter as a final image!There are a lot of things that I'm going to go back and fix in this, but I'm very happy with how it came out. I hope you like it too.Now it's time to decompress and get away from this computer.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-856792339589954492009-01-19T02:45:00.000-08:002009-01-19T02:58:01.537-08:00

I got quite a lot done today:... but it's still not really anywhere near "done," there are still some basic things that aren't completed like the full bodies of the crowd lower right, the Tortoise smoke trails, and many of the smaller (but less important) parts of the Tortoise that just aren't there at all.Some of the things I want to put in probably aren't necessary to have it complete enough

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-75010273556663638182009-01-18T22:12:00.000-08:002009-01-18T22:15:08.975-08:00

Here's where I'm at now:I've made a lot of progress but the deadline is looming and it looks like another very late night. Now I'm hearing that the CGTalk server is once again exploding and so I may not be able to upload my "final" image anyway, so all this work will be - in terms of this contest - for nothing.It will not be for nothing in terms of getting a really cool image in my portfolio.

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-53601437638539004482009-01-17T18:49:00.001-08:002009-01-17T18:52:43.617-08:00

Have made a lot of progress on the Hare last night and today, taking a short break to post:Just pluggin' along, lots to do still obviously, so gotta get back to it...

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-81102353782439252662009-01-16T01:19:00.000-08:002009-01-16T01:27:00.074-08:00

Tonight's progress, worked pretty much just on the Hare:Here's a detail zoom of it so you can see more visible progress:I tried to work hard to not zoom in past 100%, because this thing is farther from the eye and doesn't need as much detail. I have a bad habit of zooming in to 300-400% and noodling pixel-by-pixel.One thing I wish Painter had was the ability to open more than one window for a

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-19267639958888334862009-01-15T00:10:00.000-08:002009-01-15T00:18:48.729-08:00

Here's where I got to tonight:All the scrollwork and filigree for the frame is finished. Just need to paint in the portraits of Arlo and the Commodore, a couple of small touches near there, add the lettering, and then make it sepiatone. For now, I'm done working on the frame. I'm quite happy with the result tho I'd like to have done it faster.Tomorrow, back to the rest of the image. Once again,

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19436795.post-58359009450310962922009-01-14T01:18:00.001-08:002009-01-14T01:21:24.938-08:00

I'm super-tired so I'll just post today's progress, almost done with the frame:I've been live broadcasting the painting on UStream, nights from around 9pm-1am Pacific Time, so come on by and watch if you like. I talk a lot and spin some music too. :)

Jeff Zhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03208793232384147634noreply@blogger.com0