Better Late than Never

Hi guys! It’s been a while sense I last posted sorry for that >.> I recently got a thanks from Dean Sanchez (here is his portfolio he got accepted in the 2 year program at Gnomon recently http://artofdeansanchez.tumblr.com/) and I realized something… I have not TOUCHED this blog in a LONG time…

I remember telling myself that I would not be one of those bloggers that says they’re going to do something then they disappear in the distance and well I did just that so I am sorry >.< *bows in shame*

Now that that’s out of the way I think we need to pick up where I have been. Well terms ended back on March 22^nd then I was on break for 2 weeks back in Colorado and all ready the 2^nd term is moving along it started on March 11^th…

So first thing is first let’s review the classes over all and the teachers so you guys can get a better understanding of what you’re getting yourself into. I also will include my final project and any others that I feel are a good reflection of the class it self.

First up is:

VISCOM

Teacher: Mark Hannah

BIO: http://www.gnomonschool.com/experience/instructors/mark_hannah.php

Viscom was by all means a VARY dull to interesting course. Its one of those courses that we all had to go through in the 1 and 2 year programs that is almost the trial by fire so to speak. Let’s face it when your told to do 15 pages of boxes in 1, 2, and 3 point perspective you just want to grown inside.

This is the class though when you’re done your like DAMN I am happy I took that! When we try and light things and learn about the terms like core Spot light / shadows / parallel light / Design Contrast / perspective lines. You may have subtle understanding of what they are but after this class you damn well know them like the back of your hand. He easily gives out most the time the most heavy work load out of all the classes in the first term.

Mark Hannah freaked me out in the beginning it was like knowing all that time and effort into your work he was going to find something when he reviews it in front of everyone to see and pick out all the mistakes you have and NOT subtly tell you that “You done fucked up here!” It gets you on edge but at the same time it conditions you to not screw it up again. He does not give out “A”s vary often in fact he said maybe he has handed out 2 A’s ever in his class. I passed with a B myself but I damn well worked my ass OFF in his class.

Over all even though Mark is a bit intimidating at times he truly does care to help you if you ask for it. He will take his time to tell you about his experiences and help guide you not only in your studies in what he’s teaching he is also working to help teach you how not to get screwed over in the industry through his experiences in life. He is not the most direct person in terms of open face smile make you feel good but he is going to go the extra mile to help you if you prove you are going to take it there. Over all I do enjoy his company and hanging out with him out of class on campus and just shooting the breeze. I am very happy I taken this class as I now know the following things clearly:

•  Perspective 1/2/3
•  Creating rudimentary geometric shapes in perspective (Cones, Pyramids, Cylinders, Box, Cubes, Spheres)
•  Making shapes surface readable due to lien weight (1 /2/ 3 in thickness of line)
•  Understanding how to light all geometric primitives
•  How to correctly find the shadow to any geometric shadow based on lighting set up

THE BOTTOM LINE

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Over all I would say I recommend this class to ANYONE. You can always try and make the shapes more difficult and learn to challenge yourself but this is always a good course to make sure you DO understand the fundamentals of 3D objects in a 2D environment.

The Finnal
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Objective: We were given 2 weeks to create a product that we would need to render out in 3 shots. One being the beauty shot that will show off our product and reflects scale. The second shot is the Usage shot which tells you how to use the product or what it does. Last is the Detail shot which will tell you something about the product like things that are working on the inside like a cut out of the engine. Mine was a straw that allowed you to drink anything and change the flavor to what ever you wanted. So say you hate drinking water do to no taste well with this straw you could be tasting a rick ice cream chocolate milk shake instead when your drinking water :)

 This is a lot of the design steps from the top being the original concept to the bottom with the finished design... Now I did not scan in the other 10 pages of design work because I wanted to sleep tonight...

 Hear is the usage shot I went with a two panel cross sadly I could not come up with a way to do it all in one shot with out using call outs.

 Hear is the beuty shot giving the name and the product as the focus point as well as giving a sense of scale so you dont think its a space ship or something.

Hear is the detail shot with blow outs of the different sections describing the product and what is beneath the shell of the products out housing.

Do it for the money or do it for the passion?

When I went to Westwood and graduated with a BA in game art and design I was told coming in to the degree that there was going to be a shiny new job at the end of my 3 1/2 years of studding and that the industry was roses, sugar, and everything nice. I was wrong...

                We were sold a image of working in a creative environment making Video games, playing Video games, and talking about video games because we loved video games. I was going to come to work in a T-shirt with some smart ass phrase pointing the hilarities of life and then develop cool things in the computer to contribute to something I was passionate about. I was going to have toys galore in my work section and a nerf gun I used to shoot at ppl that pissed me off near dead line time.

                This is NOT what the game industry is. Do you get to work on game projects? sure but you better hope the studio you go to is not some soul sucking whore that will take all that is creative out of you. The hours are long as hell, the benefits suck, there is no retirement plan, and you live off of scraps to get by but at least your doing what you love right?

                Then I thought to myself "Man the movie industry has been around longer and I bet they got better benefits then the game industry which is still in its infancy right?" Nope it sucks... Rhythm and Hues filing chapter 11 bankrupt, laying off 250 artist, and WINNING the damn OSCARS of all things in 2013 just proved how much shit the CG industry in movies is in the toilet. Once again you will be hard pressed to find a company that offers good benefits like medical / dental, good pay, pay increase aka as raises, and getting paid for over time. For more info here is some great articles on the matter:

http://thebigsocialpicture.blogspot.ro/2013/02/the-oscar-protest-that-you-didnt-know.html

http://www.fxguide.com/quicktakes/visualeffectsprotestatoscars/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=oAMz0Ppi8tQ
http://vfxsoldier.wordpress.com/2013/02/24/an-open-letter-to-ang-lee/

               

                It's like artist are universally shit on but in the reality we all want cool looking stuff. Artist do this. At Gnomon your studding to be a VFX for movies or a game artist ultimately. I read and met allot of artist in the game industry and more I look at the other industry, movies, I am learning that the same thing is happening. You are going to plop down over 100k in loans or out of pocket. You are going to spend every min at this school working on your craft. Relies right now as it stands the industry your going into you're not doing it for the money. You're not doing it for the great 401K plan. You're not doing it because you are going to retire at 55 in Hawaii. You're doing it because you love it. I am probably going to live the rest of my life in debt from school but I want to do something that I truly love. I worked for 5 years to make money. I was doing pretty good for myself near the end and I learned something very important. Working for money to live SUCKS.

                I rather do something that I love every day and just get by on the bills then make millions of dollars but have to work 8 hours a day doing something I do not love. I am going to go forward remembering this for the rest of my life. It's like how my parents always told me. You're going to work for the rest of your life then you better do something you love.

Mid terms are over half a term to go

Hey guys its been half a term sense I started and man what a term its been. The world load keeps heaping on every term I am in but in the end you keep plugging away at it one step at a time. If your not good at time management well you will get good.

Here is a break down of how to do the work flow of a project I learned in Perspective of what I like to call "Illistration class"

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Process of Creaking work
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0. Define the Problem "Where r you going"
   - What should the audience be getting?
   - How to Deliver emotionally (Target audience)

1. idea - thinking and writing stuff down

2. Sketches/thumbnails - You know your ideas now you need to explain it in picture
               - Develop the size / placement / over all composition of the piece now
               - Thumbnails are done at this point also

3. Drawing - research your subject matter this is only when you do this part

4. Value    - What is the most important part?
        - Direct the viewer to the most important part
        - Light to dark (Under painting)
        - Decide on mood / focus / form at this point

5. Color    - This is the sprinkling and clean up
        - Not as important as value

Lets see what to tell you guys who are looking at gnomon. I don't sleep much if I can get in 8 hours I am lucky most the time I sleep any ware from 4 to 7 hours pending how late I am working on a project.

Eventually you stop looking at a calendar thinking "oooo what day of the week is it!" And you start to think "How much time do I have till my next dead line?" Gnomon time of days does not exist what does exists is just dead line after dead line. And if you don't put all your effort into these pieces then your just cheating your self.

The truth is the class mates who do not do this slack and if you slack your not going to get a job. Treat school like work and don't slack. Take good notes on what you did wrong. Go back and fix those things in the piece or if you don't have time make a running list of things to "watch out for" and keep it near you when you do your next piece.

The instructors are there to give you the tools not to give you a job. That is your job to give you a job. The students that make it and get jobs out of gnomon are the ones that have heart and fire in there blood to work as hard as they possibly can on something. There not the people who are just lolly gagging around waiting for life to fall in there laps.

When ever I have a spare min I try and work on skills I am week at. When I am given a open ended project to do then I try and do it in a medium I am not good at. Why? Because I need to work harder at that medium. Spending hours modeling something in Zbrush is not helping me become better at figures or painting in Photoshop. Am I going to be a concept artist when I get out? Nope that's not my goal but that does not mean I can not learn from my other skill sets and become better at Zbrush by becoming a better traditional artist. We need to train our eyes and hone our skills consistently.

There are students at school who work in the labs till 1am in the morning. Poring there time into a environment with few distractions and trying to get as good as they can get. This is our job as artist and it something we should take advantage of. The students that do this will have jobs before they leave school because there both seeking there next step and also honing all there skills towards there crafts. The students who wait last min and rush there homework doing a half ass job are the ones that will fail and not get a job.

Gnomon does not get student jobs they get you contacts and opportunities. Students at Gnomon get them selves jobs. Know your place and work hard to over come it.

To close up this post here is me working on one of my assignments for my Art history class:

27 days in and still kicking

For every one who has read my blog so fare THANK YOU! It feels good and I got two people who posted thank you to me for doing this ^_^ When you blog it’s the community that really keeps you driven to keep doing it! My goal is to give you as much information about the school, the students, the teachers, the administration staff and the big question “IS IT WORTH SPENDING THE MONEY TO GO HERE?

I am sorry for taking so long to post my next entry *bows head with much shame* I have been enrolled into Gnomon for 27 day now so almost a whole month O.o Have I grow leaps and bounds thanks the the wonderful staff of Gnomon and its teachers that it hires both full and part time? Nope.

Have I grown into a better artist? Yes.

The truth of the matter is that there is no magic cure for you at all in life and if your expecting this school or any school to make you a kick ass artist simply because your going to “That school” let me save you time searching because it does not exist. A artist will learn techniques from other artist that are wiser and older than them but when the shit hits the floor let’s face it you will be you. I will try and collect some of the work from my fellow class mates so you can see what their skill level is going into school and maybe even get them to blog a few posts so you can get the school perspective from their point of view.

In 27 days I re assessed how to do lien weights / shading / perspective drawing (1,2,3 pnt) / gone over the base tools in Photoshop and how to mask and extract contents into other pieces to do ‘mash ups’ / Gone over the history of art in folk lore and Egypt / learned how to talk to other artist and edict to going to studios in the real world (Like never tell a artist there work looks just like so and so or blank movie or game character. THIS is a BIG NO NO. Ask yourself if you like someone to do that to your own work that you came up with) / and learned to draw geometric shapes in a 3D space to represent value / did a lot of life drawing.

A lot of this is stuff I all ready vaguely all ready knew. I learned perspective drawing when in 1 pnt for a long time before ever going to college. I had a class about it at Westwood. But the curriculum is designed for people who have NEVER TOUCHED A PENCIL IN THERE LIFE BEFORE. If you know it then it’s a refresher like I never knew about what the cone of vision was and I gone to a perspective class before… I know how to loosen up and talk to other artist but I never realized that you should NEVER tell anyone to look at your sketch book after you mutter under your breath “Well this is crap but can you please look at it any ways?” And even though I have done figure drawing a hundred time in a class and on my own… I still can improve even more every time and still catch myself making rudimentary mistakes.

Lets face it guys we are not perfect. Even if you’re a great artist and if you felt like the pieces I shown so fare are GREAT then guess what I still have a long way to go personally. If you are still wondering if you really NEED the 1 year program at gnomon or even the 3 year program send your stuff to a submissions rep they are pretty brutally honest and also tell them “Don’t sugar coat it tell me the honest bare bone truth… am I good enough?” I know we are so used to looking at school reps as the “sales force” of a school and they will lie out there ass to you but guess what… they won’t… There rather genuine. Lets face it Gnomon is not hurting for students. And there class sizes are small in fact our call size seems to be the biggest they ever had (we are 15 students coming in) There not trying to shovel people through the door they got PLEANTY of applicants trying to get in there not hurting. You know why? There street credit. Because at the end of the day what matters most in this industry is can you talk the talk and walk the walk. And my friend GNOMON graduates can do that and more.

I am trying to collect some more stuff together for you guys if possible and bring you some more info. Over all I am please and look forward to blogging more. Here is some of my work I did in some of my classes also as promised below happy arts guys! O BTW here is my deviant art site also: http://deo85.deviantart.com/

Here is my frist assignment I had for photoshop class the specs were "Do what ever you want"

Here is my first attempt at painting in photoshop... try not to lolz...

Here is a bit I did for art history I LOVED this project it was for the fable of Gilgamesh I chose to depict the forest demon Humbaba :)

Getting into Gnomon

So today I went to see Brian who is the head of student services at Gnomon. I tried originally to get into 3 year program (Entertainment Design & Digital Production)  but was not able to because I was not good enough. It hurt… A lot… because I spent ~5 months working on my submission portfolio and the thing you don’t want to hear is your not good enough espetioly when they did not tell you WHY.

So I set out to find out WHY I was not allowed in and in turn I decided to pursue the 1 year program to get better at my fundamentals called “Entertainment Design” track which is a discount rate of the first year of the 3 year program so not all is lost. So I went to see Brian who was SUPER nice and helpful and in the end he brought up some great points. I also recorded this interview with him so you can listen to it and learn from it also J The long story short is that I needed to study the fundamentals and develop them more I have the creativity and I have skill he said but I needed to bring all these elements together. I will keep seeing him each term to check in and show some work to see what direction I need to go to get into the 3 year program which will be just 2 years as long as I get a B- in all my classes then they transfer over and the price is discounter on the classes. It will be more money in the long run but at the same time it’s what I want to do to get BETTER.

Here is the images I submitted for my portfolio and also the audio file for the talk we had together I will try and clean it up some time when I don’t have so much homework I need to get done. Any ways the long story short if you’re going to apply for gnomon and want to know what to show in your portfolio is this:

1) Stick to traditional means you can pain in Photoshop just don’t throw at them your 3D work they can teach you that what they want to see is your traditional skills with your Artist Identity put on it.

2) Don’t be afraid to talk to their admissions staff set up a meeting with them and show them your work and get feedback asap. There all there to help and want to see you succeed and they will brutally honest with you from the get go. Suck it up and take the time to really have your work shredded to pieces in front of your eyes.

 Crap I lost some of my portfolio :( Computer hard drive FAILS! So here is some of the pieces that survived my computer drives death that I backed up on my NAS:

Now remember you can submit 10-15 pieces... always do the more and always do the BEST.WORK.EVER no half ass stuff.

Here is the adio file of the talk with Brian: