My experience at Robh Ruppel's workshop.

If you have the opportunity to take a future class with Robh Ruppel I highly recommend it. I recently attended his at the Concept Design Academy .

The Concept Design Academy is really a great place to take a class. The scheduling and setup is really run smoothly by Kevin Chen and Estelle Lien. The atmosphere is warm and very welcoming.

For film score aficionados, the class has film scores playing in the background. Estelle has a great selection of music that can be barely heard throughout the lecture and keeps your mind working. I heard Batman Begins, Hook, and Lord of the Rings. Awesome stuff for concept art.

Robh is a consummate professional and teacher. He's easy to learn from, easy to talk to, but gives honest advice and reviews of work.

He's in this video talking about working on Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

But as they say, the proof is in the pudding.

I've never really done anything cohesive in 3d before. And to go from 0 to 200 mph is IMO a good guage for how good this class was. This is my general layout for a small walled-city.

See that wierd spec in the middle? That's the standard man model in Sketchup. I still have to model the castle, add windows to the buildings, vary the buildings in scale and add awnings/arcades/balconies, and just generally make the city look lived in.

The purpose of developing these models is so that I can use them in a photoshop painting, but I've taken it a step further and developed the general layout for the city so that I can position the camera anywhere I want and do several environment paintings. I'm going to do something with a market, the castle, the gates of the city, a slightly raised view from the ramparts, the criminal portion of the city, soldier's blockade, probably some others. This also serves another function as it will be helpful to anyone else who needs a map of the city for story reference.

Well... that's it for now. I look forward to posting more later.

Dream On

For everyone that is trying to get started in the industry, and having a hard time, don't give up. Dream on. And BLOG! You'll be suprised who reads your blog.

I recently received some really uplifting comments about my blog and progress from people I really look up to. (Out of respect for these people I won't say who. They know who they are.)

"I follow your blog, and I really admire your tenacity. Just keep workin on it"

"keep dreaming and keep getting stronger in your art"

"I thought you worked in the industry already!"

These kind of comments can really help give you focus and put things into perspective. If you're already in the industry, take a moment to reflect all the people that helped you along the way and remember to pay it forward. A younger artist will really appreciate it.

Recent iPhone Paintings

I have several iPhone painting programs, but I've been using a pogo stylus and paintng these with brushes

Justin "Coro" Kaufman interview on the Chiustream

Yesterday the Chiustream had a live interview with Justin "Coro" Kaufman. I'm not able to watch the live interviews at work because of the IRC chat window that opens up on the live shows, so I thought I'd post the interview here so I can watch it, and so can you.

I had the pleasure of briefly meeting Coro at Siggraph 2008. He was unpretentious, welcoming, and willing to talk to anyone.

Can't wait

I'll be in LA again to attend this awesome workshop by Robh Ruppel. Oct 15 - 17.
Contact me if you'd like to meetup.